In a few days it will have been a month since Mom fell and was hurt. She has been a brave and patient lady to sit by and let her body heal. In observing her it seems that the majority of her personae have gone dormant while her predominantly instinctive have come to the fore. At one point I described it as a nervous breakdown. Now one must be advised that I have no experience with one of these but it is as I described above, a lack of any response except instinctive.
I described an evaluation mode yesterday and want to mush on with it. I need to name imaginary personae for each of the major sources. The Intellectual could be Spock, the Star Trek logical character; the Emo—a spoiled child named Brat; the Moving—a Cirque de Soleil performer named Jean who wears a body suit and has no hair; Sexual—a lothario named Georg who is skinny and has a pencil mustache; Social—a super confident, hail fellow well met person named Dick; Instinctive—an heroic fellow named Odysseus who can handle anything.
I’m not sure about this line-up but let’s go with it anyway. Now what? I suppose one could look back over the week, month, half-year and list the major actys that took place then view them from each of the evaluator’s point of view. A good source would be the log, or recall. Another approach would be to focus on the upcoming and ask how each of the imagines would approach it. Yet another would be to id ad hoc events and ask how…?
Right away I can see that the Emo is not a good candidate for any of this analytical stuff. He has no capability to prognosticate; he is reactionary. It isn’t that he can’t use imagination but rather that almost all his use of it is after the fact. He is like a guitar string that only produces a sound when disturbed. Then the sound attenuates until it is dampened out or simply fades away. Just like the guitar, he has evolved a limited set of responses to stimulation. In the particular instance of this set of personae he is usually out of tune with the desired response. I suppose this became evident somethime rather recently, within the past few years, and that realization led to the daily, “…emotional responses are irrational…” The daily repetition of this has led to some significant improvement in objectivity.
If a series of psychological events which lead to action could be described, they may be laid on a continuum that starts with the realization that s.t. is desired; this could come from daydreaming, a disturbance, an appetite, a desire, a requirement, a request, an unsatisfactory situation, a desire for improvement of s.t., grounded in the emotional component of a persona. Then the intellectual source personae get inovolved and formulate the desired result and a plan to achieve it. Finally, personae of all the sources get involved in the execution with each providing his expertise.
Of all, the influences of the emotional are the most difficult with which to deal. They are rapid/quick to react and often do so without regard to consequences. They are the initiators of action that is required to be taken by personae of predominantly the other sources.
In pool, the emo wants to win the game, gets mad at missed shots, feels hostility towards opponents/advisors, reacts violently, and is generally rude and unmanageable. It is the same in golf. It is as if he is the one who gets very angry with other personae, especially those who are expected to perform but are insufficiently practiced/skilled in the game. Furthermore, he gets upset whenever anything doesn’t go perfectly. Yes! I know him, he is the judge. Now that I recognize from whence the judge comes, I know what needs doing. It is in fact happening now as a result of the daily. All of the dailies are relevant and this one is among them, “Realizing that emotional responses are irrational, I am more objective.” The ability to deal with negative emotions by replacing them with positive is a close second in importance. These are: replace hatred with love, jealousy with admiration, disdain with acceptance, suspicion with trust, and vengeance with forgiveness. Of all that can be done to grow in positivity these are fundamental first steps.
Successfully accomplishing these will set the stage for having a positive frame of mind as any and all life situations are encountered. A positive, constructive, enthusiastic, “In what way can we…” approach to whatever situation arises will allow solution instead of gridlock. Of all of what is happening around me I consider this to be the most important change I would like to see. The important realization here is that analysis of past actions, moods, reactions is not the answer. The answer is to replace and move ahead. Life is not a contest of win or lose but a cross country course that has many obstacles to be surmounted. When performing for an audience, there is an element of judgment so one can’t say that we run the course without notice by/of others; but, like a play unfolding on the stage, the show must go on. This performance may or may not get the desired applause, level of approval, but then there’s always tomorrow’s.
This started out to be a formulation of a method of evaluating and has turned into a different approach to achieving the desired result. In a few words: repeat, replace, rehearse, and perform. Repeat the dailies to inculcate the desired, replace the negative by positive, rehearse to increase confidence, and perform for the fun of it. It is interesting how my original thinking about this was like approaching a ball of knotted twine only to have the ball unknot and fall apart into an understandable and practical approach.
It is easier for me to be negative, which is an increase in entropy. All of nature has this propensity. Life struggles to reverse entropy, to react positively. I am successful in doing so more frequently than not. Most of the time it is just like I said above, a seemingly hopelessly knotted set of circumstances that turns out to be not as bad as all that.
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