If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not a poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.  Rainer Maria Rilke

           Our cultural paradigm assumes that certain thoughts, emotions, beliefs and behaviors bode favorably for us living together more or less peacefully.  People who scream their darkest innermost fantasies or opinions in public are often deemed “crazy” while many of us who have similar internal monologues but don’t express them outwardly are deemed “sane;” raw thoughts and emotions are akin to blood to us – we believe that they’re best kept on the inside and we’re shocked to see them spill onto our streets.  For society to function with maximum efficiency and minimum disruption we believe and agree that tacit rules like the above must be instilled and inculcated into our children as soon and as early as possible.  Nobody in Western Civilization wants to debate the merits of cannibalism with college students or change the diapers of a 17 year-old – we all agree that only babies, elderly people, and sick people wear diapers.  Similarly, few elementary school teachers discuss the pros and cons of feudalism, slavery, fascism, communism, and democracy with their students and then ask them which system they would prefer to partake in – we all assume that some form of limited democracy, like America has, is the best way to govern given our current ideals about personal liberty andfreedom.  As a culture we believe in certain fundamentals - that our forefathers held to be “self-evident” - and we want our children to grow up incarnating those beliefs and not being too subversive or radical.  If someone stood on your local corner and preached the benefits of slavery or fascism or even oligarchy, his or her first amendment rights would soon be curtailed in some way, mostly likely (and somewhat ironically) for “disrupting the peace.”

           The point of this chapter is not to question the assumptions and beliefs of our cultural paradigm but rather ask the following questions: Could there not be unintended psychological ramifications to the way we as a society currently acculturate infants and that the way we are taught to gain our senses of self – from the positive and negative feedback of our caregivers and then teachers, friends, lovers, families, and co-workers – causes us to incarnate particular ways of being, ways of doing, ways of thinking, ways of perceiving, and ways of behaving?  Let us examine these possibilities.

When human infants are born - like other animals – they are in need of adequate sustenance, protection from harm such as predators and the natural elements, cleanliness and protection from dirt and infection, and a modicum of affection and love.  Without these essentials most infants would not survive very long.  But how long do we allow babies to be babies in our culture?  Is this the same length of time that all cultures allow babies to be babies?  Are we sure that we know the “right” way or “best” way to acculturate our infants?  Or just the most efficient and fastest?  Are there possibly any adverse reactions to things we consider normal and necessary such as language acquisition and toilet training?  For example, in China most mothers do not use diapers and there is thus no medical condition known as “diaper rash;” or in Tibet mothers used to breastfeed their children until the age of 4 or 5 and there were no cases of breast cancer reported until relatively recently.  We Westerners assume that only impoverished cultures allow children to breastfeed until the age of 4 or 5, that if those cultures had access to pasteurized and homogenized cow’s milk and chemical formulas and other “foods” that mothers would wean their children at 6 months or a year like we do.  But is this really true, accurate?  Is there not a growing movement in America away from the bottles, cow milk, and chemicals that we have fed to infants during the past 50-60 years and back to breastfeeding?  What we considered to be “best” just 40 years ago is no longer considered “best.”

           During what is referred to as “The Individuation Process” infants gain their separate and individual senses of self and develop their individual mental paradigms, their particular ways of perceiving the world: is the world a bountiful peaceful loving nurturing safe place or is it a treacherous deceitful “kill or be killed” fearful and unsafe place?  Jacques Lacan’s, Melanie Klein’s and John Bowlby’s theories around the Individuation Process are very interesting.  In particular, I think that Lacan’s “The Mirror Stage” is very thought-provoking, insightful, and germane to our discussion: Lacan theorizes about how an infant develops a sense of “I,” a sense of itself that is distinct from its mother or primary caregiver on whom they are dependent.  He hypothesizes that an infant essentially cannot see itself in a mirror or conceive of itself as separate from its mother or primary caregiver until a particular stage in its mental paradigm takes shape.  When the infant is completely dependent upon others for survival – as all infants are – it does not and cannot perceive itself as an independent entity.  Certain parts of the brain must develop before an infant can see itself – “its self” as separate from its caregivers and able to possibly survive without them.  This is why infants often cry when whoever is holding them puts them down and they are separated from the protection of other warm human beings.

