How Can We Get Ready To Write? (Chapter 2)

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What Should You Write?

• Write about what keeps you awake at night.
• Write to learn where you need to go.

Trust where your writing takes you. You may start with a trauma / emotional upheaval but soon begin writing about other topics. As long as these other topics are emotionally important, follow them. If, however, you find yourself writing about what you would like for dinner — or some other distracting topic — then force yourself back to the trauma / emotional upheaval.

# Write about issues relevant to the here and now.

# Write only about traumas that are present in your mind.

Write only about traumas that are present in your mind.

A remarkable amount of literature deals with repressed memories. The repressed memory literature explores the idea that people have had horrible childhood experiences that they don’t remember — many of which involved childhood sexual abuse. The writing you are doing here focuses on what you are aware of now. If you have no memory of a given childhood experience, why not go with the working assumption that it never happened? After all, you wouldn’t know the difference anyway. Write only about conscious traumas and upheavals. It will save you thousands of dollars in therapy and legal bills.

How Much Time Should You Write?

How frequently to write.

While there is some debate about whether it is better to write for four consecutive days or to separate your writing days, there is nothing conclusive either way.

How long for each session.

In most large-scale studies, people wrote for around twenty minutes on three to four occasions.

How many days to write.

What if you find that you enjoy writing and want to continue past four days? Do it.

Booster-writing sessions

Think of expressive writing as a tool always be at your disposal, or like having medicine in your medicine cabinet. No need to take the medicine when you are healthy, but when you are under the weather, you can always turn to it. Once you have tried writing as a healing agent, try it again when you need to. Also, you might find that in the future, you won’t need to write for four days, twenty minutes a day. Merely writing occasionally when something bothers you might be sufficient.

Writing prescription: To Journal or Not to Journal?

Sometimes a healthcare provider may tell a patient, “You should write about that in a journal,” but that’s as far as the prescription goes. You may wonder, is keeping a daily journal a good idea? Ironically, there is no clear evidence that keeping a daily journal or diary is good for your health, perhaps in part because once people get in the habit of writing every day, they devote less and less time to dealing with important psychological issues. Sometimes a journal can become a worn path with little benefit.

Writing in a journal about the same trauma, using the same words, expressing the same feelings over and over is a bit like the grandmother in Eudora Welty’s story, A Worn Path. The woman in this story travels the same path every year at the same time, seeking medicine for a child who died years before. No medicine will bring back the grandmother’s dead child. Writing in a journal every day about that same issue with the same words in the same way will probably not bring the relief you seek and may actually do more harm than good.

My own experience is that journal writing works best on an as-needed basis as a life-course correction. If your life is going well, you are happy, and are not obsessing about things in the past, why over analyze yourself?

Let it go and enjoy life as it comes. It is safe to say that some future miseries will visit you again. When they happen, do some expressive writing to deal with them.

When Should You Write?

How soon after a Trauma / Emotional Upheaval?

# Recent trauma / emotional upheaval

# Present trauma / emotional upheaval

# Past trauma / emotional upheaval

# Future trauma / emotional upheaval: Is it helpful to write about the eventual death of a loved one? Or a divorce that you know is coming? Or something else in the future? Sure, why not? It’s free. But in your writing, explore why you are having the feelings and how these feelings relate to other issues in your life. Remember that the point of this writing is how we make sense of a troubling experience or event and how we incorporate that experience into the entire story of our lives.

Some Questions To Ponder Over

• Is This a Good Time in Your Life to Write?
• What’s the Best Time of Day to Write?
• Where Should You Write?
• What Technology Do You Need to Write?

Think about:

# Creating a unique environment.

# Creating a ritual for writing.

And Finally, The Flip-Out Rule

I hereby declare you ready to begin your expressive writing experience.

But before you start, it is important to review The Flip-Out Rule.

If you feel that writing about a particular topic is too much for you to handle, then do not write about it. If you know that you aren’t ready to address a particularly painful topic, then write about something else. When you are ready, then tackle the other topic. If you feel that you will flip out by writing, don’t write.

What could be simpler?

Enjoy your writing.

Tags: Book Summary,Psychology,

Drop it (CH 2 from the book 'Why we meditate')

If you can’t change anything, why worry?

And if you can change something, why worry?

—TIBETAN SAYING

THE EXPLANATION BY TSOKNYI RINPOCHE

When I was growing up in Nepal and northern India in the seventies and eighties, the pace of life was not too fast. Most people felt quite grounded. Our bodies were loose, and we’d sit down for tea at any time. We smiled easily. Of course we faced plenty of challenges, like poverty and lack of opportunity, but stress and speediness were not really part of the picture.

But as these places slowly developed, the pace of life sped up. There were more and more cars on the road, and more people had jobs with deadlines and expectations. Many people had caught a whiff of middle-class life and wanted a piece of it. I noticed people starting to show signs of stress, physically and mentally. They’d fidget more, their legs quivering nervously under the table.

Their gaze was less steady—eyes darting around—and they smiled less freely.

I felt it myself too when I started working on complex projects. I’d started a multiyear initiative to preserve the texts of my lineage, and the project office was across town. I’d wake up and my mind would already be in the office. My feeling world would be hammering me, Go, go, go! Just one swipe with your toothbrush and spit! Just put the whole breakfast in your mouth, chew once, and swallow! You don’t have time for this!

On my drive across town to my office, the Kathmandu traffic was almost unbearable. Just step on the gas! Don’t worry if you bump someone—doesn’t matter! Just get there now! By the time I walked into the office, I’d feel burned- out already. I’d quickly everyone, not slowing down and taking the time to really check in. I’d want to get out of there as soon as I could.

Ducking out, I’d go somewhere, anywhere—like a coffee shop. Sitting there with nothing particular to do, I’d want to calm down but still felt anxious and restless. My whole being felt like a big buzzy lump—my body, feelings, and mind were all stressed for no reason.

But one day I decided to challenge myself. I would start to respect my body’s speed limit, its natural speed, instead of listening to the stubborn, distorted speedy energy. I said to myself, I will just do everything normally, at the right pace. Whenever I reach my office, I reach my office. I won’t let the restless energy push me.

I went through my morning relaxed, moving at a pace that suited me. I stretched in bed before getting up. I brushed my teeth properly, taking enough time to do it right. When the speedy energy tried to push me—Go faster, get there now! Grab something for breakfast and eat it in the car!—I didn’t listen.

I was respecting my body’s speed limit. Sitting down for breakfast, I chewed properly, tasting my meal. I drove at the appropriate speed, without a sense of rush. I even enjoyed the drive. Whenever the speedy energy told me to go faster —Just get there—I smiled and shook my head. In the end, I reached my office almost at the same time as before.

Walking in, I felt fresh and relaxed. The office seemed calmer and more beautiful than I remembered. I sat down and drank tea with my staff, looking each of them in the eyes and really checking in. There was no urge to leave.

Finding Our Ground

I’d like to start from the ground up. In my tradition we like building things— temples, nunneries, monasteries, stupas. Maybe it’s a compensation for our nomadic roots. In any case, our metaphors often involve construction. As any builder knows, it’s important to have a solid foundation to build on. For meditation, it’s also important to have a healthy, solid foundation to begin with.

The raw material is our bodies, minds, and feelings. We’re working with our thoughts and emotions—our happiness and sadness, our challenges and struggles. In the case of meditation, a solid foundation means we’re grounded, we’re present, we’re connected. These days, for many reasons, this can be quite tough. So I like to start my own practice, and the practice of my students, with a grounding exercise: a way to find the body, land in the body, connect to the body. The busyness of our thinking minds is seemingly endless and often leaves us feeling anxious, tired, and ungrounded. So this approach is to cut through the whirling thoughts, to bring awareness back into the body, and to just be there for a while. We are reconnecting our minds and our bodies, finding our ground.

The Technique of Dropping

Dropping is not so much a meditation as a way to temporarily cut through the tension-building stream of constant thinking, worrying, and speediness. It allows us to land in the present moment, in a grounded and embodied way. It gets us ready for meditation.

In dropping you do three things at the same time:

1. Raise your arms and then let your hands drop onto your thighs.

2. Exhale a loud, big breath.

3. Drop your awareness from thinking into what your body feels.

Learning to Relax

Relaxation is a funny thing. We all want it, but actually doing it is surprisingly difficult. We often think of relaxing as the opposite of being alert. Being alert and aware is our “on mode” where we get things done, while relaxing is a way to switch off and dim our systems down.

When we think about relaxing we might see ourselves collapsing into a couch with a remote control and becoming mindless. This relaxing into dullness gives some temporary relief but doesn’t help the root cause of the stress. The stress lingers underneath, and we end up not feeling as refreshed as we’d hoped. Dropping is a different approach to relaxing. It’s a deeper, inner relaxing, connected to our bodies and feelings, not trying to escape from them and relax somewhere else. Rather than cultivating a dull state as an antidote to stress, we are learning how to relax with awareness and address the root cause of this imbalance where we live lost in our thoughts.

For many beginners in meditation, worrisome thoughts can feel like an unconquerable obstacle—we often hear from people just starting to practice some version of “My mind is out of control. I can’t do this!” Dropping targets this universal predicament: our thoughts keep going and can overwhelm our practice.

Dropping gives us a way to clear our mind, if only for moments, so we can start again from a grounded, embodied place. Dropping breaks the tension- building stream of constant thinking, worrying, and speediness and readies us for every other meditation practice, so we begin with that.

Try These Drop-It-All Mantras

It can be helpful sometimes to use a mantra—a phrase you repeat silently to yourself —while doing this dropping practice. There are two mantras I like to use; try them each to see which works best for you. Here’s the first one: Just after your hands hit your lap, say this mantra silently to yourself, or in a whisper, over and over: “So what! Who cares? No big deal.”

This sends a message to our anxious, worrying minds. It’s a reminder to the part of our minds that cares too much—that holds everything a bit too tightly. Of course caring to the right degree is good and important, but it’s too often mixed with extra anxiety and becomes neurotic over-concern. So this mantra is an antidote for all that.

You can also try this one: “Whatever happens, happens. Whatever doesn’t happen, doesn’t happen.”

You can repeat this one over and over inside your mind, or try whispering it to yourself if that’s helpful.

This message reminds us to be with the flow of experience, instead of trying to control everything. Even though we know this intellectually, we need to remind our feeling bodies. That’s where the speediness is held; that’s where the stress accumulates. These mantras have another purpose, to strengthen communication between our cognitive minds and our feeling bodies. As we’ll explore in the next technique, this relationship can often be strained—and this can cause problems.

What this book (Why We Meditate) offers you (Chapter 1)

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Why We Meditate: The Science And Practice of Clarity and Compassion
CH 1: WHAT THIS BOOK OFFERS YOU

A word about the authors:

Who is Tsoknyi Rinpoche?

