It’s a down day; I slept until 10am and still feel like I could sleep some more. I planned to do this because yesterday there was a certain base level of fatigue that showed up in my performance in class and in public generally. When I review what I’ve been doing I see that there has been a lot of physical activity and perhaps I need a day of rest. Today is that day. Although I may go for a walk at about 4:30pm in order to get my circulation up for the pool match tonight.
Self-doubt is a constant companion to me. Whenever I expose my actions to anyone, I feel threatened; that’s the right word but it needs to be explained a little bit. It isn’t a feeling that I am physically threatened but being opened to question and ridicule; questions that I can’t anticipate and, therefore, feel that I would answer inappropriately and get myself into a bind, and ridicule, being seen as inferior/stupid.
I’ve been aware of this ever present critic for a long time so this isn’t new to me. It seems that she comes out whenever I do something new or even when I don’t do it. It is an emotional response to something and I’m not sure what. If I call s.o. to do s.t., especially if it is new, while I’m making the call I get these feelings of doubt: should I be asking this, will I be thought somehow being seen as inferior, is this s.t. I should/ shouldn’t be doing, am I going to get into trouble about this, am I being a pest, are people seeing me as needy, am I needlessly calling attention to myself?
And yet I know that all of the above is irrational. People have their opinion of me; what I say and do first of all tends to reinforce that opinion and only secondly could begin to change that opinion if enough evidence is offered to reinforce a new and changed opinion. It is my experience after listening to many personal accounts, after seeing evidence to support it in the actions of others, that people willingly change their opinion of s.o. else rather quickly if the other exhibits a willingness to improve.
I sent Emails to Rinda, Prof Tompkins, Prof RussV inviting them to see our production of Zadig. It is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. Yet right up to the time that I was composing the Email, there was self-doubt about doing such a thing. Irrational, yes it is, and I recognized it as such and went ahead and sent the messages. RussV already replied saying he couldn’t attend but that doesn’t bother me. A cynical one in here says some awful things but they are ignored. Rationally I can accept all three of them not being at the performance.
People are interested in others because we have personae that are influenced by the social source, one of the six sources of thought/action that we have. In me there are intellectually sourced personae who attempt to fathom the interest of others and somehow influence it to my advantage; to build esteem, to be bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, more (you name it) than I/we really are. These personae want to be respected players of whatever game; it is as if they want to be king of the hill in all instances.
These personae, or maybe others, have an additional feature,; they are competitive, which probably flows out of the instinctive source. They see every other being as a competitor who has to be bested; not only every other being but every other circumstance, be it a game, a deal, a skill, possessions, knowledge, capability, or relationship. They seem to come away with wanting to be better than everyone/ everything else.
The marriage of intellectually sourced and emotionally sourced personae is not working out very well in this being; it is almost as if they are oil and water. The emotional are less developed than the intellectual and others. The complicating feature of a being is that all personae have a mixture of all six sources and are recognizable as being one or the other only by the predominant ingredient. In this one it is intellectual, then instinctive, then social, then moving, then emotional, then sexual. Sexual has taken the lowest position on the influence totem probably due to age. So in personae that are predominantly emotional, the intellectual ingredient is not sufficient to allow rational analysis to equivocate the situation at hand. Ergo, an irrational response is observed by others; other beings and/or other personae of this being.
It is a tribute to intellectual personae to note that I (this being) have developed a whole series of analytical charts in order to understand emotional responses. They are logical, cogent, and rather complete as they examine all of the possible ranges of emotional responses to situations. The Intellectual can imagine/ reason/ deduce/ infer/ and then make decisions, these are the tools that the intellectual has available to it in the brain-body. The intellectual think that by understanding they can somehow be comfortable or cure a situation whereas the emotional have to experience. This underscores this rift that exists.
The emotional have to act and experience the results of that action in order to comfortably function in situations; the tools of the intellectual are not useful for situations that affect the emotional. The fear factor in this being, which is predominantly intellectual, is not being able to respond appropriately using and tools with which he is comfortable and furthermore not knowing what tools are available to the emotional. What could they be? This will have to be the subject of a later installment.
Leaving this installment with another contrast between the two sources; the intellectual require a lot of time to work out a solution to a new situation whereas the emotional operate on a quick response basis. Almost like instinctive, they realize that a response to a situation that involves them needs to be made on the spot. It is the difference between correspondence and conversation. This may be why we developed one for business, financial, and legal matters and allow the other for less important/less permanent situations.
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