           As a culture we smile at babies more and glow at them in amazement when they start to form words, start to crawl, stand-up, when they “do” the things that we want them to “do” rather than just “be” babies.  In fact, just think of how proud parents are of their children when they no longer act like “babies” - who are dependent and “do” very little besides eat, sleep, defecate, play, giggle, and cry - and become independent and act like “grown-ups” meaning that they can “do” things for themselves and on their own.  “You’re such a baby” is never an accolade in our culture.  In our highly competitive capitalistic paradigm, just “being” is not the most lauded attribute – even for babies.  And being dependent surely is not regarded favorably in our “go it alone,” entrepreneurial, fiercely independent culture.  In fact, if you compare us to other cultures you may find that our Individuation Process is relatively rapid, competitive, and quite abrupt.  I’ve heard many parents proudly declare how early or quickly their child was weaned or learned to use a toilet.  But could this early and rapid individuation be subconsciously traumatic for some more sensitive infants, or even most infants?  And if this process is subconsciously traumatic could it not have ramifications that manifest themselves later in life?

          Nietzsche’s dictum “What does not kill me makes me stronger” has subtly infused itself into our “no pain, no gain” cultural paradigm and has even influenced the way we individuate our children.  We often take it as a sign of development when a baby can sleep for the first time through the night without its mother.  But what is this experience like for the baby?  What does the baby think, intuit, or feel?  What does the baby cry for?  Why is the baby crying?  When the mother eagle pushes its baby out of the nest what is the experience like for the baby bird?  Yes, the baby bird will learn to fly or die trying – so Spencer’s “survival of the fittest” theory is appropriate when applied to the animal kingdom.  But could there not be a more loving, compassionate and nurturing way to wean and individuate human babies?  Is there not possibly a more evolved way of raising babies then metaphorically throwing them out of the nest?

           Let us imagine for a moment what our culture’s Individuation Process is like from the infant’s perspective: let us assume that the infant, who is 100% dependent on its caregiver(s) for food and protection, is not born with a psychologically independent sense of self; and let us assume that it gains this sense of self during the time that it learns to “fend for itself” and become somewhat independent, which for humans mostly means learning to feed itself, clean itself and be toilet trained.  Parents and caregivers as well as nannies, nurses, and teachers give positive feedback and signs of approval such as smiles when infants do things for themselves; these caregivers give negative feedback and signs of disapproval such as frowns when infants soil themselves or cry for their mothers’ milk.  This is how infants learn what is acceptable behavior and what is not.  Thus, during the Individuation Process in our culture the infant learns that positive feedback, approval, coddling, approval - “love” - are CONDITIONAL, contingent on their correct actions and what is deemed “good” or “appropriate” behavior.  Please allow me to reiterate this point because as we shall see in later chapters on resentment it is crucial to understand: during the Individuation Process in our culture the infant learns that positive feedback, approval, coddling, approval - “love” - are CONDITIONAL,contingent on their correct actions and what is deemed “good” or “appropriate” behavior.  For example, how often have you heard a parent say, “I don’t care what my child does, I love him unconditionally?”  Have you ever seen a parent pat their fifteen year-old daughter on the head, smile, and proudly say, “I love you, darling” after she has blown a wad of mucus onto the dinner table, screamed ‘cunt shit piss motherfucker nigger cocksucker bitch,’ and pooped in her pants at a fancy restaurant?  In our culture we agree that only a mentally ill or mentally retarded fifteen year-old would intentionally act in such a “childish” and vulgar manner and that such behavior should not elicit positive reinforcement; her behavior was sufficiently unseemly the first time around and we do not wish to encourage the girl to act this way again.  We do tend to give positive feedback – love – only when certain conditions are met.  Unconditional love is usually reserved for helpless babies and even then mothers and caregivers show more love and positive regard when babies cry less – don’t they?  Very few mothers encourage their children to cry.

