In my previous post, I wrote about how the professionalization of empathy has consequences: for the therapists (or professionals) themselves, for society, and for individuals receiving counseling/therapy. In this post (and the next one) I hope to talk about some of the societal causes that have led to the professionalization of empathy, as well as some of its consequences.
The road that leads to the professionalization of empathy invariably winds through the territory of medicalization. Simply put, medicalization describes the process by which human behavior and conditions come to be identified as medical problems; thereby necessitating diagnosis, study, treatment, or prevention. In order for something to become medicalized it first needs to be pathologized, which is basically classifying something as abnormal or unhealthy. Even though these terms are often used pejoratively, this is not necessarily a negative thing. I do not think that anyone would argue with the fact that there have been unbelievable medical advancements that have taken place over the years which have led to much needed reduction in suffering and have even saved lives. In order to get to the point of having treatments for something, it first needs to go through the medicalization process so it can be diagnosed, studied, and tested. After all, in order to treat a disease, it needs to be classified as a disease first.
However, there is a very important distinction that differentiates the “psy-professions” (primarily psychiatry and psychology, but also other similar professions like counseling, clinical social work, psychiatric nursing, etc.) from other arenas of medicine. While in various sectors of medicine there are biochemical tests and diagnostic imaging that indicate rather objectively the presence of a disease (e.g. diabetes, cancer, tuberculosis, etc.), no such thing exists for psychiatry/psychology. Instead, the psy-professions rely upon the observation of certain behaviors, or the report of certain symptoms from the patient (or their family/friends/etc.). There is no blood test that can say you have bipolar disorder, and there is no imaging exam that can say you have depression. Because this is the case, while often having very thorough studies and research of various disorders, the arena of “mental illness” can be liable to subjectivity. Give me 10 different psy-professionals and the same patient, and have them each conduct a clinical interview with the patient while not sharing their findings with each other, and you may end up with 10 different diagnoses.
The lack of concrete, objective tests for mental illness is particularly concerning considering the scope of expanding medicalization as it applies to the world of psychology and psychiatry. Because the psy-professions deal with issues very fundamental to human existence--such as behavior, emotion, and socialization--the ever-expanding medicalization inexorably leads to ever-increasing human behavior and emotion being classified as pathological. Leading me (as well as a whole host of authors much more qualified than me) to beg the question: at what point will normal be considered pathological? Or have we perhaps already surpassed that milestone already?
The evidence that is most indicative of the expanding medicalization of human behavior and emotion comes from the psy-professions’ foundational text: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (or DSM for short). Currently in its fifth iteration, the DSM is considered the “bible” of the psy-professions because it contains the official diagnoses, descriptions, classifications, and criteria for mental disorders. It is authoritative and incredibly influential, driving various aspects of treatment, insurance, policy, training, and practice. And since its initial publication in the middle of the 20th century, it has been getting fatter.
The first version of the DSM was published in 1952 and was a trim 130 pages long, containing a total of 106 mental disorders. Fast-forward to today, the most recent version of the DSM (the 5th edition) now weighs in at a morbidly obese 947 pages long, containing more than 300 disorders (although this number is difficult to identify, as various disorders have multiple “subtypes” which may inflate the total number of disorders more depending on whether one views these subtypes as distinct occurrences or not). Again, because no objective test exists to aid in diagnosis, psy-professionals must rely upon a more descriptive process to identify possible disorders, thereby making what is included in the DSM in the first place quite vulnerable to bias, subjectivity, and culture-bound assumptions.
Perhaps the most infamous example of this culture-bound bias is the inclusion of homesexuality in the DSM as a mental disorder from its initial version in 1952 up until 1973 when it was removed. In a less noteworthy fashion, other mental disorders have come and gone in successive iterations of the DSM due to lack of sufficient evidence to justify their continued inclusion, including: passive-aggressive, hysterical, inadequate, and cyclothymic personality disorders; Asperger’s Syndrome; Schizophrenia subtypes i.e. catatonic, paranoid, disorganized, undifferentiated, and residual; among others. While these are examples of disorders that have been removed from the DSM, I highlight them to illustrate the ways in which the DSM has included in the first place various disorders that evidently did not have very strong scientific evidence.
