That's all pretty poetic. Nietzsche would approve.

The important thing is to get rid of this guy:

Maybe, but maybe also trying to get rid of him makes him stronger. I had that ironic trainspotting 'choose life' poster on my dorm-room wall & I read a lot of Beckett & Cioran and now look what happened. You either die the hero, or become the fitter happier voice, I guess.

Still, not of all the advice in the song-thing is bad, if you don't take all of it together, and if it's not read like a computer-man. For Jung, the shadow has important stuff to tell us, but our distrust of it distorts it, right? If you repress the feminine, all women have shrill harpy tones. If you repress your passive side, everyone seems lazy and full of excuses. If you repress your active side, everyone seems impulsive and stressed-out. if you repress modest discipline, everyone sounds like fitter happier.

'They saw that they were naked and were ashamed.'

The original narrative; and thus universal. We cover up, we make plays, and live out dramas, and a life without these dramas looks empty, like the void from which creation sprang. — unenlightened

I kind of picture an hourglass shape. At the top is all the plays, the lived-out dramas and so forth. At the center is a void [silence]. On the bottom is still...something, but it only comes up to the void if there's not something in the top half waiting to pounce on it, and reshape it, to fit it in to all the other stuff. That crouching-in-wait & pouncing is what I'm trying to let go of, though with very limited success.

Maybe intrusive, but have you actually had personal experience with mental illness? I ask because generally I don't trust mental health advice unless it's personally battle-tested or from someone professionally trained in the field.

Pretty much my attitude summarized in a picture in regards to trauma, neglect, and unhappiness:

Maybe intrusive, but have you actually had personal experience with mental illness? I ask because generally I don't trust mental health advice unless it's personally battle-tested or from someone professionally trained in the field. — fdrake

The stuff I shared about roles and dramas was first vaguely suggested to me a few years back. I turned it into a way of understanding aspects of my professional life, but the principle generalizes. The stuff about the underlying fountain of creativity and energy is also mine, but Nietzsche said the same thing, so it seems to give it a little weight to bring him up, plus and I'm reading Neitzsche now.

If it seemed that I was trying to give advice to apply to a specific mental illness, concern should be alleviated by the fact that csalisbury pretty much rejected everything I said.

It's a short term strategy. Not because you oughta be negative. But because 'keep away' means not-handling, and not handling means more and more false-positivity draped over a non-confronted negative. One old example that comes to mind is Chevy Chase's patriarch in the 'vacation' movies. A newer example that comes to mind is waves upon waves of ultra-positive instagrammers making everyone feel ashamed of their negativity, leading those people to also project positivity, which exacerbates the feeling of negativity for anyone else, which leads them to project positivity ..and so on.

And then that leads to a reaction of people who seize onto negativity (sadboi memes etc) and react so far in the opposite direction, that they won't brook a bit of positivity, because it's offbrand and caving-in.

And then that leads to over-self-aware positivity, like half-winking animal memes, which is still in the whole thing of not actually confronting negativity.

Your whole argument here is based on the false premise that everyone needs some form of "approval" to justify their attitudes. The "leave me be" attitude portrayed so awesomely in the above picture, pretty much confronts this premise in telling the rest of the world to "feck off if they have nothing nice to say".

Or in other words, treat me as you would a person at work if someone has worked at all in their lifetime.

I mean, if someone at work was participating in a conversation and then suddenly said 'stay the fuck away' but remained in the conversation, I'm not really sure how I'd react.

I mean, if someone at work was participating in a conversation and then suddenly said 'stay the fuck away' but remained in the conversation, I'm not really sure how I'd react. — csalisbury

As far as I'm aware, or my attitude at work has always been guided by checking your emotions at the door. I digress because I set standards so high for myself that I find it hard to work around anyone under 30.

I don't know man. You posted an emotionally charged meme and I responded with why I don't think that approach works.

You posted an emotionally charged meme and I responded with why I don't think that approach works. — csalisbury

Could be paranoia, I suppose?

Anyway, addressing your response again, I figure that it's a healthy attitude not to become a people pleaser or seek out approval wherever possible. Less dissonance, and stronger ego boundaries, I suppose?

I agree with that. My thought is that there's less of a need to people-please if you've made peace with your own (potential for) negativity. I find that the more I'm uncomfortable with my thoughts and emotions, the more I succumb to people-pleasing.

I guess a healthy balance is the issue here. I think, the De Niro attitude fits for the society we live in America. I don't think he's all that a popular actor over in Scandinavian countries, despite their social policies pretty much being in align with that quote.

May I enquire what's wrong with pleasing people? I think I'd like it if people spent more time pleasing each other and less time making each other miserable, by and large.

May I enquire what's wrong with pleasing people? I think I'd like it if people spent more time pleasing each other and less time making each other miserable, by and large. — unenlightened

Excessive deference to other people's preferences, or compulsive anxious thought patterns of doing harm, make it much more difficult to enforce reasonable personal boundaries. People who get used to this style of thinking often end up in cycles of abusive relationships in the worst cases, or shutting themselves off from others due to a mismatch between how they feel they should behave and what is actually socially permissible for them to behave in accordance with their and everyone else's needs and wants. The excessive deference can greatly diminish autonomy, and the attendant thought processes which come along with that behaviour are debilitating by themselves.