          In fact, if you look closely at all of the activities and the basic structure of the lives of people 0-18 years old in our culture, the vast majority of their interactions with “adults” consist of some form of behavior modification.  How much freedom do people have until they are deemed to be legal “adults” at the age of 18?  The old joke goes, “We spend so much time teaching babies to speak and stand up and then for the next 18 years people are constantly telling them to shut up and sit down.”  Think about what it is like for an infant to go to daycare or school for the first time, to be separated from its mother, to be told when to sleep, when to eat, when it’s time for a bathroom break, when is the allotted time for work, when is the allotted time for play.  From our adult perspective, teaching children to be independent from their parents and “civilized” is completely necessary for us to function as an orderly society with hundreds of millions of people living together.  But what do the bodies, hearts, souls and minds of children want?  What did you want when you were 7?  Did you want the freedom to play and explore or did you enjoy being forced to learn math, science and English?  Did you really want to eat at 7:45am, 11:30am and 5pm or did you want to eat when your body was hungry for nourishment?  Did you want to sleep from 8pm to 6am or did you want to sleep when your body was tired?  Did you want to play from 10:15am to 11am or did you want to play when your imagination was inspired?

          I am not proposing that I know a better way to individuate children.  I am merely asking you to question how you formed your sense of self and your way of seeing the world and if that process might not have had unintended ramifications that could possibly manifest themselves later in life.  What is your subconscious attitude regarding trust?  Regarding authority?  Regarding betrayal?  Regarding danger?  Regarding love?  Regarding freedom?  Regarding independence and interdependence?  Did teachers facilitate your greatness and autonomy or did they expose your weaknesses and embarrass you? 

I am asking you to question our culture’s behavior modification process, the demands that were placed on you to “grow up,” to grow up to be independent, to grow up on someone else’s schedule, not yours.  Science – Western medicine and psychology – has delineated a list of “shoulds” regarding child behavior and timing; for example, we have all heard phrases about “normal” or “average” infants such as “infants should stop breast feeding at the age of 1 year” or “Children should be toilet trained by 3 years old.”  And this does not even touch upon the highly highly highly competitive expectations to “grow up” that we experienced when we entered our educational system.  Were we not from an early age continuously tested, ranked, scored and judged in comparison to our peers?  The pressures put on us to perform and achieve were certainly stressful.  Do you not remember any of your peers “cracking” or “checking out” or at least numbing themselves out with drugs and alcohol?  Again, I am not proposing an alternative.  I am merely asking you to ponder whether a child who was not constantly told what to do, who to be, what to wear, what not to do, where to go, when to eat, what to eat, and when to sleep, would grow up to suffer from afflictions that we currently diagnose as ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, and Bipolar Disorder?

          Specifically, in order to facilitate later discussions about what I consider to be rampant fear of intimacy in our culture, I would like you to examine the possibility that our highly competitive culture’s rapid and abrupt individuation process may be experienced by children as abandonment and betrayal.  This, I believe, is what Janov and other psychologists refer to as the “Primal Wound,” a wound that leads many people to perpetually think that they are not “good-enough” and/or “unwhole.”  When a parent puts its 3 or 6 month old infant in a separate dark room for the first time how does the infant know that it will survive through the night?  How does it even know what night is?  How does it know how long night lasts?  How does it know that its parents are just next door and will return in the morning?  How does it know that it is being protected and safeguarded from harm if it cannot see or feel or smell its parents or caretakers?  How does it know that food will be made available again in the morning?  How does it not know that it is not being abandoned?  How does it know that it is safe, that it will survive?  It doesn’t – does it?  Obviously this is how infants learn to trust that there is an invisible structure to feeding and protection.  But what if this is also the time that the baby develops its sense of “self-worth?”  And if someone abandons or rejects you doesn’t that have an effect on your self-worth, especially if that person is your mother or father?  What I am suggesting – along the lines of Attachment Theory – is that if the Individuation Process is too abrupt and the parents harbor a “what does not kill it makes it stronger” attitude of forcing independence like a mother bird throwing its baby out of the nest, one unintended subconscious ramification of this process could be a primal feeling of abandonment and betrayal and the construction of an individual mental paradigm of the world as basically an unsafe or untrustworthy place.  Are you willing to explore this as a possibility?  Have you ever met someone who was inexplicably worried all the time even though his or her life seemed fairly cushy to you?  (Or, have you never been to Los Angeles???)  Did you wonder how this person became neurotic?