Tsoknyi Rinpoche is a Tibetan Buddhist teacher and the spiritual head of the Pundarika Foundation. He was born in 1966 in Nubri, Nepal, and is a renowned meditation master and author. Tsoknyi Rinpoche is part of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, which is one of the oldest schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche comes from a long line of meditation masters, and he received extensive training in both the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions. He is known for his accessible and humorous teaching style, making ancient Buddhist wisdom relevant and applicable to contemporary audiences.

Who is Daniel Goleman?

Daniel Goleman is an American psychologist and science journalist best known for his work on emotional intelligence. He was born on March 7, 1946, in Stockton, California. Goleman earned his PhD in psychology from Harvard University.

He gained widespread recognition with the publication of his book "Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ" in 1995. In this influential book, Goleman explores the concept of emotional intelligence and argues that it is a crucial factor in personal and professional success. He contends that emotional intelligence, which includes skills like self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and interpersonal skills, plays a significant role in determining a person's effectiveness in various aspects of life.

Apart from his work on emotional intelligence, Goleman has written extensively on topics related to psychology, education, and leadership. Some of his other notable books include "Social Intelligence," "Working with Emotional Intelligence," and "Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence."

This book is for you:

(1) if you have been considering starting meditation and are not sure why you should or how to begin;

(2) if you are meditating but wonder why or what to do next to progress;

(3) or if you already are a convinced meditator and want to help someone you care about get going, by giving them this book.

Tags: Psychology,Buddhism,Book Summary,

Why Write about Emotional Upheaval? (Chapter 1)

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Emotional Writing: A Brief History

Figure 1. Yearly physician visits for illness among people who report not having had a childhood trauma (No Trauma), having had one or more traumas about which they confided (Trauma — Confide), or having had at least one significant childhood trauma that they had kept secret (Trauma — No Confide).

Figure 2. Yearly number of physician visits for illness in the three months after the experiment for participants in the emotional writing and control (non-emotional writing) conditions.

The No Writing data is based on students who did not participate in the experiment.

What Are the Effects of Writing?

Biological effects

The immune system.

The body’s immune system can function more or less effectively, depending on the person’s stress level.

Studies find that emotional writing is associated with general enhancement in immune function [1]

Medical markers of health.

Expressive writing finds usage in tracking general / overall health of the patient of any illness.

[1]: Koschwanez et al., 2013; Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glasser & Glasser 1988; Lumley et al. 2011

Physiological indicators of stress

Somewhat surprisingly, while people write or talk about traumas, they often show immediate signs of reduced stress: lower muscle tension in their face, and drops in hand skin conductance (often used in lie detection to measure the stress of deception and also easily measured with readily available Biodot® skin thermometers). Immediately after writing about emotional topics, people have lower blood pressure and heart rates.

Psychological Effects

# Mood changes immediately after writing: Feeling sad is normal.

# Long-term mood changes.

Writing may make you sad for a brief time after writing, but the long-term effects are far more positive.

Behavioral Changes

# Performance at school or work:

Among beginning college students, expressive writing helps people adjust to their situation better.

# Working Memory

Working memory is the technical term for our general ability to think about complex tasks. If we are worrying about things — including emotional upheavals from the past — we have less working memory.

Expressive writing, we now know, frees working memory, allowing us to deal with more complicated issues in our lives (Klein & Boals 2001).

Students who did expressive writing about upcoming exams reported improved mood prior to their exams and improved performance (Dalton & Glenwick 2009; Frattaroli, Thomas, & Lyubomirsky 2011).

Dealing with our social lives.

Working with other people can sometimes be a daunting psychological task. The more emotional stress we are under, the more draining it is. Recent studies have suggested that expressive writing can enhance the quality of our social lives.

Writing Style

Some ways of writing appear to work better than others do. Recent studies by multiple labs are converging on some common guidelines. People tend to benefit most from expressive writing if they:

Openly acknowledge emotions.

Emotional experience is part of a trauma. The ability to feel and label both the negative and the positive feelings that occurred during and following the trauma is important.

Work to construct a coherent story.

Immediately after a trauma, things often seem out of control and disconnected. One goal of expressive writing is to begin to put things together again. One way of accomplishing this is to make a meaningful story of what happened and how it is affecting you. Many argue that the brain is a narrative organ and that story-making is hardwired into our very nature. Creating a narrative, including a coherent beginning, middle, and end, is a well-documented part of trauma treatment and holds much promise for benefits from writing about trauma.

Switch perspectives.

People who have experienced a trauma initially see it from one perspective — their own. Indeed, when individuals first write about a massive upheaval, they first describe what they saw, felt, and experienced. Recent studies indicate that people who benefit the most from writing have been able to see events through others’ eyes. Indeed, even writing about a personal event in the third person has proven beneficial (Andersson & Conley 2013; Campbell & Pennebaker 2003; Seih et al. 2011).

Find your voice.

A guiding principle of expressive writing is that you express yourself openly and honestly. People who write in a cold, detached manner and who quote Shakespeare, Aristotle, or Henry Ford may be fine historians and may even write a great editorial in the local newspaper. But impressive writing is not the point of expressive writing. People who benefit the most from writing are able to find a voice that reflects who they are.

Tags: Book Summary,Psychology,

I am what I think I am (Chapter 1)

 In 1902, the sociologist Charles Horton Cooley wrote: “I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.”
Let that blow your mind for a moment.
Our identity is wrapped up in what others think of us—or, more accurately, what we think others think of us.
Not only is our self-image tied up in how we think others see us, but most of our efforts at self-improvement are really just us trying to meet that imagined ideal. If we think someone we admire sees wealth as success, then we chase wealth to impress that person. If we imagine that a friend is judging our looks, we tailor our appearance in response. In West Side Story, Maria meets a boy who's into her.
What's her very next song? “I Feel Pretty.”

~ ~ ~

When you try to live your most authentic life, some of your relationships will be put in jeopardy. Losing them is a risk worth bearing; finding a way to keep them in your life is a challenge worth taking on.

~ ~ ~

IS THIS DUST OR IS IT ME?

Gauranga Das offered me a beautiful metaphor to illustrate the external influences that obscure our true selves.

We are in a storeroom, lined with unused books and boxes full of artifacts.
Unlike the rest of the ashram, which is always tidy and well swept, this place is dusty and draped in cobwebs. The senior monk leads me up to a mirror and says, “What can you see?”
Through the thick layer of dust, I can't even see my reflection. I say as much, and the monk nods. Then he wipes the arm of his robe across the glass.
A cloud of dust puffs into my face, stinging my eyes and filling my throat. He says, “Your identity is a mirror covered with dust. When you first look in the mirror, the truth of who you are and what you value is obscured.
Clearing it may not be pleasant, but only when that dust is gone can you see your true reflection.”

This was a practical demonstration of the words of Chaitanya, a sixteenth- century Bengali Hindu saint. Chaitanya called this state of affairs ceto-darpaṇa- mārjanam, or clearance of the impure mirror of the mind.
The foundation of virtually all monastic traditions is removing distractions that prevent us from focusing on what matters most—finding meaning in life by mastering physical and mental desires. Some traditions give up speaking, some give up sex, some give up worldly possessions, and some give up all three. In the ashram, we lived with just what we needed and nothing more. I experienced rsthand the enlightenment of letting go. When we are buried in nonessentials, we lose track of what is truly significant. I'm not asking you to give up any of these things, but I want to help you recognize and filter out the noise of external influences. This is how we clear the dust and see if those values truly reflect you.

Guiding values are the principles that are most important to us and that we feel should guide us: who we want to be, how we treat ourselves and others.

Values tend to be single-word concepts like freedom, equality, compassion, honesty. That might sound rather abstract and idealistic, but values are really practical. They're a kind of ethical GPS we can use to navigate through life. If you know your values, you have directions that point you toward the people and actions and habits that are best for you. Just as when we drive through a new area, we wander aimlessly without values; we take wrong turns, we get lost, we're trapped by indecision. Values make it easier for you to surround yourself with the right people, make tough career choices, use your time more wisely, and focus your attention where it matters. Without them we are swept away by distractions.

WHERE VALUES COME FROM

Our values don't come to us in our sleep. We don't think them through consciously. Rarely do we even put them into words. But they exist nonetheless.
Everyone is born into a certain set of circumstances, and our values are defined by what we experience. Were we born into hardship or luxury? Where did we receive praise? Parents and caregivers are often our loudest fans and critics. Though we might rebel in our teenage years, we are generally compelled to please and imitate those authority gures. Looking back, think about how your time with your parents was spent. Playing, enjoying conversation, working on projects together? What did they tell you was most important, and did it match what mattered most to them? Who did they want you to be? What did they want you to accomplish? How did they expect you to behave? Did you absorb these ideals, and have they worked for you? From the start, our educations are another powerful influence. The subjects that are taught. The cultural angle from which they are taught. The way we are expected to learn. A fact-driven curriculum doesn't encourage creativity, a narrow cultural approach doesn't foster tolerance for people from different backgrounds and places, and there are few opportunities to immerse ourselves in our passions, even if we know them from an early age. This is not to say that school doesn't prepare us for life—and there are many different educational models out there, some of which are less restrictive—but it is worth taking a step back to consider whether the values you carried from school feel right to you.

TRY THIS: WHERE DID YOUR VALUES COME FROM?

It can be hard to perceive the effect these casual influences have on us. Values are abstract, elusive, and the world we live in constantly pushes blatant and subliminal suggestions as to what we should want, and how we should live, and how we form our ideas of who we are. Write down some of the values that shape your life. Next to each, write the origin. Put a checkmark next to each value that you truly share.

 
 
VALUE
 
ORIGIN
 
IS IT TRUE TO ME?
 

 
Kindness
 
Parent
 
✓
 

 
Appearance
 
Media
 
Not in the same way
 

 
Wealth
 
Parent
 
No
 

 
Good grades
 
School
 
Interfered with real learning
 

 
Knowledge
 
School
 
✓
 

 
Family
 
Tradition
 
Family: yes, but not traditional
 
 

When we tune out the opinions, expectations, and obligations of the world around us, we begin to hear ourselves.

~ ~ ~

AUDIT YOUR LIFE

No matter what you think your values are, your actions tell the real story. What we do with our spare time shows what we value. For instance, you might put spending time with your family at the top of your list of values, but if you spend all your free time playing golf, your actions don't match your values, and you need to do some self-examination.

Time

TRY THIS: AUDIT YOUR TIME

Spend a week tracking how much time you devote to the following: family, friends, health, and self. (Note that we're leaving out sleeping, eating, and working. Work, in all its forms, can sprawl without boundaries. If this is the case for you, then set your own definition of when you are “officially” at work and make “extra work” one of your categories.) The areas where you spend the most time should match what you value the most. Say the amount of time that your job requires exceeds how important it is to you. That's a sign that you need to look very closely at that decision. You're deciding to spend time on something that doesn't feel important to you. What are the values behind that decision? Are your earnings from your job ultimately serving your values?

