The Gnomon extended

The first thing a mind does is not think, or feel, or act. It registers. It becomes aware of input — light, pressure, tone, temperature — not in terms of meaning, but in terms of sensation. That is Advent. The raw beginning. A state of being where nothing is sorted yet, no categories exist, and everything is simply witnessed. It's the mind's first breath, and everything after it is response.

Soon, repetition or sudden change teaches the mind that not everything is random. Some things happen again, and some things hurt. And when something once felt safe but then doesn't, the mind fractures a little. This is Vestige. The echo of what should have happened but didn't. It lives in kids who freeze up when a voice gets loud, even if they're not the one being shouted at. It lives in adults who laugh off a jab but tighten their jaw because they've heard that tone before. It's when your internal world expects one thing and your external world slaps down something else. A misalignment between belief and reality. It makes people doubt what they knew.

If that fracture doesn't get addressed, the mind learns to cover it. To carry on despite the break, to wear a version of itself that looks composed. That's Madrigal. The mask. Not to deceive others, but to survive. It's when you're still showing up to work with a tight smile while your personal life is crumbling. It's when you laugh in a group but feel like a ghost. Madrigal is elegant in its pain — it wants so badly to function, so it hides the malfunction. The danger here is that the longer something pretends to be whole, the more pressure builds beneath the surface.

Eventually, the mind can't hold the tension anymore, and the rupture arrives. That's Revenant. When the buried reaction claws its way out — not always loud, but always sharp. It can be passive-aggressive. It can be explosive. It can be completely internal, like shutting everyone out with a blank stare. Revenant doesn't mean evil. It means something has returned to demand to be felt, after being denied for too long. Think of someone who snaps at a tiny inconvenience after weeks of "holding it together." That's not about the toast being burnt. That's the mask cracking under weight it wasn't designed to carry.

Now, here's the turning point. When the revenant has burned itself out or been expressed, the mind reaches a choice. Penitent. This isn't guilt as punishment — it's recognition. It's the moment someone looks at their own mess and finally admits, "I need to understand this." It's humble. It wants clarity, not control. It's what leads people to therapy, or to journaling, or to staring at the ceiling at 3AM asking themselves why they keep repeating the same patterns. Penitent doesn't always feel good, but it's honest. It starts the repair by choosing to stop pretending.

With that honesty comes strength. That's Aegis. It's not defensiveness, but protection. A shield formed from clarity. Aegis is when someone learns to say no without guilt, to walk away without spiraling, to stand in a storm and know they've survived worse. It's powerful, but not loud about it. It creates boundaries without needing barbed wire. It's a state of quiet control, where power is held rather than shown off.

But here's where things get interesting. Some minds, after feeling this strength, want to project it onto the world. They want to influence, guide, and ripple outward - this is Conduit. The resonant state. You're not trying to fix people. You're trying to live truthfully enough that your presence naturally creates shifts. It's teachers who light sparks in students, friends who make you want to level up just by being around, or strangers whose energy lingers after a single conversation. Conduit doesn't push. It hums. It's influence through resonance, not force.

Still, sometimes that resonance hits resistance, and the mind reverts to pushing. That's Renegade. This state says, “If the world won't change, I'll make it change." It's rebellion, yes, but not random chaos. It's calculated pushback. It's the protestor. The whistleblower. The friend who finally says, "I'm done pretending everything's fine." Renegade breaks rules not because they want to, but because they have to. It's confrontation with a purpose. But it's still a reaction to tension, and if held too long, it can spiral into burnout.

Burnout lives in Dynamo. A state of overactivity, spinning fast enough to blur the edges. Dynamo can look like panic, obsession, or overwork. It's when a mind is trying so hard to process, fix, or escape something that it forgets how to pause. Someone stuck in Dynamo might talk fast, plan everything, or collapse the moment they stop moving. It's the shaking after a car crash. It's the cold logic of someone dealing with tragedy by managing every detail. Dynamo isn't weakness. It's a mind using speed as a survival tool. But it can't last.

