Archive for November, 2009
The Dark Knight of the Soul
Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life. – Joseph Campbell
Superheroes are the mythic figures of the modern age. They all have special powers they use for the good of mankind, powers that allow them to transcend their mortality and experience divinity in some small but significant way–thus manifesting a universally shared desire. Superman, the greatest superhero of them all, is essentially omnipotent, an actual god with most of the features we attribute to gods. Yet the superhero, like the Greek tragic hero, always has a fatal flaw, an Achilles heel making him forever unable to fully escape his humanity. Because of this, he (or she) is somebody we can all identify with.
One of the most interesting superheroes ever created is Batman. Batman, the Dark Knight, is unique among superheroes in that he has no special powers or magic gadgets that give him superhuman capabilities. He creates all of his powers with his own resources.
The story of how Batman came to be is as mythical as anything written two thousand years ago–that is, his story embodies an elemental human struggle. Bruce Wayne, the man who eventually becomes Batman, is a tortured soul, having lost his parents at a young age to a senseless, violent act that haunts him as an adult. He wants desperately to fight crime and corruption to avenge his parents’ deaths and overcome his sense of helplessness, but he’s paralyzed by fear. He works out to stay in peak physical condition, studies the great fighting techniques of the world until he knows them expertly, and pours millions of dollars into research that produces some of the coolest gadgetry known to the superhero world. But still he feels resistance inside himself. One day, he realizes that to become the person he wants to be, he must confront his deepest, darkest fears. For him, these fears are best symbolized by bats, so he goes to a cave where he knows bats live, and he stays there, surrounded by thousands of flying bats, until he no longer feels afraid. When he emerges, he is free of his fears. He is now Batman.
It’s just a comic book. But the mythology of Batman speaks directly to each of us. Bruce Wayne does literally what the rest of us must do psychologically if we are to flourish: he descends into the darkness and confronts his fears. So significant is this process, in fact, that he names himself for it. If we don’t confront our demons as Bruce Wayne did, they keep us stuck in a prison of our own unwillingness.
Nobody ever wants to deal with their pain, much less confront their demons. Usually, if we’re doing it, it’s because we’ve been forced to the edge of the abyss by circumstances in our lives–sometimes of our own making, sometimes not. How we get there, though, is for the most part irrelevant. It’s what we do once we’re there that counts. Do we face the abyss honestly, or do we try to escape? Because the truth is, the dark-night-of-the-soul experience is one of the greatest opportunities to gain wisdom that life can present us with. I heard a saying once, and while I don’t know the author, it is attributed to a Jesuit priest: “Only the truly humble learn through love. The rest of us have to learn through pain.”
This has certainly been true for me. My early years of sobriety were a period of the most explosive emotional and psychological change I’ve ever experienced. It was also the most painful. Around my second year of sobriety, the shiny newness of it all began to wear off, and I was left with all the raw feelings I’d been avoiding my whole life–and absolutely nothing to dull them with. The feelings kept bubbling up, deep and old and mysterious and frightening, and a cloud of darkness descended on me. I was one big, walking nerve end masquerading as a person. No wonder I drank, if this was the alternative.
Of course my first reaction was to make the pain stop. I knew I didn’t want to drink. I also knew I didn’t want to die, although I understood for the first time how suicide could sound like a viable solution to some. So I did what many people in this situation do. I went on antidepressants. But they didn’t really help. They just made me feel numb, and they had all sorts of awful side effects. And the feelings were still there.
One morning, I was reaching for that bottle of pills when a voice in my head said Just feel the feelings. I knew right there that I’d been trying to do with those antidepressants what I’d done with self-prescribed drugs my whole adult life: numb the pain. I also knew, and this was the great epiphany, that the pain was there for a reason, and if I kept avoiding it, I would never know what that reason was–and that it was important to know the reason.
Then and there, I embarked on an emotional adventure that was to change my life forever, and infinitely for the better, even though it was a long, hard, painful road. For five solid years, I stared into that emotional abyss routinely. I cried almost every day. It got so I actually looked forward to it; I set aside time for it and made a little ritual out of it by lighting candles and playing sad music. Crying released those deep, dark feelings, and with every release, I felt a little bit lighter, a little bit more intact. Whoever said tears were healing had it exactly right.