Media

When you did your audit, no doubt a significant amount of your time was spent reading or viewing media. Researchers estimate that, on average, each of us will spend more than eleven years of our lives looking at TV and social media! Perhaps your media choices feel casual, but time reflects values.

Money

Like time, you can look at the money you spend to see the values by which you live. Exclude necessities like home, dependents, car, bills, food, and debt. Now look at your discretionary spending. What was your biggest investment this month? Which discretionary areas are costing you the most? Does your spending correspond to what matters most to you? We often have an odd perspective on what's “worth it” that doesn't quite make sense if you look at all your expenditures at once. I was advising someone who complained that the family was overspending on afterschool classes for the kids… until she realized that she spent more on her shoes than on their music lessons.
Seeing posts on social media that compared spending and our priorities got me thinking about how the ways we spend our time and money reveal what we value.

A 60-minute TV show (“Flew by!”) 

A 60-minute lunch with family (“Will it ever end!”) 

Everyday coffee habit ($4/day, almost $1,500/year) (“Need it!”) 

Fresh healthy food choices (an extra 1.50/day, about $550/year) (“Not worth it!”) 

15 minutes scrolling social media (“Me time!”) 

15 minutes of meditation (“No time!”) 

It's all in how you see it. When you look at a month of expenses, think about whether discretionary purchases were long- or short-term investments—a great dinner out or a dance class? Were they for entertainment or enlightenment, for yourself or someone else? If you have a gym membership, but only went once this month and spent more on wine, you have some rethinking to do.

CURATE YOUR VALUES

TRY THIS: PAST VALUES

Reflect on the three best and three worst choices you've ever made. Why did you make them? What have you learned? How would you have done it differently?

TRY THIS: VALUE-DRIVEN DECISIONS

For the next week, whenever you spend money on a nonnecessity or make a plan for how you will spend your free time, pause, and think: What is the value behind this choice? It only takes a second, a flash of consideration. Ideally, this momentary pause becomes instinctive, so that you are making conscious choices about what matters to you and how much energy you devote to it.

TRY THIS: COMPANION AUDIT 

Over the course of a week, make a list of the people with whom you spend the most time.
List the values that you share next to each person. Are you giving the most time to the people who align most closely with your values? 

Demystifying the book '12 Rules For Life'

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1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back

The phrase "Stand up straight with your shoulders back" is often used metaphorically to convey a deeper meaning beyond its literal interpretation. This phrase is associated with the idea of adopting a confident and assertive posture, both physically and metaphorically, in the face of life's challenges.

Metaphorically, it suggests that one should face difficulties and adversities with resilience, courage, and a positive attitude. Standing up straight symbolizes facing life with confidence and integrity, while having your shoulders back implies carrying yourself with strength and resilience.

The moral of "Stand up straight with your shoulders back" might encourage individuals to confront life's challenges head-on, maintaining a posture of strength, confidence, and self-assuredness. It's a call to face adversity with courage and resilience, ultimately contributing to personal growth and well-being. This moral aligns with the idea that maintaining a positive attitude and facing challenges with strength can lead to better outcomes and a more fulfilling life.

2: Treat Yourself Like Someone You Are Responsible For Helping

The moral "Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping" emphasizes the importance of self-care, self-compassion, and personal responsibility. This moral suggests that individuals should extend the same care, kindness, and consideration to themselves as they would to someone they are responsible for helping or taking care of.

In many cases, people tend to prioritize the well-being of others over their own. This moral encourages a shift in perspective, urging individuals to recognize their own value and take responsibility for their own care and happiness. It implies that just as we have a sense of responsibility to help and care for others, we should also apply that level of care to ourselves.

Practically, this moral promotes self-love, self-respect, and self-nurturing. It suggests that individuals should make choices that prioritize their physical and mental health, engage in activities that bring them joy and fulfillment, and treat themselves with the same empathy and kindness they would extend to a friend or someone they care for.

In summary, "Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping" encourages a balanced and compassionate approach to self-care, reminding individuals that taking care of themselves is a responsibility worth prioritizing.

3: MAKE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE WHO WANT THE BEST FOR YOU

The moral "Make friends with people who want the best for you" underscores the importance of choosing relationships that are positive, supportive, and beneficial for your well-being. This moral encourages individuals to be selective about the people they surround themselves with, emphasizing the value of friendships that contribute positively to personal growth and happiness.

In essence, this moral suggests that cultivating relationships with individuals who genuinely care about your well-being and success can have a positive impact on your life. True friends are those who celebrate your achievements, support you during challenges, and genuinely want to see you thrive and be your best self.

On a deeper level, this moral encourages reflection on the nature of friendships and the impact they can have on one's life. It prompts individuals to be discerning in their choice of friends and to prioritize relationships that foster a positive and uplifting environment. By making friends with those who have your best interests at heart, you're more likely to experience meaningful connections and a supportive social network.

Ultimately, the moral "Make friends with people who want the best for you" guides individuals to invest time and energy in relationships that contribute positively to their personal development and overall happiness.

4: COMPARE YOURSELF TO WHO YOU WERE YESTERDAY, NOT TO WHO SOMEONE ELSE IS TODAY

The moral "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today" encourages a healthy and constructive perspective on personal growth and self-improvement. This moral is rooted in the idea that the most meaningful and relevant measure of progress is your own development over time, rather than comparing yourself to others.

By focusing on your past self, you acknowledge the journey of personal improvement and growth. It promotes a mindset of continuous self-reflection and self-improvement. Comparing yourself to who you were yesterday implies setting personal benchmarks and goals, and striving to be a better version of yourself.

Conversely, comparing yourself to someone else can be counterproductive and may lead to feelings of inadequacy or unwarranted pride. Everyone's life path and circumstances are unique, and comparisons to others may not accurately reflect your own progress or challenges.

In essence, this moral story encourages individuals to be their own point of reference for growth, learning, and achievement. It promotes a positive and forward-looking mindset, emphasizing personal development and the realization that the journey of self-improvement is a continuous and individualized process.

5: DO NOT LET YOUR CHILDREN DO ANYTHING THAT MAKES YOU DISLIKE THEM

The statement "Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them" carries a message about parenting and the importance of guiding children toward positive behavior and character development. This perspective suggests that parents have a role in shaping their children's behavior and values, and they should actively discourage actions or behaviors that lead to dislike or disapproval.

On one level, this advice underscores the idea that parents should set boundaries and teach their children right from wrong. It encourages the cultivation of positive qualities such as respect, responsibility, and kindness. By discouraging behaviors that are likely to result in dislike, parents aim to guide their children toward actions that promote positive relationships and well-being.

However, it's crucial to interpret this statement with a balanced approach. While parents play a significant role in shaping their children's behavior, it's also important to allow children to make mistakes and learn from them. Parenting involves a delicate balance between providing guidance and allowing for independence and personal growth.

In summary, the advice "Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them" suggests a proactive and positive approach to parenting, emphasizing the importance of instilling values and behaviors that contribute to a healthy and harmonious family environment.

6: SET YOUR HOUSE IN PERFECT ORDER BEFORE YOU CRITICIZE THE WORLD

The statement "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world" conveys a moral lesson about personal responsibility, self-improvement, and the idea that one should address their own issues before passing judgment on others or the world at large. This phrase is often associated with Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, who uses it as a guiding principle for personal development.

At its core, this advice suggests that individuals should focus on improving their own lives, behaviors, and circumstances before being quick to criticize external factors, societal issues, or other people. It implies that one's ability to make a positive impact on the world is closely tied to their ability to manage and improve their own life first.

The metaphor of "setting your house in perfect order" refers to the idea of addressing personal challenges, developing resilience, and cultivating a sense of responsibility for one's own well-being. It doesn't necessarily mean achieving perfection but rather striving for personal improvement and stability.

In practical terms, this moral encourages self-reflection, self-discipline, and a proactive approach to dealing with personal challenges. It promotes the idea that by becoming a better and more responsible individual, a person is better equipped to contribute positively to the world and address larger issues effectively.

7: PURSUE WHAT IS MEANINGFUL (NOT WHAT IS EXPEDIENT)

The statement "Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)" encourages individuals to prioritize actions and pursuits that have long-term significance and purpose over those that provide quick and easy solutions or immediate gratification.

"Pursue what is meaningful" suggests a focus on activities, goals, or values that align with a deeper sense of purpose, fulfillment, and personal values. This could involve pursuing meaningful relationships, meaningful work, or engaging in activities that contribute positively to personal growth and the well-being of others.

On the other hand, "not what is expedient" implies avoiding shortcuts or quick fixes that may bring temporary relief or benefits but lack a lasting and substantial impact. It encourages individuals to resist the temptation of immediate gains if they come at the expense of long-term fulfillment or personal values.

In essence, this moral advice advocates for a thoughtful and intentional approach to life, urging individuals to make choices that resonate with their core beliefs and contribute to a sense of meaningfulness and purpose. It aligns with the idea that enduring satisfaction often comes from pursuing what is truly important and valuable, even if it requires more effort and time.

8: TELL THE TRUTH—OR, AT LEAST, DON'T LIE

The statement "Tell the truth—or, at least, don't lie" is a moral directive that emphasizes the importance of honesty and integrity in communication. At its core, it encourages individuals to be truthful and transparent in their interactions with others.

"Telling the truth" is a straightforward concept, advocating for the practice of conveying information that is accurate and honest. It implies a commitment to authenticity and sincerity in one's communication.

The latter part, "at least, don't lie," recognizes that while telling the absolute truth may not always be possible due to various factors, refraining from intentional deception is a fundamental principle. It suggests that if sharing the complete truth is challenging or inappropriate in a given situation, it is still important to avoid deliberate falsehoods.

This moral advice aligns with the values of honesty, trustworthiness, and ethical communication. It acknowledges that truth-telling can be complex in certain circumstances, but it underscores the importance of maintaining one's integrity by avoiding intentional deception and falsehoods. The underlying message is to prioritize honesty in communication and, at the very least, abstain from engaging in deceitful practices.

9: ASSUME THAT THE PERSON YOU ARE LISTENING TO MIGHT KNOW SOMETHING YOU DON'T

The statement "Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't" encourages an open-minded and humble approach to communication and learning. At its core, this advice suggests that when engaging in conversations or receiving information from others, it is beneficial to approach the interaction with the assumption that the other person may possess valuable insights, knowledge, or perspectives that you may not be aware of.

This mindset promotes active listening and a willingness to consider alternative viewpoints. It emphasizes the idea that everyone has unique experiences and expertise, and there is always an opportunity to learn from others. By assuming that the person you are listening to has something valuable to contribute, you are more likely to approach the conversation with respect and an eagerness to broaden your understanding.

In a broader sense, this advice fosters a culture of continuous learning and intellectual humility. It discourages arrogance or the assumption that one already knows everything, encouraging individuals to remain receptive to new information and diverse perspectives. Overall, the statement encourages a positive and collaborative approach to communication, where individuals are open to the possibility of gaining insights from others.

