The Split
There’s a malaise sweeping our world: an incessant, unconscious drive to avoid ourselves. And we have so many ways to do it! Drugs, video games, decadent food, sex, consumerism, the media, money… anything to avoid the internal numbness, the lack of connection to our true being. Nothing seems to be enough to fill the void–super sized food, designer drugs, I-pods glued to your head so you never have to hear yourself think! I’m not saying that these pursuits are bad in themselves, but the way in which we become addicted to these sensory stimulants–in place of true self contact–is creating a race of zombies who act like people because its politically correct.
All the focus is turned outside for solutions– “maybe if I had this job, or made more money, or had a great relationship, did this or that, then I’d be happy”– but really its the inside, our own perception and means of relating to life, that needs a tune up. Its like trying to fix a broken television by changing the channel–nothing is happening!
What am I really talking about? I’m talking about a split between the mind and the body, the original fall (à la Genesis) from unity and wholeness into fragmentation. No god, no gardens, but a disconnect from ourselves that really is like loosing paradise. What happened?
As infants we were all totally open beings, joyful and spontaneous. When something nice happened we were happy, when something unpleasant happened, we got upset and cried! We were totally identified with pure experience, flowing from one state to the next without any resistance. Don’t get me wrong, newborns are not enlightened–they are totally dependent and unaware of the dangers of living–but given a nurturing environment they are free to experience whatever life brings.
As we age we start to form an individual identity, we develop likes and dislikes; we start to prefer certain experiences and dislike others. Its at this point that certain unpleasant or difficult feelings can be suppressed. A separation develops between our feelings and our expressions, between the mind and the body. Now this is not all bad–a discerning mind that can suppress action helps protect the self from harm–but a problem arises when it becomes our habitual means of operating.
From an early age subtle and not so subtle queues tell the child that expressing certain feelings, particularly powerful ones like grief, rage, or fear, is unacceptable. By the nature of living in civilization we have inherited many of these models of repression as a means to keep society functioning. But now we are being suffocated by our own way of life!
We learn to hold these less comfortable feelings inside us, first as a thought “This feeling is not OK, not me” then as a repressed emotion, and finally they are crystallized into physical form, effecting our nervous system and through it all other systems of the body as physical disease. Our bodies are telling us so much, and we’re trying our hardest not to listen.
And so for many of us our means of life come to perpetuate our avoidance of these feelings and their psycho-physical manifestations. Tired? How about some coffee? Sad? How about some ice cream? or some Prozac? Can’t sleep? take a pill. Can’t focus? Adderrall. Don’t want to hear yourself think? Put on your i-pod. Don’t like who you are? Build another identity on the internet!
We’re running away from anything unpleasant and in the process we are loosing ourselves. We are deadening ourselves to a life full of beauty and growth. Life contains all opposites –close yourself down to pain and you close yourself down to pleasure. To be fully alive we must have the courage to experience all that life brings, the perseverance to heal the Split inside and return to the our authentic self.
I read your post with much interest, similar thoughts are currently on my mind as well about the covers we create to fill the inner vacuum we foster by denying certain ‘negative’ aspects of our being. We have reached a point where we totally deny illness, old age, death, deformity – they are locked up in institutions.
I understand what you say that by closing down on pain, we close down on pleasure. Essentially you are right, and we need to accept and embrace both. People tend to shun and avoid pain, and actively seek pleasure, leading to a ‘bliss’ cult; that the purpose of this life is this partial – and plastic – happiness, the opposite of misery – something totally unattainable in this dual world. I think we need to overcome both, by remaining neutral under all circumstances – easier said than done, of course… This might be the only way out: towards fulfillment.
Looks like we’re stiking the same chords! Glad to read your work and echange some more ideas!