Paradigm Shift
A control freak's guide to un-learning structures of control to make room for the horrific beauty of life.
I awoke Monday morning, Year of Our Lord October 3, 2022, with the realization that my life’s like Circus Maximus stadium on July 18, 64 CE: the imperial ruler’s gone mad, everything’s in chaos, and everything’s on fire.
Apart from a history lesson on when Nero burned Rome (ALLEGEDLY, b/c ancient astronaut theorists suggest…;) btw wat CE mean?), what this episode of Unselfing Experiment is all about is what every control freak doesn’t want to hear but his or her inner guru already knows: there’s no such thing as a perfectly well-ordered place or life; life is mess; life is imperfect.
Life is Circus Maximus, and each of us every day do our level-best to put out the fires we didn’t start.
Or did we?
Thought Experiment #1: Life or Death
You’re standing outside a bar. You’ve just been accosted by some dude who looks like a homeless guy impersonating Brad Pitt holding a loaded .44 Magnum. He demands from you your wallet, and you give it to him automatically. You’ve got $100 in there, but you can think of nothing, frozen in place.
Except he doesn’t take the money. He looks at your ID. Gun fixated on your head.
Your name is:
…And so he barks your name, commands your attention like a drill instructor, and asks you, calmly, “What are you pretending not to know right now about the relationships that matter to you?”
Then he loads the gun.
Your answer will determine your fate. Life or death.
Here’s the catch: let’s say this homeless guy has a particular spiritual power, and so he will 100% know right away whether you’re full of shit. Which means off you go across the astral planes upward through the n-th dimension spirals off toward the council of judgment which stands before the pearly gates.
In other words, you are 100% required to state the absolute truth with tones of conviction you only muster when you curse after injury; or die.
Choose wisely!
You’ve got no time to design a conceit that’s super-duper clever and will get you out of the situation, and homeboy here has mastered some version of spazzy drunken kung fu, so you won’t be able to test your judy-chomppin’ or kungfu-kickin’ with your life on the line.
Absolute 100% honesty. The simple truth. No lyin’, no fibbin’, no cleverness, no take-backsies.
Go.
What am I pretending not to know right now about the relationships that matter to me?
I’ve got all kinds of questions in my toolbox. This question is an excellent, shockproof, fatal tool for dispelling self-delusions or catching yourself in your default-mode buffoonery. It can knock you out of your comfort zone, and as long as you answer the question in earnest, that time under tension in answering it will strengthen your capacity for growth. And! you don’t even need to devise a whole Fight Club-esque scenario to use it ;) Just the simple question will do.
You can even use the generic version, for just about anything: what am I pretending not to know right now? In your job, in your life generally, in your creative endeavors. Whatever.
The question will illuminate any nook or cranny you’d rather not notice that’s gone, well, whack, or slack from misuse, or problematized through neglect.
(Although I use it in this context about relationships because making the inquiry domain-specific can give an answer that gives you something actionable in that domain to work with.)
Your choice.
My Answer… BANG
I like to imagine that I’m a loving, empathic guy. I care about my friends, my family, and in every romantic engagement I’ve done all I can to show up, clean up my act, do right by them, be the best I can be in spite of the theater of my own interior psychodrama, etc.
Those are good intentions, except having good intentions is a necessary condition but not a sufficient one for healthy relationships. (And, take it from a dude who was all-intention no show for awhile, obsession about intention can be the path to hell.)
In answering this question myself, I came to realize in relationships I’m a control freak. I put people into structures of control — a bit like chessboard spaces and pieces, or coordinates on a graph — so I can “know” them and feel safe from behind cover knowing that I know them, and act accordingly in that well-ordered perceptual space. Everything they say or do I carefully file away in the ol’ Circus Maximus that is my brain, and everybody conforms, more or less, to my already-settled expectations or judgments of character.
You see the problem?
Life happens. People change. People are complex. Everybody’s got needs and unique ways of meeting those needs. Everybody’s got a dream, a secret, a fear, a secret dream they fear, etc. People aren’t and can’t be perfect. Nobody gets through socialization unscathed. Everybody’s got their peccadillos.
Am I really so arrogant to assume I know everything about another human being that I can lock them up into predetermined stories I tell myself about them, so that I can feel safe? So that I can live in a secure, well-ordered cocoon-world?
Might as well stamp N A R C I S S I S M on my forehead.
And whacked me on the forehead my own narcissism did, indeed.
Courtesy of that kungfu-kickin’ question.
Because I was pretending not to know that my fear of the unknown was destroying my ability to relate to people with genuine compassion and authenticity.
It’s understandable. Why let people be the complex creatures they are when I’ve witnessed and been the target of so much interpersonal violence? Paranoia, controlling the narrative about other people, all that was an understandable coping strategy for feeling safe, remaining hyper-vigilant amidst danger. When in Rome, cover and move.
But that time’s past. It’s time to heal.
And ever since that realization, I’ve been getting quiet, letting myself feel the fires as they come up, and putting them out with loving hands.
Hope this helps you, on your own path, with your own challenges. I’d be happy to hear them, help if I can, and learn about you (on your own terms!), too.
Much love.
-C