10: BE PRECISE IN YOUR SPEECH

The moral lesson "Be precise in your speech" emphasizes the importance of clarity, accuracy, and specificity when communicating. This advice encourages individuals to express themselves in a way that minimizes ambiguity and ensures that their intended message is accurately conveyed.

By being precise in speech, individuals can avoid misunderstandings and misinterpretations. It involves choosing words carefully, providing details, and articulating thoughts in a clear and unambiguous manner. Precision in speech is particularly important in professional settings, interpersonal relationships, and any situation where effective communication is crucial.

This moral lesson is often associated with the idea that clear communication is a responsibility, and it helps build trust and understanding among people. It suggests that using vague or imprecise language can lead to confusion and may not effectively convey the intended message.

In essence, "Be precise in your speech" encourages individuals to take the time to articulate their thoughts thoughtfully, using language that accurately reflects their intentions. This practice contributes to better communication, fosters understanding, and reduces the likelihood of miscommunication or misinterpretation.

11: DO NOT BOTHER CHILDREN WHEN THEY ARE SKATEBOARDING

The moral lesson "Do not bother children when they are skateboarding" is often associated with the idea of allowing individuals, particularly children, the freedom to engage in activities they enjoy without unnecessary interference or disruption. This advice carries several potential meanings:

    Respect for Autonomy: It suggests that children, like anyone else, should be allowed the autonomy to pursue their interests and hobbies without unnecessary interference or criticism. Skateboarding, in this context, serves as an example of an activity that some individuals enjoy for recreation and personal fulfillment.

    Encouragement of Independence: The advice may also imply the importance of fostering independence and self-expression in children. Allowing them to pursue activities like skateboarding without unnecessary interference can contribute to their sense of autonomy and confidence.

    Understanding Different Interests: It encourages adults to recognize and appreciate the diverse interests and activities that children may engage in, even if those activities might seem unconventional or risky to adults. It underscores the importance of understanding and respecting the choices of others, especially when those choices involve harmless activities that contribute to personal enjoyment and growth.

In a broader sense, this moral lesson might be a metaphor for respecting others' choices and interests in general, even if those choices don't align with one's own preferences or may seem unconventional. It advocates for a supportive and open-minded approach to individual pursuits and hobbies.

12: PET A CAT WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER ONE ON THE STREET

The moral lesson "Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street" might carry a metaphorical meaning rather than a literal one. In a broader sense, it could be interpreted as an encouragement to appreciate and engage with moments of joy or serenity that present themselves unexpectedly in life.

Here are a few potential interpretations:

    Appreciate the Small Pleasures: This advice might suggest taking the time to enjoy simple and pleasant moments that come your way, even in the midst of a busy or challenging day. Much like stopping to pet a cat, it encourages acknowledging and appreciating the small, positive aspects of life.

    Embrace Spontaneity: The idea of encountering a cat on the street is often associated with a spontaneous and unplanned occurrence. This moral lesson could be promoting the value of embracing spontaneity, being open to unexpected joys, and finding happiness in the little things.

    Practice Mindfulness: The act of petting a cat can be calming and mindful. This moral lesson might suggest incorporating mindfulness into daily life, being present in the moment, and finding joy in simple interactions.

    Promote Kindness: It could also symbolize the importance of kindness and connection. Taking a moment to interact with a cat, or by extension, being kind to others, even in passing, can contribute to a positive and compassionate outlook.

In summary, "Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street" may serve as a reminder to find joy in the present moment, appreciate the small pleasures in life, and embrace spontaneity and kindness.
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Tags: Psychology,Book Summary,

Psychology of Money (by Morgan Housel) - Summary

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Before we begin to summarize the book... 
First, let me tell you a story about a dentist appointment gone horribly awry.

It teaches us something vital about the dangers of giving advice about what to do with your money.
Clarence Hughes went to the dentist in 1931. His mouth was radiating pain.
His dentist put him under crude anesthesia to ease the pain. When Clarence awoke hours later he had 16 fewer teeth and his tonsils removed.

And then everything went wrong. Clarence died a week later from his surgery's complications.

His wife sued the dentist, but not because the surgery went awry. Every surgery risked death in 1931.
Clarence, she said, never consented to the procedures in the first place, and wouldn't if he were asked.

The case wove through courts, but went nowhere. Consent between doctor and patient wasn't black and white in 1931. One court summed up the idea that doctors require freedom to make the best medical decisions: “Without such, we could not enjoy the advancement of science.”

For most of history the ethos of medicine was that the doctor's job was to fix the patient, and what the patient thought about the doctor's treatment plans wasn't relevant. Dr. Jay Katz wrote about the philosophy in his book The Silent World Between Doctor and Patient:Doctors felt that in order to accomplish that objective they were obligated to attend to their patients' physical and emotional needs and to do so on their own authority, without consulting with their patients about the decisions that needed to be made. The idea that patients may also be entitled to sharing the burdens of decisions with their doctors was never part of the ethos of medicine.

This wasn't ego or malice. It was a belief in two points: Every patient wants to be cured.
There is a universal and right way to cure them.
Not requiring patient consent in treatment plans makes sense if you believe in those two points.
But that's not how medicine works.

In the last 50 years medical schools subtly shifted teaching away from treating disease and toward treating patients. That meant laying out the options of treatment plans, and then letting the patient decide the best path forward.

This trend was partly driven by patient-protection laws, partly by Katz's influential book, which argued that patients have wildly different views about what's worth it in medicine, so their beliefs have to be taken into consideration. Katz wrote:It is dangerous nonsense to assert that in the practice of their art and science physicians can rely on their benevolent intentions, their abilities to judge what is the right thing to do ... It is not that easy. Medicine is a complex profession and the interactions between physicians and patients are also complex.

That last line is important. “Medicine is a complex profession and the interactions between physicians and patients are also complex.”
You know what profession is the same? Financial advice.
I can't tell you what to do with your money, because I don't know you.
I don't know what you want. I don't know when you want it. I don't know why you want it.

So I'm not going to tell you what to do with your money. I don't want to treat you like a dentist treated Clarence Hughes.

But doctors and dentists aren't useless, obviously. They have knowledge.
They know the odds. They know what tends to work, even if patients come to different conclusions about what kind of treatment is right for them.
Financial advisors are the same. There are universal truths in money, even if people come to different conclusions about how they want to apply those truths to their own finances.
With that caveat in place, let's look at a few short recommendations that can help you make better decisions with your money.

1.
Go out of your way to find humility when things are going right and forgiveness/compassion when they go wrong. Because it's never as good or as bad as it looks. The world is big and complex. Luck and risk are both real and hard to identify. Do so when judging both yourself andothers. Respect the power of luck and risk and you'll have a better chance of focusing on things you can actually control. You'll also have a better chance of finding the right role models.

2.
Less ego, more wealth. Saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, and wealth is what you don't see. So wealth is created by suppressing what you could buy today in order to have more stuff or more options in the future. No matter how much you earn, you will never build wealth unless you can put a lid on how much fun you can have with your money right now, today.

3.
Manage your money in a way that helps you sleep at night. That's different from saying you should aim to earn the highest returns or save a specific percentage of your income. Some people won't sleep well unless they're earning the highest returns; others will only get a good rest if they're conservatively invested. To each their own. But the foundation of, “does this help me sleep at night?” is the best universal guidepost for all financial decisions.

4.
If you want to do better as an investor, the single most powerful thing you can do is increase your time horizon. Time is the most powerful force in investing. It makes little things grow big and big mistakes fade away. It can't neutralize luck and risk, but it pushes results closer towards what people deserve.

5.
Become OK with a lot of things going wrong. You can be wrong half the time and still make a fortune, because a small minority of things account for the majority of outcomes. No matter what you're doing with your money you should be comfortable with a lot of stuff not working. That's just how the world is. So you should always measure how you've done by looking at your full portfolio, rather than individual investments. It is fine to have a large chunk of poor investments and a few outstanding ones. That's usually the best-case scenario. Judging how you've done by focusing on individual investments makes winners look more brilliant than they were, and losers appear more regrettable than they should.

6.
Use money to gain control over your time, because not having control of your time is such a powerful and universal drag on happiness. The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want to, pays the highest dividend that exists in finance.

7.
Be nicer and less flashy. No one is impressed with your possessions as much as you are. You might think you want a fancy car or a nice watch.
But what you probably want is respect and admiration. And you're more likely to gain those things through kindness and humility than horsepower and chrome.

8.
Save. Just save. You don't need a specific reason to save. It's great to save for a car, or a downpayment, or a medical emergency. But saving for things that are impossible to predict or define is one of the best reasons to save. Everyone's life is a continuous chain of surprises.
Savings that aren't earmarked for anything in particular is a hedge against life's inevitable ability to surprise the hell out of you at the worst possible moment.

9.
Define the cost of success and be ready to pay it. Because nothing worthwhile is free. And remember that most financial costs don't have visible price tags. Uncertainty, doubt, and regret are common costs in the finance world. They're often worth paying. But you have to view them as fees (a price worth paying to get something nice in exchange) rather than fines (a penalty you should avoid).

10.
Worship room for error. A gap between what could happen in the future and what you need to happen in the future in order to do well is what gives you endurance, and endurance is what makes compounding magic over time. Room for error often looks like a conservative hedge, but if it keeps you in the game it can pay for itself many times over.

11.
Avoid the extreme ends of financial decisions. Everyone's goals and desires will change over time, and the more extreme your past decisions were the more you may regret them as you evolve.

12.
You should like risk because it pays off over time. But you should be paranoid of ruinous risk because it prevents you from taking futurerisks that will pay off over time.

13.
Define the game you're playing, and make sure your actions are not being influenced by people playing a different game.

14.
Respect the mess. Smart, informed, and reasonable people can disagree in finance, because people have vastly different goals and desires. There is no single right answer; just the answer that works for you.

Thank you!

Tags: Book Summary,Finance,

Summary of Maps of Meaning. Architecture of Belief (Part 1 of 2)

Book by Jordan B. Peterson

Broad Outline

The very high level and broad outline of the book is as follows:
The first chapter talks about the ideas of understanding the world as 'a place of things' and as a 'forum for action'. There it talks a bit about modeling the world around three questions:
1. What is?
2. What should be?
3. How should we therefore act?

Second chapter elaborates on the ideas of analyzing the world in terms of:
1. The unknown
2. The exploration
3. The known
Then the chapter looks at it from the lense of mythology and relates:
The unknown with The Great Mother
The known with The Great Father
And the explorer with The Archetypal Son

Third chapter talks about how new members (adults and children) are involved into a religion, under the umbrella of myths.

Preface

'A Place of Things' And 'A Forum for Action'

The world can be validly construed as a forum for action, as well as a place of things.

We describe the world as a place of things, using the formal methods of science. The techniques of narrative, however—myth, literature and drama—portray the world as a forum for action.

