What A Relationship Needs To Succeed
"If we were endowed with the same biological mating pattern as the [pair-bonding] goose, there could be no polygamy, no promiscuity, no celibacy, no harems, no group marriage, no trial marriage, and no divorce in any human community in any part of the world." and "The gibbon's 'very low sex drive' is a reminder...[of the fallacy] that pair-bonding is based on sexual attraction."
- Elaine Morgan, The Descent of Woman, Bantam 1972
The article title refers mostly to male-female relationships, though the first reason could apply to any relationship, including friendships. Let's examine that first reason.
Why so many relationships fail is simply that few people know what makes a relationship work. A large part of that has to do with the fact that living conditions for most people today are so different from those in the past.
In my country, Canada (numbers for the US are similar), a century ago 85 percent of the population lived in the country, in rural areas. That left only 15 percent in cities, despite what we hear and read about lots of people in cities in those days and very little about those who lived "off the land." Those numbers are reversed today.
Today 85 percent of North Americans live in urban areas, have access to everything cities have to offer, but miss out on so much that was good about rural life. Country living is simply not available to most people, for reasons beyond their control. More importantly, what was good about rural life in the past has not been replaced sufficiently by the good of city life today.
In agricultural areas and in areas where most people made their living from resources in the past, people had few enemies. They needed each other. Everyone people knew had value. No one knew when they might find themselves at the side of the road with a broken wagon wheel, homeless (or barnless) because of a fire, in need of someone to fetch the doctor in town but unable to get there for having to look after a sick child, or any of uncountable possible emergencies.
Rural people often needed someone else to help them. They couldn't afford to alienate others they may need to help them one day. Few rural people had money to spare, so volunteer help meant drawing on the goodwill of friends and neighbours, who were often one and the same.
Kids learned in their families how to get along with others because they had to. Sure, they had fights, many physical, far more than today. But they learned to make up after a fight and get on with their lives. Friends were often combatants of the past who made up so they wouldn't have to live as hermits without any friends in areas with few other people around. Grudges were rare because people couldn't afford to have enemies living nearby.
Today people in cities believe that most of their needs can be satisfied with money. We hire people to do whatever we need done. Friends are often workmates, fellow church parishioners or other people life brings together frequently. We may know our neighbours little more than on a nodding acquaintance basis.
Friends tend to be those from whom we can derive some benefit, such as people where we work or fellow club or church members. When it's clear that these people can no longer provide us with any benefits or potential benefits--they or we change jobs, one leaves the club, one moves some distance away--the friendship dissipates with the disappearance of the potential for mutual support. Friends have become another form of object in the throw-away society. There are always more people become friends with in a city. Of course this generalization, like all generalizations, is not true of everyone and not necessarily entirely true of any one person.
Because of this impression that anything we need can be bought, we have allowed ourselves to lose the feeling of needing others in times of tragedy. In the process, over a period of decades we got out of the habit of teaching our children the skills of making friends, of keeping friends through all adversities, of knowing what makes a friendship work. Again, that's a whole society, not necessarily true in every family.
Though most of us now see more people in a day than our ancestors of a century ago saw in a month, we tend to have fewer close friends, people we can count on when the going gets rough, when worse turns to worst. We no longer teach relationship skills because they were not taught to us. We don't know what to teach because most of us don't even realize there are great gaps in our knowledge about relationships.
To make a friend, you have to know how to be a friend. To find a good mate, you have to know how to be a good mate.
The second reason most relationships fail is that we don't know our obligations in a relationship. We know what we want from others, but we give little or no thought to what they may want or need from us to maintain a healthy relationship. As relationships are two way affairs, when one person feels no great commitment to the other, the relationship fails or wanes away at the first crisis.
For any relationship to succeed, each person must believe that they contribute more to the success and health of the relationship than the other. The perception of an imbalance is usually not real because we don't fully appreciate what the other contributes. But if we perceive that we contribute more to a relationship than we receive and we can be comfortable with that, the relationship has a chance.
The best examples of why relationships fail is demonstrated by the staggering divorce rate in western countries. A husband or wife believes that the other is not giving what they used to, that their own needs in the marriage are not being met, that the spouse is "not the person I married." It's usually true. However, what most people fail to appreciate and understand is that their own commitment to being a devoted spouse may be equally weak.
You can't be a good husband or wife if you have very little idea of what is required of a good husband or wife. Ironically, we all seem to have pretty good ideas about what is required of the other, our mates, even if we don't know what is required of ourselves.
The third reason why relationships fail has to do particularly with male-female relationships. Especially the requirement of fidelity in a marriage or common law relationship. If there is one thing we have taught each other and our children about marital and marriage-style relationships it's that each partner should be monogamous.
The trouble with that is that there is nothing in our natural or evolutionary history to support that. Humans, like all the great apes, are genetically and hormonally programmed to spread their genes as widely as possible. That means that men are genetically programmed to want to bed as many women as they can. And women are programmed to find as many healthy males with whom to procreate future offspring as they can.
