Tuesday and tonight I'm going out on a Lake Michigan cruise with friends William and Joan - a charity event. It's a gorgeous day in Chicago - should be perfect. And this morning a call from Kaveh cuz I forgot my phone therapy appointment with him. Boggles my mind that I could actually forget him. If you've known me for a while you know it wasn't that long ago when I counted the seconds until I could talk with him again. I became so dependent for a time - it was part of the healing process. Now I'm coming out the other end of therapy having achieved the objectives we identified at the onset - amazing right? I'll fly to Louisville, KY where he now calls home and we will have our last session in August. We both got a chuckle today when I said there WOULD be a hug at the end. He laughed in acquiescence and we both remembered when the discussion of a hug was a loaded topic. I wanted one. He said no. I pounded on that shut door. I threatened. He still said no. I cried. He still said no. That was about the same time as I insisted on an article of his clothing to sleep with for comfort - a sweater or sweatshirt. Once, I went to the bathroom just so I could glance in the coat closet to see if there was something suitable for me to "liberate" on my way out. I was not above stealing Kaveh's clothing! Fun to look back at those days and laugh now. Love that guy.
After I wrote the blog post yesterday about the subconscious and fretted about how much free will we really have, given that at least 9/10ths of what compels us lives beneath the surface of our conscious thoughts, I read an article that caught my eye entitled The Fallacy of the Hijacked Brain by Peg O'Connor. So serendipitous to read that article within hours of pondering the same issues in this blog! The first paragraph caught my eye immediately:
Of all the philosophical discussions that surface in contemporary life, the question of free will — mainly, the debate over whether or not we have it — is certainly one of the most persistent.The author goes on to say that people (not just me apparently) are very concerned about how much of their lives they can control and how much is predetermined. And there are lots of "can't help yourself" books out there that speak to the concept of peoples' brains being hijaked by addictive behavoirs that foreclose an individual's ability make good choices - also relieves them of the responsibility of making good choices. The current scientific brain research falls into the camp of addicts having no choices once their brain chemistry has been hijacked - addicted brains gone rogue.
The author of the article takes exception to the idea of a person's brain being hijacked.Can a person hijack themselves is the central question. "A hijacker comes from outside and takes control by violent means. A hijacker takes a vehicle that is not his; hijacking is always a form of stealing and kidnapping. A hijacker always takes someone else's vehicle; you cannot hijack your own car. Ludwig Wittgenstein offered that money passed from your left hand to your right is not a gift. Writing yourself a thank-you note would be absurd." (actually, I did that once). She goes on to say, "It might be tempting to claim that in addiction scenarios, the drugs or behaviors are the hijackers. However, those drugs and behaviors need to be done by the person themself." The article's bottom line was to question the extreme view and false quandaries, "like the one that requires us to define addiction as either disease or choice, and to adopt a more nuanced conception. Addicts are neither hijackers nor victims.
So why take the time to read this article and ponder this? It speaks to what we've been "talking" about - personal responsibility, free will, and how much of what we do is within our conscious control. To think any of this is easy - that there is a one size fits all solution for everyone is to be naive, right? Willpower alone is absolutely not the answer. On the other hand, not taking ownership and personal responsibility is a cop out. I like the idea of a nuanced approach to life's challenges - it's a humbler approach and probably more efficacious. If we hold ourselves to rigid, intractable standards we stand to fall hard, not that anyone will care because we will have been so obnoxious anyway there will be few friends to catch us. On the other hand if we live in "blame-game" land, never saying, "the buck stops here", that's not a way to live either.
Challenge today is to give some thought to where you are on this spectrum. A friend of mine blames his parents for the fact that he lacks confidence to launch his own business. Another friend says she has no control over her alcohol consumption. Flip side is yet another friend, who lives with rigid rules and never makes exceptions - his life is small, unimaginative and uninteresting and people don't enjoy being around him. He holds himself and others to unloving and unrealistic standards. Reminds me of when Steve and I went to a casino in Indiana and won $700 in the slot machines. On the ride back, I said, "If we never go back, we will never be losers!" We never went back! In that case it was probably a good thing - doubt that anyone's life is enhanced by gambling, but the analogy holds - one way to not fall prey to the vagaries of your brain is to just not do anything new, don't take risks, don't put yourself in situations that could jeopardize your healthful path. It's a reasonable albeit tunnel visioned way to live - but think of how much you stand to miss!
OK, back to your challenge. Where are you on this spectrum? Are you a person who greets the day openly with adventure, fearlessly, open to experiences even though some danger is bound to leak in? Or are you a person who follows a tight script, guarding your boundaries, not deviating from your chosen path? If you find yourself saying, "I never..." all the time, or alternatively, never saying, "I never..." then my guess is that you're walking on either just the black or the white tiles of life. How much richer life could be if we traversed the entire ground - the black AND the white tiles - adventurously but responsibly.
Peace,
Sarah
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