The two forms of representation have been unnecessarily set at odds, because we have not yet formed a clear picture of their respective domains.

The domain of the former view (A place of things) is the objective world—what is, from the perspective of intersubjective perception.

The domain of the latter view (a forum for action) is the world of value—what is and what should be, from the perspective of emotion and action.

A Forum For Action

The world as forum for action is composed, essentially, of three constituent elements, which tend to manifest themselves in typical patterns of metaphoric representation.

First is unexplored territory—the Great Mother, nature, creative and destructive, source and final resting place of all determinate things.

Second is explored territory—the Great Father, culture, protective and tyrannical, cumulative ancestral wisdom.

Third is the process that mediates between unexplored and explored territory—the Divine Son, the archetypal individual, the creative, the exploratory, and the vengeful adversary.

The Unknown, The Known and The Explorer

We are adapted to this world of divine characters, much as to the objective world.

The fact of this adaptation implies that the environment is in “reality” a forum for action, as well as a place of things.

Unprotected exposure to unexplored territory produces fear.

The individual is protected from such fear as a consequence of ritual imitation of the Great Father—as a consequence of the adoption of group identity, which restricts the meaning of things, and confers predictability on social interactions.

When identification with the group is made absolute, however—when everything has to be controlled, when the unknown is no longer allowed to exist—the creative exploratory process that updates the group can no longer manifest itself. This restriction of adaptive capacity dramatically increases the probability of social aggression.

Rejection of the unknown is tantamount to “identification with the devil,” the mythological counterpart and eternal adversary of the world-creating exploratory hero. Such rejection and identification is a consequence of Luciferian pride, which states: all that I know is all that is necessary to know. This pride is totalitarian assumption of omniscience—is adoption of God's place by “reason”—is something that inevitably generates a state of personal and social being indistinguishable from hell. This hell develops because creative exploration—impossible, without (humble) acknowledgment of the unknown—constitutes the process that constructs and maintains the protective adaptive structure that gives life much of its acceptable meaning.

Role of Personal Interest in Maintenance of The Group

“Identification with the devil” amplifies the dangers inherent in group identification, which tends of its own accord towards pathological stultification. Loyalty to personal interest-subjective meaning—can serve as an antidote to the overwhelming temptation constantly posed by the possibility of denying anomaly.

Personal interest—subjective meaning—reveals itself at the juncture of explored and unexplored territory, and is indicative of participation in the process that ensures continued healthy individual and societal adaptation.

Loyalty to personal interest is equivalent to identification with the archetypal hero—the “savior”—who upholds his association with the creative Word in the face of death, and despite group pressure to conform. Identification with the hero serves to decrease the unbearable motivational valence of the unknown; furthermore, provides the individual with a standpoint that simultaneously transcends and maintains the group.

Chapter 1: Maps of Experience

Object and Meaning

The world can be validly construed as forum for action, or as place of things.

The former manner of interpretation-more primordial, and less clearly understood-finds its expression in the arts or humanities, in ritual, drama, literature and mythology.

The world as forum for action is a place of value, a place where all things have meaning.

This meaning, which is shaped as a consequence of social interaction, is implication for action, or - at a higher level of analysis - implication for the configuration of the interpretive schema that produces or guides action.

A Place of Things

The latter manner of interpretation - the world as place of things - finds its formal expression in the methods and theories of science.

Science allows for increasingly precise determination of the consensually validatable properties of things, and for efficient utilization of precisely determined things as tools (once the direction such use is to take has been determined, through application of more fundamental narrative processes).

No complete world-picture can be generated without use of both modes (a forum for action and a place of things) of construal.

The fact that one mode is generally set at odds with the other means only that the nature of their respective domains remains insufficiently discriminated. Adherents of the mythological worldview tend to regard the statements of their creeds as indistinguishable from empirical “fact,” even though such statements were generally formulated long before the notion of objective reality emerged. Those who, by contrast, accept the scientific perspective—who assume that it is, or might become, complete-forget that an impassable gulf currently divides what is from what should be.

Four things we need to know

We need to know four things:

what there is,

what to do about what there is,

that there is a difference between knowing what there is, and knowing what to do about what there is

and what that difference is.

What there is

To explore something, to “discover what it is”—that means most importantly to discover its significance for motor output, within a particular social context, and only more particularly to determine its precise objective sensory or material nature. This is knowledge in the most basic of senses—and often constitutes sufficient knowledge.

What to do about what there is

Imagine that a baby girl, toddling around in the course of her initial tentative investigations, reaches up onto a countertop to touch a fragile and expensive glass sculpture. She observes its color, sees its shine, feels that it is smooth and cold and heavy to the touch. Suddenly her mother interferes, grasps her hand, tells her not to ever touch that object. The child has just learned a number of specifically consequential things about the sculpture—has identified its sensory properties, certainly. More importantly, however, she has determined that approached in the wrong manner, the sculpture is dangerous (at least in the presence of mother); has discovered as well that the sculpture is regarded more highly, in its present unaltered configuration, than the exploratory tendency—at least (once again) by mother. The baby girl has simultaneously encountered an object, from the empirical perspective, and its socioculturally determined status. The empirical object might be regarded as those sensory properties “intrinsic” to the object. The status of the object, by contrast, consists of its meaning—consists of its implication for behavior. Everything a child encounters has this dual nature, experienced by the child as part of a unified totality. Everything is something, and means something—and the distinction between essence and significance is not necessarily drawn.

Analysis of mythology

Proper analysis of mythology is not mere discussion of “historical” events enacted upon the world stage (as the traditionally religious might have it), and it is not mere investigation of primitive belief (as the traditionally scientific might presume). It is, instead, the examination, analysis and subsequent incorporation of an edifice of meaning, which contains within it hierarchical organization of experiential valence. The mythic imagination is concerned with the world in the manner of the phenomenologist, who seeks to discover the nature of subjective reality, instead of concerning himself with description of the objective world. Myth, and the drama that is part of myth, provide answers in image to the following question: “how can the current state of experience be conceptualized in abstraction, with regards to its meaning?” [which means its (subjective, biologically predicated, socially constructed) emotional relevance or motivational significance].

Meaning means implication for behavioral output; logically, therefore, myth presents information relevant to the most fundamental of moral problems: “what should be? (what should be done?)” The desirable future (the object of what should be) can be conceptualized only in relationship to the present, which serves at least as a necessary point of contrast and comparison. To get somewhere in the future presupposes being somewhere in the present; furthermore, the desirability of the place traveled to depends on the valence of the place vacated.

The Three Questions

The question of “what should be?” (what line should be traveled?) therefore has contained within it, so to speak, three subqueries, which might be formulated as follows:

1) What is? What is the nature (meaning, the significance) of the current state of experience?

2) What should be? To what (desirable, valuable) end should that state be moving?

3) How should we therefore act? What is the nature of the specific processes by which the present state might be transformed into that which is desired?

What should be?

Active apprehension of the goal of behavior, conceptualized in relationship to the interpreted present, serves to constrain or provide determinate framework for the evaluation of ongoing events, which emerge as a consequence of current behavior. The goal is an imaginary state, consisting of “a place” of desirable motivation or affect—a state that only exists in fantasy, as something (potentially) preferable to the present.

(Construction of the goal therefore means establishment of a theory about the ideal relative status of motivational states—about the good.) This imagined future constitutes a vision of perfection, so to speak, generated in the light of all current knowledge (at least under optimal conditions), to which specific and general aspects of ongoing experience are continually compared. This vision of perfection is the promised land, mythologically speaking—conceptualized as a spiritual domain (a psychological state), a political utopia (a state, literally speaking), or both, simultaneously.

Mythology comes to answer the questions for us...

We answer the question “what should be?” by formulating an image of the desired future.

We cannot conceive of that future, except in relationship to the (interpreted) present— and it is our interpretation of the emotional acceptability of the present that comprises our answer to the question “what is?” [“what is the nature (meaning, the significance) of the current state of experience?”].

We answer the question “how then should we act?” by determining the most efficient and self-consistent strategy, all things considered, for bringing the preferred future into being.

Our answers to these three fundamental questions—modified and constructed in the course of our social interactions—constitutes our knowledge, insofar as it has any behavioral relevance; constitutes our knowledge, from the mythological perspective.

The structure of the mythic known—what is, what should be, and how to get from one to the other—is presented in Figure 1:

Chapter 2: Maps of Meaning

Model of reality

You work in an office; you are climbing the corporate ladder. Your daily activity reflects this superordinate goal. You are constantly immersed in one activity or another designed to produce an elevation in your status from the perspective of the corporate hierarchy.

Today, you have to attend a meeting that may prove vitally important to your future. You have an image in your head, so to speak, about the nature of that meeting and the interactions that will characterize it. You imagine what you would like to accomplish. Your image of this potential future is a fantasy, but it is based, insofar as you are honest, on all the relevant information derived from past experience that you have at your disposal. You have attended many meetings. You know what is likely to happen, during any given meeting, within reasonable bounds; you know how you will behave, and what effect your behavior will have on others. Your model of the desired future is clearly predicated on what you currently know.

You also have a model of the present, constantly operative. You understand your (somewhat subordinate) position within the corporation, which is your importance relative to others above and below you in the hierarchy. You understand the significance of those experiences that occur regularly while you are during your job: you know who you can give orders to, who you have to listen to, who is doing a good job, who can safely be ignored, and so on. You are always comparing this present (unsatisfactory) condition to that of your ideal, which is you, increasingly respected, powerful, rich and happy, free of anxiety and suffering, climbing toward your ultimate success. You are unceasingly involved in attempts to transform the present, as you currently understand it, into the future, as you hope it will be. Your actions are designed to produce your ideal— designed to transform the present into something ever more closely resembling what you want. Your are confident in your model of reality, in your story; when you put it into action, you get results.

A story about the unknown

Let's talk about 'the' scheduled meeting you have at work.

You prepare yourself mentally for your meeting. You envision yourself playing a centrally important role—resolutely determining the direction the meeting will take, roducing a powerful impact on your co-workers. You are in your office, preparing to leave. The meeting is taking place in another building, several blocks away. You formulate provisional plans of behavior designed to get you there on time. You estimate travel time at fifteen minutes.

You leave your office on the twenty-seventh floor, and you wait by the elevator. The minutes tick by—more and more of them. The elevator fails to appear. You had not taken this possibility into account. The longer you wait, the more nervous you get. Your heart

rate starts increasing, as you prepare for action (action unspecified, as of yet). Your palms sweat. You flush. You berate yourself for failing to consider the potential impact of such a delay. Maybe you are not as smart as you think you are. You begin to revise your model of yourself. No time for that now: you put such ideas out of your head and concentrate on the task at hand.

The unexpected has just become manifest—in the form of the missing elevator. You planned to take it to get where you were going; it did not appear. Your original plan of action is not producing the effects desired. It was, by your own definition, a bad plan. You need another one—and quickly. Luckily you have an alternate strategy at your disposal.