Many people will find those last two statements offensive. But why? Nature didn't teach us to be monogamous. Religions did. Religions even decry (in some cases even threaten death to participants of) male-male and female-female relationships. Why? Because those who formed the religions knew that most gay men are still capable of passing along their male genes to fertile females, just as most lesbians have the ability to give birth to children, can be impregnated by healthy males.
Religions, in the past, wanted desperately to expand, to enlarge their congregations, to increase their power as unelected bodies of social influence. That meant, in addition to sending out missionaries and conquering other cultures and nations by war, encouraging their own followers to have as many babies as possible. The financial ability of parents to raise children, the likely health of the children and the knowledge of parental skills held little importance compared to the lust for expansion. What was important was numbers.
As a result, homosexuality was forbidden and banned, while having large families was encouraged. To keep order among the families of congregations, religions dictated that families should consist of one adult male, one adult female, and the only other adults allowed would be those who could help to tend to the children while the parents were busy creating more or working to support the ones they had. Polygamy and infidelity were considered sinful because the resulting "families" would be hard to manage, to control.
Science doesn't care much for the word monogamy. It likes "pair-bonding." You have heard of animals that pair-bond, that stay together for life, through thick and thin. Like geese--most examples of pair-bonding are birds, including northern gannets and penguins. However, the only pair-bonding along our branch of the evolutionary family tree is the gibbon. Though gibbon mates are totally devoted to each other, they are comparatively anti-social. They have little to do with other gibbons or other animals of any kind. They keep to themselves.
Gibbons, like other pair-bonded animals, have low sex drives. Not an attractive characteristic for us humans. In fact, sex is of so little importance among pair-bonded animals that some gibbon couples are homosexual and some heterosexual couples do not engage in sex. Do we really aspire to pair-bonding for ourselves? We should see pair-bonding as it really is in other examples in nature.
Let's switch back from the term pair-bonding to monogamy. Monogamy, while a charming and attractive concept in certain contexts, is fundamentally unnatural for us humans.
If monogamy is unnatural and many people insist that they could never live with a mate who is "unfaithful" (i.e. not monogamous) then the marriages and marriage-like relationships that depend on monogamy will likely fail. Estimates in the US of infidelity among married men range around 85 percent, while most estimates of infidelity among married women range between 65 and 75 percent.
A priest commented to me recently that it's up to each member of a couple to fulfill the sexual and other needs of the other so he or she doesn't need to go looking elsewhere. Good idea in theory, doesn't work in practice.
If a marriage depends on monogamy, that makes sex the most important component of the marriage, literally the tie that binds. There are two things wrong with that. One is that a marriage must be based on much more than sex or it doesn't have enough to sustain itself. The other is that few people with a lower sex drive than their partner feel compelled to engage in sex and its accompanying gestures and procedures if they don't feel like it. They may not want to have sex, even if their partner does, but they also don't want the "needy" partner to go out and have sex elsewhere.
It may not be the actual act of infidelity of a partner that results in the breakdown of a marriage, but the attitude of the mate that feels "cheated on" who feels the partner should be something he or she was not naturally programmed to be.
Few "unfaithful" partners want to break up their relationship. They just want to be fulfilled in ways they can't get at home. Nature tells them to find it somewhere else.
A wife who says "You may be the perfect husband in all other ways but you can't be faithful to me, so you must get out of my life" (even though she can't give what the husband needs sexually)--reverse the gender words if it applies--can be the partner who makes the marriage fall apart. If doing what nature dictates and what all other primate animals do causes a marriage or relationship to fail, then the marriage was not well founded in the first place.
We humans have the ability to use our intellect to overcome our natural inclinations. Few of us use that ability. Every war that ever was, most murders, almost every person behind bars in a prison or jail and almost everyone in a mental institution or on mood altering drugs give an abundance of evidence that we tend to give in to nature much more often than we overcome it using our intellect.
When following what comes naturally to us causes a relationship to fail, there is something wrong with how the relationship is constituted. That is, we don't know what a close human relationship is, what it should consist of.
When you don't know what you're doing, expect something to go wrong. It will. If you want a relationship to succeed, you need to learn what the other person needs and how you can fulfill that.
A successful relationship means two people each committed more to the welfare and happiness of the other than they are to their own. That's hard. But no one ever said it was easy.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers, parents and grandparents who want to give their children what they need at each stage of their development, rather than leaving it all to chance.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label knowledge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label knowledge. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Monday, April 14, 2008
Abe Lincoln's Best Advice
"A child is a person who is going to carry on whatever you have started. He is going to sit where you are sitting and when you are gone, attend to those things which you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they will be carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your cities, states and nations. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities, and corporations. Your books are going to be judged, accepted or condemned by him. The fate of humanity is in his hands. So it might be well to pay him some attention."
- Abraham Lincoln
"He is going to...attend to those things which you think are important."
What do you think is important? Did you (Do you) consciously, proactively, knowingly teach those things to your children?
Surprisingly, most people don't. Children, to a great extent in their first six years and to a slightly lesser extent during the following five years, form and reform concepts of their world frequently. Not your world, but the one they perceive with their senses and conceptualize with their minds.
