Ego and Tranquility II

The question we're carrying over is: what functions for adults as that supportive field? Is it relationships, community? No. Intention? No. Wisdom, insight? No and no. Tranquility? Also no. Or maybe the answers should all be, "Not only that."

All those things feed in. As usual, I want to turn that question on its side to see what it looks like that way. If we've got a good model of how personal growth can occur (in children), then--given all the differences adults face--HOW does adult growth occur?

Psychodynamics often describes the "primary caregiver" as a transitional object. The kid can explore a little ways, return to Mom and feel reassured that everything is alright, and then explore again. Likewise, then, the space around Mom begins to feel safe. Actual places like one's bedroom, playroom, backyard, or near Mom can then be used as "transitional spaces" where exploration, play, growth, and learning occur. Everywhere else is potentially dangerous and scary. It's not much of a stretch to see that dangerous schools are not really the best "transitional spaces" in psychodynamic terms. And we also grow into professional and romantic relationships where trust is recognized or at least felt to be really important for any meaningful or sustained relationship. So, as we move out of mom's arms and out of the nursery, we can see that the psychological "space" is both real physical space (outside of the nursery) and also sociocultural space (trustworthy relationships).

In essence then, we need the potential, the motivation, the tools, and the space to work in for growth. We need at least one more thing: continuity. Without continuity or coherence, each moment may be intense enough, but there is no way to mark growth as opposed to random change. And, in speaking of personal growth and maintaining the motivation for personal growth as adults, we are speaking in terms of an internal or personal SENSE of continuity. It is this sense that allows us to say that we feel that there has or has not been growth, since personal growth is not as objectively measurable as, say, height.

Here is where ego finds its true value. Ego, like growth, may be made up of many parts without necessarily being any of those parts or influences. As we move beyond the "primary relationship" with Mom, our developing egos become our own transitional objects--that which, in reference to, we either feel growth or the absence of growth. Now, as I mentioned, ego isn't necessarily just one singular thing. Ego is influenced by its own transitional object-space: society. With these three reference points--individual awareness, ego, society--we have what it takes to measure growth.

How does that work out? Well, we create a relatively consistent sense of ego and society even though personal awareness is constantly shifting. The phenomena we pay attention to, shifts in internal brain states, and changes in emotional moods tend to occur more quickly than changes in what we think of ego and society. At some point in our lives, we intentionally attempt to shift our internal state--from anxiety, fear, anger, despite, shame, etc. If we find or are given the tools and stick to the training we can improve at shifting our internal states towards those states we would choose. That's the intention part.

As we repeatedly use our intention to build the attentional skills that allow us to shift our internal states, those intentional choices and intentional states become part of our self-identity (which is part of ego). Those chosen and increasingly familiar states become more consistent traits, more consistent parts of who we are. It's just that, at this point, the "who" in who we are is bigger than a concrete self of who we were, more real and complex than an ideal who that we might have wanted to become. The growth itself changes us. As we move closer to the ideal, the ideal must also change and come closer to the complexity of reality and history and personality, etc. At some point, it becomes very clear that we are trading, piece by piece, a sort of thin and sterilized (yet bright) ideal self for a very real and complex and sometimes still problematic but inspired self. Idealization becomes inspiration as we become intimate and familiar with our own active potential.