Gate 23 · Assimilation

What it is like

You see something whole and look for simple words to pass it on. The same thought said without being asked can sound odd, while at the right moment it sounds like a revelation.

When someone close has it

Someone with this gate can sum up a complicated thing in a few sentences and sometimes surprises with a fresh angle. Ask for their view, because a thought shared on request reaches people more easily.

A question for today

Which of my thoughts do I want to say more simply today?

The six lines of gate 23

1. Line 1 · Undercut Footing

   This line checks what your knowing stands on before it tries to put it into words. A sentence of yours makes sense only once you know where it comes from and can show its base. Then you say new things in a way that can be taken in. When the base is missing, it is easy to knock the ground from under others with a new thought before anyone understands what it is for.

2. Line 2 · The Right Wording

   Here turning knowing into words comes to you without effort. You do not know where the sentence that suddenly explains everything comes from, and it works best when nobody is rushing you. Others draw it out with a question, often about something they have been puzzling over for weeks. When nobody asks, that sentence can lie in you for a long time and come out awkwardly, because there is nobody to say it to.

3. Line 3 · Parting Ways

   This line learns to speak through collisions. Your thought often does not fit what the group believes, and before you find the words for it you try several that miss. Because of this you may part from people you share a road with, and that parting turns out to be needed. When every attempt ends in a quarrel, it is easy to conclude the problem is you, though it is simply a stage of searching for a language.

4. Line 4 · Too Close

   Here passing on what you know goes through the people you know. Those close to you take in your odd ideas more readily than strangers, because they know you and know there is something behind them. Through them your thought can travel far. When you speak straight into the tenderest spot without preparation, it is easy to hurt someone close and be left feeling that the truth arrived one sentence too early.

5. Line 5 · Thought by Thought

   This line makes others hear a solution in your words. You can set things in order, one after another like fish on a string, so that even a difficult thought becomes clear to many people at once. People follow you gladly and expect you to explain more. When the solution does not work, all the pleasure of understanding can come back to you as a reproach.

6. Line 6 · Unpicked Fruit

   Here thought ripens at a distance, like fruit nobody has picked yet. Over time you say less, but what you say gathers years of watching, and others learn from how you live with your own difference. Your words can outlast the moment they are spoken in. You may leave your most important thought unspoken for too long, and when you finally offer it, people have already moved elsewhere.

The centre of this gate

• Throat

Channels through gate 23

• 43–23 · Structuring