           As we have seen above, infants develop a sense of self in our culture through doing things independently, through individual productivity, and through achievement of certain goals.  Now let us examine how we as adults gain our senses of self – is it in a similar or dissimilar manner from what we learned as children?  If you observe adults being introduced or introducing themselves at parties the first line of questioning is usually “What’s your name?” then “Where are you from?” then “What do you DO?”  I’ve rarely seen an adult approach a stranger at a party and seriously ask, “Do you like apple sauce?”  “What’s your favorite color?”  “Do you think the world is a safe place?” or “Do you believe you experience a healthy range of thoughts and emotions?”  What people “do” – how they occupy the majority of their waking hours and how they earn money – is usually one of the first questions Americans will ask when they meet each other.  Have you never experienced meeting a person for the first time and having a list of achievements or a curriculum vitae rattled off while you were shaking hands?  If you’ve traveled to other cultures you may have noticed that the concern of Americans about what people “do” is not ubiquitous.  In fact, such questions are still considered to be quite vulgar in some countries.

           As a culture we are certainly obsessed with things that people “do.”  Just look at the front page of the newspaper, or watch television, or call a friend: “Whatcha doing?” will most likely be one of the first questions.  I would like you to explore the possibility that you have learned to get your sense of self, the sense of who you are - your personal identity – by what you DO.  I don’t necessarily regard this as something inherently evil – people should be proud of their achievements.  But when you get your sense of self from your outer life rather than from already having a solid inner foundation then that could lead to later crises regarding your personal identity or who you think you are. 

           I believe that we are witnessing just such crises of personal identity in our culture today because many people do unfortunately get their senses of self through their outer lives.  The problem lies in the fact that most of us were taught – or we learned in order to receive positive regard in our highly competitive culture – to “put our best foot forward.”  This means that we were taught to construct a glad-handing, smiley-face façade and keep our authentic and often unseemly, negative and possibly even “insane” thoughts and emotions tucked away.  This is the reason why so many people – according to a Harvard study - fear public speaking more than they fear death.  This is also often referred to as “The Imposter Syndrome” because deep down inside we know that our sparkly clean, impressive facades are not the “real,” messy, often confused, confusing, incoherent and inconsistent selves that we dare only show our close friends, relatives and partners.  “What if I’m exposed as the big phony that I know I am?” some people think when they are regarded by a group as highly gifted or a brilliant authority on a subject.  Most of us were subtly taught that if we construct the right façades we would be “loved,” accepted, appreciated, admired, respected, or at least gain some positive acknowledgment.  Thus, we have a continuous fear of not looking good and we put extensive effort into avoiding looking bad.

          My main point here is that there may be a distance between who we think we really are deep down inside and the façades we choose to present to the world.  And this becomes problematic because our self-worth then depends on how others regard us.  This then becomes a vicious and addictive cycle because we feel compelled to constantly spin our lives in a positive light in order to gain the approval, appreciation, admiration, respect and love from others since our own self-worth depends upon it.  When I lived in Los Angeles where many multi-millionaires and supposedly “successful” people live, whenever one particular down-on-his-luck actor was asked by business acquaintances how he was doing he would reply with a smile “Never better!”  And then in private he would confide to his friends how miserable and despondent he was.  This actor did not think that authenticity would be rewarded in the professional world.  Next time a business acquaintance comes up to you and asks, “Howya doin’?” try answering him or her with “Miserably” and then watch his or her reaction.

