How can you really exist if your mind’s platform is a bunch of words? Pre-written words or words of your own device? What if you look out on the world, or sit in your inner space, and tell yourself: ‘I believe in a God, I believe in human goodness, I believe in the Democratic or Republican or Socialist or Libertarian rules of life, I believe I am perfect, I believe there are inferior people, I believe in family, I believe this conspiracy theory, I believe in Existentialism or Buddhism or Judaism.’ How can you exist if these words are essential meanings of your life? Without them, you may see an Australian Flame Tree and feel its beauty. With them, you think you see God’s beauty and your feeling is artificially colored. Without words as roots, you see a dark-skinned person who is similar to you. With words as roots, you see an undesirable person or a liberal trophy cause. Without a philosophy, you don’t see human life as intrinsically meaningful or meaningless: You merely live, feeling what you feel. With a philosophy, you see Meaninglessness, or Morality, or duty to family, or being “condemned to be free” (Sartre). Without a personality disorder, you live in the real world. With Narcissistic personality, you live in a room where everything and everyone is furniture or food.
You can’t really exist when you have beliefs because you become the superimposed on, or an alteration of yourself. If the beliefs start to take hold in your earlier years, they replace your identity. This is because they wouldn’t take hold if you already had a strong identity. Somewhat parallel to this is Aletha Solter’s idea that “time-out” is a destructive form of discipline:
. . . time-out is an authoritarian approach and, as such, can work only among children trained to comply with the power and authority of adults. Children trained to conform to such measures know that the consequences of disobeying are worse than adhering to the injunctions. Children who have not been brought up in an authoritarian environment will most likely refuse to go to another room or sit in a chair.*
The compliant child, and the compliant adult belief-holder, have become less than, other than themselves.
I don’t expect to strip people of their beliefs. But they would surely be more real, more alive, and better without them.
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* http://www.awareparenting.com/timeout.htm.
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Comments are welcome, but I'd suggest you first read "Feeling-centered therapy" and "Ocean and boat" for a basic introduction to my kind of theory and therapy.