“No One Really Gets the Last Word on Who We Are.”

By on March 17, 2013 in News 15

The conversation between Calypso_1 and Ted Heistman in the comments to this post reminded me of this video by Prof. Corey Anton:

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  • echar

    That just blew my mind, but I understand it maybe. Placing an isness on who we are can limit who we are and who we are not. Much as what others may think and say we are is not who we are, but it is who we may represent to them. I feel it may take constant awareness of this to master. Is it a necessity to master though? Can mastering and associating as a beginner provide a payoff?

    • Calypso_1

      You are already & have always been ‘mastering’ this to some degree because there is more to you than you know. The constant awareness you are referring to is the difference of bringing these aspects of who are into the arena of conscious intent. The faculties below this are of many different orders and systems of which there are varying degrees of proper integrative function. Just as breathing can always be an automatic function responsive to your physiologic needs. It can also come under conscious control and began to exert a willfully directed influence on the mind & body.

      Some of the conscious work is the awareness of these subsystems and how they impact, influence & limit your current level of conscious awareness, intent & will both internally & in interaction with the outside world.

      You tell me is there pay off? You ask probing questions & commune with your fellows after absorbing another’s insight into a great thinker & his communication of it. Now yet another who seeks & probes and cultivates responds back to you.

      • echar

        being aware of being aware and so forth.

        I feel there may be a forwarding and limiting payoff dependent on the level and or purity of intent.

        For example if a person’s awareness is filtered through the reptile mind, that is what they may receive in return.

        Unless of course a person is kind enough to offer how they are experiencing the person as.

        Yet, that kindness may not be reciprocated.

        • Calypso_1

          Much of what goes on in ‘discourse’ here & anywhere is offering the view of how one is experiencing the other…..kindness is not always the operative factor : )
          One balances many factors when grading the worth of another’s perspective of yourself.

          As to the reptile mind: i have spent 20 years integrating the activation of survival mechanisms that gave the reptile mind access to the consciousness of the ‘human’. At best, if its perceptions were revealed, most would see them as abhorrent, increasing in spectrum to gruesome, vile, inhuman & evil.
          It is like riding a very, very cunning beast. But we separate ourselves, are programmed by society to reinforce the biological division between these multipartite entities within our psyches.
          A believe Camus spoke well of this in his exploration of rebellion, “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is. The problem is to know whether this refusal can only lead to the destruction of himself & others, whether all rebellion must end in the justification of universal murder, or whether, on the contrary, without laying claim to
          an innocence that is impossible, it can discover the principle of reasonable culpability.”

        • Calypso_1

          Much of what goes on in ‘discourse’ here & anywhere is offering the view of how one is experiencing the other…..kindness is not always the operative factor : )
          One balances many factors when grading the worth of another’s perspective of yourself.

          As to the reptile mind: i have spent 20 years integrating the activation of survival mechanisms that gave the reptile mind access to the consciousness of the ‘human’. At best, if its perceptions were revealed, most would see them as abhorrent, increasing in spectrum to gruesome, vile, inhuman & evil.
          It is like riding a very, very cunning beast. But we separate ourselves, are programmed by society to reinforce the biological division between these multipartite entities within our psyches.
          A believe Camus spoke well of this in his exploration of rebellion, “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is. The problem is to know whether this refusal can only lead to the destruction of himself & others, whether all rebellion must end in the justification of universal murder, or whether, on the contrary, without laying claim to
          an innocence that is impossible, it can discover the principle of reasonable culpability.”

          • echar

            We are all scoundrels and saints lol

  • Calypso_1

    Thx andrew.

    His channel just got a new subscriber.

  • jnana

    you can never see your own face
    without the aid of an Other
    you can never love God
    and not love your Brother

  • jnana

    you can never see your own face
    without the aid of an Other
    you can never love God
    and not love your Brother

  • http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

    Good clip, thanks for posting it. A little more commentary would be useful though. . Did I delete the part you were referencing?

