If we dare to look

Just think about how nice we are to people when they behave in accordance with our expectations. Now think about how we close up and pull back from them when they don’t, maybe even getting angry or even violent toward them. What are we doing? We are trying to change someone’s behaviour by leaving impressions on their mind. We are attempting to alter their collection of beliefs, thoughts, and emotions so that the next time they act it is in the manner we expect.  

We are all doing this to each other every day. Think about this for a moment, or maybe reflect on this for some considerable time. 

If we dare to look, we see that we live our entire lives based on the models we built around ourselves.  

We try to hold a consistent set of thoughts and concepts in our minds. We define ourselves based on what we believe. We believe in peace and non-violence, or we believe in the survival of the fittest. We believe in capitalism, or we believe in neo-socialism. We take a set of thoughts in our minds and hold onto them. We make a highly complex relational structure out of them, and then present that package as who we are. And deep down many of us have a sense that this is what we have done, and that our models are flimsy at best. 

We know it is not who we are. It is just thoughts we have pulled around ourselves in an attempt to define ourselves. We do this because we are lost inside. We attempt to create a sense of stability and steadiness inside, generating a false, but welcomed, sense of security.  

And we also want the people around us to have done the same thing. We want them to be steady enough so that we can predict their behaviour. If they aren’t it disturbs us, because we have made our predictions of their behaviour part of our inner model. This protective shield of beliefs and concepts regarding the outside world acts as insulation between us and the people we interact with. We feel safer and in control by having preconceived notions about other people’s behaviour.  

Imagine the fear we would feel if we let the whole wall down. Who have we ever allowed directly into our true inner self without the protection of our mental buffer? Nobody, not even ourselves. 

People just put façades out there. They even admit that one façade is a little more real than the other. We go to work and get lost in our professional façade, but then we say “I’m going home to be with my family and friends where I can just be myself.” So, our work façade drops into the background, and our relaxed social façade comes out. But what about the one who is holding these façades together? Nobody gets near that one. That’s just too scary.  

That one is too far back there to deal with. 

Some of us are better at this than others. In most societies, you are well rewarded for how good you are at clinging to false assumptions and building a worldview around them. If you get that model down absolutely right and behave consistently every time, you have actually “created” someone. And if the someone you create is what others want and need, you can be very popular and successful. You are that person. It got ingrained in you at a very young age, and you never deviated from it. You can get really good at this game of creating someone. And if the person you created is not receiving the popularity and success you expected, you can just adjust your thoughts accordingly. It’s not that there is anything wrong with this, almost everybody does it.  

But who are you that’s doing this, and why are you doing it?  

And what deeper truth, more accurate view of reality is it obscuring? 

And what gifts and talents of yours is it preventing you from realising, and all the personal well-being that comes from this? 

This inner clinging and building of false constructs are energetically, emotionally, and physically draining. It leads to burnout and mental health issues. It leads to frustration and unhappiness. It leads to separation and exclusion. It leads to scarcity and confrontation. I could go on. 

Next week I’ll write about how society ingrains these mental and emotional structures within us, why we care about them so much, and how we can get past these troublesome illusions. 

—
Andrew.