Social Aspects: Back to the Depths

Besides connecting the dots in new and interesting ways, along with things rising up out of murky depths or becoming clearer as they emerge from a fog, stuff also returns from whence it came. Things that we stop thinking about and working with don't disappear--no energy or mass is lost--rather, they fade or submerge.

Certain things that are easy to mentally hold onto, concrete things like the lesson to be careful around hot stuff, fade when we don't re-member it or work with it. In other words, cooks aren't more aware in a oogley-googley meaning of awareness, but they consistently work with the lesson to be careful around hot stuff so they tend to more practiced with being aware of hot stuff. Any of us who aren't primed for that awareness when we should be--BAM!--we are immediately reminded when skin comes in contact with a hot pan. That involves priming and engagement more than subtle awareness. If you're cooking, you re-mind yourself (you put into your active mind again) to be careful when you're around hot stuff. This is fitting when you're around hot stuff.

Not remembering or reminding oneself is different from what happens with those things that do not completely solidify in our consciousness and understanding of the world. For instance, physical balance never completely "solidifies" because it must constantly move as we constantly move. Emotions should generally change throughout the day unless we get stuck in personality-disordered habits that lock in moods to too great a degree. So some things are not necessarily "solid" even though they are salient and apparent. Balance is always about the present, and the present is in motion; emotions are fitting for "moments" in our lives but should not determine our personalities. (If you see yourself as an "angry person" or a "happy person", you're probably avoiding some of your emotions and getting "stuck" in others.)

For some people algebra never really solidifies, never becomes obvious, apparent, and familiar to work with. For others, things like racism seem to be clear at one moment but confusing at another. What is racism really? These sorts of topics are often also context-dependent. Just as we remind ourselves about heat in the kitchen but not necessarily in other places, we remind ourselves of the relevance and meaning of racism in mixed crowds, exploitative or bigoted groups, exploited groups, and racially mixed groups. Social items, like racism, fit into a different category than physical items and forces like hotel pans and heat. Psychological phenomena may have a physical basis, but these can generally be categorized as similar to social phenomena in the sense that you can touch a hotel pan but not your racism or joy.

Think of your fight-or-flight response. It remains "there" as only potential most of the time. It is a physical potential and involves instincts that fit extreme situations. Ostracism is "there" potentially in social groups. It is fitting in extreme situations--the old eskimo that wanders off into the cold in order to allow enough food for the young (historically), rapists and murderers are often ostracized, the diseased may be quarantined, etc. When we're at war, we want to find out who is definitely on our side and who is not. When we take these potentials that are fitting for extreme situations and prompt for those responses too often, the effects are psychologically and socially deleterious. Post-traumatic stress, hypervigilance, exhaustion, and insomnia can result from physical overstimulation. When we take ostracization as an ideology--racism, sexism, age-ism, whatever--we tend to wear out and/or ignore our ability to remain alert to and balanced in the present. We pre-judge then--give up our judgement in the present in favor of stable abstractions. Eternal vigilance may be the price of freedom, but the costs of eternal vigilance include paranoia, prejudice, poor judgement, and exhaustion.

But let's say that we don't idealize and abstract or over-utilize these sorts of potentials. There will still be stuff that comes to mind at certain times but is otherwise "out of sight, out of mind". Affection can be like that. If you're not completely infatuated with your dog, you may not think about Sparky much while you're at work. Out of sight, out of mind. But when you walk out the door at the end of the day and think about getting home, you may smile in anticipation of the mutual excitement and affection that meets you at the front door of your house. If someone said it was your job to always think about how much you love your dog, you'd probably get worn out trying to do it. Just ask a parent! Besides, your wife or husband might feel undervalued if you were always and only going on and on about your four-legged, best friend. So we are psychologically built for things like emotions, wakefulness, and attention to come and go. Rest is good, vacations are good.

All this means that relevance counts and so do our attentional limits. It doesn't make you a bad parent to need time away from your kids. It doesn't make you racist or gender-biased to need time away from groups that feel diverse or not intimate. Enjoying deep sleep or moments of solitude doesn't mean you're antisocial. We all have limits that are expressed in terms of political awareness, social boundaries, and psychological tolerances. In order to keep those boundaries, types of awareness, and tolerances all in the same head, we shift focus as well as shifting some things in and out of focus. Lots of ins and outs, man, a lot of what-have-yous. Some psychological drives are prevalent at times but then mostly fade back into the depths. The ways they come out and what we do with them fascinates me.