Framing My Mental Me

I think and write a lot about mental frameworks, sometimes as if they are not a part of a person, sometimes as if they are a part of a person. On one hand, we do not always make entirely volitional choices about how we view and think about ourselves and the world so one's mental framework seems not very different from one's self; it is just part of who we are. On the other hand, there is some dynamic and volitional interplay that suggests some separation of our selves from our frameworks.

Right now I rather think one's mental framework is merely a mind's modus operandi, the way in which people interact with and think about the world and themselves. As a method and manner of doing things, it thus seems to me one's mental framework is as much a part of that person, and equally as separate and changeable, as anything else they do.

Arguing with 'Wrong' Passions

Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still. ~ Dale Carnegie

I think what I meant about social and political issues is that it's hard for me to tell other people they are wrong for getting the meaning they get from the things they get meaning from. I do act against some things that others believe adamantly, yet I wouldn't tell those who vote against what I vote for, for example, that they are wrong; even though my position may not win, I couldn’t tell someone they are wrong for wanting meaning and significance, for acting to obtain it. I may disagree with their actions and even want some people policed or put in jail for their harmful actions (for example), but if they truly believed they act meaningfully 'right' by their symbols and framework, wouldn’t tell them they are wrong to try gaining meaning and significance with the symbols and framework they have.

Of course I might argue they should know better than to have such a closed or untenable (in some way) framework, someone should teach them better, or have already taught them better; yet I wonder if these 'shoulds' and 'oughts', dependent as they are upon another different framework being 'right', are an attempt to invalidate (and justify the invalidation of) a person's humanity by taking away what they do have, their symbols, their framework, their life meaning and significance.

I certainly believe in educating those who want education, those who are open to thinking to considering, to dialogue, to dialectic, to the education of their frameworks and themselves; but when they are not open and willing, when they are convinced of their rightness and will consider no alternative to the rightness of their meaning, significance or framework, I think it is wrong (in addition to likely being unfruitful) even to try to convince people of anything different. I believe there may be some things we shouldn't or can't effectively argue about; and though I may vote against them or stop their actions if I can, I rather feel I should treat other's passion as valid to their humanity, as my passions are valid to my humanity.

I don't believe anything should go, but when I think about the larger picture of our common humanity, inevitably someone's passion does win out, someone's human desire wins, the power of meaning and significance wins, (some part of) humanity wins significance – and significance building through passion and experience is, to me, part of the fascinating point, if not possibly the whole point, to being human.

Desire for Meaning and Authority

I wonder if there's any similarity between how my human desire to know what other people do may hide a yearning for an overarching framework that gives cohesive meaning to events and existence, and my more uxorious desire for my partner's rules rituals and other symbols of structure and authority in our relationship. Clearly my wife is an authority to me and I do find experiential meaning in our relationship and our symbols; and frameworks, philosophies, ideologies, and religions are systems of symbols that carry the weight of authority - even sociological studies surveys and statistics can have the weight of authority, if perhaps slightly less systematic in their symbology.

And this begs the question of how meaning and authority are related, and which came first; meaning might cohere through the lens of authority, or authority might arise wherever meaning is found, or there might be a more dynamic relationship including both of these with our without the addition of (an)other variable(s). And even this doesn't answer the question of why we, in our fundamental and essential humanity, desire this meaning-authority matrix so much we often don’t even recognize when and where it happens around us. At times I wonder if the very point and purpose of our existing is somehow hidden in this somewhere - which is humorous, because although I often arrive naturally at this thought through my own interior process, upon immediate reflection I realize it's not exactly a new thought, or even an uncommon one.

Opinion as Valid Self Expression

I encourage a 'don’t knock it until you try it' attitude about different behaviors (barring causing others non-consensual pain or oppression), yet I feel for those who define themselves as not liking green eggs and ham, even if they haven’t tried them. I don't advocate confusing 'I don't like' with 'I am not', but I do believe opinion can be a valid symbol expression of interior experience, and we need not try everything before we say it's fine for Sam-I-Am, but it's just not Who-I-Am.

