Social Aspects: Back to the Depths III

In Buddhism, the "someone" as well as the "taking away" (see last post) has something to do with seeing into the nature of things as they are (rather than as how I might want to frame them). While the metaphors may differ culture to culture, some of the common positive outcomes are similar from brain to brain and from person to person. When we fulfill drives (like hunger), we are content in relationship to that drive (feeling full enough). But there is also the possibility of rising above, beyond, or through drives. That is generally what I talk about in terms of actualization from Clarity through Abiding. But sometimes we don't fulfill a drive and we don't transcend it either--we deny, avoid, and ignore it. Freud talked about this in terms of repression. A lot of what he said made good sense and a lot of what he said was crackers, so I prefer to to talk about submerged expectations. These submerged expectations are often misinterpreted as "assumptions". Just as Freud wasn't necessarily wrong but wasn't necessarily precise and clear on this stuff, calling submerged expectations assumptions is politically loaded--and I'd generally prefer to set aside politically loaded language when trying to actually get somewhere.

Submerged expectations may be "expectations" that people are aware of or not. Essentially, because our cortexes (conceptual part of brain) are connected to our limbic systems (more emotional part of brain), emotional drives activate psychological energy or momentum. This energy happens at a cellular level and is part of what I call action potentials. Once the emotional drive is stoked, we may look to understand, explain, and justify our emotional feeling and the actions driven by that feeling. When we can consistently connect the energy, the feeling, and a particular set of actions, I'll call this a "drive". A drive is motivation (physical/emotional action potential) and the ideas that may or may not accompany motivation. Those ideas, when paired with motivations may be used to explain and justify actions to oneself or others. I don't care whether people like to say the ideas cause the emotions or vice versa; with the idea of distributed processing, identifying cause can be a secondary pursuit. Often, once we get a clear sense of what we're dealing with in terms of psychological motivation and relationships, cause becomes irrelevant. (Think of the last time you argued with your boyfriend or girlfriend and couldn't agree on the cause of the argument but you still wanted to win in some way. We can sometimes work on how people disagree while trying to dig out the causes of conflict can be an unending and degenerative spiral.)

Okay. One of the most basic "drives" is for comfort. We experience psychological comfort in relationship, when it is caused by another person as soothing. (This whole line of thinking is causing me to re-evaluate my steps of actualization and attentional abilities; I may have to add one lower step so I can separate receptivity to being soothed as one ability and creative/communal play as another.) I recently found a kitten by the side of the road and brought her home. She was distressed at being alone and soothed by being taken in. Sometimes soothing feels more like what we conventionally call comfort (I'm comfortable around my friends), and sometimes it is more like love and what psychologists romanticize as "attachment". I'm becoming somewhat attached to this kitten.

In a healthy family, there is allowance/space/relationship that causes--nurtures at least--attachment and some degree of comfort. If you feel wary of your family, that is common but not healthy. Either way, for psychological well-being, we need to be able to rest. Since we are almost constantly surrounded by people, we need to feel a degree of distance or comfort with those people. Think of trying to sleep in a prison where they left cell doors open at night. Not soothing.

Since we have a drive towards rest and feeling soothed, that drive ends up "being there" in the same way that hunger is always potentially "there". Blood sugar levels need refreshing and we similarly need sleep. People who don't feel comfortable when they're awake tend to sleep too much or too little. And people who sleep too little tend to feel even more uncomfortable and socially anxious than they would if they could get decent sleep. This feeds the same sort of cycle that eating poorly can create. You can't admit weakness to dangerous people who threaten your safety and status, so you eventually try to convince even yourself that you're not really that tired, that you don't actually need more sleep, and you spend your life trying to convince yourself that you can be satisfied without ever being genuinely happy. That sort of trying rules out happiness categorically.

So soothing and relaxation are basic. When we don't get them, we may realize it's not someone else's job to provide them to us, but we may be in such a situation that we feel like we have to take on the denial of needing them in reasonable amounts. The denial creates a chronic lack, and because the drive never goes away and is denied, it can never be fulfilled OR transcended. It becomes a constant companion, a perverse lover twisted by our refusal to attend to it like a marriage gone bad. We have to relate to our drives: "Capacities are needs."

When a drive is purposefully ignored, avoided, and denied like this, it may become mostly submerged--mostly unnoticed by conscious functioning. When that happens, it is as if some part of us ("inner child" is popular here) expects that other people should provide some degree of comfort. The drive exists, the denial of the drive is enforced, but the drive pops up inevitably like a cork in water. Push it down, it pops up somewhere else. Addictions work as one way of supporting denial or avoidance of what we lack socially. Because the drive is never met and can't disappear any more than a cat can stop being catty, the addiction will keep popping up when the drive pops up. Physical dependence is often added (as another motivator) to that psychological reality.

