A very wise friend of mine, mentioned before in the post on parallel process, often talks about the notion of insulating ourselves from ourselves. That's his way of considering and communicating the idea that we create distractions for ourselves, so we can avoid the work at hand. Such a rich concept bears some exploration.
This notion of self-insulation as a deterrent to self-responsibility fascinates me, and it recently came clear in a conversation with a friend of mine on how it is that we can often be so attentive to the "houses" of others while our own "house" remains something of a mess, which lead to a consideration of the idea that our environment is often a rather accurate indicator of our state of mind. A flash of insight brought these ideas of self-insulation, self-responsibility and escape together into something that I feel can only be described as a sort of "matrix of neurosis".
I have long held that we are, for the most part, simply a collection of social tendencies and, more to the point, a collection of neurotic habits. As we begin to recognize the neurotic and redundant quality of various behaviors, we (hopefully) endeavor to transform those habits from something stagnant and unproductive into something more evolutionary in nature. Stagnation is the key word here, as it is this stagnation that makes a habit neurotic, as opposed to just simply a habit.
We create all manner of distraction for ourselves; we drink, we watch television, we shop, we surf the ‘Net, sometimes we just simply sit around. No matter the warp and woof of that distraction, it draws a curtain between our personhood - the small self -- and our manifest human potential - our superconscious self-realization. We become mired in our distractions and it is not only the progress of our evolution that stagnates, but our ability to recognize and develop our full potential, as well.
One of our most formidable distractions is other people. We will often invest ourselves in the lives of others in order to escape facing what we have on our own plate. To that point, one of the mantras of alcoholism often heard in rehab units is, "I'll help you, then I'll help you, then I'll help you...then I'll have a drink".
More than anything, this sensibility sets an intention of self-neglect, of a disregard for the self cloaked in a seeming altruism, but which, ultimately, only fails everyone involved.
This whole system harkens directly back to the idea that we will often - consciously or unconsciously - endeavor to escape ourselves by tending to someone else's "house", rather than our own. And, sometimes, this is a very literal circumstance.
I have a very close friend and colleague whose personal life is a disaster. He is very likely the archetype of self-neglect. His house is a mess, his finances a shambles, he drinks too much, eats too little, relies too much on his meds to get him through and has, through morbid self-mismanagement, scuttled his career, lost first his marriage, and then the love of his life, yet he continues to set fire to every bridge he crosses.
Still, despite all of this, he is one of the most gifted and effective therapists -- and truly one of the most beautiful human beings -- that I have ever had the grace and privilege to know. Here is a case of a man who cleans up everyone else's house - with stunning alacrity - while leaving his own to rot.
So, this is a lovely little rant, but it begs the question, "What's the deal?" The deal is what it often always is - self-valuation. We tend not to recognize our own worth and, therefore, become almost disposable to ourselves. We are sometimes more content to live in a state of social and emotional purgatory, focusing on the needs of others - both overtly and covertly - than to look in our own backyard. While everything and everyone else is worth the effort, we feel that we are somehow not worth that effort.
And this brings us back to my very first post in this venue, "Learning to Be Self-ish". It is a lesson well worth learning, for, when we do, the help that we lend to others is not only more authentic in its intention, but more genuine in its rewards.
© 2009 Michael J. Formica, All Rights Reserved
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