Valid self-expression isn't necessarily valid communication of course; but we don’t have to understand a person's opinion and interior experience to believe they should have opinions and expression that works for them and their interior. And while people often hold opinions inadequately reflecting reality (or reality for a large number of other people, or even their own reality), those same opinions may remain adequate for their experience. This is often why trying to change people's mind, their opinion, their effective symbol, is so difficult; people only willingly change symbols when they need a better symbol for their experience, only relinquish ineffective symbols when they know better symbols are already available. Yet when they need them, people tend to find better symbols on their own, and since I believe a person is their own best authority of what symbols express best for them, I also believe it's better to let them discover those symbols on their own.

I do believe dialogue, communication, and the exchange of ideas may help people change their minds for their own interior reasons, but when we protest, lobby, pursue, pester and argue until a person relents and becomes convinced, I wonder how effective and adequate the resulting symbols will be. Teaching application of ideas without internal experiential basis is teaching people to ignore their experience as a valid and meaningful, and teaching internal ideology at the expense of adequate meaningful expression.

While I might not agree with a person's opinion, or even believe there are better, more adequate opinions and opinion symbols for their experience than what they're using, but because I understand our common human need to find adequate symbols of our experience, I don't just defend their possession of the opinion they have, I defend their humanity, defend our common humanity, by affording them the opportunity of self discovery and not convincing them of anything.

Differentiating Her

I wonder so often how my wife knows what she knows, sees what she sees, does what she does, with such a compact worldview that can eclipse and compact mere difference with wrongness. Not only is individual human experience a progression from a baby's compact experience to mature adulthood and old age, but even the arc of human history has moved from compact early human civilizations to our more differentiated present civilization.

I myself have believed in the salvific power of scientistic differentiation. I grew up in a large family in a rather cluttered house, and I probably learned early on to identify the most important and essential things because only a few things could be wholly and completely mine. I honed my natural simplification impulse towards the essential and aimed like a laser to the heart of the matter, eliminating everything else in the way. Even today I've theorized the reason I like a good story while my wife likes a good biography is because non-fiction compacts disparate aspects into a holistic portrait while fiction creates a holistic picture to highlight a specific differentiated point.

Yet now not only do I wonder how well I have ever differentiated anything if in the process I have been missing some important things, because after all, as my wife points out, no one lives their life on a single differentiated point. We experience things compactly and later differentiate them, and while some people, such as I, find meaning in later attention to categories and labels at the expense of the compact holistic experience, other people actively ignore the differentiating impulse in order to maintain the present experiential meaning, such as my wife. And I'm in love with my wife, and a little in love with how she sees the world, how she knows the things I don’t know; and we've had more than a few laughs over my ironical and comical attempts to understand her better by trying to differentiate the essence of a holistic, compact experiential worldview.

Ultimately any symbol, all symbols no matter how compact or differentiated, can only be appraised by their effectiveness, their adequacy and accuracy to the task and experience at hand.

A Good Story

Fantasy isn’t just a daydream, it is also a genre of fiction, the written word, stories that we buy, borrow and sell. Some stories we like and think them good stories; some we don’t like and think poor stories. Perhaps a good daydream, a good fantasy, is merely a good story written more personal. Perhaps a good story, no matter the medium (one's own daydream, another's daydream, a novel, a myth, fiction, nonfiction, etc.), is only 'good' because it reveals accurately what happens on that person's interior, reflects adequately the spirit and emotion of their interior. Perhaps a bad story is simply one that isn't accurate enough or adequate enough a reflection of that person's interior. 

Yet there are classics; there are stories (nearly) universally held as highly accurate depictions of human experience, and so we might speak of some stories as being truer than others, more adequate, more accurate, than others. But what do these other stories, daydreams, fantasies, lack? Perhaps it is akin to the difference between philosophy and ideology; the former loves and seeks the truth whilst the latter loves and seeks their particular systematic vision. Perhaps a story, a daydream, a fantasy is good for an individual because it has more interior truth than systematic vision for that individual.

Perhaps this is why daydreaming bothers me once it loses its accuracy to who I and my wife really are; it then becomes a fantasy, a vision, without much truth, an ideological inadequacy with only escapist entertainment value. Entertainment value is a value mind you, just not one I'm willing to confuse with the truth of our lives together, so just as I don’t read stories that aren't true enough for me, I'll continue skipping the poor daydreams in favor the good fantasy, the good story.