Their entire existence rests within the concept they form of their world, usually based on what they observe from their parents, what they are taught by their parents and how they are treated by their parents. If their parents have extensive social skills, the kids will pick them up whether the lessons are taught formally or not. They will fare better if the parents teach pertinent social skills (such as how to make and keep friends, how to treat casual friends and classmates) rather than requiring the children to pick them up vicariously.
What children don't learn by watching is emotional skills, knowledge to advance their emotional development, especially in a small family with only one child. These kinds of skills--how to cope with life's problems and downturns--need to be taught and learned through experience and lessons from parents.
Will your child "assume control of your cities, states and nations" and "take over your churches, schools, universities, and corporations" as you move on, the way Lincoln said? Yes, but only a very few of them will. Those who receive a balanced upbringing, with equal emphasis on intellectual, physical, social and emotional development will have the ability to assume leadership roles.
Don't the smartest ones reach the top? Not usually. The people who reach the top of situations such as Lincoln described have had thorough and balanced development in the four streams listed in the previous paragraph, but they also have a great deal of drive and determination to excel. These they usually pick up from their parents, though other sources (mentors) are possible.
Most people in our various societies are drones that get by with sufficient knowledge and skills in what they need to know and do, but know little else beyond that. An architect may not be able to sort recyclables on trash pickup day. A factory worker may know how to change a flat tire, but not how to economize on fuel efficiency and eliminate as much pollution as possible from his vehicle.
We all depend on others to do for us what we can't or don't know how to do ourselves. Mostly we don't do these things because we never learned how. We weren't taught by a parent or grandparent. Most of us know very little and can do very little beyond what we do for a living and what we do as hobbies.
We can't do what we never learned how to do. Most of the fundamentals of what we can do we learned from our parents, either by watching them or by learning from lesson they taught. Or we were prompted by them or some experience we had.
As children we depend on our parents to help us form our world. If they don't help with that (and many don't do it actively and knowingly), we grow up with many misconceptions, misinformation or ignorance about many subjects we should be able to get by with.
Sadly, there are few classes where parents can learn what they need to know and do to be parents and what they need to teach their children to help them with their various kinds of development. Every parent tries to do their best, but few know what they need to know.
Maybe you could get together with some others of your neighbours and encourage your board of education or school administration to launch such a program.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents who want to know what their children need and when they need it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Abraham Lincoln
"He is going to...attend to those things which you think are important."
What do you think is important? Did you (Do you) consciously, proactively, knowingly teach those things to your children?
Surprisingly, most people don't. Children, to a great extent in their first six years and to a slightly lesser extent during the following five years, form and reform concepts of their world frequently. Not your world, but the one they perceive with their senses and conceptualize with their minds.
Their entire existence rests within the concept they form of their world, usually based on what they observe from their parents, what they are taught by their parents and how they are treated by their parents. If their parents have extensive social skills, the kids will pick them up whether the lessons are taught formally or not. They will fare better if the parents teach pertinent social skills (such as how to make and keep friends, how to treat casual friends and classmates) rather than requiring the children to pick them up vicariously.
What children don't learn by watching is emotional skills, knowledge to advance their emotional development, especially in a small family with only one child. These kinds of skills--how to cope with life's problems and downturns--need to be taught and learned through experience and lessons from parents.
Will your child "assume control of your cities, states and nations" and "take over your churches, schools, universities, and corporations" as you move on, the way Lincoln said? Yes, but only a very few of them will. Those who receive a balanced upbringing, with equal emphasis on intellectual, physical, social and emotional development will have the ability to assume leadership roles.
Don't the smartest ones reach the top? Not usually. The people who reach the top of situations such as Lincoln described have had thorough and balanced development in the four streams listed in the previous paragraph, but they also have a great deal of drive and determination to excel. These they usually pick up from their parents, though other sources (mentors) are possible.
Most people in our various societies are drones that get by with sufficient knowledge and skills in what they need to know and do, but know little else beyond that. An architect may not be able to sort recyclables on trash pickup day. A factory worker may know how to change a flat tire, but not how to economize on fuel efficiency and eliminate as much pollution as possible from his vehicle.
We all depend on others to do for us what we can't or don't know how to do ourselves. Mostly we don't do these things because we never learned how. We weren't taught by a parent or grandparent. Most of us know very little and can do very little beyond what we do for a living and what we do as hobbies.
We can't do what we never learned how to do. Most of the fundamentals of what we can do we learned from our parents, either by watching them or by learning from lesson they taught. Or we were prompted by them or some experience we had.
As children we depend on our parents to help us form our world. If they don't help with that (and many don't do it actively and knowingly), we grow up with many misconceptions, misinformation or ignorance about many subjects we should be able to get by with.
Sadly, there are few classes where parents can learn what they need to know and do to be parents and what they need to teach their children to help them with their various kinds of development. Every parent tries to do their best, but few know what they need to know.
Maybe you could get together with some others of your neighbours and encourage your board of education or school administration to launch such a program.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents who want to know what their children need and when they need it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Stages Of Life
The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomesan adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; theday he forgives himself, he becomes wise.
- Alden Nowlan, Canadian writer, poet (1933-1983)
We, as parents, must take responsibility when our children discover us flawed, imperfect, even breakers of the rules of common behaviour we set as standards for them in their early lives.
