"Is It Worth It"

Brian Lynch

In almost any relationship, there is some imbalance. One person tends to be more dependent on the other. Of course, there is mutual dependence to some extent. For instance, a leader depends on their subjects for support. However, in one-on-one relationships like parent-child, marriage, mentor-mentee, or working relationships, the balance can be uneven and prone to abuse.

In such one-on-one relationships, when we find ourselves in the dependent position, we often have to make a judgment call. We often dislike how we are being treated. It may not always be clear who holds the power, as in a marriage, making it difficult for us to determine what we can and cannot accept.

My main point is that we should make decisions on our own terms, without expecting the other person to change. Yes, people can change, but the odds are against it. They might change in the long run, but if they do, it's more likely to happen after we leave the relationship, rather than by staying in an overtly abusive one.

The important questions to ask ourselves are: "Where are you going?" and "How are you going to get there?" There are many complexities and challenges involved in answering these questions. I am not advocating selfishness or denying the need for help and support from others. What I'm saying is that we can be as much of a problem as the abuser if we don't know what we want. I'm not letting the abusers off the hook; I'm putting the responsibility on us. We often stay in bad situations for various reasons, many of which are not good. Fear of the unknown and not knowing what else to do is a significant reason we remain in relationships, leading us to try to force a relationship or change the other person.

Since originally writing this, I have become more radical in my assessment in the sense that I do not want to suggest that anything is easy. In fact, I suggest that maybe most of the time we are stuck with the people around us, and the task is to manage the best we can because there is nowhere else to go. There is much Pollyannaishness about that, which gives the impression that we have so many choices. That is a fantasy.

Often, the issue is most visible to people who possess stature and power, such as bosses, teachers, and leaders that we come across and are often dependent on. However, it's a fact of life that many, if not most of them, have had to make significant compromises in their lives, which sometimes involve treating people in not-so-nice ways. If you watch twenty video biographies of famous people, you may find only an occasional one who comes across as a "normal" person treat.

Therefore, if you associate with someone like this, whether it's a relative, boss, or mentor, it can be like making a pact with the devil. Is enduring the abuse worth it? Again, so often, people have no choice but to stay. That said, the boss is going where they want to go, and they won't change for you or me. We won't be the "exception" or the "special" friend. The most important thing to understand is that people may make you feel "special," that you are different. They may say, "I won't treat you like I treat others." Or did you just think you heard them say that? But the truth is, if you witness them treating others in ways you wouldn't want to be treated, I guarantee you will be treated the same way.

If you are free to move on, it is good to do so, but always be prepared for a similar person to be around the corner. If you are not free, then the admonition to accept the things you cannot change is a guiding principle, and you achieve that efficiently if you come to know and learn to regulate your internal emotional environment. 0 COMMENTS  

 ing others well.

Interest

Brian Lynch

You have your interest, and I have mine. Have you ever considered that "interest" is an emotional force? Why do you like your favorite color? Did you choose it? Of course, you didn't. You just like it. You have "interest" in it. Why do you like vanilla over chocolate? Did you choose that? So we can go down a very long list. We can talk about your job. I hope you "like" and "enjoy" it. Well, did you choose to do what you are doing?

It appears that our likes and dislikes, and what we are not interested in, start very early on in our life, and we have accumulated experiences that then guide us into new experiences and new interests. Of course, as we get older, that part that "reason" plays is much stronger.

But having said this, I am now very interested in what happens when you have your interest and I have mine, and they are different. What can happen? Well, there can be problems. The problems are made much worse because we have an unconscious belief that everything starts with "reason," and that reason is "logical" and, therefore, we are "right." If I am right, you must be "wrong."

Understanding that every desire, thought, plan, project, and moral dictum that has ever been devised by man has been based, in the end, on someone's or some group's emotional "interest" first, and remember this includes our own, just might help us.

We might start to realize that our desires, thoughts, yes, and beliefs are based on "logic" that is only constructed and applied to our interests after we have the interests. And again, interests are emotional formulations of our experiences, not logical formulations.

So is everything just "my opinion?" How can we solve disagreements if my "interest" is just as good as your "interest?"