As awful as I felt throughout this period, I also felt…solid. I knew I was on the right path. I knew I was taking the best care of myself I possibly could. That was a powerful new feeling, and it was enough to keep me going. To my amazement, I was able to function just fine. Nobody not close to me had any inkling what I was going through. I not only made it to work every day but also went back to school to finish my college degree. As long as I gave myself permission to grieve–because somewhere along the way, I realized that’s what I was doing–and made room for it in my life, I got along beautifully. I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself, but staying present with my pain, fear, anger and grief was absolutely necessary to my sense of well-being, and I’m as grateful for this period now as I am for all the joyous experiences I’ve had.
Just as all the gadgets in the world were useless to Batman until he dealt with his own inner obstacles, all the external gadgets we use to feel better are meaningless (or at the very least, temporary) unless we dive into our own souls to confront our demons. Here’s sending out high hopes for all to be visited by that wonderful dark night that holds the key to your salvation. Embrace your demons, like Batman, and they will set you free.
Globalizing, Or, How Not to Fight Fair
When people feel anxious, they tend to lose perspective. This can also be true when we feel hurt (hurt being a form of anxiety), especially at the hands of someone we love. And because we feel hurt, we can say and do things we don’t mean. Such behavior can be harmful to a relationship, so if we’re mature enough to hold our tongues and tempers when our blood is running hot, we can save ourselves a lot of heartache.
This is something we need to learn and practice if we want to have successful intimate relationships. There’s nothing terribly interesting about that. But there is one tactic people use that they’re often less aware of which is kind of interesting. It isn’t as detrimental as yelling and name-calling, but it is extremely un-useful in trying to get to the root of a disagreement as fairly and as honestly as possible, and it’s something we’re all guilty of from time to time.
I call it globalizing.
When we do it internally, it affects how realistic our view of events is. If things aren’t going well, we might think, for example, I’ll never get anything right! Or something along those lines, the point being that we tend to see everything in a negative light. Globalizing dark thoughts is as unkind as it is unrealistic. It’s important to ferret out these tendencies so we can stop being mean to ourselves in this way.
When we globalize externally, however, it’s usually for different reasons. When we bring another person (or people) into our circle of negativity, it isn’t likely to be because we feel hopeless about the relationship or situation. Usually, it’s because we want to prove a point or make someone feel bad, and will stoop to any means to do so.
Examples of globalizing include statements like “You never tell me you love me anymore!” and “You always go out with your friends and leave me sitting here alone!” as well as the question forms that go along with these (e.g., “Why don’t you ever tell me you love me anymore?”). When we say these things, we might actually mean them in the moment because we’re upset, but if we make the slightest effort to analyze what we’re saying, it’s easy to see that we’re speaking hyperbolically, that what we’re saying isn’t rational, and that it isn’t supposed to be–it’s meant as a self-justification, a way to win an argument, a way to prove our rightness and the other person’s wrongness. Period. There is nothing constructive about statements like these, and nothing helpful, either.
When you’re having a disagreement with someone, it’s a good idea to step back from it as quickly as possible and look at it as objectively as possible. You have to decide what your goal for the argument is, then proceed accordingly. If your goal is to prove yourself right or to make the other person relent even if you know he’s right, then feel free to use all means at your disposal, globalizing included. But if your goal is increased understanding or increased intimacy (see Being Angry With, Not At, Someone), or at the very least a resolution that both of you feel okay about, then you have to make an effort to fight fairly. That is, stick to the issue at hand and say what’s on your mind as calmly, rationally, and non-blamingly as possible. If your goal is resolution, globalizing has no place in the argument.
If in examining your communication patterns you discover that you are sometimes guilty of globalizing, don’t feel too badly about it. Globalizing is a cheap, easy tactic that we usually learn at a young age, either by watching our parents use it on each other or by learning serendipitously that it works on our mothers. (For example, we ask her “Why are you so mean all the time?” and she immediately stops being mean. She just rang our Pavlovian bell.) Recognizing it is the first step to doing something about it!
What do you do about it? Well, pay attention to your communication patterns, and try to learn where you fall into this tactic. And if you catch yourself doing it with someone, stop and apologize immediately. Acknowledge tht it’s a dirty way to fight and accomplishes only a greater block to open, honest communication, which is not what you want.
Conversely, if you find yourself on the receiving end of globalizing, nip it in the bud. Never respond to the accusation as if it has validity (e.g., “I do not!!”). Instead, call the person on the statement: “You know it’s not true that I always do that, and it isn’t helpful for you to say it.” or “Do you really believe that I always do that? And if not, do you think saying such a thing is going to help us resolve this argument?” If the person is sincere in wanting to resolve the disagreement, he’ll acknowledge the hyperbole. If not, is there any point in continuing? Either way, you’ve gotten your argument on track to resolution instead of staying mired in pointless accusations and rebuttals that go nowhere.