The stairs! You dash to the rear of the building. You try the door to the stairwell. It is locked. You curse the maintenance staff. You are frustrated and anxious. The unknown has emerged once again. You try another exit. Success! The door opens. Hope springs forth from your breast. You still might make it on time. You rush down the stairs—all twenty-seven floors—and onto the street.

Effects the Unknown has on you

You are, by now, desperately late. As you hurry along, you monitor your surroundings: is progress toward your goal continuing? Anyone who gets in your way inconveniences you—elderly women, playful, happy children, lovers out for a stroll. You are a good person, under most circumstances—at least in your own estimation. Why, then, do these innocent people aggravate you so thoroughly? You near a busy intersection. The crosswalk light is off. You fume and mutter away stupidly on the sidewalk. Your blood pressure rises. The light finally changes. You smile and dash forward. Up a slight rise you run. You are not in great physical shape. Where did all this energy come from? You are approaching the target building. You glance at your watch.

Five minutes left: no problem. A feeling of relief and satisfaction floods you. You are there; in consequence, you are not an idiot. If you believed in God, you would thank Him.

Had you been early—had you planned appropriately—the other pedestrians and assorted obstacles would not have affected you at all. You might have even appreciated them—at least the good-looking ones—or may at least not have classified them as obstacles.

Maybe you would have even used the time to enjoy your surroundings (unlikely) or to think about other issues of real importance—like tomorrow's meeting.

You continue on your path. Suddenly, you hear a series of loud noises behind you— noises reminiscent of a large motorized vehicle hurtling over a small concrete barrier (much like a curb). You are safe on the sidewalk—or so you presumed a second ago. Your meeting fantasies vanish. The fact that you are late no longer seems relevant. You stop hurrying along, instantly, arrested in your path by the emergence of this new phenomenon. Your auditory system localizes the sounds in three dimensions. You involuntarily orient your trunk, neck, head and eyes toward the place in space from which the sounds apparently emanate. Your pupils dilate, and your eyes widen. Your heart rate speeds up, as your body prepares to take adaptive action—once the proper path of that action has been specified.

You actively explore the unexpected occurrence, once you have oriented yourself toward it, with all the sensory and cognitive resources you can muster. You are generating hypotheses about the potential cause of the noise even before you turn. Has a van jumped the curb? The image flashes through your mind. Has something heavy fallen from a building? Has the wind overturned a billboard or street sign? Your eyes actively scan the relevant area. You see a truck loaded with bridge parts heading down the street, just past a pothole in the road. The mystery is solved. You have determined the specific motivational significance of what just seconds ago was the dangerous and threatening unknown, and it is zero. A loaded truck hit a bump. Big deal! Your heart slows down. Thoughts of the impending meeting re-enter the theater of your mind. Your original journey continues as if nothing has happened.

What is going on? Why are you frightened and frustrated by the absence of the expected elevator, the presence of the old woman with the cane, the carefree lovers, the loud machinery? Why are you so emotionally and behaviorally variable?

Another Story About The Unknown

Let us presume that you return from your meeting. You made it on time and, as far as you could tell, everything proceeded according to plan.

You noticed that your colleagues appeared a little irritated and confused by your behavior as you attempted to control the situation, but you put this down to jealousy on their part—to their inability to comprehend the majesty of your conceptualizations. You are satisfied, in consequence—satisfied temporarily—so you start thinking about tomorrow, as you walk back to work. You return to your office. There is a message on your answering machine. The boss wants to see you. You did not expect this. Your heart rate speeds up a little: good or bad, this news demands preparation for action.

What does she want? Fantasies of potential future spring up. Maybe she heard about your behavior at the meeting and wants to congratulate you on your excellent work. You walk to her office, apprehensive but hopeful.

You knock and stroll in jauntily. The boss looks at you and glances away somewhat unhappily. Your sense of apprehension increases. She motions for you to sit, so you do. What is going on? She says, “I have some bad news for you.” This is not good. This is not what you wanted. Your heart rate is rising unpleasantly. You focus all of your attention on your boss. “Look,” she says, “I have received a number of very unfavorable reports regarding your behavior at meetings. All of your colleagues seem to regard you as a rigid and overbearing negotiator. Furthermore, it has become increasingly evident that you are unable to respond positively to feedback about your shortcomings. Finally, you do not appear to properly understand the purpose of your job or the function of this corporation.”

First Encounter With 'The Revolutionary' Situation

You are shocked beyond belief, paralyzed into immobility. Your vision of the future with this company vanishes, replaced by apprehensions of unemployment, social disgrace and failure. You find it difficult to breathe. You flush and perspire profusely; your face is a mask of barely suppressed horror. You cannot believe that your boss is such a bitch.

“You have been with us for five years,” she continues, “and it is obvious that your performance is not likely to improve. You are definitely not suited for this sort of career, and you are interfering with the progress of the many competent others around you. In consequence, we have decided to terminate your contract with us, effective immediately. If I were you, I would take a good look at myself.”

You have just received unexpected information, but of a different order of magnitude than the petty anomalies, irritations, threats and frustrations that disturbed your equilibrium in the morning. You have just been presented with incontrovertible evidence that your characterizations of the present and of the ideal future are seriously, perhaps irreparably, flawed. Your presumptions about the nature of the world are in error. The world you know has just crumbled around you. Nothing is what it seemed; everything is unexpected and new again. You leave the office in shock. In the hallway, other employees avert their gaze from you, in embarrassment. Why did you not see this coming? How could you have been so mistaken in your judgment?

Maybe everyone is out to get you.

Better not think that.

Need for re-evaluation of the present

You stumble home, in a daze, and collapse on the couch. You can't move. You are hurt and terrified. You feel like you might go insane. Now what? How will you face people? The comfortable, predictable, rewarding present has vanished. The future has opened up in front of you like a pit, and you have fallen in. For the next month, you find yourself unable to act. Your spirit has been extinguished. You sleep and wake at odd hours; your appetite is disturbed. You are anxious, hopeless and aggressive, at unpredictable intervals. You snap at your family and torture yourself. Suicidal thoughts

enter the theater of your imagination. You do not know what to think or what to do: you are the victim of an internal war of emotion.

Your encounter with the terrible unknown has shaken the foundations of your worldview. You have been exposed, involuntarily, to the unexpected and revolutionary.

Chaos has eaten your soul. This means that your long-term goals have to be reconstructed, and the motivational significance of events in your current environment re-evaluated—literally revalued.

This capacity for complete revaluation, in the light of new information, is even more particularly human than the aforementioned capability for exploration of the unknown and generation of new information. Sometimes, in the course of our actions, we elicit phenomena whose very existence is impossible, according to our standard methods of construal (which are at base a mode of attributing motivational significance to events). Exploration of these new phenomena, and integration of our findings into our knowledge, occasionally means reconceptualization of that knowledge (and consequent re-exposure to the unknown, no longer inhibited by our mode of classification). This means that simple movement from present to future is occasionally interrupted by a complete breakdown and reformulation, a reconstitution of what the present is and what the future should be. The ascent of the individual, so to speak, is punctuated by periods of dissolution and rebirth. The more general model of human adaptation—conceptualized most simply as steady state, breach, crisis, redress—therefore ends up looking like Figure 4: Revolutionary Adaptation.

A man reborn

A month after you were fired, a new idea finds its way into your head. Although you never let yourself admit it, you didn't really like your job. You only took it because you felt that it was expected of you. You never put your full effort into it, because you really wanted to do something else—something other people thought was risky or foolish. You made a bad decision, a long time ago. Maybe you needed this blow, to put you back on the path. You start imagining a new future—one where you are not so “secure,” maybe, but where you are doing what you actually want to do. The possibility of undisturbed sleep returns, and you start eating properly again. You are quieter, less arrogant, more accepting—except in your weaker moments. Others make remarks, some admiring, some envious, about the change they perceive in you. You are a man recovering from a long illness—a man reborn.

Indeed, our very cultures are erected upon the foundation of a single great story:

Paradise, encounter with chaos, fall and redemption.

The Valence of Things

The existential psychotherapist Viktor Frankl tells a story from his experiences as a Nazi death camp inmate that makes this point most strikingly:

Take as an example something that happened on our journey from Auschwitz to the camp affiliated with Dachau. We became more and more tense as we approached a certain bridge over the Danube which the train would have to cross to reach Mauthausen, according to the statement of experienced traveling companions. Those who have never seen anything similar cannot possibly imagine the dance of joy performed in the carriage by the prisoners when they saw that our transport was not crossing the bridge and was instead heading “only” for Dachau.

And again, what happened on our arrival in that camp, after a journey lasting two days and three nights? There had not been enough room for everybody to crouch on the floor of the carriage at the same time. The majority of us had to stand all the way, while a few took turns at squatting on the scanty straw which was soaked with human urine.

No chimney in this camp...

When we arrived the first important news that we heard from older prisoners was that this comparatively small camp (its population was 2,500) had no “oven,” no crematorium, no gas! That meant that a person who had become a “Moslem” [no longer fit for work] could not be taken straight to the gas chamber, but would have to wait until a so-called “sick convoy” had been arranged to return to Auschwitz. This joyful surprise put us all in a good mood. The wish of the senior warden of our hut in Auschwitz had come true: we had come, as quickly as possible, to a camp which did not have a “chimney”—unlike Auschwitz. We laughed and cracked jokes in spite of, and during, all we had to go through in the next few hours.

When we new arrivals were counted, one of us was missing. So we had to wait outside in the rain and cold wind until the missing man was found. He was at last discovered in a hut, where he had fallen asleep from exhaustion. Then the roll call was turned into a punishment parade. All through the night and late into the next morning, we had to stand outside, frozen and soaked to the skin after the strain of our long journey. And yet we were all very pleased! There was no chimney in this camp and Auschwitz was a long way off.

Nature of Valence

Valence can be positive or negative, as the early behaviorists noted. Positive and negative are not opposite ends of a continuum, however—not in any straightforward way. The two “states” appear orthogonal, although (perhaps) mutually inhibitory.

Furthermore, positive and negative are not simple: each can be subdivided, in a more or less satisfactory manner, at least once.

Positively Valued Things

Positively valued things, for example, can be satisfying or promising (can serve as consummatory or incentive rewards, respectively).

Many satisfying things are consumable, in the literal sense, as outlined previously. Food, for example, is a consummatory reward to the hungry—which means that it is valued under such circumstances as a satisfaction. Likewise, water satisfies the individual deprived of liquid. Sexual contact is rewarding to the lustful, and warmth is desirable to those without shelter. Sometimes more complex stimuli are satisfying or rewarding as well. It all depends on what is presently desired, and how that desire plays itself out. A mild verbal reprimand might well foster feelings of relief in the individual who expects a severe physical beating—which is to say, technically, that the absence of an expected punishment can serve quite effectively as a reward (it is in fact the form of reward that the tyrant prefers). Regardless of their form, attained satisfactions produce satiation, calm and somnolent pleasure, and (temporary) cessation of the behaviors directed to that particular end—although behaviors that culminate in a satisfactory conclusion are more likely to be manifested, in the future, when “instinctive” or “voluntary” desire re-emerges.