           When I listen to American businessmen, athletes, and entertainers give talks or presentations I often hear the speaker subconsciously asking their audiences, “Don’t you think I’m great?”  Do people not “sell” their facades when they present themselves?  Are they not trying to get you to “buy” into how great they are?  Like the way students are continuously judged and graded in school, I think that being American is subconsciously tantamount to always having something to prove, to constantly seeking the approval of others.  Do you ever notice how many people set up foundations in their own names – “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” – rather than give their money away anonymously?  Most people want to be highly regarded and the easiest way to do this in our culture is to earn vast sums of money or win many prizes or accolades; we still operate under the assumption that America is a meritocracy, not a caste system, and in this the land of opportunity everyone has an equal shot at the pot of gold, the wheat rises from the chaff, and the “best” of anything will be rewarded (just look at the common theme of competition to perform absurd and demeaning feats or know useless and obscure facts on the plethora of “reality” TV shows).  But is this really the case?  We’ve all heard about extreme cases - like again, sorry, Bill Gates - who dropped out of college and then became the richest man in the world.  But for every Bill Gates who climbs his way to the top of the money pile and ends up in the public eye are there not 100,000 bartenders, waitresses, clerks, and bureaucrats struggling to pay their rent while they wait for their talents and inventions to receive the acclaim that they think they merit?

           The main point of this chapter is to explore the possibility that the way we gain a sense of self in our culture may have psychological ramifications that are just coming to light now.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders has swelled to over 900 pages of disorders, afflictions and diseases that are prevalent in our culture; pharmaceutical companies sell billions of dollars of drugs every year to treat these disorders, afflictions and diseases.  There are over 30,000 thousand suicides per year and an estimated 750,000 suicide attempts annually.  As a culture, regarding happiness statistics we do not rank within top ten “happiest” cultures on earth – even though we are the richest and most privileged; hundreds of thousands of us suffer from anxiety and depression and accept scientific and medical explanations that these problems are more “genetic” and biological or chemical than social.  But what if searching for genes that explain depression, alcoholism, suicide or homosexuality is like trying to measure milk with a ruler?  Maybe it is time to examine the stresses and pressures of growing up in a highly competitive society - competing our way through schools, being expected to work 40-60 hours per week at often undesirable jobs - and how we gain our senses of self for the roots of such disorders, afflictions, and dis-eases, instead of strands of DNA molecules floating in our bodies?

           A friend told me the story of a French man who was walking around a village in India seemingly pointlessly for weeks and weeks.  Finally my friend approached him and asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m not doing,” he replied.  “I’m undoing.” 

Once I heard a woman in a group therapy session say, “I want to be a human being, not a human doing.” 

Ever get tired of presenting your façade as if you were a character acting in a movie known as “Your Life?”  Do you ever feel that you’re an imposter and might be found out?  I am not suggesting that it is a good idea for us to behave authentically all of the time or wear our inner thoughts and emotions on our sleeves.  I am merely asking you to examine where you get your sense of self from, how much of your “self-worth” is dependent upon the regard of others, and how much of their regard is dependent upon your achievements or at least on your busyness and business?  Are you not continuously concerned with what you are “doing?”  Do you not have a never-ending “to-do” list somewhere?  Do most of us not in fact gain our senses of self and who we are by what we do, what we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished? 

            I taught at a school a few years ago and on my first day I was asked to stand up in front of everyone and tell them who I was.  I was a little taken aback by this request, thought about it for a few minutes while some other people introduced themselves, then stood up and said with a large smile, “I have no idea who I am.  I can tell you my name and rattle off a resume of accomplishments but I’m not sure of how that relates to who I am or who I should be or who you want or expect me to be.”  Try to avoid playing the “Who are you, what-do-you-do?” game the next time you meet a stranger; see how long you can go without asking or answering questions about what you “do.” 

