Eros ($\text{A}$)

Eros is the faculty of Wanting, Valuing, and Orienting. It is the “Compass” of the Navigator and the “Thread” that connects the diver to the surface. Its primary function is to provide direction and fuel.


Detailed Specification: Eros


Core Characteristics

  • Axis Resonance: Direction ($\Pi \leftrightarrow \text{K}$). Eros navigates the tension between Expansion and Limit in desire.
  • Stance: “I want what matters.”
  • Function: Orientation, motivation, aspiration, devotion.
  • Somatic Signature: Chest open, heart warm, slight forward lean, breath full.

Operational Dynamics

The Wanting Function

Eros converts potential energy into vector energy. It answers “Why move?”

  • Expansive Wanting ($\text{A}:\Pi$): Desire for growth, creation, novelty, and “more.”
  • Limit Wanting ($\text{A}:\text{K}$): Desire for rest, completion, peace, and “enough.”

Shadow Risks (Faculty Capture)

  • Inflation (Titan-Capture): Insatiable craving. Mimetic desire (wanting what others want). Addiction to intensity.
  • Collapse (Stone-Capture): Anhedonia. “Nothing matters.” Loss of the capacity to prefer or desire.

Training & Development

Eros is trained through Values Clarification.

  • ACT Skill: Values. Distinguishing authentic values from social compliance (“shoulds”) or avoidance.
  • ACT Skill: Present Moment (Affective). Contacting what is “alive” in the system right now.
  • Transition: Moving from “I am my desires” (Subject) to “I have desires” (Object), allowing for choice rather than compulsion.