Perhaps more concerning than the disorders that have been removed are the ones that have been added. For example, does your child have temper tantrums? If you answered yes (which everyone who has kids did), then they can now be diagnosed with “Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder.” Are you advancing in age and notice that you’re more forgetful than you were as a young adult? Well now you’ve got “Mild Neurocognitive Disorder.” Are you struggling with grief and sadness after the loss of your loved one? Well now in the new DSM there is no longer a bereavement exclusion for depression. So rather than understand your grief in the context of a normal and expected mammalian response, you’ve got Major Depressive Disorder and hey, want some Celexa? If you have been so elusive as to evade any of the 300+ disorders codified in the DSM, there is “Unspecified Mental Disorder,” an extremely vague and unhelpful diagnose that definitely has you covered.
There is not necessarily a classification in the DSM (that I am aware of) that explicitly diagnoses an emotion in and of itself as a disorder. However, various emotions, or the control (or lack thereof) of their expression, are littered throughout the DSM as indicators of various disorders. The more the DSM expands to include what might be considered normal behavior, the more that normal human emotion also becomes stigmatized and classified as pathological, thereby necessitating a professional or medical response. I will return to this concept in the next blog post, but first I want to conclude this post by speaking more about the problematic consequences of medicalization.
Please don’t assume that I harbor negative feelings toward psy-professionals, I am technically one of them myself. And I don’t harbor any particular resentment toward the DSM or the multitude of professionals that contribute to its formulation. I truly believe that the vast majority of psy-professionals are well-intentioned and reasonable individuals with their patients’ best interests at heart. And I also know that psy-professionals have helped countless people alleviate suffering and have been crucial forces for good in millions of people’s lives.
That being said, the manner in which ever-greater amounts of human behavior are being classified as pathological is demonstrative of a conflicting incentive structure. The more that human behavior and conditions are pathologized, the more they then become medicalized. As I said earlier, when something is medicalized it becomes something to be studied, researched, diagnosed, classified, treated, and prevented. The more disorders that exist, the more that we will need psy-professionals to study, treat, and prevent those disorders. The more we will need medications and therapies to alleviate the suffering associated with these disorders. The more we will need self-help books to help us improve ourselves in the privacy of our own homes. All of this leads to more jobs, more job security, more money, and perhaps most importantly, more influence.
In today’s United States of America, it is becoming harder and harder to be normal. While the psy-professions’ practical monopoly on defining what is abnormal behavior and abnormal psychology advances, so too does their proscriptive and prescriptive influence, exerting a tremendous amount of influence over procedure, policy, law, expectations, and culture. The prescriptive influence plays out in both senses of the word, medical and societal. Behavior deemed as abnormal that then becomes pathologized necessitates treatments to be prescribed, whether in the form of a pill, a behavioral therapy, or some other kind of intervention. These are the professionals and interventions that help the person with the abnormal behavior or psychology get back to normal.
You might be asking yourself at this point, what is “normal’? Well, this is where the other sense of prescriptive influence enters the fray. By defining what is abnormal in behavior or psychology, one must have at least some kind of idea of what normal looks like. Obviously, defining something as subjective and complex as normal is no easy task. If I were to survey 1000 random people and ask them to define what normal looked like, sounded like, and acted like, I would likely get a 1000 different responses. Despite this subjectivity, psy-professionals exert a tremendous amount of influence over what is seen as normal in America.
The quest to achieve normal is the proverbial brass ring that has dwindled to the point that it appears impossible to grasp. The capability to classify certain groups of behaviors and psyches as abnormal and others as normal--thereby medicalizing the one while also shrinking the scope of the other--is to prescribe certain behaviors, personalities, traits, and temperaments that you should have or strive for, while proscribing the ones that you should not have. Additionally, the existence of the psy-professional arena as the experts on human behavior and psychology prescribe the expectation that the best possible solution to resolve the pathological abnormal is to bring it to treatment with a psy-professional. Thereby generating a pattern wherein psy-professionals not only define the normal from the abnormal, but also reinforce dependency on the psy-profession as the only place that can treat it.
