I just saw a television commercial hawking human goodness and loving-kindness. It was a big hospital system’s public service sales pitch. An infant stands up, seeming to want out of her crib. Dad redeposits her prone. She comes back to the rail but this time he climbs into the crib and they fall asleep together. We see many of these warmth lessons – Olympics brother- and sisterhood, pets forlorn or rescued, young teen advising his mom: “No kissing on the first date,” children holding hands, standing together, old folks thrilled with their caregivers.
These
commercials, Scrooge-ishly, annoy me. It’s not just because they are artificial
sweeteners – people are more layered than these moments. It’s not just
that I don’t like the U.S. economy telling us what’s good. It’s that I don’t
like society telling me anything. I don’t like society assuming we’re all
connected.
I am, I suppose,
insular in a way.
Does anyone
else feel nagged by this fallacy? I already have enough of being forced into the
same leaky PT boat by disturbed Captain Trump. My good is my own treasure. It’s not generic. It doesn’t send waves of
golden meaning into other people’s lives. Not only is it quiet: It is unknown to
others.
Whose
self-medication is this? Who decided we’re all one? Maybe this honey in the air
doesn’t actually turn people’s lives, but I think there is an implicit – very
subliminal, a real collective unconscious – feeling or assumption in people’s
brains that we’re all in this together. And that idea or feeling must take over
true individuality. It prevents our knowing that while we can talk to others, our
words end up not truly blending into the alien soil of their lives. Their lives
are their own. After the cradle, just before the grave.
Yes, there are still
times in my life when I’ve wanted that bond with another, where one exists yet
fuses with the other. There are times in my therapies when I’ve offered to be a client’s home, her eternal parent to go to. I may get a few calls over the
months post-termination. But then it stops: Everyone wants to be freer than
that, despite their need and their loneliness.
I find it helpful to remind one’s self that these advertisements are largely performed by actors and actresses,(ie it's a false glow) so each one is merely a performance. I do think, though that collectively they do alienate us from being real (if one merely absorbs, without observing) because, as you will know very well in your practice, it’s only truth (“feeling truth") that heals and that gets in to the core. And there is so little of that publically distributed. Publically, we live on the surface of life. I guess that’s why we need Psychologists and Psychiatrists!!
ReplyDeleteBob Dylan – “advertising signs, they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime, life outside goes on
All around you......”
The loneliness of living inside one’s own skin. At best, we can get used to that.