Is your "inner child" actually a selfish, evil little ego for wanting "attachment" with other people? I think it is perverse--though understandable as a disordered type of thinking--to think so. In this way, even spiritual traditions take what is best in us (our desire to love and be loved) and turn it against us. But this frustrated desire to be cared for, to be soothed, is a very passive and fundamental expression of who we are. At the next level up the scale, we have purpose, power, and status. When we can't feel an abundance of a basic need (like love) we sometimes direct our energy (that action potential that will cycle until the cycle is satisfied) to the next best thing. In this case, if we can't feel safe and accepted, it is best to feel powerful and glorified. The conceit of our own power allows us to psychologically defend ourselves while glory allows the conceit that others will also rally to us once they see the light. In this way, purpose and concentration are healthy versions of this level of psychological states. They are most likely to be healthy when the lower level (soothing and social play) are met. Otherwise, we take our psychological disturbances upwards in such a way that even the attempt at transcendence can be a form of disordering. For the majority of us, we have a mix of healthy motives and unhealthy denials.

So soothing is basic. Power and glory are second. At the level of Understanding, we want to be treated as at least equals. If our power and status expectations aren't met well enough (and if we aren't loved and loving, they are never enough), we may try to be extra intellectual or abuse positions of social power. Think of going to the DMV. If the person behind the desk smugly tells you that you'll have to fill out a form again--correctly this time--and go to the back of the line, when they could just fix the form right there, it is different than a toddler or bully trying to physically enforce his will. But it is the same drive for power and status in a slightly different form. Using your intelligence or education to put others down is similar. When we're loved and have some valuable place in society, all that struggle becomes less significant. Not insignificant, but less troubled, less of a loaded situation.

At the level of mindful Appreciation, we want awareness of differences and appreciation of our individuality as well as of the unique situation of the moment. At this level, you have people sometimes trying to show off how "spiritual" or "aware" or calm they are. "It's very Zen of you." In Zen circles, they talk about still having the "stink of Zen" on you if you haven't gotten over yourself. This holier-than-thou attitude tend to be patronizing/matronizing and offensive to anyone who has reached the level of Understanding. We all want to be equal, and you shouldn't be holier than me. For those who have actually achieved the level of Appreciation, one's own faults are in obvious evidence, so the whole competition over who is holier falls away in the face of one's own fallibilities. When we try to only show that we aren't patronizing and offensive, this is some form of modesty--the social presentation. When we actually keep our own imperfections in mind (and if we are loved, valuable, equal, and appreciated, those imperfections aren't horrible to face), humility is the only reasonable response. Humility allows me to accept and affirm actual inequalities without employing the one-up/one-down positioning that it instinctually comes with. In other words, I can say and be okay with someone else being smarter, nicer, holier, etc. without putting myself down in comparison to their excellence. When that happens, I can actually accept my own genetically given temperament (I'm okay, but not naturally the nicest person) and work on my weaknesses by leaning on my strengths. (I have to put more effort than some into being nice but can relax about being intelligent. Others may have to put more effort into getting equal grades, but they might be able to relax into and enjoy their sociability.)

At the level of Clarity, if humility and precise awareness of one's own fallibilities is not established (or if one feels under-appreciated), extra energy goes into the ecstatic aspects of flow-states. This increases the intensity of the feeling of clarity but diminishes one's actual clarity concerning wisdom. In other words, you can then be beautiful and famous but you may feel the need to always perform. That makes sense if you are lacking in humility and appreciation of others, a sense of equality, value of self and others, and loving acceptance. If you are not lacking in those things, the ecstatic aspects are simply icing on a layered cake. You don't mistake the icing for the substantive food, and because you offer substance, you don't have to convince others that sugar fluff is substantive. There may still be effort then, but you don't spend your life chasing or stretching for one more star.

When clarity, ecstasy, and inspiration are part of your spiritual life, you end up enjoying life too much to have a world-denying or human-denying spirituality. You know things can be good because you live well. You become the example you want to be while living within your own means psychologically. Rather than trying to leave people and situations better than when you found them, the feeling that we remain connected grows. We feed other people by our own psychological health, and we get from them what we want in exchange as equals-in-potential: love, value, equality as persons, appreciation, clarity and inspiration lead to harmony. We treat others as the best that is actually in them because that best is real. And we do so in a way that "lands" with where they are at in the moment because we aren't idealizing some spiritual vision of how things should be or embracing some reductionistic denial of our real potential.

But if these drives aren't expressed and affirmed in society, the energy or action potential that could be directed towards joy, harmony, and perhaps peace turn in upon itself in a cannibalistic manner. If the drive is not fed what it wants, it eats itself. When we cannot express our love for life and people and have that love affirmed, it turns in and eats itself like a nest of rats that can't escape a confined space. We have the action potential and it will out. When we deny the drives, they come across as expectations. When we see other people as denying our reasonable expectations and as having unreasonable expectations of their own, we turn on one another and on ourselves. That's a different manner of going back to the depths.