These prescriptive and proscriptive process may indeed get actually codified into policy and law, but more often the influence on culture and community is more abstract. I believe that the culture of Allegheny College, where I work in the Counseling Center, serves as a reasonable illustration of how this process takes place. While I understand that Allegheny College is by no means a generalizable and representative sample of the vast and multiplex American culture that we all operate within, I think that it will help to illuminate certain important elements of this prescriptive/proscriptive influence over societal and communal expectations. (To be continued...in the next blog post [ew, weird and corny blog post teaser]).
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Friday, March 25, 2016
Confessions of a (Psycho)therapist
I have been working as a professional therapist for several years now. I know that this means that I am still as green as the Jolly Giant bearing that particular hue, but I am still entitled to a few opinions, a couple queries, and sampling of thoughts. Aren’t I ?(Please say yes) Anyway, as a therapist, I feel more and more like my job is to be a clinical Pez Dispenser. Except rather than dispensing orange-pinkish, rectangular, unappetizing candies, I dispense empathy. Come into my office, have a seat on the couch (a regular sofa, not one of those Freudian fainting couches...that’s just how it is in the movies), tilt my head back on its hinges, and out of my throat pops the EmPEZthy™, take it, leave my office, and then rinse and repeat with the next person.
The cumulative effect that this has on me as a person is that by the time I leave the office and live my normal non-professional life, I feel like I’m all out of empathy. I have dispensed so much of the EmPEZthy™ during my working day that when it comes time to live and operate as a normal human being between the hours of 5pm and 8am (and on weekends), I have no real empathy to give any more.
I go to the grocery store and there next to me is a mom with her screaming toddler in tow and all I can think of is how much of an asshole the screaming toddler is and how can the mom just stand there and do nothing? doesn’t she realize how annoying her kid is being? and why does it have to be in this Walmart in this exact line at this exact time that the asshole toddler is having an eruption of volcanic proportions? and can’t I just pay for my milk and bread in peace and get out of here so I can go home where there are no screaming toddlers?
Now, I don’t think that this sort of experience is unique to me just because I am a therapist (at least I sure as hell hope is isn’t). David Foster Wallace writes quite eloquently in his commencement speech to Kenyon University about a situation similar to this (It’s called “This is Water.” Please go read it). Rather, life has a way of exhausting us all and it takes a lot of effort to exert empathy (in the form of compassion), so when we’re exhausted we’re not going to exert the effort necessary to empathize with the mother of the jerk toddler. Instead, we are too worried about our own suffering and wish there were someone who would empathize for us (as we scan our fellow humans next to us in line in the hopes of finding a sympathizing and knowing glance, a glance that says, “Wow, that is really annoying. Sucks to be us right now.”)
In addition to the Walmart-scenario above, there are some side effects of being all spent of empathy due to being a professional EmPEZthy™ dispenser that have been more worrisome to me. I find that I am less able and less willing to offer empathy to those who may really need it in a non-professional capacity. Distressed person on the street? Avoid (My brain: “Oh, what’s this extremely interesting thing that just came up in my phone right now?”). Guy in his car stalled out on the side of the rode? Nooooooope (My brain: “He’s probably an axe-murderer anyway”). Student crying on the bench on my walk from my office to my car after work? ::whistling sound:: (My brain: “Sorry, I’m off the clock now”).
This whole notion of being “on the clock” and “off the clock” is quite problematic when the variable that seems to be turned on and off is empathy. I need empathy to survive. I need it to maintain and nourish my relationships. I need it to foster and build new ones. I need it to be a normal, kind, non-sociopathic, compassionate bloke who operates in a civil and socially responsible way in society. But this is a troublesome byproduct when empathy becomes professionalized. When therapists become professional EmPEZthy™ dispensers. The professionalization of empathy co-opts this basic human element into the land of the 9 to 5, and when I leave the office and have to literally and figuratively “leave work at work” (as they say), sometimes what is also left behind is empathy.