Babies come into this world knowing very little. What they know from 40 weeks of listening in on the world they soon will enter provides them with some information, but we don't yet know the amount or the degree of impact it has on them as children. Let's assume that they have learned enough to make them curious about their new world and they have the beginnings of cognitive abilities by which they will learn more.
Many adults believe that babies gather information as they sense their surroundings for the first several months, even years. Eventually they assemble this data into a concept of what becomes their understanding of their world. This perception about babies is fundamentally wrong.
Babies devise a concept of their world shortly after they have enough information to make sense of it, which is not long after birth. The very act of making sense of it requires the creation of a concept. The concept gets revised as they add more data to their memory banks. Even as babies we believe we know what our world is about.
Throughout pre-adolescent childhood, most kids hold the belief that their concept of their world is the way the larger world is. If their parents satisfy their need for touch by caressing them, holding them and cuddling them, they believe that everyone in the adult world behaves this way. If their parents read to them, they believe that all parents read to their children, even when they discover exceptions to this in other families.
Babies and young children create concepts of their world based on the behaviours of their parents or others who care for them. As they grow and mature, they expect that new information will add to and confirm their concepts.
Most parents teach their children that some behaviours are wrong, dangerous or harmful. They also teach, either proactively or by example (as role models), a concept of right and wrong.
Some parents point out the mistakes of their children to them, but never admit to making mistakes themselves. Some even secretly break the same rules they set for their children. When an adolescent discovers this hypocrisy in the very people who have helped him form his concept of the world, his concept cracks or shatters. This begins the rebellious teenager phase that exists in some cultures (but not all by any means).
As he searches for others to help him to assemble a new concept of the world, he may turn to the easiest people to befriend. The easiest friends to make are those who have something to gain from the relationship, usually something that society considers wrong. The bad guys among their age group are always friendly toward their vulnerable peers. They have little trouble persuading a troubled teen to join them because the teen has nowhere else to turn (or so he believes). The troubled one gravitates toward one he perceives as a friend.
The bad guy always has a clear and positive concept of the world to present to the vulnerable one. This consists not only of a code of behaviour which seems to benefit everyone in the group, but a code that is internally consistent. That is, everyone in the gang or group adheres to the same code of behaviour and set of morals and everyone feels accepted within the group because they all share something very important to them.
They share a world view. It may not be a socially accepted world view in the bigger world, but each member sees it as consistent so long as everyone follows it. When the leader breaks the code, violates the rules, the spectre of hypocrisy looms again and some followers want to leave. However, most leaders maintain their position by following the same codes of behaviour as the rest of the group.
Eventually this group may find itself coming into conflict with the rest of the larger society. In the early years of adolescence, this bonds group members together. Eventually most group members find it impractical to maintain a distinct code of behaviour that is anti-social because it prevents them from breaking into the larger world of adults.
At that time, the adolescent sees the mistakes, the vulnerabilities and the failures of his peer group and holds it up to the same for his parents, for comparison. As Alden Nowlan said, that's when the adolescent becomes an adult, when he forgives his parents.
For most young adults, that act of forgiveness of parents for being imperfect is enough to hold them together as a family for the rest of their lives. So they grow from there.
Some, however, will see their own faults and weaknesses in stark contrast to what seem to be strengths of others around them. At that stage they still don't realize that the others have faults and weaknesses as well because these seldom show or are carefully hidden by most adults.
The more that adults see the weaknesses and failures of others, the more likely they are to see their own in comparison and realize that their own weaknesses, failures and faults are no worse than those of others people.
If they can then accept the weaknesses and failures of others because it's in their mutual best interests, they can forgive themselves for their own.
That is the beginning of wisdom. Only the beginning.
If a person chooses to pursue wisdom with forgiveness as its basis, a whole new life lies ahead for that person. He can create a whole new concept of the world that is consistent, with the condition that some things can't be counted on to remain the same. That is, it's the nature of some things about life to be inconsistent, to change, to be uncertain.
A new concept of life with this as its heart opens up enormous possibilities. Life is as complex as it seems. Wisdom embraces it all and searches for more, prepared to accept that nothing is perfect.
The child has truly matured when wisdom is his goal.
Bill Allin, the author of this article, is a parent, teacher, sociologist, philosopher and life guide. He has failed and grown from his failures in each. Wisdom also comes through growing from failure to success. He distilled a wealth of information he learned from his decades of study of child development into a book for parents and teachers.
Learn about his book Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems from his web site at http://billallin.com
- Alden Nowlan, Canadian writer, poet (1933-1983)
We, as parents, must take responsibility when our children discover us flawed, imperfect, even breakers of the rules of common behaviour we set as standards for them in their early lives.
Babies come into this world knowing very little. What they know from 40 weeks of listening in on the world they soon will enter provides them with some information, but we don't yet know the amount or the degree of impact it has on them as children. Let's assume that they have learned enough to make them curious about their new world and they have the beginnings of cognitive abilities by which they will learn more.
Many adults believe that babies gather information as they sense their surroundings for the first several months, even years. Eventually they assemble this data into a concept of what becomes their understanding of their world. This perception about babies is fundamentally wrong.
