Choices and Illusions (8 page)

Compensation

Compensation is a psychological mechanism identified first

by pioneering psychiatrist H. S. Sullivan. When individuals lack

confidence and esteem, they often compensate by extracting their

worth from another. An unconscious nonsense belief seems to

propel them into behavior that ridicules, offends, and hurts others.

Physical violence is just another way of acting out pain or fear—not that it’s really any different in an emotional sense. The abuses they 25

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dish out can be thought of as their own inner insecurities being

compensated for by making someone else feel insecure—as they

do. It’s all a rapid downward spiral that leads to anything but true happiness and success.

like nina, the female eagle in Chapter 1, it is easy to outsmart

those who may offer an alternative to the known or the comfort-

able. Small minds condemn what they do not understand. like

nina, most people do not accept that within themselves is a power

that can change all of those self-limiting, self-destructive beliefs, a power that can indeed result in manifesting a person so self-responsible that he or she walks and lives above the fray—in the

world but not of the world. This is truly your birthright. life is not designed to be only struggle.

Mark Twain tells a story in his work
Letters from the Earth.
In the story, the archangels are deciding where to hide God. It is

suggested that they hide Him on the moon or deep beneath the

surface of the sea, and so forth. Each suggestion, however, eventu-

ally leads the archangels to conclude that humankind is too smart

for that—sooner or later they would find God. So where do they

decide to hide Him? Within every human being—for “the last place

mankind will look is within,” they conclude.

Within every human being exists a propensity for greatness.

The gifts may vary, and the greatness may be manifested in a vast

array of alternatives—say, from carpentry to rocket ships—but the

gift that gives us true self-respect and lifts the spirit from “same old, same old” resides within. These are not just words or some

lofty notion. This potential resides within each one of us—but if

so, then why is it so often denied?

The Four Selves

Every individual essentially has a self-representation that is

rehearsed and eventually actualized. The process begins by fanta-

sizing at a very early age. We fantasize a script, perhaps similar to one of those from some Hollywood production. We begin rehearsing it, and we either abandon it to take up a new one or practice it 26

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Creating Self

until we role-play that script as who we are. Practicing the script sooner or later automates the behavior. Our imprinting environment plays a significant role in the alternative scripts available to us. If parents are uncaring and abusive, so are their children, and so forth. If warmth and friendliness lead to embarrassment, then

coldness and aloofness compensate. If honesty gets us into trouble, then deception becomes a defense strategy, and so forth.

It is much more complicated than expressed here, and it is also

just this simple. In fact, every one of us divides the self among four essential views of ourselves:

1. Our actual self

2. Our ideal self

3. Our ought-to-be self

4. Our desired self

These categories were originally developed by Jerome l. Singer,

professor of psychology at Yale University, to show how the differ-

ent selves conflict with each other.4 I will use them differently, as we shall see.

Our actual Self

Most of us are aware of a so-called actual self. This is the self

that has failed in ways we often will not share with others. This

is the private self. This self holds the thoughts we wish we did

not have, the acts we wish we had not done, our beliefs about

our worth, our attractiveness, and so forth. It is the self of our

secrets and our ambitions. It is the self that most people try to

change in some way or another at some time in their life—perhaps

even perpetually.

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CHOICES AND ILLUSIONS

Our Ideal Self

The actual self pales by comparison to our ideal self. The ideal

self is often a construct built by our culture. This self would live a perfect life without error—but therefore without room for growth.

Our Ought-to-Be Self

Then there is our “ought-to-be self.” This is the self full of

all our learned “shoulds” and “oughts.” This self differs from our

ideal self in the sense that many of the oughts are not ours—they

are the oughts of our culture, our society—but deep down inside

they do not belong to us. Sometimes these oughts are the result of

rules that make little or no sense to us; sometimes the oughts are

of co dependent negotiations such as those implied when Mom said

such things as, “If you loved me, you would not behave that way,”

or “If you loved me, you would do what I said,” and so forth. Still, even when we recognize the source and the nature of the relationship from which the oughts arise, they often persist.

Our Desired Self

Finally, there is the desired self. Somewhere among all of our

other selves is a self that we believe we could be. This is the self we long for, especially when we are young and planning our future. It

is also the source of much discontent in our later life if the desires have not been fulfilled—and they rarely, if ever, are.

Believe the Impossible

The ought-to-be self, desired self, and ideal self share certain

commonalities, but they also differ remarkably. There is psychic

tension among them and in their totality, substantial tension

between them and our so-called actual self.

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Creating Self

now, there’s one more thing I wish to add before continuing.

What we believe is the actual self is seldom the
true
actual self.

The actual self is the result of self-perception and therefore par-

takes of every believed limitation that accompanies our private

self-perception.