Promises

Promises, which are also positive, might be regarded as more abstractly meaningful than satisfactions, as they indicate potential rather than actuality. Promises—cues of consummatory rewards or satisfactions—indicate the imminent attainment of something desired or potentially desirable. Their more abstract quality does not make them secondary or necessarily learned, however, as was once thought; our response to

potential satisfaction is often as basic or primary as our response to satisfaction itself. Promises (cues of satisfaction) have been regarded, technically, as incentive rewards, because they induce forward locomotion— which is merely movement toward the place that the cue indicates satisfaction will occur.

Curiosity, hope and excited pleasure tend to accompany exposure to cues of reward (and are associated with subsequent forward locomotion). Behaviors that produce promises—like those that result in satisfactions—also increase in frequency, over time.

Negatively valued things

Negatively valued things—which have a structure that mirrors that of their positive counterparts—can either be punishing or threatening. Punishments—a diverse group of stimuli or contexts, as defined immediately below—all appear to share one feature (at least from the perspective of the theory outlined in this manuscript): they indicate the temporary or final impossibility of implementing one or more means or attaining one or more ends. Some stimuli are almost universally experienced as punishing, because their appearance indicates reduced likelihood of carrying through virtually any imaginable plan—of obtaining almost every satisfaction, or potential desirable future. Most things or situations that produce bodily injury fall into this category. More generally, punishments might be conceived of as involuntary states of deprivation (of food, water, optimal temperature, or social contact); as disappointments or frustrations (which are absences of expected rewards), and as stimuli sufficiently intense to produce damage to the systems encountering them. Punishments stop action, or induce retreat or escape (backward locomotion), and engender the emotional state commonly known as pain or hurt. Behaviors, which culminate in punishment and subsequent hurt, tend to

extinguish—to decrease in frequency, over time.

Threats

Threats, which are also negative, indicate potential, like promises—but potential for punishment, for hurt, for pain. Threats—cues of punishment—are stimuli that indicate enhanced likelihood of punishment and hurt. Threats are abstract, like promises; however, like promises, they are not necessarily secondary or learned. Unexpected phenomena, for example—which constitute innately recognizable threats—stop us in our tracks, and make us feel anxiety. So, arguably, do certain innate fear stimuli—like snakes. Behaviors that culminate in the production of cues of punishment—that create situations characterized by anxiety—tend to decrease in frequency over time (much like those that produce immediate punishment).

Satisfactions and their cues are good, simply put; punishments and threats are bad. We tend to move forward (to feel hope, curiosity, joy) and then to consume (to make love, to eat, to drink) in the presence of good things; and to pause (and feel anxious), then withdraw, move backwards (and feel pain, disappointment, frustration, loneliness) when faced by things we do not like. In the most basic of situations—when we know what we are doing, when we are engaged with the familiar—these fundamental tendencies suffice.

A kitchen knife, for example...

A kitchen knife, for example: is it something to cut up vegetables, at dinner? 
Something to draw, for a still life? A toy, for mumblety-peg? A screwdriver, to fix a shelf? An implement of murder? 
In the first four cases, it “possesses” a positive valence. 
In the last case, it is negative—unless you are experiencing a frenzy of rage.
  

Unexplored Territory

Unexpected or unpredictable things—novel things, more exactly (the class of novel things, most particularly)—have a potentially infinite, unbounded range of significance.

What does something that might be anything mean? In the extremes, it means, the worst that could be (or, at least, the worst you can imagine) and, conversely, the best that could be (or the best you can conceive of). Something new might present the possibility for unbearable suffering, followed by meaningless death—a threat virtually unbounded in significance. That new and apparently minor but nonetheless strange and worrisome ache you noticed this morning, for example, while you were exercising, might just signify the onset of the cancer that will slowly and painfully kill you. Alternatively, something unexpected might signify inconceivable opportunity for expansion of general competence and well-being. Your old, boring but secure job unexpectedly disappears. A year later, you are doing what you really want to do, and your life is incomparably better.

An unexpected thing or situation appearing in the course of goal-directed behavior constitutes a stimulus that is intrinsically problematic: novel occurrences are, simultaneously, cues for punishment (threats) and cues for satisfaction (promises).

Normal Novelty

Something “normally” novel constitutes an occurrence which leaves the current departure point and goal intact, but indicates that the means of achieving that goal have to be modified. Let us say, for example, that you are in your office. You are accustomed to walking down an unobstructed hallway to get to the elevator. You are so used to performing this activity that you can do it “automatically”—so you often read while walking. One day, while reading, you stumble over a chair someone left in the middle of the hallway. This is normal novelty. You don't have to alter your current goal, except in a temporary and trivial manner; you are not likely to get too upset by the unexpected obstacle. Getting to the elevator is still a real possibility, even within the desired time frame; all you have to do is walk around the chair (or move it somewhere else, if you are feeling particularly altruistic).

Revolutionary novelty

Revolutionary novelty is something altogether different.

Here is an example: I am sitting alone in my office, in a high-rise building, alone at night. I suddenly fantasize: “I am going to take the elevator down three floors and get something to eat” (more accurately, hunger suddenly grips my imagination, and uses it for its own purposes). This fantasy constitutes a spatially and temporally bounded image of the ideal future—an “actual” possible future, carved out as a discriminable (and thus usable) object, from the infinite domain of potential possible futures. I use this definite image to evaluate the events and processes that constitute the interpreted present, as it unfolds around me, as I walk toward the elevator (on my way to the cafeteria). I want to make reality match my fantasy—to subdue my motivation (to please the gods, so to speak). If the unexpected occurs—say, the elevator is not operating—the mismatch temporarily stops me. I replace my current plan with an alternative behavioral strategy, designed to obtain the same end. This means that I do not reconfigure the temporally and spatially bounded map that I am using to evaluate my circumstances—that I am using to regulate my emotions. All I have to do is change strategy.

I decide to take the stairs to the cafeteria. If the stairs are blocked by construction, I am in more serious trouble. My original fantasy—“go down to the cafeteria and eat”—was predicated on an implicit presumption: I can get downstairs. This presumption, which I wasn't really even aware of (which might be regarded as axiomatic, for the purposes of the current operation), has been violated. The story “go downstairs to eat” retained its function only in an environment characterized by valid means of between-floor transportation.

Story about the revolutionary novelty

The existence of these means constituted a given—I had used the elevator or the stairs so often that their very presence took on the aspect of a justifiably ignored constant. Once I had mastered the stairs or the elevator—once I had learned their location, position and mechanisms—I could take them for granted and presume their irrelevance. Predictable phenomena (read “thoroughly explored, and therefore adapted to”) do not attract attention; they do not require “consciousness.” No new behavioral strategies or frameworks of reference must be generated, in their presence.

Anyway: the elevators are broken; the stairs are blocked. The map I was using to evaluate my environment has been invalidated: my ends are no longer tenable. In consequence, necessarily, the means to those ends (my plans to go to the cafeteria) have been rendered utterly irrelevant. I no longer know what to do. This means, in a nontrivial sense, that I no longer know where I am. I presumed I was in a place I was familiar with—indeed, many familiar things (the fact of the floor, for example) have not changed.

Nonetheless, something fundamental has been altered—and I don't know how fundamental. I am now in a place I cannot easily leave. I am faced with a number of new problems, in addition to my unresolved hunger—at least in potential (Will I get home tonight? Do I have to get someone to “rescue” me? Who could rescue me? Who do I telephone to ask for help? What if there was a fire?). My old plan, my old “story” (“I am going downstairs to get something to eat”) has vanished, and I do not know how to evaluate my current circumstances. My emotions, previously constrained by the existence of a temporarily valid plan, re-emerge in a confused jumble. I am anxious (“what will I do? What if there was a fire?”), frustrated (“I'm certainly not going to get any more work done tonight, under these conditions!”) angry (“who could have been stupid enough to block all the exits?”), and curious (“just what the hell is going on around here, anyway?”). Something unknown has occurred and blown all my plans. An emissary of chaos, to speak metaphorically, has disrupted my emotional stability.

The unknown – An Environmental Constant

What is known and what unknown is always relative because what is unexpected depends entirely upon what we expect (desire)—on what we had previously planned and presumed. The unexpected constantly occurs because it is impossible, in the absence of omniscience, to formulate an entirely accurate model of what actually is happening or of what should happen; it is impossible to determine what results ongoing behavior will finally produce.

Errors in representation of the unbearable present and the ideal, desired future are inevitable, in consequence, as are errors in implementation and representation of the means by which the former can be transformed into the latter. The infinite human capacity for error means that encounter with the unknown is inevitable, in the course of human experience; means that the likelihood of such encounter is as certain, regardless of place and time of individual existence, as death and taxation. The (variable) existence of the unknown, paradoxically enough, can therefore be regarded as an environmental constant.

“The domain of the unknown surrounds us like an ocean surrounds an island. We can increase the area of the island, but we never take away much from the sea.”

Exploration... And Fear

Exploratory activity culminates normally in restriction, expansion, or transformation of the behavioral repertoire. In exceptional, non-normal circumstances—that is, when a major error has been committed—such activity culminates in revolution, in modification of the entire story guiding affective evaluation and behavioral programming. Such revolutionary modification means update of modeled reality, past, present and future, through incorporation of information generated during exploratory behavior. Successful exploration transforms the unknown into the expected, desired and predictable; establishes appropriate behavioral measures (and expectations of those measures) for next contact. Unsuccessful exploration, by contrast—avoidance or escape—leaves the novel object firmly entrenched in its initial, “natural,” anxiety-provoking category. This observation sets the stage for a fundamental realization: human beings do not learn to fear new objects or situations, or even really “learn” to fear something that previously appeared safe, when it manifests a dangerous property. Fear is the a priori position, the natural response to everything for which no structure of behavioral adaptation has been designed and inculcated. Fear is the innate reaction to everything that has not been rendered predictable, as a consequence of successful, creative exploratory behavior undertaken in its presence, at some time in the past. LeDoux states:

Mental Conditioning

It is well established that emotionally neutral stimuli can acquire the capacity to evoke striking emotional reaction following temporal pairing with an aversive event. Conditioning does not create new emotional responses but instead simply allows new stimuli to serve as triggers capable of activating existing, often hard-wired, species-specific emotional reactions. In the rat, for example, a pure tone previously paired with footshock evokes a conditioned fear reaction consisting of freezing behavior accompanied by a host of autonomic adjustments, including increases in arterial pressure and heart rate. Similar responses are expressed when laboratory rats are exposed to a cat for the first time, but following amygdala lesions such responses are no longer present, suggesting that the responses are genetically specified (since they appear when the rat sees a cat, a natural predator, for the first time) and involve the amygdala. The fact that electrical stimulation of the amygdala is capable of eliciting the similar response patterns further supports the notion that the responses are hard-wired.