Arguing is certainly part of life. And everyone is guilty, on occasion, of globalizing, as well as other unfair tactics. When we fall into them, we shouldn’t beat ourselves up, but we should apologize as soon as we realize what we’ve done. And we should always strive to open, rather than close, the lines of communication with the people we love. When feelings are high and tempers are hot, this can be hard to do. But learning to watch our patterns and not react to those of others is a heckuva good start.
On Having Perspective
It’s probably human nature to globalize when you’re feeling bad. You know what I mean: when you go through a break up, you think you’ll never be loved again. Or when you’re job hunting and don’t find something right away, to feel that you’re never going to be successful. Or when you have a disagreement with a friend, to assume the friendship is over.
Usually it takes coming out the other side of a crisis–whatever it may be–to gain perspective about it. When people (people like me, anyway) are going through things they can’t see the end of, they panic. Not necessarily in a loud, external fashion, but internally, with thoughts like, I’ll never find anyone who loves me or I’ll never feel good about myself again. It isn’t until the crisis has passed that we’re able to step back and think, how silly I was to think that was going to last forever! And this is true not just for the major emotional hits, but for myriad tiny ways we react to situations. In fact, the emotions we tend to deem as innocuous might be the most important because they encompass the bulk of our day-to-day emotional life. Being able to look at “routine” emotions might be helpful when dealing with the bigger ones when they come along.
I realized this recently when I emerged out the other side of a minor emotional crisis. So minor, in fact, that I hadn’t noticed how it was wearing on me day after day–for a couple of years! It was only when it had passed that I realized how I had been seeing myself in a way that was completely inaccurate. I’d globalized and come to conclusions that were based much more on my anxiety than on reality. Through this–and probably because it was a small thing, so I didn’t have big emotions distracting me–I began to think about perspective, about how important it is to try to maintain a realistic view about myself and about what’s going on in my life.
I think I could frame my entire healing curve as an ever-increasing gaining of perspective: I’m not bad. I’m not less-than. I’m not unlovable. And up from there. For me, gaining perspective has been one long lesson of not immediately thinking the worst about myself. This attitude is so deeply ingrained that it took me awhile to realize it’s there, coloring my view and distorting my perspective about situations large and small. But just knowing that it’s there is helpful in gaining perspective. Since I figured this out, growth has largely been a matter of ever-deeper understanding of this filter through which I see the world. There are others, but this is the main one.
Not everybody has my issues, but everybody does have “self filters” through which they view the world. The closer those filters match reality, the better we’re going to feel about everything. That’s what gaining perspective is: matching your personal view with reality.
Now I realize “reality” is a vague word that can mean a lot of different things, so it needs a more precise description. By “reality,” I mean emotional reality. That is, understanding how your emotions color your worldview and being able to identify what’s accurate in your feelings and what is not. For example, if you have an argument with your partner, are you able to objectively determine which parts of it you are responsible for and which you aren’t? At first, few of us are; we are too angry or preoccupied with proving our point to consider our part. But after awhile, after tempers calm and the heat of battle passes, we start to look at the situation differently. Maybe I did overreact a little. Maybe I’m sensitive about that issue because of my past. Maybe he really didn’t mean it the way I thought he did. Armed with a new perspective, we extend the olive branch, ready to make peace. And our partner is ready, too, or will be shortly.
The point is that when we gain perspective, we gain serenity. Perspective is important for a sense of well-being. The sooner you can gain perspective and the longer you can maintain it, the better off you’ll be. So why not just try to have that perspective all the time? We don’t need to wait until we’re old and have seen it all and done it all. We can learn from the elderly and adapt their circumspect view of life right now, today. We can learn to listen to the voices of calm and reason and let them override our less dependable emotional utterings.
I’m not saying emotions aren’t important. They’re crucial. But there’s a difference between having your emotions and your emotions having you. The better we know ourselves and the better we understand how our emotions affect our view of reality, the more able we’ll be to apply our emotional energy to the things that really matter, how we want to, when we want to.
Everything resolves itself eventually, and we come out the other side, usually stronger, usually wiser. And I believe this is true even beyond death. Everything is going to be alright, no matter what. Once you understand this, it becomes truly possible to squeeze the most out of every moment.