If we think back to nina in the chicken yard, some additional

clarity can be added that translates directly to most human eagle/

chickens. Within each of us is an almost unlimited possibility—the

eagle potential. Within each of us is the sum of all those conflicts, failures, negative message units, and the like—the sum of self-imposed, albeit typically culturally imposed, limitations. Within

each of us exists the need to be accepted and also the fear of loss—

loss of friends, respect, acceptance, love, and so forth. Within all of us is a cry to soar, in the vernacular of the eagle, and at the same time, a fear of leaving the comfort of our little chicken houses.

Within all of us are the secret failures, low or base desires, deeds, and so forth that constitute our perceived actual selves. All of this tension usually holds us almost rigid and stiff, nearly cataleptic, if a change truly threatens any of our four self-images. To add fuel to the fire, change is what most of us truly desire. A true catch-22—

damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

So how do we safely discover, or uncover, our true potential?

What are the limits to our potential—or how high is up?

Innumerable biographies of great people share at least one

common denominator—these individuals believed they could do

something everyone else, or at least nearly everyone, thought was

impossible. These people are the heroes of our world. What made

them so convinced they could succeed, despite the crowds that

argued to the contrary? That’s the next question. If every one of us possessed that conviction and power, would we not all succeed? If

the solution was so obvious as to negate choice—that is, if we saw

so clearly our direction, ambition, goal, and purpose that there

was nothing to choose between—what could stop us from real-

izing that path?

let us now look a little deeper into the nature of mind and

perception, and then perceptual defense mechanisms—indeed,

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defense mechanisms in general, but remember and think about

this popular notion:
There are three C’s in life: Choice, Chance, and
Change. You can choose to take a chance and change!

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whaT we PerCeive

and fail To PerCeive

“The only way to discover the limits of the

possible is to go beyond them, to the impossible.”

— A r t h u r C . C l A r k e

If choice can be an illusion, what other illusions might we live

with? This is such a large subject that we won’t even try to take on the question in a comprehensive way. We will, however, look at it

sufficiently to clarify for our purposes the most relevant illusions.

Our first illusion is due to language. language labels every-

thing, and once that is done, that which is labeled is “diminished,”

in the words of philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard.1

nouns are the names of persons, places, and things, yet many

nouns refer to things that do not exist. For example, take the noun
griffin.
Arguably, a mythical creature matches this word, but no such creature actually exists. Further, some nouns are really about form, not about things themselves. Take the word
chair.
In the Platonic sense,
chair
refers to a form, that of “chairness.” When we attempt to describe a chair, we can be surprised at the definitional ambiguities. not all chairs have arms or four legs, are stationary, or even are meant to be sat upon, yet somehow when we see a chair,

we recognize it as a chair.

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Our first illusion is due to language.

Years ago I wrote a piece titled “Sticks and Stones Will Break

My Bones but Words Will Slice and dice Me.” The article laid bare

a penetrating conclusion: words do more damage to most people in

our culture than things do. It’s not the words themselves or even

Webster’s definitions that are damaging or fearsome; rather, the

damage is inflicted by the emotive value attached to the words.

It’s easy to note the fear of many when they hear words of

rejection; words that make fun or are inappropriately critical; words that condemn; and words that negatively label, such as
ugly, stupid, loser,
or
failure
. Words, however, have still other emotional domains that they anchor, or they function like search words in a

web browser. When input, they trigger a host of related sites stored deep in our memory. Indeed, due largely to our educational system

and culture, most words can be said to have values. Think about

it. Even seemingly innocuous descriptors such as color have value

attached. Some colors are preferred over others, some colors are

simply obnoxious, and for some individuals an emotional distur-

bance or trauma can be connected to a particular hue.

Knowing and Learning

Our thinking system is such that we have all been taught rela-

tive values and judgments. They are reflected in our description

of everything we know about ourselves and our surroundings.

For most in our culture, words are generally thought to be capable

of accurately describing at least the world around us, including

ourselves, our feelings, our thoughts, and, of course, our reasons.

Our world is so dependent upon words, semantics, that it’s

hard to imagine thinking without them. Indeed, thinking seems

to presuppose semantic possibilities; after all, how else would we be able to communicate or understand our thinking? Even the images

in our dreams are thought to be better understood when we can

explain them. So dominant is this thinking priority, this semantic

communication necessity, that a failure to be able to communicate

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What We perceive and Fail to perceive

linguistically an idea, a feeling, an urge, an intuition, an image, or a sense is thought to be the result of either inadequate education

or inadequate basic genetic equipment. After all, where would we

be if we couldn’t ask such meaningful questions as,
What did that
mean to you? How did that make you feel? What do you mean by that?

Can you describe the sense, the feeling, the image—or how do you know
an intuition is valid and not just fanciful thinking?

not only is our world known through semantics—linguistic

communication with self and others—but it is modeled by each of

us in just this same way. To say that knowing the world through

words is quite different from knowing the world through actual

sensing participation is obvious and trite. To say that we know

ourselves—or better still, model ourselves and our behaviors—