Babies devise a concept of their world shortly after they have enough information to make sense of it, which is not long after birth. The very act of making sense of it requires the creation of a concept. The concept gets revised as they add more data to their memory banks. Even as babies we believe we know what our world is about.
Throughout pre-adolescent childhood, most kids hold the belief that their concept of their world is the way the larger world is. If their parents satisfy their need for touch by caressing them, holding them and cuddling them, they believe that everyone in the adult world behaves this way. If their parents read to them, they believe that all parents read to their children, even when they discover exceptions to this in other families.
Babies and young children create concepts of their world based on the behaviours of their parents or others who care for them. As they grow and mature, they expect that new information will add to and confirm their concepts.
Most parents teach their children that some behaviours are wrong, dangerous or harmful. They also teach, either proactively or by example (as role models), a concept of right and wrong.
Some parents point out the mistakes of their children to them, but never admit to making mistakes themselves. Some even secretly break the same rules they set for their children. When an adolescent discovers this hypocrisy in the very people who have helped him form his concept of the world, his concept cracks or shatters. This begins the rebellious teenager phase that exists in some cultures (but not all by any means).
As he searches for others to help him to assemble a new concept of the world, he may turn to the easiest people to befriend. The easiest friends to make are those who have something to gain from the relationship, usually something that society considers wrong. The bad guys among their age group are always friendly toward their vulnerable peers. They have little trouble persuading a troubled teen to join them because the teen has nowhere else to turn (or so he believes). The troubled one gravitates toward one he perceives as a friend.
The bad guy always has a clear and positive concept of the world to present to the vulnerable one. This consists not only of a code of behaviour which seems to benefit everyone in the group, but a code that is internally consistent. That is, everyone in the gang or group adheres to the same code of behaviour and set of morals and everyone feels accepted within the group because they all share something very important to them.
They share a world view. It may not be a socially accepted world view in the bigger world, but each member sees it as consistent so long as everyone follows it. When the leader breaks the code, violates the rules, the spectre of hypocrisy looms again and some followers want to leave. However, most leaders maintain their position by following the same codes of behaviour as the rest of the group.
Eventually this group may find itself coming into conflict with the rest of the larger society. In the early years of adolescence, this bonds group members together. Eventually most group members find it impractical to maintain a distinct code of behaviour that is anti-social because it prevents them from breaking into the larger world of adults.
At that time, the adolescent sees the mistakes, the vulnerabilities and the failures of his peer group and holds it up to the same for his parents, for comparison. As Alden Nowlan said, that's when the adolescent becomes an adult, when he forgives his parents.
For most young adults, that act of forgiveness of parents for being imperfect is enough to hold them together as a family for the rest of their lives. So they grow from there.
Some, however, will see their own faults and weaknesses in stark contrast to what seem to be strengths of others around them. At that stage they still don't realize that the others have faults and weaknesses as well because these seldom show or are carefully hidden by most adults.
The more that adults see the weaknesses and failures of others, the more likely they are to see their own in comparison and realize that their own weaknesses, failures and faults are no worse than those of others people.
If they can then accept the weaknesses and failures of others because it's in their mutual best interests, they can forgive themselves for their own.
That is the beginning of wisdom. Only the beginning.
If a person chooses to pursue wisdom with forgiveness as its basis, a whole new life lies ahead for that person. He can create a whole new concept of the world that is consistent, with the condition that some things can't be counted on to remain the same. That is, it's the nature of some things about life to be inconsistent, to change, to be uncertain.
A new concept of life with this as its heart opens up enormous possibilities. Life is as complex as it seems. Wisdom embraces it all and searches for more, prepared to accept that nothing is perfect.
The child has truly matured when wisdom is his goal.
Bill Allin, the author of this article, is a parent, teacher, sociologist, philosopher and life guide. He has failed and grown from his failures in each. Wisdom also comes through growing from failure to success. He distilled a wealth of information he learned from his decades of study of child development into a book for parents and teachers.
Learn about his book Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems from his web site at http://billallin.com
Sunday, March 18, 2007
A Glimpse Into The Mind of a Deep Thinker
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
I find the term "religion of solitude" a bit unsettling bcause of the multiple meanings of "religion." I choose to interpret the phrase to mean a deep respect for time to be alone.
Do people with powerful and original minds welcome and respect the time they spend alone because they appreciate the relief of not being comfortable in social settings for which they are unprepared due to their social immaturity? Despite how common it is for people with powerful and original minds to be underdeveloped socially, making them uncomfortable in many social settings even if they look comfortable and happy, I would answer "no" to the question.
A powerful and original mind needs time to think. Originality demands a solitary gestation period and birth.
Deep thinking requires time for the mind to mull over multitudes of information, experiences, thoughts and inspirations without the mental clutter of non-relevant thoughts about.
Though I have no scientific evidence to support this theory, I suspect that deep thinking activates many of the same parts of the brain that dreaming does, plus some others. Deep thinking is like travelling through a land you have never visited before, without a map and with the path ahead strewn with random thoughts and impressions. It would be frightening for the average person who has not experienced it. Much like a bad dream.