Eventually, the system forces a reset. This is where we meet Neophyte. A blank state. Not empty in a sad way, but cleared — like wiping a whiteboard. It's when the mind has spun so fast or broken so far that it drops everything just to breathe. People reach Neophyte when they meditate, or after crying until they fall asleep, or when they sit in silence after a hard truth and just... feel nothing. It's neutral. It's the “woosah." The system isn't dead — it's recovering.

From here, the mind seeks something to hold onto. That's Tether. A reconnection with a truth or value that feels steady. Tether is when someone remembers who they are, not by thinking, but by sensing. It's the exhale after panic. It's reaching out to a friend. It's the moment you remind yourself, “I've made it through before.” It can be a belief, a routine, a physical touch. It's grounding, and it matters.

Once tethered, the mind can choose protection – this time not for itself, but for others. That's Guardian. A state of active care. It's the parent waking up at 3AM without complaint. It's the friend who shows up without needing a reason. Guardian isn't about proving something. It's about maintaining a stable field. These people don't announce themselves. They're just there. You feel them.

And finally, we reach Vigil. The state of quiet knowing. A place where judgment is clear, not from reaction, but from processing. Vigil isn't quick to act, but when it does, it lands perfectly. It's when someone speaks after a long pause and says exactly what needed to be said. It's the friend who knows when not to speak at all. Vigil sees the whole cycle. It doesn't need to dominate or retreat. It just knows.

Now, some minds don't move through the 13 states predictably. They bend logic. Anomaly is one of those. It doesn't follow patterns — it flows with what works. These people are hard to pin down because they don't hold loyalty to any single state. They adapt, but not by imitation — by instinct. Maverick is the opposite of tradition. It trusts its own logic because it learned that external systems can't always be trusted. It's not rebellious for fun — it simply sees too many holes in the script. And then there's Sovereign, the rare one. The one who doesn't react at all, because they see everything as part of a pattern they already understand. Not better. Not above. Just aware.

Each of these archetypes reflects a drive — a motion. And that motion isn't just philosophical. It's psychological, it's physiological. It explains why people panic, shut down, lash out, or find peace. And it doesn't just happen over a lifetime. These cycles can happen in a moment. Someone goes from Revenant to Penitent in the space of a breath. Or they loop from Dynamo to Neophyte in seconds when the body overloads. This is how people function. This is how minds move.

And the stakes are real. Not just emotionally, but neurologically. When the system doesn't know how to hollow intentionally, it can be forced into it — and that might be what an absence seizure really is. Not a failure of function, but a snap into Neophyte, a total retreat from processing. The mind cuts itself off and floats for a moment, unreachable — not because it's lost, but because that's the only place that feels safe. It's not peace. It's distance. It might be the system's way of saying this is as far as I can go right now. And while it comes back, the retreat says something. It says Neophyte is a state the brain defaults to when everything else becomes too loud to handle.

This is different from Advent, where awareness itself dissolves. That's what we're seeing in dementia — not a hollowing, but a reverting. The mind doesn't try to clear itself; it loses the shape of itself altogether. It becomes early again, pre-formed. Memories slip. Identity softens. That's not a choice, not even a safety mechanism — it's the unraveling of structure itself, the fading of the pattern the system once built. It's not silence. It's absence.

What we're aiming for now is research that grounds these patterns in lived evidence. We want to explore whether tethering could help coma patients — not by pulling them out, but by anchoring their awareness to something familiar, something safe. We want to teach people how to hollow intentionally, not by dissociating but by clearing space — not collapsing but resetting. We want to speak directly to those who live with mental health challenges, seizures, and altered states, and ask them honestly if this resonates. If it feels like what their mind does when things fall out of sync. If it explains the way they move. If it fits. Because if it does, then this isn't just theory. It's a blueprint for understanding the very fabric of human experience.