In day-to-day life, this can be difficult, as we all know. Slowly we are starting to understand our emotions and to understand the power of teaching our children from an early age, for example, to be empathetic to others' feelings, i.e., interests. This is a basis to form not so many skills for argumentation and "winning" a point, but skills for discourse and conversation that lead to resolutions, contracts, and synthesis.

The other area where humans have made progress over the last several hundred years is that area called "science." Here scientists start with an "interest." For example, I am interested in finding a cure for cancer. Then they try to make rules to limit "emotional" input as much as possible once that first step is made. They do this mainly by having many people look at the procedures and agreeing on them and then having many people analyze the results so no one person or group" s "interests" dominates.

The point of all the words put in quotation marks is to suggest that particular interest and reason are never quite what they seem to be. They are never purely one or the other. Even without conscious thought emotion has its reason, its logic. And reason is motivated first by attention and interest. To paraphrase Silvan Tomkins emotion without reason is wild and reason without emotion is sterile.

When you want something you want it.

Brian Lynch

Come on admit it. When you want something you want it. We tend to want what we want when we want it and that is pretty much it and we want it now. We will pretty much lie, cheat and steal to get it. Are you offended?

What is my point? Well, just what I have said. I have become, of late, more and more impressed at how we avoid the truth of how we are. In my private and professional life, it continually amazes me how we avoid each other so much of the time. No matter how high we rise and often the higher we rise the more problems we have in “being straight” with each other.

I have the habit of, I guess, continually being “shocked” by people’s behavior in this regard and retell my experiences with others about my “shocking” experiences as how people have simply avoided the obvious problem or truth of a situation and much of the time people seem not surprised at all and are more surprised that I am “shocked.” That is they think I am naive. Thinking “Dr. Lynch, what do you expect of people, to be honest and forthright?” “Do you expect people to be anything other than backstabbers and competitive?”

The truth is I do. I do because it is possible. It is possible because such people exist. Part of “this” project, the total of what I write and other than share this information, is the idea that “human nature” is not fixed. Human nature is constantly changing and all the “negative” that we attribute to human action is counterbalanced by positive attributes that can be taught and augmented and have been throughout history.

But to be concrete and helpful I want to point out that we all make fools of ourselves in the heat of battle if we engage mouth before thinking. Much harm is done and often irreparable harm is done because we want what we want and we want it now and then we justify what we just did or said based on what we just wanted. The logic rarely works because we started at the wrong place, We started with an isolated desire.

None of us has been schooled in the complexity of competing interests. If you want to go to your mother's for Christmas and I want to go to mine, it does not mean at all that I do not like your mother. It means I want to go to see my mother more. That is all it means. But that makes all the difference in the world does it not? It also does not mean that I love you less. It also means that there is nothing I can do about this. What I want is not a reasoned decision! It means I want to see my mother. I believe almost no one understands conflict of interests and that when someone wants something they want it and there is not much one can do about it. There is a lot we can start to do about this if we start from an early age to understand the dynamic of this conflict and how inevitable it is; how to compromise with others and ourselves. We are still going to want what we want!

We come to realize these are primarily emotional issues. Interest is emotional and so we will then not make logical fools of ourselves when we try to reason our way out of the massive confusion, our multiple desires have created in our head because when we do someone ends up getting hurt because there is no way to make sense of them. We often end up attacking and humiliating others. This leads to guilt and shame and more attacking. Hey, a mess! It rarely gets us where we want to go. What we wanted! That is, we can’t make it all come out right. All our interests can’t come true. Knowing this from the beginning is the key. But I think we think because they are our interests they are therefore “reasonable” and therefore logical and therefore everything should work. Wrong.

In an earlier post, I quoted the director of the movie “The House of Fog and Sand” as saying, ”The film exposes the unsettling truth that sometimes it is our hopes[read “interests”], rather than our hatreds, that divide us.”

Door # 1, Door # 2 or Door #3

Brian Lynch

In this piece, I will be discussing three options: Door #1, Door #2, or Door #3. It's important to note that much of what I will say might resonate with those who already agree with me. The focus here is on psychology, which has taught us that changing someone's perspective is a difficult task. So, why write this column? It is that we can all improve our understanding of these dynamics.