I know that it’s not the same, but consider it this way: Say the vast majority of your job was sitting at a computer and working with spreadsheets. You stare at the spreadsheets, you put new stuff in the spreadsheets, you take stuff out of the spreadsheets, you analyze stuff in the spreadsheets, you make cool looking charts and graphs with the spreadsheets. You have a fucking black belt in spreadsheets! But, I am pretty sure that when the clock strikes 5pm and you haul ass out of your office, the last thing you are going to do when you get home is open up your computer and mess around with some more spreadsheets.
I know that by-and-large the pez dispenser is a pretty lackluster metaphor. What can I say, I’m not exactly Cormac McCarthy. I bring it up to highlight that the professionalization of empathy has consequences: on the individuals tasked with being the dispensers (therapists), on the individuals receiving the empathy (patients/clients), and on society/community in general (everyone else). And my hope is to try to write further about these points in upcoming posts (assuming I don’t get exasperated along the way and give up in a puddle of tears and failure).
The cumulative effect that this has on me as a person is that by the time I leave the office and live my normal non-professional life, I feel like I’m all out of empathy. I have dispensed so much of the EmPEZthy™ during my working day that when it comes time to live and operate as a normal human being between the hours of 5pm and 8am (and on weekends), I have no real empathy to give any more.
I go to the grocery store and there next to me is a mom with her screaming toddler in tow and all I can think of is how much of an asshole the screaming toddler is and how can the mom just stand there and do nothing? doesn’t she realize how annoying her kid is being? and why does it have to be in this Walmart in this exact line at this exact time that the asshole toddler is having an eruption of volcanic proportions? and can’t I just pay for my milk and bread in peace and get out of here so I can go home where there are no screaming toddlers?
Now, I don’t think that this sort of experience is unique to me just because I am a therapist (at least I sure as hell hope is isn’t). David Foster Wallace writes quite eloquently in his commencement speech to Kenyon University about a situation similar to this (It’s called “This is Water.” Please go read it). Rather, life has a way of exhausting us all and it takes a lot of effort to exert empathy (in the form of compassion), so when we’re exhausted we’re not going to exert the effort necessary to empathize with the mother of the jerk toddler. Instead, we are too worried about our own suffering and wish there were someone who would empathize for us (as we scan our fellow humans next to us in line in the hopes of finding a sympathizing and knowing glance, a glance that says, “Wow, that is really annoying. Sucks to be us right now.”)
In addition to the Walmart-scenario above, there are some side effects of being all spent of empathy due to being a professional EmPEZthy™ dispenser that have been more worrisome to me. I find that I am less able and less willing to offer empathy to those who may really need it in a non-professional capacity. Distressed person on the street? Avoid (My brain: “Oh, what’s this extremely interesting thing that just came up in my phone right now?”). Guy in his car stalled out on the side of the rode? Nooooooope (My brain: “He’s probably an axe-murderer anyway”). Student crying on the bench on my walk from my office to my car after work? ::whistling sound:: (My brain: “Sorry, I’m off the clock now”).
This whole notion of being “on the clock” and “off the clock” is quite problematic when the variable that seems to be turned on and off is empathy. I need empathy to survive. I need it to maintain and nourish my relationships. I need it to foster and build new ones. I need it to be a normal, kind, non-sociopathic, compassionate bloke who operates in a civil and socially responsible way in society. But this is a troublesome byproduct when empathy becomes professionalized. When therapists become professional EmPEZthy™ dispensers. The professionalization of empathy co-opts this basic human element into the land of the 9 to 5, and when I leave the office and have to literally and figuratively “leave work at work” (as they say), sometimes what is also left behind is empathy.
