Self-Addiction: A Trilogy (Part 2)

To reiterate: the problem that I have been running into is that I cannot really look at the world through any lens that isn’t mine. My “self” is something that I naturally submit to; it is what I follow when I approach things uncritically, and what I am fighting against when I try to live objectively. This problem is more of something that hurts me, first and foremost, but it also hurts other people.

I said I would, in this blog, talk about how this self-addiction causes problems in someone’s life and how to overcome them. First, I wanted to spend some time narrowing down what I mean by self-addiction.

When I first started to think about this, I was struck by how what I was saying could easily be a kind of social communism which, if you were to take a bit further, could turn into advocating a hive-mind. As I understand communism, it is supporting the needs of the community over the needs of the self.  Science fiction has shown me that a hive-mind is when you destroy the self for the community; all people become one mind.

Then I thought of what I considered to be the opposite of communism: Ayn Rand and self-worship. I’ve only ever read Anthem once (when I was a senior in high school), so I don’t pretend to know a lot about her philosophy. However, I’ve played a lot of Bioshock, which is based on her philosophy. From what I can understand, the highest good for Ayn Rand (at least the highest good in Bioshock) is whatever I want or desire.

I’m against both of these philosophies because both of them are right only some of the time. On one level, Ayn Rand is right because the problem with destroying the self and becoming a hive-mind is that individuals become liable to be abused. People try and serve the community, but someone always ends up at the bottom. On the other hand, I’m definitely not advocating self-worship because then you end up with the Bioshock city of Rapture, a Utopia gone completely wrong over unrestricted selves.  Ironically, self-worship also ends with someone being trampled over.

So here are two things that I believe hold true: 1) Other people are important 2) I am important.

The next thought that I had was that what would be best to do is to balance between my “self” and others’ “selves”, but this didn’t work.  The main reason that I think this kind of balance is the wrong answer is because it falls into one of the holes that I mentioned in part 1: it still focuses on the self.

Suppose your spouse wants you to spend 60% of your time with her, your boss thinks you need to spend 60% of your time at work, your kids need you to shuttle them around 60% of the time, and you personally want to spend about 60% of your time doing whatever it is you want to do. So, mathematically speaking, you can make 1 out of 4 people happy, or you could be fair and give everyone 25% of your time, making no 

one happy. I don’t think I’m exaggerating either. Selves contradict.

Don’t forget this example. I find it to be important.

Nietzsche’s solution was for us to just make the world the way that you want it to be. It’s impossible to be fair, but fairness does not really exist. Fairness is a construct that people came up with.  So…redefine fairness. I can make fairness mean whatever I want it to. This kind of makes sense because I can come up with many reasons to justify putting my spouse, kids, job, or self first. I could just choose one and stick to it.

Like before, I’m against both of these because they’re both somewhat right. Balancing selves is not what needs to happen because, ultimately, nothing really gets accomplished, yet Nietzsche is right on some level because at least you get something accomplished. However, I hate Nietzsche; he’s an asshole. I think Nietzsche is saying that whatever you do is “good” (of course Nietzsche himself is above such abstract constructs as good and evil). You get positive movement with his view because any movement is positive. From Nietzsche’s standpoint, I could decide to just pick up a gun, shoot all the people, and then shoot myself, and that would be fine because I decided. Obviously, that doesn’t work either, because there is something to be said for objectivity and happiness.

So here are another two things that I find true: 3) Doing something that actually improves things is important 4) Feelings are important.

A kind of balance is, I believe, the right answer, but it won’t be a balance that can be come up with by thinking from a “self” perspective. Because, like I said, if you look at it from that perspective, you have to end with someone being unhappy. Someone always loses.

I got into an argument with my friend because he likes to win. All the time. We both love competition because we both love testing our skills, seeing our hard work rewarded, and learning to be better. As a result, I think you can be happy to lose if you tried your best, because then you can learn to be better and, heck, you at least got to play. I also think that if outside circumstances cause you to lose, you don’t need to be upset with that. My example to him was that if you’re playing in the Super bowl and your quarterback gets sick the day of the game and that causes you to lose, you don’t need to be upset. He says that it’s human to be upset with that; we’re naturally upset when circumstances beyond our control ruin all our hard work. And I agree with that.

However, if losing the Super bowl was GENUINELY unavoidable because of something completely outside of your control, it seems like you have two options: 1) Be upset at having lost, then get over it because it was outside of your control 2) Be pissed off forever because you cannot change the thing that was outside of your control. 

What’s important about football? Is it the game, or winning the game? If it’s the game, then being good and winning becomes important because it’s dedication and loyalty to the game. If winning is important, things like good sportsmanship, kindness to the other team, rules, and improvement are all secondary to the win. If you care about the game, you’ll always try to get better. If you care about winning and believe you’re the best, you’ll never get any better.

Arguably, it can be said part of being the best is constantly getting better so no one will ever beat you. Suppose you were unbeatable in football. Not because you CANNOT get any better as a player; you just have some kind of luck that secures wins. You always win, no matter what. If all you care about is winning, you will not spend any time getting better unless you care about the game. That’s why you can have successful assholes, because success and attitude do not have to match.

5) “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Here are the other points that I’ve made:

1) Other people are important.
2) I am important.
3) Doing something that actually improves things is important.
4) People’s feelings are also important.