Deep thinking is not highly organized thought, at least in the beginning. Organized thought requires the same levels of restriction and discipline used in ordinary thought in everyday life. That kind of barrier forbids original thought. Deep thinking can't exist within barriers, at least those of the intellectual or emotional variety.
It requires a mind to float free of the body, of the rigours of daily life, of time and place. Yet to forge on through the morass of thought bits to find something unknown.
It requires a certain amount of courage to take such a mind trip because its results are often not welcomed by others when the thinker returns. Original thinking, almost by definition, is resisted if not outright rejected when first presented. Being original oftentimes forces the thinker into a lonely, "outsider" position. Yet that does not impair the interest of the creative mind from searching further. There is a certain mental "high" to discovery.
Deep thinking is hard work. Studies have shown that it requires 31 percent as much energy as heavy lifting. The difference (69%) is easily made up because deep thinking tends to be constant whereas heavy lifting is usually intermittent. Great thinkers are more apt to be slim than pudgy due to the effort required in their thought.
Deep thinking is not for the faint of heart, or the faint of mind. It needs time alone to build something worth considering by the rest of the world.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light on some unusual parts of life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
I find the term "religion of solitude" a bit unsettling bcause of the multiple meanings of "religion." I choose to interpret the phrase to mean a deep respect for time to be alone.
Do people with powerful and original minds welcome and respect the time they spend alone because they appreciate the relief of not being comfortable in social settings for which they are unprepared due to their social immaturity? Despite how common it is for people with powerful and original minds to be underdeveloped socially, making them uncomfortable in many social settings even if they look comfortable and happy, I would answer "no" to the question.
A powerful and original mind needs time to think. Originality demands a solitary gestation period and birth.
Deep thinking requires time for the mind to mull over multitudes of information, experiences, thoughts and inspirations without the mental clutter of non-relevant thoughts about.
Though I have no scientific evidence to support this theory, I suspect that deep thinking activates many of the same parts of the brain that dreaming does, plus some others. Deep thinking is like travelling through a land you have never visited before, without a map and with the path ahead strewn with random thoughts and impressions. It would be frightening for the average person who has not experienced it. Much like a bad dream.
Deep thinking is not highly organized thought, at least in the beginning. Organized thought requires the same levels of restriction and discipline used in ordinary thought in everyday life. That kind of barrier forbids original thought. Deep thinking can't exist within barriers, at least those of the intellectual or emotional variety.
It requires a mind to float free of the body, of the rigours of daily life, of time and place. Yet to forge on through the morass of thought bits to find something unknown.
It requires a certain amount of courage to take such a mind trip because its results are often not welcomed by others when the thinker returns. Original thinking, almost by definition, is resisted if not outright rejected when first presented. Being original oftentimes forces the thinker into a lonely, "outsider" position. Yet that does not impair the interest of the creative mind from searching further. There is a certain mental "high" to discovery.
Deep thinking is hard work. Studies have shown that it requires 31 percent as much energy as heavy lifting. The difference (69%) is easily made up because deep thinking tends to be constant whereas heavy lifting is usually intermittent. Great thinkers are more apt to be slim than pudgy due to the effort required in their thought.
Deep thinking is not for the faint of heart, or the faint of mind. It needs time alone to build something worth considering by the rest of the world.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light on some unusual parts of life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Prejudice: Its Deep and Early Causes
"I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice."
- Clint Eastwood
What right does a Hollywood type have to an opinion on such an important subject? As much right as anyone else. Being a man involved with the public in many ways for so many years, Eastwood likely has a better perspective about how people act than most of us because he has been exposed to so many insecure people in filmland. Hollywood is a Mecca for insecure people.
Assume his observation is correct for the purpose of this discussion. What we have are two important parts to his statement: insecure people and those with extreme prejudice.
Why would anyone be insecure? A genetic defect? A nasty mother? Abuse as a child? The number of people who suffer from feelings of insecurity suggests that the cause is more pervasive than any of these. Almost everyone feels insecure about some things, or they should because they cannot know enough about every problem or situation they face to be able to cope with it effectively and efficiently.
The kind of insecurity that Eastwood was speaking about is basic, far deeper than not knowing enough about the kind of flat screen TV to buy. This kind goes back to childhood, specifically to unfulfilled needs.
A baby spends nearly a year in the womb before birth, 40 weeks in constant touch with its mother. After birth, the need for constant touch continues, but the amount of touch time between mother and child decreases dramatically. As the child gets older, the need continues, though not to as great an extent as before birth. The child can look after itself in childhood passtimes. A fair amount of touching is still needed. It continues throughout our lives.
That need for touch in adults is vastly underrated by most people. How it affects single people (unattached to a cohabiting other of any kind), married people who become separated or married people whose spouse dies or becomes alienated in another way is seldom addressed to the extent it deserves. A man whose wife leaves him may be a bomb waiting to explode because he doesn't know how to cope with the loss of touch as well as the loss of a way of life.
Studies have shown that we each need the equivalent of 12 hugs per day to be satisfied with our lives. The ideal would be 18 hugs. But who has time for that?