I know that it’s not the same, but consider it this way: Say the vast majority of your job was sitting at a computer and working with spreadsheets. You stare at the spreadsheets, you put new stuff in the spreadsheets, you take stuff out of the spreadsheets, you analyze stuff in the spreadsheets, you make cool looking charts and graphs with the spreadsheets. You have a fucking black belt in spreadsheets! But, I am pretty sure that when the clock strikes 5pm and you haul ass out of your office, the last thing you are going to do when you get home is open up your computer and mess around with some more spreadsheets.
I know that by-and-large the pez dispenser is a pretty lackluster metaphor. What can I say, I’m not exactly Cormac McCarthy. I bring it up to highlight that the professionalization of empathy has consequences: on the individuals tasked with being the dispensers (therapists), on the individuals receiving the empathy (patients/clients), and on society/community in general (everyone else). And my hope is to try to write further about these points in upcoming posts (assuming I don’t get exasperated along the way and give up in a puddle of tears and failure).
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Gratitude and Appreciation
I have a lot to be thankful for this year. The thing that I am foremost thank for: To love and be loved by someone so completely and absolutely.
The events of the past year (and a half) since the time of Katie’s diagnosis have heightened my awareness and appreciation of that love. But there have been many times in the months that have passed where gratitude was lost in me. Since that summer of 2014, when this whole terrifying journey began, there has been a competing dualism that has existed within me.
The first is the realm of appreciation. In this realm I am so grateful for caring and competent doctors and nurses, for health insurance, for effective treatments and medicines, and for the access to all these things. In this realm I actively appreciate the outpouring of love and support bestowed upon us from family and friends. The cards, the donations, the calls, the visits, the gifts, the meals. In this realm I am acutely grateful for the dear family and close friends, who rather than shy away from our pain and difficulty, entered into it firmly and fully. Sharing in and supporting us through the shock, confusion, terror, and anger as well as the relief, joy, gratitude, and love. It is the realm of a desperate appreciation for the person to whom I have joined my life. A humbling gratitude for the astounding opportunity to have encountered this woman and to share each day of my life with her since. A terrifying gratitude that although I may lose her, and that our shared life be finished far too soon, I would still be the most fortunate person on earth to have shared these six years of life with her. Needless to say, I cherish this realm. It is the realm that I continually pursue. But it sometimes seems to elude me.
The second realm is one of resentment. In this realm I experience the bile toward the unimaginable cruelty of life, the chaos of chance and the curse of misfortune. I feel the rage and hatred of how someone so completely good and lovely must be subjected to circumstances so painful and disillusioning. In this realm I am choked by anxiety and gripped with fear, stuck in the quicksand of rumination and worry. Here, I am embittered by incompetent physicians, missed diagnoses. In this realm of resentment I see the blessings of my life as curses: opportunities for the randomness and brutality of life to bequeath a continuing succession of pain and loss. In this arena I boil with animus toward those who dare complain of trifle and frivolous misfortunes like they’re catastrophes: of bad traffic and a weak WiFi signal. I secretly stew in acrimony and jealousy for those who appear to have perfectly predictable lives, who have never been visited by calamity, whose plans always come to fruition. In this place I dwell in pessimism and cynicism. Needless to say I hate this realm. It is the realm that pursues me. As I continually endeavor to elude it.
There is a certain reality of this dualism that I have failed to mention to this point. Which is that it seems this dualism is not so strictly dichotomous as perhaps it should be. And also that this dualism is not always competing realities that are constantly in direct confrontation with each other--though this is surely sometimes the case. The truth is that these two realms are to each other as light is to darkness. A darkness that would otherwise be invisible is revealed by the brilliance of the light. And the light would not be experienced as light were there no darkness to reveal its luminosity.
In the spirit of this time, I am reminded to feed the realm of light: appreciation and gratitude. So in consideration of Thanksgiving, please accept this exercise in gratitude:
Thank you to all of those who have loved and supported Katie and me over the turbulent year past. Thank you for all the ways you illustrated this love to us: for showing up, for calling, for cards, for gifts, for donations, for heartfelt words of kindness and encouragement, for positive thoughts, for prayers, for meals, for favors, for making us laugh. Thank you for never allowing us to forget how loved we are. Thank you for never allowing us to forget that we have not and are not going through this alone. Thank you for not allowing us, especially me, to believe that nobody cares.
