2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
In fact, the "healthy person of our society" considers manipulation (demonstration of behavior pursuing hidden goals) normal. People are ready to imitate feelings, behavior, social norms, when in fact they do not feel these feelings, do not want to behave like that, do not believe in prescribed social norms, but they have to play all this in order to look normal.
Mass slavery - I would call it that. Because Mr. Lie becomes a tyrant, the more lies and discrepancies between the internal and the external, the deeper the neurosis, which ultimately leads to psychosis. What to do?
Someone starts a game of imitation - when reality is gradually divided into two: within himself a person lives and acts in one way, for society - in another. It is clear that this double play over time is exhausting more and more, feelings atrophy, disappointment comes, loss of meaning and other consequences, which in each case can take an individual form. There are people who choose the inner reality, and only it. Then their behavior in society may not correspond to the format applied to all, and here their difficulties arise, both for the person and for those around him.
There are also those who choose the inner reality, but at the same time remain within the framework of the role, trying to bring it closer to their inner worldview. They do not renounce society, do not scold or despise it, but they do not close their eyes to obvious inconsistencies and holes in social norms.
Most likely, each of us has important social roles for us. Each role exists in the context of requirements and preferred values, and this fact is worth recognizing. For example, the role of a mother presupposes one behavior (and, of course, commensurate with the ephemeral ideal social model) and therefore has its own framework of "conformity". These roles are simply dark and everything is clear with them, because, basically, we are all human beings, but what to do when inner values begin to conflict with socially preferred behavior? After all, we easily agree with some requirements, they seem to be built into our inner picture of the world. Others cause emotional disagreement and a person faces an existential choice: in fact, it can be perceived as: "if I agree, I will betray myself and what I feel," but "if I do not agree, then they will not accept me, I will find myself outcast."
Any process of individuation, let’s say, a person’s growing up, is associated with this choice (remember, for example, the “adolescent protest”). Sooner or later, in order to move to a “new level of oneself,” one has to enter into an invisible conflict with the public, to defend one's right to be and the right to be one's feelings and thoughts.
At one of the sessions, the client told me about the method he had invented for himself. This is the atonement for the opportunity to be yourself (because, as my client believes, society always requires sacrifices for any apostasy). A person “buys” for himself the right to be himself by performing some socially significant or very important activity for society (for example, it is difficult to replace this person with someone else). The society is “ready to endure” if it receives obvious benefits for itself.
Such compensation is of interest. However, if a person does not receive pleasure from such activities, does not really feel the need to do this, but does in order to "buy himself the right to be himself," then this, in my opinion, is another trap and self-deception. On the other hand, there is the success of Viktor Frankl's logotherapy, which still helps many to reconcile the internal and external through the search for activities that are socially significant and in demand by others. The response from such activities gives a person energy, fills his life with meaning. Through such activity, he learns himself, his true deep motives and his desires, which evoke a positive response from other people, who may have previously been hidden and suppressed. I understand that in this article I raise a topic that is not easy for myself, ambiguous. How to be socially convenient (because the collective and all its norms are reduced to this) and at the same time not betray yourself, your individuality …
I managed to find a compromise in the books of Everett Shostrom, Victor Frankl, Carl Gustav Jung and other authors. Each of them approaches this problem from different angles and in different ways, but almost all of them indicate that the very awareness of the imitation process already leads to the healing of that part of ourselves that was sacrificed for the sake of conformity to society. And then there are two main steps:
1. Start listening and hearing yourself. What do I really like? Do I really want this? It helps to understand how real I am, at least for myself, within myself.
2. Stop imitating at first where it is easiest and observe how I feel in this, what is happening around when I am not imitating. Further, this process can be extended to other areas of your life.
And, finally,.. Imitation is the easiest way to solve urgent problems in life. It seems like it's easier to pretend and everyone will do what we need. But this is a misconception that often leads to disappointment.
Manifesting yourself in such a way as to maintain integrity and interact with society is a creative act that requires skill and a good supply of hilarity. Rarely does anyone succeed in doing this right away, but if this article did not leave you indifferent and you feel that imitation already takes so much of your vitality and energy that you can no longer support it and are about to break down, then abandoning imitation (first in small things, then big) day after day, you can experience a different quality of life. Do not believe me, check;).
