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What are Twines?
Twines are one of the most revolutionary concepts introduced by Tommy Halstead in This is Your Brain on God.
At a simple level, twines are any combination of thought and feeling designed to control or motivate. From our earliest years, we donate our own ability to choose joy to others, and we "twine" thoughts, words, commands, etc. with feeling to elicit compliance, at the price of being able to continually choose joy.
A simple twine experiment goes like this: Sit quietly in a corner. Now, choose to feel sad. Here's the catch: do not THINK your way sad, just FEEL sad, by direct choice. In other words, we're not allowed to think "sad thoughts," picture "sad moments" of our lives, etc. No algorithmic processing allowed-- simply FEEL sad, by choice. Most people will say, after trying this, "I can't." or "That's impossible." But just reflect-- if it is possible to choose sadness without thought or twines, then it also might be possible also to choose joy without conditions or cognitive contingencies!
Directly choosing joy takes a high degree of detachment, not from materialism, but from the inner world of TWINES.
Twines of thought and emotion are easy to see (Nasty Jerk yells a command with anger to elicit a behavior from you due to a fear response to the anger). Not so obvious are twines of emotion and: pictures, actions, behaviors, goals, possessions, people...
Twines are so real and natural, and such a "normal" part of social control, that it is hard to imagine a world of emotional choice. Instead of saying "I hated it when you did that..." we said "I chose to hate when I calculated how your actions impacted me" we'd start to awaken to emotional choice-- and the mind blowing freedom that all our sadness comes from sleep and donated twines. A revolutionary new language is needed to see emotional choice. "Anger management" becomes childishly silly when we see that anger is a spiritual choice... one we never "have" to make based on twines of the illusory "outside" world.
Once we've understood twines, watching a movie or cable news is a rush... we're astonished at how "normal" it is for currently socialized humans to continually twine with "that MADE ME" feel... or "how did that MAKE you feel..." etc. A radical new language dawns when we awaken to twines in our lives and the lives of others.
"Cognitive" therapy... replacing destructive thoughts with more "positive" thoughts to think our way to more joy... goes out the window as childish and outdated when we realize, with the brain on God, we can continually choose joy, detached from illusory "external" events. Freedom from twines will free the planet, because that freedom is the essence of emotional independence from all but God... freedom from the crowd, the system, the changes of this brief life. It's not about "living in the now," it's about choosing only joy every now... otherwise, our happiness will always be conditional and contingent ("I'll be happy as long as... or as soon as..." = waithing for the train that never comes). Life is astonishingly brief... so why spend it putting off the choice of joy in the name of controlling algorithmic priorities, calculations, and predictions?
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