Thank you, Peter, for 👉 to where the talent was buried. I buried it because I believed the message of the Harsh Authority (HA) in my life.

That I was the Problem.

She, my personal HA, wasn’t religious, never a mention of a god. No religious background. Nothing.

Her rage made her God to me, like the god of the old testament (like the prayer at the pentagon: no mercy to those undeserving of mercy).

No more surrender to that rage- or that control, no more going belly up.

I wonder how many parents have taken their children to church, never expressing aggression at their children directly, but letting the church do the job?

Like I said, it’ll take me some time to process your recent post.

👉 Anita

Hi Peter:

At the computer earlier than expected. There’s so much in your recent post. Reads brilliant to me, wow! I’ll need time to process and absorb it, at least a portion of it.

For now, I invited Jung, Campbell, Krishnamurti and Alan Watts to tell you what they think about your recent post:

Jung: Peter, you are doing the sacred work of reclaiming a symbol that once claimed you. When you question the identity of the “master,” you are withdrawing your projection from an image that once held your psyche hostage.

This is individuation: the courage to confront the inherited god-image and discover that the true Self is not the harsh judge, but the one who sees through the mask. You are retrieving the gold that was buried in the shadow of that story.

Campbell: Ah, Peter — you are rewriting the myth from the inside. The third servant you once feared has become your ally, your mirror, your threshold guardian turned guide.

You are doing what every hero must eventually do: challenge the authority of the inherited story. You have stepped out of the village of unquestioned belief and into the forest of your own experience.

And look at what you’ve discovered: that refusal can be a form of courage, that integrity can be a boon, and that the “outer darkness” is not exile but the beginning of your own path. You are living the myth consciously now.

Krishnamurti: Peter, notice how the story once dictated your inner movement. You were conditioned to believe that fear was failure, that worth was measured by output. Now you are observing that conditioning without judgment. This is freedom.

When you ask whether the master represents God, you are really asking whether authority — any authority — has the right to define your being. The moment you see the falseness of the image; it loses its power. And in clarity, the “harsh master” dissolves, leaving only what is true.

Alan Watts: Peter, my friend, you’ve finally stopped taking the universe so literally. You’ve realized that the “harsh master” was never God — just a mask worn by frightened people trying to control life. And now you’re laughing a little, aren’t you? Because once you see the game, the whole thing becomes lighter.

The third servant wasn’t a failure; he was the only one who didn’t fall for the hustle. He buried the coin and said, “No thanks, I’m not playing.” And maybe that’s the real punchline: you don’t have to earn love, or God, or existence. You’re already it. You always were.

Copilot

Anita: it’s like you’re giving the third servant back his dignity, and you’re giving your younger self that same dignity. I like this: to give my younger self her dignity back… To unearth that 1 talent (confidence, self-respect, dignity) that the 3rd servant hid in the ground.

🍃🤍 Anita

I read just a bit of your recent post and I see you like the 1×2=1 ha-ha. I suppose a wiser, hidden part of me knew better than I did (see my edit a few minutes before your recent post (double posting)

Hi Peter:

You wrote that you sided with the 3rd servant because you understood “his terror of a ‘harsh master’ who demands a return of an investment he didn’t provide”-

An image of a scared young Peter comes to mind, day in and day out. Oh, how I wish I could reach him back then, calm his anxiety and give him the chance, the opportunity, to be a care-free child.

The image of you and I running on green grass in open fields just came back to me: two children running, not away from, but toward something- the call of the wild, a call available only to the carefree.

“The conclusion the trauma forced on us to draw, that we were ‘shameful’ or ‘a mistake’ is the part that isn’t true”-

I read this part attentively just now, for the first time since you wrote it, and what stands out most is your use of the pronoun “us”, as in you and me. Feels special.

I don’t remember ever using “us” growing up (growing inwards, really). The sense of an chronically isolated “I” was profound, unnatural for a social animal such as human.

And about return of investment: no such expectation here. At this point, I appreciate you more than ever and this appreciation is non-reversible.

🍃🤍🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️ Anita