4th Physics - "4F" / "Slackers"

"Lazybones" (4th Phys.) 

The term "slacker" should not be taken too literally. It reflects not so much the manner of behavior as the psychological orientation of the person. On the contrary, outwardly the 4th Physicist often looks like a great worker. She is plodding, undemanding, fearless in the expenditure of effort, executive within the limits precisely assigned to her. "Slothfulness" of the 4th Physique does not consist in visible manifestations of sabotage, simulation or slacking off, but in invisible indifference to the nature and results of her work (if we mean the purely physical aspect of labor). Of course, with the known indifference of the "idler" to the work, it is difficult to expect from him excitement, initiative, creative outbursts and something else in the same spirit, but there is a positive side to this indifference. It is easy to assign any dirty, tedious or pointless job to a "lazy person", which is still in abundance in our society. Someone has to fill out forms, carry out pots, and stand at the conveyor belt, and there is no better candidate to do such work than the 4th Physicist. 

For myself, I also call the 4th Physicist the "moon man. Indeed, the "lazy man" has some mysterious connection with the moon. "You breathe the sun, I breathe the moon," Akhmatova confessed. I can only assume that the feeling of an inner connection with the moon in the 4th Physicist arises from their energetic kinship. Just as the moon shines with weak, only reflected light, so the "sloth", according to the law of the Fourth Functions, is only a reflection of higher, autonomous physical energies. 

The 4th Physicist herself is a born decadent, in the literal sense of the word ("decadence" - "decay").The feeling of weakening of the physical beginning in herself lives in the "sloth" from birth, but it does not bother him much. Another thing is that the usual feeling of early decrepitude in young years contrasts strangely with a fresh, healthy appearance, bringing confusion and bewilderment to the environment. 

In this connection, an anecdote from the life of the young Alexander Blok comes to mind. A group of Moscow poets were waiting for Blok for the first time and, having read such lines as 

"Only here you breathe, at the foot of the graves, 

Where I once wrote gentle songs 

Of a rendezvous, perhaps, with Thee... 

Where for the first time in my waxed features 

The distant life You breathe, 

Breaking through the grave grass..." 

The reality, however, demonstrated quite the opposite. Reality showed quite the opposite. Andrei Bely recalled: "I was trembling all over. Never in my life - neither before, nor after - I have not experienced such a burning discomfort. And disappointment. Deception, deception! I was deceived. It's not Bloch. Not my Sasha Bloch. 

But how handsome he was! Tall, slender, handsome. Curly. He was like a halo of golden rays, ruddy with frost. He wore a student's coat, broad-shouldered, with a horny waist. His blue collar made his lovely eyes look even bluer. So handsome, so earthy, so healthy, so heavy." 

Of course, the inexorable run of time gradually blurs in the "lazy man" the contradiction between the Physicist's mental self-perception and reality, until by his old age the 4th Physicist is not at all adequate to himself. But before that, such apparent contradictions irritate and shock those around her, making them suspect an element of posturing, of playing decadence, in the behavior of the 4th Physicist. Which in fact is not the case, she is decadent quite sincerely. 

* * * 

"I had ascetic tastes and did not follow the ascetic path," wrote Berdyaev, and in this phrase of the philosopher the entire economic program of the 4th Phys. is encapsulated, or rather, the absence of it. "The lazy man does indeed do without exertion the minimum, but it does not follow that he is despised by luxury. He is too indifferent to the physical layer of life to take seriously the problem of a personal level of consumption conditioned more by circumstances and environment than by the desires and efforts of the "slacker. For example, Einstein, having provided himself with the most basic income in his old age, could have used a check for $15,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation as a bookmark. 

* * * 

"Lazybones" is a creature of utter fearlessness. The 4th Physicist's reckless bravery looks like a great virtue from the outside, but it really isn't. Putting the Fourth Physique in front of a fight, the thing you care least about, is no great feat. Besides, like any virtue, the bravery of the "lazy man" has its flip side: not sparing himself, he is not inclined to spare others. That is why the 4th Physicist is often no less bloody in his activities than the 1st Physicist. Fortunately, violence in the arsenal of the "sloth" is the last argument, not the first, but if it comes to it, no mercy can be expected from the 4th Physics. A recent example is the policy of President Bush during the Gulf crisis, when, having exhausted all other forms of influence, he coldly, calculatedly and methodically dealt with the Fourth Army of the world. 

By the way, the "slacker" is a win-win politician. Being brave, he also does not risk breaking his neck on the things that usually break a politician's neck: money and women. He is shielded from these temptations by nature itself, by his 4th Physics. This is why courage, selflessness and unpretentiousness provide in advance a politician with the 4th Physics with an indefinite carte blanche of the crowd. Let us recall in this connection Robespierre, whose title-name "The incorruptible" guaranteed his feckless, bloody regime an impermissibly long life. 

Let us also note that the period of the "lazy" politician's rule is not the best time for the country's economy. The 4th Physicist cares too little about the physical layer of life to deal with it seriously, and this circumstance has a positive effect on the "lazy" politician's rating and a negative effect on the wallets of his voters. 

I don't want to scare anyone, but the 4th Physique is more prone to suicide than anyone else. For her, the thought of suicide is not a pose, as it is for the 3rd Physicist, but something ordinary, something that regularly pops into her mind without arousing horror or disgust in return. The thought of suicide is the first and, strange as it may seem, normal reaction to conflicts, problems, and inconveniences of life for the 4th Physicist. Actually, it is in one's character to start solving difficulties by turning off the Fourth Function, so one should hardly be surprised that, getting into a difficult situation, the first thing a "lazy man" does is rush to soap up the rope. 