Now I’m going to do a really cool play on words to show how these seemingly contradictory points can all work together without developing a kind of freak balance.

My personhood (humanness) is important; my “self” is not as important.

I’m totally giddy about this.

This is what I’ve noticed: there is something inside me that puts my desires in front of others, in more and more insidious ways. This thing that is inside me that simply states “Hey, don’t forget what you want/think” is what I am calling my “self”.  It’s the part of me that is simply saying to put my own wants, thoughts, dreams, imaginations, and desires first (all of which are very human things). And it’s something that I’ve caught more and more.

I was visiting with an old friend of mine and we were talking about the things that were going on in her life. She told me about the difficulties that one of her friends is facing and my mind began grasping for the times in my life where I faced a similar difficulty. When I responded to her, I said something like “Yeah, when I was dealing with blah, I remember feeling like blah because blah blah blah.” I was a bit surprised with my response (not because of the blahs). When I told her what I thought , I don’t think I made a bad observation (I rarely do). But the observation I made was centered on my self. The way I….offered insight was by looking at it through my perspective (which isn’t even really wrong because sometimes multiple perspectives come in handy). However, in this instance, my response was very sel oriented; I took her friend’s problem and then focused on it through my own self (or, you could even say I took her friend’s problem and made it into my own).

There is a communication technique that has you reiterate what you just heard the other person say, and I’ve always thought it was a stupid technique. “I’m having a bad day.” “What I hear you saying is that you’re having a bad day.” Redundant. I feel like I’m treating the other person like a child whenever I do it, and I feel like the other person is treating me like a child if they do it to me. I’d much rather a person understand me just from what I’m saying. And yet….

I like to think that I’m a decent writer and that I kick ass when it comes to public speaking (I should be, I like to soapbox a lot). However, these skills do not transfer when it comes to my ability to hold a conversation.  Part of the problem is that I make many assumptions based on little information. The positive side of this is I can sometimes know what someone is trying to say when they’re struggling to find the words for it. The terrible side is that I’m very bad at listening to someone uncritically; I form opinions without asking very many questions.

My BFF is helping me get over this. He constantly reminds me that the only way to really understand someone else is by stepping out of our own head and listening to other people. I like playing mental and emotional games with people; it’s like conversational foreplay to me. Words and thoughts are fun and I enjoy experimenting with them. However, since I already have a difficult time in conversations, making them a game where I’m trying to figure the other person out with as little information as possible is definitely not helpful. Yet I don’t think I’m the only person who does this.  Watch as I rephrase it:

I find that I only listen to people long enough to understand them in my own head. I come to a point where 

they make sense to me, and then I stop listening.  My goal was to “win” and I’ve won at that point.

And that is what I was trying to do with my old friend. The problem was not what I said or even the fact that I wanted insight, as both are good things. The problem was that my desire to be helpful and insightful was more important to me than ACTUALLY being helpful and insightful. I wanted to be helpful my way; I didn’t even bother ask if my way was the right way. When it comes down to it, who is the person who has the most to lose in that situation? Probably me. Even if my advice works, I never understood my friend; I only saw her as the friend I thought she was. I was left with the image of my friend but not my friend. The problem with wanting to be the person with all the answers is that you become alone with your answers.

For what good is it if you inherit the whole world, yet you’re alone when you get it?

My BFF and I came to this conclusion that the best teachers and leaders are the people who were first the best students and followers. Think about it. What people are you most likely to listen to or follow? The people who you think understand you, what is going on, and knows what needs to be done. The people who understand you are the ones who listen to you. Good teachers are, in a way, students to their students; they need to understand what their students are going through to benefit them instead of thinking that “Because I am their teacher, I know what is best.” The best parents are those who listen to their children instead of saying “I know that you need this.” The best lovers are those who listen to their beloved instead of saying “You were never like this before.”

As the old proverb goes, be quick to listen and slow to speak.

That silly and redundant communication technique I mentioned before is far more helpful than I imagined. Anyone who can “understand” me without bothering to get to know me does not really know me, and when I strive to do that with other people, I don’t know them either. In these instances, my self is what is getting in the way. I pursue the way I want to be understood, but that’s not the way people actually understand each other. The way to understand someone is to think what they think. Because if you’re having a bad day, I think it’s more important to understand what you think is bad instead of assuming that your bad means the same as mine. There are definitely different types of bad days.

And here is why I think all this is important to personhood/humanity verses the self. Humans can have bad days. Humans can have likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams, imaginations, thoughts, reasons, and perspectives. Each of these things is great in-and-of themselves, but they all become huge problems when they isolate us. When my dreams are more important than yours, I ignore your dreams. When I treat your dreams as more important than mine, my dreams become ignored. What’s true in both situations is that people need to dream, and preventing anyone, myself or someone else, from dreaming isolates them. It kills humanity in favor of the self.  

I think that 60% problem I mentioned earlier is better approached from this perspective: listen and understand why others need your time and why you need to take care of yourself, and then deal with it. What’s fascinating to me is how what I want and what I need fall rarely fall in line. I never have time to do everything I want to do or everything everyone else wants me to do, but I almost always have time to do what needs to be done. Even though I can easily figure out on my own what I want and what other people want, I can only figure out what people need by listening to them and understanding the world by adopting their perspective. I have to be able to move outside of my self to find out my own needs in relation to the needs of others and the world around me so that harmony can be reached.

After all, it takes two to tango.