The remnants of your love and kindness continue to surround us. They are imbued into the very atoms of our bodies and the molecules of our memories.
All the lost tread on tires and gas guzzled to get to us or take us places.
A whole, big carbon footprint of love.
Pictures on walls, in frames, and in our phones.
A museum of texts.
A dossier of calls.
A wall of cards.
A mountain of words.
Receipts from Au Bon Pain.
Gift cards to Subway
A bottle of whiskey (now empty).
A truckload of food (now eaten).
Frayed nerves, tearstained cheeks, and snotty noses.
Handknit caps to keep our heads warm (especially Katie’s when it was bald).
Lost income.
So many Netflix movies.
Shared memories.
Hug residue.
These are just a few of the things that bear witness to the love and support we received. The evidence of your kindness.
Thank you.
The events of the past year (and a half) since the time of Katie’s diagnosis have heightened my awareness and appreciation of that love. But there have been many times in the months that have passed where gratitude was lost in me. Since that summer of 2014, when this whole terrifying journey began, there has been a competing dualism that has existed within me.
The first is the realm of appreciation. In this realm I am so grateful for caring and competent doctors and nurses, for health insurance, for effective treatments and medicines, and for the access to all these things. In this realm I actively appreciate the outpouring of love and support bestowed upon us from family and friends. The cards, the donations, the calls, the visits, the gifts, the meals. In this realm I am acutely grateful for the dear family and close friends, who rather than shy away from our pain and difficulty, entered into it firmly and fully. Sharing in and supporting us through the shock, confusion, terror, and anger as well as the relief, joy, gratitude, and love. It is the realm of a desperate appreciation for the person to whom I have joined my life. A humbling gratitude for the astounding opportunity to have encountered this woman and to share each day of my life with her since. A terrifying gratitude that although I may lose her, and that our shared life be finished far too soon, I would still be the most fortunate person on earth to have shared these six years of life with her. Needless to say, I cherish this realm. It is the realm that I continually pursue. But it sometimes seems to elude me.
The second realm is one of resentment. In this realm I experience the bile toward the unimaginable cruelty of life, the chaos of chance and the curse of misfortune. I feel the rage and hatred of how someone so completely good and lovely must be subjected to circumstances so painful and disillusioning. In this realm I am choked by anxiety and gripped with fear, stuck in the quicksand of rumination and worry. Here, I am embittered by incompetent physicians, missed diagnoses. In this realm of resentment I see the blessings of my life as curses: opportunities for the randomness and brutality of life to bequeath a continuing succession of pain and loss. In this arena I boil with animus toward those who dare complain of trifle and frivolous misfortunes like they’re catastrophes: of bad traffic and a weak WiFi signal. I secretly stew in acrimony and jealousy for those who appear to have perfectly predictable lives, who have never been visited by calamity, whose plans always come to fruition. In this place I dwell in pessimism and cynicism. Needless to say I hate this realm. It is the realm that pursues me. As I continually endeavor to elude it.
There is a certain reality of this dualism that I have failed to mention to this point. Which is that it seems this dualism is not so strictly dichotomous as perhaps it should be. And also that this dualism is not always competing realities that are constantly in direct confrontation with each other--though this is surely sometimes the case. The truth is that these two realms are to each other as light is to darkness. A darkness that would otherwise be invisible is revealed by the brilliance of the light. And the light would not be experienced as light were there no darkness to reveal its luminosity.
In the spirit of this time, I am reminded to feed the realm of light: appreciation and gratitude. So in consideration of Thanksgiving, please accept this exercise in gratitude:
Thank you to all of those who have loved and supported Katie and me over the turbulent year past. Thank you for all the ways you illustrated this love to us: for showing up, for calling, for cards, for gifts, for donations, for heartfelt words of kindness and encouragement, for positive thoughts, for prayers, for meals, for favors, for making us laugh. Thank you for never allowing us to forget how loved we are. Thank you for never allowing us to forget that we have not and are not going through this alone. Thank you for not allowing us, especially me, to believe that nobody cares.