Question Authority…Sort Of
The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates
Another bumper sticker sentiment I’ve always kind of liked is “Question Authority.” But as much as I am against blind conformity, I believe blind rebellion is equally bad. If you don’t practice discernment about what you question, it’s difficult to get to the true purpose of questioning authority, which is to arrive at your own set of carefully-thought-through values.
Of course, a bumper sticker can’t contain all that information. Nor is it supposed to–my personal preference for bumper stickers is humor, as any deeper thought is at high risk for misinterpretation. So, because “Question Authority” fits that category–it’s a popular sentiment that is not very well understood–I’m using it as a jumping-off point to take a deeper look at what it’s really about: values.
Awhile back, I wrote a post called The lllusion of Nonconformity that talked about how people want to see themselves as nonconformists without really being nonconformists, because being a true nonconformist means being seen as “different” or “eccentric.” So they dress up in costumes that give the appearance of defying conformity without really taking the risk of doing so. The example I used was middle-classed Harley-Davidson riders, but this phenomenon goes far beyond that. It’s rampant, really, and the reason it’s rampant is that most people haven’t taken on the difficult process of arriving at their own internal values. And when people don’t have strong internal compasses to guide their decision-making process, then they’re ripe for any marketing campaign that appeals to them.
In an absurd irony–ironic mostly because it works!–one of advertising’s most powerful claims is that buying a product can make you unique. If you drink this soda or wear that brand of clothing or drive this type of car, you’re a freedom-embracing individualist. In this way, what is really quite conventional, establishment-supporting behavior is packaged and sold as individuality. Nobody who brandishes a product logo on his body or vehicle considers himself a conformist. And yet, that is exactly what he is.
Much the same irony is true for people who feel that wearing a costume makes them unique. By costume, I mean shocking clothes or hair, tattoos and piercings, or anything other external trappings that affiliate you with any given subculture. Yet there is no real questioning of authority here; there is simply exchanging one kind of conformity for another. Conforming to a subculture is still conforming. Not to say that you can’t have affiliations and be a free-thinking individual, because of course you can. The issue is how strongly you identify with those affiliations. For example, if you think your costume is proof that you’re questioning authority in any meaningful way, then you’re missing the bigger picture about what questioning authority is really about.
The point is, if you don’t think through what it is you’re rebelling against, you end up rebelling against the wrong things or rebelling against nothing at all. Questioning authority is healthy, but it’s only half of the equation. You also have to come up with some meaningful answers. And that’s the hard part.
How do you decide which authority to discount and which not to? On one level this is easy. You have to meet all of your social and financial obligations. You have to obey laws. You have to treat other people with respect. In short, you have to meet all the basic requirements of adulthood and decency. You also have to decide what parts of conventional culture appeal to you. Do you want children? A career? A college education? Nice material possessions? Some conventional measures of success are appealing; that’s probably why they’re conventional measures of success. Liking nice things, for example, is no more a gauge of your internal values than are costumes–once again, it’s about how you identify with those things.
So these are the easy decisions: conform how you must, and conform how you want to. But the rest is up to you! This is where it gets hard, because the answers lie within, and the only way to ferret them out is with a concerted effort to know thyself and to thine own self be true. For it is only by knowing yourself, your wants and needs, what matters to you, what gets your heart thumping, to the very best of your ability, that it is possible to find happiness.
Happiness is an inside job. You won’t find it in movies or sports or any other sort of popular culture–while such things can sometimes get the juices flowing, they are mostly distractions from the real source of happiness: the inner journey. Introspection. Meditation. Paying attention to your strong feelings. Analyzing and distilling thoughts until they become guiding values. And once you have guiding values, and not until, is it possible to be truly happy, happy in the inner-peace, inner-contentment kind of way that everybody is seeking whether they are aware of it or not. And sometimes, rules are just wrong, and questioning them is how social justice progresses. So questioning authority can result in not only your own happiness, but consciousness-raising for the entire planet.
So by all means, yes! Question authority! Such questioning is essential to a life well-lived. Even if you decide that conventional society is where you belong, then at least you will have arrived at that conclusion on your own brainpower and embraced it on your own terms. Questioning authority should always be undertaken with the intention of finding your own answers, answers that are better than those offered by external authorities–and answers that go beyond external trappings of rebellion, which mean next to nothing. If you don’t have this end in mind when you undertake a rebellion, then you’ve missed the whole point.