A prime example of of being set in our ways is looking at our political affiliations. In the United States, people tend to identify as either Democrats or Republicans throughout their lives. Of course, there are instances of crossover, as indicated by the times when we have a President from one party and a different party controlling Congress. However, a significant portion of the population remains steadfastly aligned with one side.

This phenomenon extends to various topics, such as abortion, free markets, and unions. Everyone seems to have an opinion on these matters, which they often consider "common sense" or conventional wisdom. We grow up believing that our grandmother's common sense is the ultimate wisdom. However, it's important to recognize that this isn't always the case.

To challenge the notion of "common sense," let's consider the famous tree door problem. Imagine a game show where contestants must choose between Door #1, Door #2, or Door #3. Behind one door, there might be a brand new Cadillac, while the other two doors hold disappointing prizes like a goat. Once you make your choice, one of the remaining doors is opened, revealing a goat. At this point, you are given the opportunity to change your initial selection. Now, the question is: Does changing your choice affect your chances of winning the Cadillac?

Common sense might suggest that it makes no difference, but in reality, changing your choice significantly improves your odds of winning (for a detailed explanation, refer to [web address]).

Therefore, whenever we have the time to read, hear, or see something that challenges our thoughts or beliefs, it's crucial to take a moment and critically examine how we arrived at our current convictions. Did we merely accept them without question? Are they based on facts, scientific studies, or just something our grandmother said, or perhaps something we stumbled upon on the first webpage we found? Instead, we should invest the time to read at least two other sources, or even better, consult a variety of sources. We must also be mindful of confirmation bias—seeking information that confirms what we already believe. Research suggests that this confirmation bias often influences our reasoning.

In the fields of medicine and psychology, it is vital to seek multiple opinions. Common sense may be common, but the truth is not always easy to find.

Education

Brian Lynch

It has taken us a very long time to understand that to teach someone something, anything, is a  difficult task. It is now known through great work by the best of the best in learning theory and education that most education does not do what it sets out to do and that is transfer knowledge. 

A great majority of what we think is going on is fantasy. A lot of this can be seen on the Annenberg website if you are interested. There you can find a somewhat now famous video of interviews with some Harvard students and professors on graduation day. They are being asked some “simple” astronomy questions of a grade school level. Almost no one, if I remember, gets any of them right including an astrophysics student.

There is another video that seems to show, at least to my satisfaction, that even the “best” high school students were learning by “rote” for the most part. They were learning for the test or for the teacher. When pressed no one had an in-depth understanding of the material. No one could sustain his or her own thinking on a given subject, and when pressed on real core understanding they reverted to primitive private understanding. In fact, the title of the video is, beautifully, “Our Own Private Universe.”  NOTE: This essay was written some 14 years ago I have not been able to find the specific videos today but here is the Annebergs present website addressing learning issues: Our Own Private Universe

Why is this? It is because of our old friend “interest.” It has taken all this time for even the best educators to understand that, from the earliest times, children are figuring out the world on their own. Cognition, learning, and thinking do not start just when we adults decide to pour knowledge into a child’s head. 

We are beginning to realize that children, infants, and even fetuses learn and feel. How could it be otherwise? All of this learning starts with a feeling. Thinking comes much later but all kinds of people real and imagined are explaining the world to the child and the child to his or herself. 

At some level, we should be careful telling children that the moon is made of blue cheese and what does the child think of seeing figures falling from ten stories and getting up and walking away? They believe and think sometimes long before they are “taught” anything. These “images” and “scripted” thoughts are primary and because they are primary they will become very solidified and thus very, very difficult to change.

I am fond of pointing out that we, in no way, chose our favorite color. Our favorite color “happened” to us. So too many, many things “happened” to us, including many of the ways we conceptualize the world and thus the basis for the way we are able to learn. That is the way our “interest” will be directed from here on out without some radical change.

The educational system has never appreciated this and what has evolved is a ne'er-do-well system that has developed a system of reading, writing and testing to just get us through the day. Those that succeed may or may not be the brightest or the best, but they are the ones that just happen to be able to manipulate the system consciously or not.

With any thought and examination, we know the “the system” is geared to “practical results” jobs, income, and the like. This is despite the fact that we pay lip service to “real” education and “higher education.”