'Exploration' and Education

The urbanity characterizing ourselves, the civilized, amiable, and admirable part of mankind, well brought up and not constantly in a state of fear…depends as much on our successfully avoiding disturbing stimulation as on a lowered sensitivity [to fear-producing stimuli]…. [T]he capacity for emotional breakdown may [well] be self-concealing, leading [animals and human beings] to find or create an environment in which the stimuli to excessive emotional response are at a minimum. So effective is our society in this regard that its members—especially the well-to-do and educated ones—may not even guess at some of their own potentialities.

One usually thinks of education, in the broad sense, as producing a resourceful, emotionally stable adult, without respect to the environment in which these traits are to appear.

To some extent this may be true.

But education can be seen as being also the means of establishing a protective social environment in which emotional stability is possible. Perhaps it strengthens the individual against unreasonable fears and rages, but it certainly produces a uniformity of appearance and behavior which reduces the frequency with which the individual member of the society encounters the causes of such emotion. On this view, the susceptibility to emotional disturbance may not be decreased. It may in fact be increased. The protective cocoon of uniformity, in personal appearance, manners, and social activity generally, will make small deviations from custom appear increasingly strange and thus (if the general thesis is sound) increasingly intolerable. The inevitable small deviations from custom will bulk increasingly large, and the members of the society, finding themselves tolerating trivial deviations well, will continue to think of themselves as socially adaptable.

Explored Territory

When we explore, we transform the indeterminate status and meaning of the unknown thing that we are exploring into something determinate—in the worst case, rendering it nonthreatening, nonpunishing; in the best, manipulating and/or categorizing it so that it is useful. Animals perform this transformation in the course of actual action, which is to say that they construct their worlds by shifting their positions and changing their actions in the face of the unknown, and by mapping the consequences of those shifts and changes in terms of their affective or motivational valence. When an animal encounters an unexpected situation, such as a new object placed in its cage, it first freezes, watching the object. If nothing terrible happens while it is immobile, it moves, slowly and at a distance, monitoring the thing for its reactions to these cautious exploratory activities. Perhaps the animal sniffs at the thing, or scratches at it—trying to determine what it might be good (or bad) for. It maps the utility and valence of the object, conceived in relationship to its ongoing activity (and, perhaps, to possible patterns of activity in the future). The animal builds its world of significances from the information generated in the course of—as a consequence of—ongoing exploratory behavior. The application of experimental search programs, drawn primarily from the reservoir of learned (imitated) and instinctual behavior, or manifested as trial and error, involves behavioral alteration (exploration, play) and subsequent transformation of sensory and affective input. When an animal actively explores something new, it changes the sensory quality and motivational significance of that aspect of its experience as a consequence of its exploratory strategy. This means that the animal exhibits a variety of behaviors in a given mysterious situation and monitors the results. It is the organized interpretation of these results and the behaviors that produce them that constitute the world, past, present and future, of the animal (in conjunction with the unknown, of course—which constantly supersedes the capacity for representation).

The Motor Homunculus

The body is specifically represented in the neocortex. This representation is often given schematic form as the homunculus, or “little man.” The homunculus was

“discovered” by Wilder Penfield, who mapped the surface of the cortices of his neurosurgical patients by stimulating them electrically, painstakingly, point after point. He did this to find out what different sections of the brain were doing, so that he could do the least damage possible when attempting to surgically treat epilepsy or cancer or other forms of brain abnormality. He would probe the surface of the brain of one of his (awake) patients with an electrode (patients undergoing neurosurgery are frequently awake, as the brain feels no pain) and monitor the results, either directly or by asking the patient what he or she experienced. Sometimes such stimulation would produce visions, sometimes elicit memories; other times, it produced movements or sensations. Penfield determined, in this manner, how the body was mapped onto the central nervous system—how it was incarnated, so to speak, in intrapsychic representation. He established, for example, that homunculi come in two forms, motor and sensory—the former associated with the primary zone of the motor unit, the latter associated with the primary zone of the sensory area of the sensory unit. The motor form—represented schematically in Figure 10: The Motor Homunculus—is of most interest to us, because our discussion centers on motor output. The motor homunculus is a very odd little “creature.” Its face (particularly mouth and tongue) and hands (particularly thumbs) are grossly disproportionate to the rest of its “body.” This is because comparatively large areas of the motor cortex are given over to control of the face and hands, which are capable of an immense number of complex and sophisticated operations. The motor homunculus is an interesting figure. It might be regarded as the body, insofar as the body has anything to do with the brain. It is useful to consider the structure of the homunculus, because it is in some profound way representative of our essential nature, as it finds expression in emotion and behavior.

The most outstanding characteristic of the motor homunculus, for example—the hand, with its opposable thumb—is the defining feature of the human being. The ability to manipulate and explore characteristics of objects large and small—restricted as a general capacity to the highest primates—sets the stage for elicitation of an increased range of their properties, for their utilization as tools (for more comprehensive transformation of their infinite potential into definable actuality). The hand, used additionally to duplicate the action and function of objects, also allows first for imitation (and pointing), and then for full-blown linguistic representation. Used for written language, the hand additionally enables long-distance (temporal and spatial) transfer of its ability to another (and for the elaboration and extension of exploration, during the process of writing, which is hand-mediated thinking). Even development of spoken language, the ultimate analytic motor skill, might reasonably be considered an abstract extension of the human ability to take things apart and reassemble them, in an original manner. Interplay between hand and brain has literally enabled the individual to change the structure of the world. Consideration of the structure and function of the brain must take this primary fact into account. A dolphin or whale has a large, complex brain—a highly developed nervous system—but it cannot shape its world. It is trapped, so to speak, in its streamlined test-tube-like form, specialized for oceanic life. It cannot directly alter the shape of its material environment in any complex manner. Its brain, therefore, is not likely prepared to perform any traditionally “creative” function (indeed, as one would suspect, lacks the sophisticated structuring characteristic of primate brains).

The Twin Cerebral Hemispheres and Their Functions

Two Types of Memory

Knowing-how information, described alternatively as procedural, habitual, dispositional, or skilled, and knowing-what information, described alternatively as declarative, episodic, factual, autobiographical, or representational, appear physiologically distinct in their material basis, and separable in course of phylo- and ontogenetic development. Procedural knowledge develops long before declarative knowledge, in evolution and individual development, and appears represented in “unconscious” form, expressible purely in performance. Declarative knowledge, by contrast—knowledge of what—simultaneously constitutes consciously accessible and communicable episodic imagination (the world in fantasy) and subsumes even more recently developed semantic (linguistically mediated) knowledge, whose operations, in large part, allow for abstract representation and communication of the contents of the imagination. Squire and Zola-Morgan have represented the relationship between these memory forms according to the schematic of Figure 12: The Multiple Structure of Memory. The neuroanatomical basis of knowing how remains relatively unspecified. Skill generation appears in part as the domain of the cortical pre/motor unit; “storage” appears to involve the cerebellum. Knowing what, by contrast, appears dependent for its existence on the intact function of the cortical sensory unit, in interplay with the hippocampal system. Much of our knowing what, however—our description of the world—is about knowing how, which is behavioral knowledge, wisdom. Much of our descriptive knowledge—representational knowledge—is representation of what constitutes wisdom (without being that wisdom, itself). We have gained our description of wisdom by watching how we act, in our culturally governed social interactions, and by representing those actions.

We know how, which means how to act to transform the mysterious and ever-threatening world of the present into what we desire, long before we know how we know how, or why we know how. This is to say, for example, that a child learns to act appropriately (assuming it does) long before it can provide abstracted explanations for or descriptions of its behavior. A child can be “good” without being a moral philosopher.

Mythologically Speaking...

The Unknown is represented by The Great Mother

The Known >>> The Great Father

The Explorer >>> The Archetypal Son

The Great Mother

The Great Mother—the unknown, as it manifests itself in experience—is the feminine deity who gives birth to and devours all. She is the unpredictable as it is encountered, and is therefore characterized, simultaneously, by extreme positive and extreme negative valence.

The Great Father

The Great Father is order, placed against chaos; civilization erected against nature, with nature's aid. He is the benevolent force that protects individuals from catastrophic encounter with what is not yet understood; is the walls that surrounded the maturing Buddha and that encapsulated the Hebrew Eden. Conversely, however, the Great Father is the tyrant who forbids the emergence (or even the hypothetical existence) of anything new.

The Archetypal Son

The Archetypal Son is the child of order and chaos—culture and nature—and is therefore clearly their product. Paradoxically, however, as the deity who separates the earth (mother) from the sky (father), he is also the process that gives rise to his parents. This paradoxical situation arises because the existence of defined order and the unexplored territory defined in opposition to that order can come into being only in the

light of consciousness, which is the faculty that knows (and does not know). The Archetypal Son, like his parents, has a positive aspect and a negative aspect. The positive aspect continually reconstructs defined territory as a consequence of the “assimilation” of the unknown [as a consequence of “incestuous” (that is, “sexual”—read creative) union with the Great Mother]. The negative aspect rejects or destroys anything it does not or will not understand.

Chapter 3: Apprenticeship and Enculturation

Apprenticeship: Adoption of a Shared Map

Subjugation to lawful authority might more reasonably be considered in light of the metaphor of the apprenticeship.

Childhood dependency must be replaced by group membership, prior to the development of full maturity.

Such membership provides society with another individual to utilize as a “tool,” and provides the maturing but still vulnerable individual with necessary protection (with a group-fostered “identity”). The capacity to abide by social rules, regardless of the specifics of the discipline, can therefore be regarded as a necessary transitional stage in the movement from childhood to adulthood.

Discipline should therefore be regarded as a skill that may be developed through adherence to strict ritual, or by immersion within a strict belief system or hierarchy of values. Once such discipline has been attained, it may escape the bounds of its developmental precursor. It is in this manner that true freedom is attained. It is at this level of analysis that all genuine religious and cultural traditions and dogmas are equivalent, regardless of content: they are all masters whose service may culminate in the development of self-mastery, and consequent transcendence of tradition and dogma.

Apprenticeship is necessary, but should not on that account be glamorized. Dogmatic systems make harsh and unreasonable masters. Systems of belief and moral action—and those people who are identified with them—are concerned above all with self-maintenance and preservation of predictability and order. The (necessarily) conservative tendencies of great systems makes them tyrannical, and more than willing to crush the spirit of those they “serve.”

Apprenticeship is a precursor to freedom, however, and nothing necessary and worthwhile is without danger.

Adoption of this analytic standpoint allows for a certain moral relativism, conjoined with an absolutist higher-order morality. The particulars of a disciplinary system may be somewhat unimportant. The fact that adherence to such a system is necessary, however, cannot be disregarded.

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