Most of us do, if we make time because we know how important touch is to our welfare--both emotional and physical health. It doesn't always have to be a hug. It could be a touch while passing in the hall, holding hands while having coffee or walking together and sleeping next to each other. A kiss and huge when leaving each other and when meeting again counts as two each.
An insufficient amount of touch will make anyone insecure to some extent. The degree will vary and it's hard to measure. In general, all unhappy people lack sufficient touch from a loved one to satisfy them. Those who have extreme prejudice have accommodated themselves to insufficient touch for many years. They may even deny their need for touch.
A prejudiced person needs someone to hurt, just as bullies do. The unfulfilled need for touch for far too long has caused them to want to hurt someone else the way they have suffered themselves. They seldom want to talk about how they hurt or about their need.
Prejudice and bullying function at an emotional level, which is where our need for touch comes in. Lack of sufficient touch shows itself in emotional hurt, which may demonstrate itself in inappropriate behaviours. Sometimes the inappropriate behaviours involve touching the other person.
Now you know something about human needs that most people do not. Use your knowledge wisely and productively.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to bring important human needs out of the closet.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Clint Eastwood
What right does a Hollywood type have to an opinion on such an important subject? As much right as anyone else. Being a man involved with the public in many ways for so many years, Eastwood likely has a better perspective about how people act than most of us because he has been exposed to so many insecure people in filmland. Hollywood is a Mecca for insecure people.
Assume his observation is correct for the purpose of this discussion. What we have are two important parts to his statement: insecure people and those with extreme prejudice.
Why would anyone be insecure? A genetic defect? A nasty mother? Abuse as a child? The number of people who suffer from feelings of insecurity suggests that the cause is more pervasive than any of these. Almost everyone feels insecure about some things, or they should because they cannot know enough about every problem or situation they face to be able to cope with it effectively and efficiently.
The kind of insecurity that Eastwood was speaking about is basic, far deeper than not knowing enough about the kind of flat screen TV to buy. This kind goes back to childhood, specifically to unfulfilled needs.
A baby spends nearly a year in the womb before birth, 40 weeks in constant touch with its mother. After birth, the need for constant touch continues, but the amount of touch time between mother and child decreases dramatically. As the child gets older, the need continues, though not to as great an extent as before birth. The child can look after itself in childhood passtimes. A fair amount of touching is still needed. It continues throughout our lives.
That need for touch in adults is vastly underrated by most people. How it affects single people (unattached to a cohabiting other of any kind), married people who become separated or married people whose spouse dies or becomes alienated in another way is seldom addressed to the extent it deserves. A man whose wife leaves him may be a bomb waiting to explode because he doesn't know how to cope with the loss of touch as well as the loss of a way of life.
Studies have shown that we each need the equivalent of 12 hugs per day to be satisfied with our lives. The ideal would be 18 hugs. But who has time for that?
Most of us do, if we make time because we know how important touch is to our welfare--both emotional and physical health. It doesn't always have to be a hug. It could be a touch while passing in the hall, holding hands while having coffee or walking together and sleeping next to each other. A kiss and huge when leaving each other and when meeting again counts as two each.
An insufficient amount of touch will make anyone insecure to some extent. The degree will vary and it's hard to measure. In general, all unhappy people lack sufficient touch from a loved one to satisfy them. Those who have extreme prejudice have accommodated themselves to insufficient touch for many years. They may even deny their need for touch.
A prejudiced person needs someone to hurt, just as bullies do. The unfulfilled need for touch for far too long has caused them to want to hurt someone else the way they have suffered themselves. They seldom want to talk about how they hurt or about their need.
Prejudice and bullying function at an emotional level, which is where our need for touch comes in. Lack of sufficient touch shows itself in emotional hurt, which may demonstrate itself in inappropriate behaviours. Sometimes the inappropriate behaviours involve touching the other person.
Now you know something about human needs that most people do not. Use your knowledge wisely and productively.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to bring important human needs out of the closet.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, February 03, 2007
We Need To Teach
"Everybody has talent, it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is."
- George Lucas, movie producer and animation innovator
Doesn't that make sense? Lucas, an inventor and producer of dreams in reality, learned that as an adult. In general, that is not a lesson that children are taught.
Innovation--just being different--is a risky business. Society mediates against those who are different. They don't have ladders to climb. They must create their own mountains, then scale the precipices themselves. When they reach the top, they need to market themselves so that others will know what they have accomplished.
Our society is designed to produce followers. Which suits business fine because they treasure employees who will follow the role model they have described. In a society whose work habits, clothing styles, cosmetic usage, hair styles and even morals and ethics are dictated by business, the economy revolves around followers.
Young people who move around to discover their strengths receive little support or encouragement in a broad sense. Business does not like movers, unless they are winners from another company that choose to move to their own business. Moving out is not encouraged, nor is moving up (again in a general sense).
Our education systems prescribe a set curriculum and schools test to ensure that students have attained comptence in the skills and memory of the knowledge to be tested. The objective, we are told, is to ensure that each child receives the same minimum level of skills and knowledge within the public school system.
This objective is worthy to an extent. Yet we still have many young people leaving school without knowing how to read or write at a functionally acceptable level. And we have persistant discipline problems and troublemakers in school who become owners of business empires or great artists by middle age.
