posted on Jun, 3 2015 @ 01:13 AM
One of my deepest frustrations in life is the mismatch - or blockage - that separates how people live from how the world actually works.
It's really insanity. Naivety. Stupidity from the perspective of a wiser self. What's silly is how animal-like we are. Just a smart animal - an
animal that can think about its animalness. And that makes us very different in another way - but that way does not concern me right now. What
concerns me is the distance between systems theory and folk-theories of how the world works. Folk theories are the type of stuff people pass from one
another - lets call them "memes"; there the signals and standards that come with how people decide to present themselves to others. Always implied
in this behavior is the rather self-conscious notion of doing it for attention, in particular, so that other peoples interest in you will "feedback"
into your ego, and you can experience yourself as having more "effectance" (or the capacity to effect others in the world).
People are narcissistic like this. I do it, you do it, the pope does it. Buddha did it, Jesus, Moses and anything with a human body does it. We listen
for feedback without really consciously knowing were doing it. Our minds are "wrapped" around one another in this way. Every potential connection is
"fed through" an unconscious tableau of past meanings and so organizes a consistent response for that category of action. When we do it, that is,
when we act, oftentimes were just enacting an unconscious script, played out with different words but the same feelings and meanings pass back
and forth; if were used to being used by others, we find people who will find a "use" in our neediness. People often fit like "lock and keys" in
this way. Sometimes, very different, contrasting personalities "hit" one another, and both realize that their goals - say, a desire for effectance -
cannot be effectively realized amidst the effusive expressiveness of another person.
Since people are prone to narcissism, we all have it. But some of us have it in larger portions. From the pre-prenatal facts of economic factors and
social status, to the prenatal environment, people are shaped by factors (molecular structures) contingent on social realities (the mothers
relationships with others). The mothers mind, fantasies and concomitant feelings and affects intrude or caress the fetus' developing nervous system.
Endocrine hormones like cortisol 'guide' the stress response system of the developing fetus, turning 'off' genes by attaching methyl groups to DNA
(cytosine). The stress response system is actually central in much of developmental features, like bone growth and sexualization.
My point in mentioning facts like that is to impress upon you the centralization evolution has conferred upon the self that "consolidates" the life
of the body. The self, the human self, seems so incredible to us because we are literally the only thing that exists in this enormous mess that is
aware of it. Whats so interesting is how "uninteresting" this fact can be to most people. When I ask people questions like this (and I have a
tendency to turn conversations in philosophical directions) the majority of the people I ask just aren't interested in the question. There is a lack
of "affective interest" from their body. It's sort of a fly hitting the windshield, then wiped off by the windshield wiper. This is a significant
dissociation of something they experience damn near every time they decide to do something. Our normal attention might be "in the loop" - subject to
feedback affects as we experience reality from "within" a subjective emotional present; but then we 'remember' something, and then DECIDE on a new
direction of goal related behavior (which can then place you back in the loop). Our lives often go on and on like this, with our mental lives moving
from one ontological status (human, de-centered) to another (animal, centered, implicitly 'caught' in a feedback between desire to effect others,
perceiving the effect, and reorganizing with every iteration, unconsciously, to find your affective "niche" - a state of affective/narrative
coherence.
It really should be mandatory that we include mindfulness like practices in our school systems. Improper behavior i.e greediness, callousness,
selfishness, stubborness, arrogance, occurs largely as an overblown expression of affect/emotion, in a mind that isn't "managing" the energies that
foist perceptions/goals on the mind. Mindfulness, whenever we practice it, enacts molecular processes that go to support that phenomenological state.
With each moment we dedicate to our self-awareness, self analysis, or reflection on our own mental processing and behavior in intimate or casual
relationships, we add 'more' to the molecular processes subtending that mental experience. Overtime, genes that were "on", turn "off", when a
methyl group neutralizes the replication process by attaching itself to the cytosine molecule. When the gene is 'off', other genes at other areas
are presumably "on", perhaps through acetylation of histone proteins.
We can shape brains - and thus minds - and thus do a pretty good job 'managing' the evolution of our species by consciously and reflectively shaping
our school systems to include a period for mindful reflection. Finally linking human institutional practices that harmonize with the earth dynamics
that make human life viable in the first place. Should we fail to restrain our darker instincts - really, parts of our selves that distort how things
are - we mindlessly midwife our species to ineluctable extinction. And what a shame that would be! The very gift that nature afforded for us - which
gave our lives such mystical and significant food for thinking - was ignored because it impinged on the far stronger goals of the primate self - to
feel good/powerful amongst others chief amongst them.
Listening is a practice we all do to little of. If we listen to ourselves, we can hear a needy voice, pumping within us, wanting to speak, to be
heard, to be understood. These needs are natural and normal, but like all things, we need to "consciously balance" what nature does unconsciously.
Being human, effectively, and allowing ourselves to develop ourselves further, really does require a spiritual transformation of self from the
hyper-individualism indicative of contemporary popular culture, to that of a society of people each equally amazed of their personal existence -
feeling the need to be good and perceptive in their relationships with others; knowing themselves, they will better understand and sympathize with the
needs that arise as inevitably in others as they do in us.
These skills ARE skills. They don't come with the package unless previous humans have "scaffolded" the development of these characteristics by
living and being in positive and constructive ways in their immediate relationships. Failure happens. Always. The skill is the patience to take each
failure as an opportunity for repair. To not expect anything more than a progressive, though never perfect, improvement in your capacity to perceive
and influence in positive ways, is probably what most people should hope from living the human experience.