Backup Plans

I have been learning to live with as much flexibility as possible. I have been learning to accept the unpredictability of life, and human behaviour. I have been learning to have back up plans. It has not been easy, but, it has been deeply rewarding even though I haven’t, and probably never will, fully master it.

Oftentimes we confront the unpredictability, of circumstances and people, with the rage of our disappointed expectations. We project our rage against the offender, who ought to have facilitated the world we wish existed.

The world will always, at some time or other, run against the grain of our ego. The world will always, at some time or other, go against the grain of our will.

How do we face up to it? Do we?

It seems to me, that we more commonly resist this kind of engagement with life, and instead continue to live in a world-of-unpredictable-humans, heavily armed and weighed down with expectations, with no backup plan. We instead chose to live in the abstract world of our rights to this or that, and the shoulds about the circumstances that we would have preferred, and the oughts about the ways we wished others behaved.

We sit there feigning and claiming innocence, blaming the world around us for not being better than it is. We can continue with this for as long as we want, but, sooner or later you, me, we, have got to deal with it.

Sustainable Living

Sustainability is a word that most of us are now familiar with. We have heard it mostly used in relation to what is perceived by many to be a climate crisis. I believe that sustainability is a beneficial guide for us, as a species, but also as individuals. It is not an all-encompassing answer to the problems of the world, although I don’t think one of those exists, but, it is useful.

I’ll highlight two kinds of economies…deficit-based economies, and resource-based economies. In the former, any growth that these countries experience is fundamentally fragile, and as it expands, the bubble always threatens to burst. This results in economic catastrophe and collapse. Every penny that is spent is owed. The government owes, the banks owe, and everyone ends up writing bouncy cheques. There is no foundation to the figures, which becomes nothing more than an abstract proposition of consumer confidence and projected worth.

The other kind of economy is resource-based.  This is, what I see, as a smarter economic model, as it doesn’t gamble with what it doesn’t have. It works with its own resources, its growth is stable and consistent, and it does not have the fickle confidence of the deficit-junkies, who are buoyed up on the ether of the last financial high.

This economic insight has a lot to say about what we humans get up to behind the scenes. There is a term in the world of psychology: cognitive dissonance, and essentially, this is the psychological equivalent of a deficit-based economy. This is where the idea we have of ourselves doesn’t match up to who we are. We can sustain this disparity for some amount of time, but, depending on how great the distance is within ourselves, it will eventually give way. Some might manage to maintain this inner gulf until the day they die, but, it isn’t something I would aspire to, or encourage anyone to give a try. It is a massive drain on our inner resources trying to maintain overly grand ideas of ourselves. We cannot keep doing it. It will eventually ruin the things we think we are trying to maintain.

Just like the population of Easter Island, that were so busy building impressive statues of human faces that they didn’t notice they were wiping out all the trees in the process. They destroyed the civilisation they thought they were revering. They killed the thing they loved. There is a big price to pay for big ideas.

So, I am trying to promote psychological sustainability. Look at what you have, cultivate your soul and grow what you need, and you will weather life’s storms with much more ease.

Ditch the faces, and keep the forests.

Selective Hearing

We have all heard of the term selective hearing. It is commonly understood that people, some more than others, can hear what they want to hear, when they want to hear it, and play deaf when it suits them.

However, I want to take this commonly accepted notion, and open it up to include other things, because I think the act of selective hearing sheds light on other very human traits.

Selective Attention

Most of us, unless we have chosen to avoid it altogether, are surrounded by people, things, happenings and events. We cannot take everything in at once, and so, smartly, we are able to select what we think is important to focus on at any given time. This is an incredible ability that we have, and it happens so quickly, that most of us are entirely oblivious to what we have done…yet, we do it all the time, especially when we are out and about in the world of stimulation. We also choose, what not to focus on, for whatever reason…repulsion or avoidance. We are separating the wheat from the chaff so to speak.

Some of us focus intensely, so as to exclude as many other variants as possible…this is the kind of focus, that is sometimes romanticised as passion, but is often better described as obsession. This reduced focus, can be acted out in a variety of ways, but the crux of it is to limit one’s encounters with variables [variables being people]. We all do this to some extent, especially when we are needing to recover from having been out in the world of stimulation. We recuperate by losing ourselves in smaller, more-limited worlds, such as cleaning, television watching, fishing, instrument playing or computer tinkering.

Others, like to keep their attention as flitting as possible, not letting it rest on anything for too long. This is what I like to refer to as intentional scattiness. See no evil…feel no responsibility. Again, we may all do this from time to time as it suits us, but, we are essentially using the survival skills that are built into us as human-animals.

Selective Memory

This is the process whereby we start editing the story of ourselves. We have already made decisions about where to be, and where not to be; about who to be with, and who not to be with…and we have paid attention to what has suited us. But, on top of this, we then chuck out a lot of stuff as we internalise the things we experience. We start whittling down the experiences in a way that sits best with our idea of ourselves, and how the world is around us. This is like an actor rehearsing their lines before going on stage…they might read the words out loud, or into themselves, or write them down in journals or blogs. These are the pre-stage preparations that help us get ready for the performance, which we hope to go smoothly.

Selective Telling

This is the externalising of the rehearsed lines…the performance. Once we have swallowed down the medicine of our own memories, as bitter tasting as they may be, we then start to reaffirm those memories, by repeating our now-edited accounts of the experiences that forged them. Every time we repeat the story, we repeat an incantation, by which we reassure ourselves that the world is the way we think it is, and we are who we think we are. We ask for the nods and approval of others around us, as we tell ourselves these stories. If they do not nod and approve, we distance ourselves from them…they are not our friends. Our friends nod. We say we want to be understood, but, we are really saying that we want to be understood in the way that we understand ourselves. If they don’t align, they don’t understand.

So, what am I getting at here with all this babble? I am suggesting that the popular account of the human experience, is one that turns a blind eye to the script, stage, curtains, makeup and lighting. We talk about ourselves and our lives, and the things that concern us, as if they were factual. Our desire to convince others of what we feel and how important those feelings are, lures us into evoking the name of Truth and Fact.

Behind the scenes there is so much going on, like a busy production room. Of course, this is not for public viewing, and for a lot of people it would ruin the performance. I am trying to say that we are all story tellers. We are all participant and active, in the story of our lives, even if the story we tell is one of helplessness, and hopelessness. Of course, the helpless and hopeless, would never want to admit that they have anything to do with the scripting of that particular play.

We are not the performance.
We are not just the performance.
We are the script writer, the director, the actor, and the performance.
So, what kind of story are we telling?