The remnants of your love and kindness continue to surround us. They are imbued into the very atoms of our bodies and the molecules of our memories.
All the lost tread on tires and gas guzzled to get to us or take us places.
A whole, big carbon footprint of love.
Pictures on walls, in frames, and in our phones.
A museum of texts.
A dossier of calls.
A wall of cards.
A mountain of words.
Receipts from Au Bon Pain.
Gift cards to Subway
A bottle of whiskey (now empty).
A truckload of food (now eaten).
Frayed nerves, tearstained cheeks, and snotty noses.
Handknit caps to keep our heads warm (especially Katie’s when it was bald).
Lost income.
So many Netflix movies.
Shared memories.
Hug residue.
These are just a few of the things that bear witness to the love and support we received. The evidence of your kindness.
Thank you.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Concluding Some Thoughts About Distraction
[If you've followed along with the Distraction posts up to this point, congratulations! The conclusion is here. And thanks for reading!]
Previously, I dichotomized distraction into two subcategories: idle distraction and distraction as transposing of self. Now, I want to draw back out to that overarching super-umbrella called distraction—in all its diverse forms. What is the point of distraction? I’m sure there are a multitude of completely plausible answers to this question. Perhaps some would say that it is an innocuous and necessary part of life, that all human beings at pretty much all times in history have engaged in some form of distraction. Maybe it purely comes down to the neuroscience of it all: our brains are just wired for distraction. Some might argue that it is impossible to live life completely without distractions. And all of these answers might be true. But bouncing around in my (all too often distracted) little brain is the notion that distraction has factored into the timeless course of evolution as a survival mechanism. A survival mechanism that evolved primarily in response to the development of consciousness.
Previously, I dichotomized distraction into two subcategories: idle distraction and distraction as transposing of self. Now, I want to draw back out to that overarching super-umbrella called distraction—in all its diverse forms. What is the point of distraction? I’m sure there are a multitude of completely plausible answers to this question. Perhaps some would say that it is an innocuous and necessary part of life, that all human beings at pretty much all times in history have engaged in some form of distraction. Maybe it purely comes down to the neuroscience of it all: our brains are just wired for distraction. Some might argue that it is impossible to live life completely without distractions. And all of these answers might be true. But bouncing around in my (all too often distracted) little brain is the notion that distraction has factored into the timeless course of evolution as a survival mechanism. A survival mechanism that evolved primarily in response to the development of consciousness.
Somewhere along the lines of our evolution into homo sapiens, our brains developed the capacity for self-awareness. Not being an evolutionary biologist or psychologist myself, I am only left to speculate when and how this came to be. But I think that it is pretty safe to say that if you trace our evolution back far enough that you will witness a form of primate that did not possess what we would today call consciousness. Now obviously, as with all evolution, the change did not occur overnight. The primordial primate did not go to sleep one night unaware of itself in any meaningful way and wake up the next morning with a fully developed concept of self. More than likely, the development of consciousness evolved over many, many years, and is most likely still evolving today. Again, as with all evolution, the catalyst to develop this change came about in response to environmental situations. So it can be safely assumed that we as a species developed consciousness as some sort of survival mechanism. As most of us would agree (I assume), consciousness brings all sorts of positives. It is a necessary element that allows for us as humans to achieve all of those characteristics that set us apart from the rest of the natural world, specifically the capacity for advanced rational thought. It allows for us to have a self-concept and to understand ourselves and how it (the self) relates to other selves. It allows for self-awareness, abstract thought, introspection, perception, reflection, individuality, and a lot more.