From the outside such an action looks heroic, as it happened with Socrates' suicide, but in essence there is nothing heroic in voluntarily turning off what you care least about. This is something every holder of the 4th Physique should keep in mind before pulling the trigger. The thought of suicide is a normal "lazy" bliss, and one should not be in a hurry to succumb to its first, unfaithful urge. 

* * * 

The 4th Physique is usually good looking. It is as attractive as the 1st Physics, but in a different way. If the 1st Physics is good for juiciness of forms and colors, the 4th Physics, on the contrary, is good for its subtlety, pallor, refinement. To visualize the difference between the beauty of the 1st and 4th Physicists it is enough to compare the looks of Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich. Can you feel the difference? They seem very similar, but what Monroe has is full, rough, sweet, Dietrich has is subtle, dry, gentle. 

More often a "lazybones" is a thin, thin-skinned, "asthenic" person. However, I have also come across people of large, athletic build among the 4th Physicists. The only thing that is almost one hundred percent similar to the appearance of the 4th Physicist is the iconic thinness of the features: a thin nose, thin eyebrows, a small, narrow-mouthed mouth (if there are no Afro-Semitic ancestors). 

The wonderful thing about the beauty of the 4th Physique is that time has no power over it. I will not say that wrinkles and baldness do not affect the "lazy man". No. But minus those, the appearance of the 4th Physicist from youth to old age remains unchanged, and if someone is spoken of, adding an old literary stamp - "with traces of former beauty on his face" - you can be almost sure that we are talking about the 4th Physicist. Suetonius wrote of Emperor Augustus: "He was handsome in appearance and at any age retained his attractiveness, though he made no effort to make himself beautiful. 

There is another outward sign of the 4th Physique. It is sadness, which is read in the eyes of the "lazy man" more often than other feelings. The 4th Physics is born and dies with a sense of the primordial tragedy of being, with a sense of distress. "You know sorrow is something that is close to me" (Gauguin), "Only with grief do I feel solidarity"(Brodsky). Expectation of disaster, misgivings are typical of the 4th Physique, and the words "nightmare," "horror," "sorrow," "longing" are favorite in her vocabulary. 

* * * 

Here we come to a new and most interesting topic of psychosophy: the combination of different functions. We will talk about the influence of the physical beginning on a person's perception of the world and his worldview, more precisely, about the combination of Physics with Emotion and Logic, or, to be more precise, about what is commonly called "temperament". 

I should say at once that the term "temperament" from Hippocrates to the present day has acquired such a layer of interpretations and modifications that the question of its meaning is unlikely to anyone can now answer with complete certainty. Unchanged except that the names of the four types, which are divided into mankind by temperament: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic. Everyone seems to agree with the fact that temperament is in some dependence on physiology, the very terms that denote temperament, derived from the Greek designation of blood, lymph, bile. This is the first. 

And the second. Looking at the classification of temperaments from a purely domestic, "kitchen" level, it can be presented as follows: sanguine - Rabelaisian, cheerful, lively man; phlegmatic - a man no less lively, but restrained in the expression of his love of life, melancholic - not to say that the lover, but nature in any case calm; choleric - bitter, not calm and not cheerful. I emphasize that this is a "kitchen" scheme, but we have to proceed from it, because outside the "kitchen" there are endless contradictions and squabbles among the interpreters and modifiers of Hippocrates' typology. 

Knowing all this, let us now try to look at the theory of temperaments through the prism of psychosophy. As you know, the hallmark of any reliable universal concept is not the negation, but the inclusion of previous systems: the physics of Newton was part of the physics of Einstein, the same happened to the geometry of Euclid after the appearance of Lobachevsky geometry, etc. In fact, the theory of temperaments is an integral part of psychosophy. 

The fact is that the four temperaments are the four basic combinations of Physics and Emotion, where the position of Physics reflects their essence, the color, the color of world-perception, and the position of Emotion on the steps of the functional hierarchy determines the intensity of expression of world-perception. 

It has already been said before that sadness prevails in the mood of the 4th Physicist-it is its hallmark. Everything is true here, but not everything. The whole truth is in the system: the lower a person's Physic, the lighter the coloring of his worldview. And vice versa, the higher one's Physics is, the lighter the coloring of one's perception of the world. Emotion, on the other hand, is responsible for the intensity of color, for resonance, so the higher the Emotion, the stronger this darker or lighter coloring of the world-perception is expressed. And vice versa. 

Therefore, through the prism of psychosophy, the system of temperaments looks as follows: 

"Sanguine: Physics at the top + Emotion at the top (a pronounced light-colored worldview). 

"Phlegmatic": Physics at the top + Emotion at the bottom (a faintly light-colored worldview). 

"Melancholic": Physics down + Emotion down (a weakly dark-colored worldview). 

"Choleric": Physics at the bottom + Emotion at the top (a pronounced dark-colored worldview). 

Just as Physics affects one's worldview, so does it affect one's outlook. The difference is that here Physics enters into a combination with Logic. But the result is naturally the same. Although we must admit that these combinations have not received as developed typology as the theory of temperaments, but in its infancy, a typology of worldview exists and is known to all: it is a division of humanity into optimists and pessimists. 

Since enough has been said about the influence of Physics on coloring, I think the reader will have no difficulty in guessing that high-status Physics that colors brightly gives birth to optimists, while low-status Physics that colors darkly gives birth to pessimists. And nothing can be done about it, the process of formation of the worldview and world outlook does not depend on a person at all, and one has to put up with them, as one has to put up with the weather.