In a time when moving around to find your strengths is difficult in most communities and the base of general knowledge grows much faster than it can possibly be taught in schools, we need different ways of doing things.
First we need to teach life skills so that students know how to cope with rapidly changing work and even personal environments. We need to teach children where and how to find the knowledge they require, rather than simply acquiring a little of it for particular classroom projects.
We need to teach social skills to every child so that the "equality of opportunity" to which we pay homage can become a reality where each adult knows how the systems of life work. Opportunities in life mean more than laws and competence with curriculum.
We need to teach emotional (psychological) skills so that each person understands the needs that we all have and knows how to manage their own. They will also know how to recognize problems in others and take steps to intervene to help where advisable.
We need to learn how to help each other and that asking for help is perfectly acceptable. We need to learn that it's in our community's best interests for everyone to be socially and emotionally stable so that we have no hesitation about helping others because we know that the whole community will benefit. And that helping others in need is socially correct.
We need to put into place values where everyone understands that they do not have to be self-sustaining islands of independence, but instead should be part of the community in which they live. A community improves where everyone contributes to it and this will not happen so long as everyone believes that they must look out for their own best interests because no one else will.
We need to learn trust and honesty before we buy our way into chaos and perpetual war. Trust and honesty will be learned if and when they are taught as values and norms of society.
If most people cannot move around freely to discover their strengths, as George Lucas did, then we must provide similar opportunities within school and home environments. This can happen, but only if we teach the necessary skills and knowledge to everyone.
Right now we have the skills and knowledge, but it's wrapped up in psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists who make their living by trying to patch up people who are emotionally and socially broken. The skills and knowledge are in the wrong hands. They need to be in the hands of teachers who can convey them to every child.
Let's stop forever trying to fix broken people. Let's give them what they need to prevent them from breaking in the first place.
The place to begin is within the education systems. Then it will move into homes.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light forward in an increasingly dark tunnel that is our future.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- George Lucas, movie producer and animation innovator
Doesn't that make sense? Lucas, an inventor and producer of dreams in reality, learned that as an adult. In general, that is not a lesson that children are taught.
Innovation--just being different--is a risky business. Society mediates against those who are different. They don't have ladders to climb. They must create their own mountains, then scale the precipices themselves. When they reach the top, they need to market themselves so that others will know what they have accomplished.
Our society is designed to produce followers. Which suits business fine because they treasure employees who will follow the role model they have described. In a society whose work habits, clothing styles, cosmetic usage, hair styles and even morals and ethics are dictated by business, the economy revolves around followers.
Young people who move around to discover their strengths receive little support or encouragement in a broad sense. Business does not like movers, unless they are winners from another company that choose to move to their own business. Moving out is not encouraged, nor is moving up (again in a general sense).
Our education systems prescribe a set curriculum and schools test to ensure that students have attained comptence in the skills and memory of the knowledge to be tested. The objective, we are told, is to ensure that each child receives the same minimum level of skills and knowledge within the public school system.
This objective is worthy to an extent. Yet we still have many young people leaving school without knowing how to read or write at a functionally acceptable level. And we have persistant discipline problems and troublemakers in school who become owners of business empires or great artists by middle age.
In a time when moving around to find your strengths is difficult in most communities and the base of general knowledge grows much faster than it can possibly be taught in schools, we need different ways of doing things.
First we need to teach life skills so that students know how to cope with rapidly changing work and even personal environments. We need to teach children where and how to find the knowledge they require, rather than simply acquiring a little of it for particular classroom projects.
We need to teach social skills to every child so that the "equality of opportunity" to which we pay homage can become a reality where each adult knows how the systems of life work. Opportunities in life mean more than laws and competence with curriculum.
We need to teach emotional (psychological) skills so that each person understands the needs that we all have and knows how to manage their own. They will also know how to recognize problems in others and take steps to intervene to help where advisable.
We need to learn how to help each other and that asking for help is perfectly acceptable. We need to learn that it's in our community's best interests for everyone to be socially and emotionally stable so that we have no hesitation about helping others because we know that the whole community will benefit. And that helping others in need is socially correct.
We need to put into place values where everyone understands that they do not have to be self-sustaining islands of independence, but instead should be part of the community in which they live. A community improves where everyone contributes to it and this will not happen so long as everyone believes that they must look out for their own best interests because no one else will.
We need to learn trust and honesty before we buy our way into chaos and perpetual war. Trust and honesty will be learned if and when they are taught as values and norms of society.
If most people cannot move around freely to discover their strengths, as George Lucas did, then we must provide similar opportunities within school and home environments. This can happen, but only if we teach the necessary skills and knowledge to everyone.
Right now we have the skills and knowledge, but it's wrapped up in psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists who make their living by trying to patch up people who are emotionally and socially broken. The skills and knowledge are in the wrong hands. They need to be in the hands of teachers who can convey them to every child.
Let's stop forever trying to fix broken people. Let's give them what they need to prevent them from breaking in the first place.
The place to begin is within the education systems. Then it will move into homes.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light forward in an increasingly dark tunnel that is our future.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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