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You are here: Home / Ways / Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations / Correlations: Do It Yourself Word List

Correlations: Do It Yourself Word List

What is this list?
If you’ve just arrived to this site from a search engine, this is probably not the best place to start reading. If you’re interested in this approach of philosophical inquiry, you can read the Introduction to Correlations. Otherwise, check out the home page.

Print this list out and then, with pencil in hand again, consider each word/antonym pair from the un-correlated list below. Correlate each pair using the previous correlations and procedures (vertical, horizontal, circular reading, etc.) for guidance. Simply circle which word you think is Passive. Whenever you get stuck, set the word aside, let your sub-conscious ponder it, and choose another. When you finish, compare your results with the “completed” word sheet . . . but correlate these words first!

agitate sedates
anger fear
artificial natural
beauty ugliness
biases balances
black white
bliss anguish
blurs defines
certainty doubt
civilized primitive
clarifies confounds
clouds clears
compels coaxes
complies resists
confronts evades
constraint spontaneity
contends yields
counterfeit authentic
cynicism faith
decides deliberates
detaches adheres
deters invites
diverges converges
elite riffraff
enough need
expert novice
extreme conservative
flows ebbs
future present
gobbles tastes
hell paradise
hesitates acts
hosts visits
human animal
hunts eludes
I that
ignorance awareness
indulges tempers
inferior superior
innocence guilt
intensifies mitigates
joy sorrow
kindles quells
knows misunderstand
liberal strict
local universal
loss gain
loves hates
master slave
moderate radical
moves stops
naive sophisticated
neutral impassioned
numbs sharpens
objective subjective
obscures illuminates
order chaos
pains pleases
past present
plant animal
proceed pauses
rejects accepts
remembers forgets
replies asks
repulsion attraction
restrains abandons
satiates craves
seclusion fellowship
shame pride
sincerity hypocrisy
skepticism religion
slows quickens
soils washes
solidifies liquifies
speaks listens
specific general
spiritual worldly
stabilizes wobbles
stagnates grows
teacher student
tightens loosens
tip base
transitory perpetual
truth fiction
vanishes appears
vertical horizontal
watches shows
widens narrows
wishes has
worries soothes

Note: the critical part of this process is the anchoring of words to each other vertically under the Active/Passive categories. Which category you place a word under is less important because each word is defined by all the others in its column. Thus, if you wanted to re-categorize dirty as Active instead of Passive, then dirty becomes synonymous with unique, success, transitory, shallow, illusion, famous, answer, angular, abrupt… and so on; you must now maintain that connotation for dirty. Thus, dirty brightens, awakens, divides, exposes, floats, promises, pushes, separates, wins… and so on. Such anchoring of basic words helps you avoid internal duplicity which only complicates mental life and increases emotional stress. If you must re-categorize any word pair, do so carefully; the Correlation Sets have been under consideration for decades.

Do you understand this process well enough to effectively explore your world view? Try it out. Select some word pairs from the Correlation Sets that pertain to a question, problem, or idea. It can be personal, political, scientific, religious… anything that you are curious or troubled about and would like deeper insight on. Also, use these Correlation Sets for guidance in classifying any new words and, of course, for broadening perspective in general.

Initially, if you are categorizing new words, use only those which have true antonyms . . . use a thesaurus! If the word you are considering does not have an antonym, find a word/antonym pair that is close in meaning. Studying the Correlation Set lists vertically can point you in the right direction.

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