Edit: how this can play out in terms of 'adverse childhood experiences' is that a person learns such excessive deference from the relationship model of their parental unit, as both a source of conflict avoidance/resolution and of the fear of that conflict. The necessary amount of self assertion is denied for reasons of guilt and fear, so guilt and fear become anticipatory responses to conflict, which reinforces the dynamic of deference/conflict avoidance through a feedback loop/constant habit. People might learn passive aggressive coping strategies to deal with the dissonance, which isn't pleasant for anyone involved.

Edit2: see also the origins of hypervigilance.

May I enquire what's wrong with pleasing people? — unenlightened

Supposedly, not many people deserve to be pleased. Back when I worked in retail and handling returns of products, I soon found out that the favorite word the customer wanted to hear was "I'm sorry", followed up with a quick refund for the created dissatisfaction.

In a communist utopia, nobody gets a refund because everybody gets the same shit.

Excessive deference to other people's preferences, — fdrake

Excessive? I suppose that means 'more than I want to defer'. And that depends, personally speaking, on how and who the other is. I call this being responsive.

The particularity of childhood trauma is that the anxiety is turned inwards to the developing self. One needs to control the (m)other because (s)he is dangerous and inescapable. And that becomes the only possible relationship; everything depends on my deference or defiance or avoidance, whatever. Until one learns different.

So in terms of theory, and possible therapy, the above discussion turns around this traumatised axis of possibility, and cannot expect to get anywhere.

handling returns of products, I soon found out that the favorite word the customer wanted to hear was "I'm sorry", followed up with a quick refund for the created dissatisfaction. — Wallows

And did you also learn when to defer and when not to?

And did you also learn when to defer and when not to? — unenlightened

No, the customer is always right. They might have changed their return policy, as it wasn't Costco. I mean, even Costco with their money back guarantee had to eventually change their return policy...

Excessive? I suppose that means 'more than I want to defer'. And that depends, personally speaking, on how and who the other is. I call this being responsive. — unenlightened

Nah man. Deferring and conflict avoidance when appropriate is fine, deferring and conflict avoidance when inappropriate is not fine. Having one strategy, a single point of failure, isn't being responsive; it's a stoically held, maladaptive worry. The opposite of being radically vulnerable and responsive to the other.

Having one strategy, a single point of failure, isn't being responsive; it's a stoically held, maladaptive worry. — fdrake

Cynical, not Stoical...

I will happily defer to you on this as we are in perfect agreement.

If the worries were cynically believed their content would not be so arresting. Maybe stoic was the wrong word, though. The worries are situation indifferent, is what I meant. Ever present and watchful.

I like the irony. Hurrah for transformative conflict as a resolution strategy.

The worries are situation indifferent, is what I meant. — fdrake

I'm not sure about this. I suppose you are implying that there is a difference between situation averse and situation indifferent, yes? I don't really like this rationale due to my beliefs about there existing higher-order volitions as opposed to simple binary logic.

if you repress modest discipline, everyone sounds like fitter happier. — csalisbury

I was thinking more about Das Man, or the notion that there's a one-size-fits-all sanity. I don't think you should continue shaming people with a re-engineered purpose. That wouldn't make much sense.

Part of me wants to say that psychology is anti-rational. I mean, if a person was exposed to trauma, abuse, and neglect, and form a resulting aversion towards risk with dealing with people, then what's wrong with that?

They say only the paranoid survive.

I mean, if a person was exposed to trauma, abuse, and neglect, and form a resulting aversion towards risk with dealing with people, then what's wrong with that? — Wallows

Indeed. That is the first principle; that response to trauma are necessary defences and aids to survival. To take an obvious example, a soldier in a theatre of combat where there is a constant risk of snipers develops a state of heightened vigilance whereby a twitch of a curtain across the street is enough to make him take cover. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to turn down the sensitivity when he is back home and there is no threat. So he has PTSD. It's not always so simple and direct, but the principle remains the same.

To put it another way, if one learns to expect abuse and neglect, then one expects it from everyone thereafter. It makes perfect sense, except that one does not continue learning - that some are abusive and some are not. And the nature of relationship is that if you treat someone as if they are abusive when they are not, they will eventually almost always become abusive because they are being abused by you, or at best they will withdraw, ie become neglectful.

To put it another way, if one learns to expect abuse and neglect, then one expects it from everyone thereafter. It makes perfect sense, except that one does not continue learning - that some are abusive and some are not. — unenlightened

I'm not a big fan of the notion that behaviors or memories can be unlearned or fundamentally altered. These memories tend to stick out and one identifies with the coping or defence mechanisms that allowed them to survive.

My theory is that if one finds themselves with a repetitive behavior or pattern, then they ought not to project their expectations in a self fullfilling loop. So, instead of prescribing the Vietnamese farmer who stepped on a land mine, an SSRI, buy him a cow to start a dairy farm instead?

Dunno what you're saying, dude. I'm saying that one can change one's mind, and I'm saying that what happened at one time doesn't have to happen every time.