    To tell you the truth, Calypso pissed me off. I think psychoanalyzing people, or saying they need to see a therapist is a dick move. I don’t think that is a responsible thing to say. Anyway I have a history of being abused by therapists, so that’s maybe nobody else’s problem but mine , but still I resent it. I think its a big problem. I think a lot of child psychology is State sponsored abuse of Children. Its an issue that transcends race. These kids get warehoused in public school. Its not about education its about conditioning kids to be compliant workers and not every kid has the aptitude for that. But its not about kids learning to self actualize, its not about self directed learning and developing in internal locus of control. Its about pounding square pegs into round holes and its accomplished often with consciousness altering drugs. And its big business. The pharmaceutical companies get kids hooked early. They create the problem and sell the solution. I will be writing more on this.

    and If nobody has a final say on who anybody is nobody has any more of a say of who I am than me.

    Thats not sadism. Assertiveness is not sadism. Now as far as masochism. This is a personal interest of mine in the school of thought of Reich and Lowen. http://www.reichandlowentherapy.org/Content/Character/Masochist/masochist_consolidator.html

    I think the above article is very true. I can relate to it. I think its is a strategy I adopted early on developmentally and its been a lifelong struggle to over come it. I think this concept of body armor is very correct. I actually correspond to the description quite well. It affected the body I developed. Without lifting weights, by the time I was an adult,I had developed huge muscles from pent up rage and basically from restraining myself from unleashing violence on others. But also I had the problems of having bad posture and because of that I did a lot of wrk later in live activating my glutes to create more speed and power athletically. masochists have a “tail between the legs posture that can lead to lower back problems and atrophied glutes.

    Being a masochist you get stuck between contradictory impulses. What happpens is, as a child it is maladaptive to defend yourself from abuse at the hands of a caregiver, because evolutionarily, you can get killed that way. small children can’t fight adults. So a strategy is to become compliant and split off and disassociate from your own aggressive impulses. These impulses are split off, relegated to the shadow, but also turned inward against oneself. You get an oppressive conscience basically. Nietzsche had deep insights into this in “genealogy of morals” in terms of “the bad conscience” This allows bonding to still take place and avoids the problem of attachment disorders.

    But what happens is you can become a door mat and too polite and too unassertive, and I believe because of this I had problems being bullied. So I think it was good for me to fight and stand up for myself, as a kid and as an younger adult. Its all well and good to say “fighting is always wrong” and adopt a pacifist stance. But interestingly, Ghandi and Martin Luther King were both fighters earlier in life and developed courage. And Ghandi basically said if you are afraid to fight you cannot be a pacifist.

    The goal is self actualization. Reaching your highest potential as a human being. Masichism and Sadism are both defense mechanisms. Masochism is not superior to sadism and to work through masochism you may have to reconnect with your own aggrassion and pass through a bit of sadistic phase if you will.

    • Calypso_1

      I did not psychoanalyze you. If you think i did then you are unfamiliar with the process. Do i apply psychological insight – yes we all do. And i do not do so in the manner or context that would occur in a therapeutic relationship.
      I did not tell you that you needed to see a psychologist. I was discussing a particular idea which does come from that system of thought of which you did not show any comprehension and of which you dismissed the notion that I could have any knowledge of. Instead of actually providing such insight for you (or leading you to uncover it yourself), which would indeed fall under the scope of a psychoanalytic relationship, I pointed out two sources from which you could gain the knowledge if you so desired. One was to consult a psychologist, the other was to embark on an extensive course of self study.
      That you inferred from this that i was telling you that’s what you needed to do is incorrect.

      If my comments pissed you off how about your casual sexist quips to another about sitting down when they pee.
      There is a reason your self presentation drew my scrutiny. If you think such assertiveness is not sadism I suggest we begin a conversation about humiliation instead of rage muscle & shriveled glutes.

  • http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

    I like Deleuze mostly because he gets Nietzsche. The idea of self overcoming and creation.

  • http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

    I like Deleuze mostly because he gets Nietzsche. The idea of self overcoming and creation.

  • http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

    Being a nomadic thinker is not about aligning yourself with the State and received wisdom.

  • ParanoidCoast

    I think the Franz Fanon quote he cites near the end neatly summerizes what he is saying. I’m a student of Cultural Geography. When someone asks what that means I say that Cultural Geography is the study of how human behaviour affects the natural and human-made environment and how the natural and human-made environment affects human behaviour. I always stress the fact that most everything is a two way street. One is BOTH subject and object existing simultaneously in many environments.