            There is an upside to the deconstruction of self that we did in the last chapter and witnessing how your sense of self was initially constructed by outer forces and influences and how it remains influenced by such forces today: for if you are able to deconstruct your self then you are also open to the possibility of reconstructing your self.  You don’t have to buy what our culture - parents, care-givers, school and popular culture - sold you about your “self”, who you should be and what you should do; you can now take your “self” off of that grid; you can refuse to partake in that competition; you can unplug yourself from that matrix or paradigm of beliefs; you can decide who you want to be.  The extreme example of reconstructing a self in our culture is the entertainer Madonna.  Madonna has reinvented, repackaged, and re-sold her façade, her outer self many many times over the past 25 years – probably as many times as Joan Rivers has had plastic surgery; I do not advise viewers at home try this because such inconsistency and contrived novelty have as many costs as they have benefits; like so many performers, Madonna lives in the public eye and depends upon her fans.  This is not what I mean at all for you – in fact what I mean is almost the opposite.  What I mean is that if you have witnessed how what you have hitherto considered to be your “self” deconstructs like an onion when you start peeling back layers as we did in Chapter 3, then you should also be open to reconstructing your self in order to lead a more fulfilling, rewarding and meaningful life.  I’m not suggesting that you reinvent your outer façade but rather reconstruct your inner self.  This is what Nietzsche meant when he discussed “How one becomes what one is” in “Ecce Homo” and what Eliot meant when he wrote in “Four Quartets”, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and to know the place for the first time.”  It’s really about ownership, taking 100% responsibility for who you are and who you want to be. 

              Although sundry fears may initially arise if you look into a mirror and ask, “Who am I?  How did I become this way?  How did I come to incarnate this paradigm, this belief system?  Why do I think the things I think?” there is also great freedom in having the opportunity to reconstruct your self, rebuild the house from the foundation up.  As you already know, in Chinese the symbol for crisis is the same as the symbol for opportunity.  Thus, I see all crises of personal identity as great opportunities for people to reparent themselves and becoming the loving, empathetic and compassionate beings that they now know they want to be, rather than the children plagued by doubts, worries, fears, regrets, frustrations, resentments, “to-do” lists, and shopping lists that they were taught to be.  Is it not obvious that our core selves just want to be loved UNCONDITIONALLY?  Unfortunately, our culture only gives us tools to help us gain love CONDITIONALLY.  Can you not see how this system sets us up for disappointment, frustration and resentment?  Because even if you win and make your way to the top of whatever heap – like Madonna or Bill Gates – you really eventually lose – because fans and admirers only love your facades, your accomplishments, and not the real ‘you.’ 

             This is why you may want to shift your individual paradigm to a place where either you deliberately and intentionally construct your sense of self and take responsibility for it, or you accept the basic uncertainty of personal identity and view your life somewhat as a dynamic experience, an experiment, a moveable feast, or constantly evolving piece of art.  In my opinion, although a few great artists have managed to incarnate such uncertainty, for the rest of us it is untenable.  If we have come to a point in our journey where we’re able to look behind the curtain and see the Wizard of Oz then we are able to realize that all we essentially want is unconditional love.  Not many people would prefer “Earned $10 million dollars” to “Was deeply loved” on their tombstones.  Unfortunately for most of us, we were taught to gain our senses of self through our outer lives, which are contingent upon the facades we weave and spin to others, and which are contingent on our accomplishments and things that we do and have done.  Do you not see the potential pitfalls on relying on others for your sense of self or your “self-worth”?  And thus, is it not time to reconstruct your self and be the loving parents and caretakers that you may not have had if you grew up in our highly competitive culture?  Is it not time to consciously decide who and what you are and want to be?  Is it not time to take responsibility and own who you are?  Is it not time to reconstruct your self so that you are no longer dependent upon unreliable outer opinions and can lead the life that you always dreamed of living?  What are you waiting for???

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