I have no idea whether the development of consciousness is merely one of the many parts of our evolving ability for rational thought, or whether consciousness was a link in the chain that led to the further development of rational thinking, or maybe it’s both: a kind of symbiotic process. Nonetheless, it seems that the continual evolution of both consciousness and rational thought reached a point where consciousness evolved past the point of utility. This theory (if you can call it that), namely that consciousness was some sort of “mistake” in evolution, has its fair share of supporters—perhaps most recently/famously the pessimist/anti-natalist detective in the first season of True Detective by the name of Rust Cohle. For those of you who watched season one of TD, you’ll be familiar with this quote; for those of you who didn’t, just imagine sexy/emaciated Matthew Mcconaughey delivering the lines in aloof, southern fashion:
I have no idea whether the development of consciousness is merely one of the many parts of our evolving ability for rational thought, or whether consciousness was a link in the chain that led to the further development of rational thinking, or maybe it’s both: a kind of symbiotic process. Nonetheless, it seems that the continual evolution of both consciousness and rational thought reached a point where consciousness evolved past the point of utility. This theory (if you can call it that), namely that consciousness was some sort of “mistake” in evolution, has its fair share of supporters—perhaps most recently/famously the pessimist/anti-natalist detective in the first season of True Detective by the name of Rust Cohle. For those of you who watched season one of TD, you’ll be familiar with this quote; for those of you who didn’t, just imagine sexy/emaciated Matthew Mcconaughey delivering the lines in aloof, southern fashion:
I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself - we are creatures that should not exist by natural law... We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody... I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.
I don’t know if I necessarily buy the notion of consciousness as an illusion. And I’m not sure if I would go ahead and label the whole of consciousness as a “mistake” as some have called it. But I do think that there is some plausibility to the idea that consciousness evolved past a point where it was useful to our survival as a species, and actually toward a place that is threatening to our survival as a species. When you combine the capacity for continually advancing forms of cognition with likewise continually evolving consciousness, it is literally only a matter of time until we human beings figure out that we are extremely mortal, fragile, and fickle creatures that exist for an infinitesimally short amount of time on an earth where many billions of humans just like us have already lived and perished, in a solar system that is a mote in a galaxy that is a speck in the universe. Truthfully, we are pretty insignificant in the scope of eternal time and space. The awareness of ourselves, combined with the awareness of that tiny place our self has in the huge world--and to an infinitely larger degree the timeless universe--is a prime recipe for an existential crisis.
I assume that existential crises are not necessarily accommodating to the necessity of survival. What’s the point of things like reproduction? Or why struggle so hard to survive in a callous, cold, chaotic, uncaring universe? Consciousness + rational thought + the reality of our existential precariousness = a poisonous concoction that is antithetical to survival.
Don’t worry though. I haven’t hopped on the Cohle-train of organized self-extinction. Rather than signing up for cooperative self-annihilation as an answer to the “problem” of consciousness, I think that evolution already took care of it and is taking care of it.
Where consciousness gives way to existential crisis and panic, distraction is introduced as the mollifying antidote to the poisonous concoction just mentioned. Distraction is basically the reaction or countermeasure to an evolution of consciousness that started to become adversarial to survival. The more we distract ourselves--the more we lose ourselves in distraction--the less conscious we become. The more distracted we are, the more we are able to fulfill our special mandate: to continue surviving. We watch TV, we eat, we Tweet, we poop, we game, we propagate. No problems. Perhaps, some point in the future distraction will outpace its usefulness to our survival and a resulting counter swing with consciousness will again ensue. But for now, we live in an age of distraction.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Some Thoughts About Distraction (Part V)
(If you haven't read part IV yet, scroll down and read that first.)
What drives this desire for distraction via the transposing of the self? Previously, I talked about how idle distraction serves as a type of anesthetic to our ineffectual selves. Here, distraction as transposing of self is an avenue for self-forgetting or self-escapism. Similar to idle distraction, what we are attempting to escape is our sense of--or the very reality of--our ineffectualness, inadequacy, and defects. How many people in your life (whom you know well) are pillars of fortitude, security, self-confidence, self-love, and identity? I am not saying that self-efficacious people do not exist in the real world. Just that it is extremely rare to come across these kinds of people. The truly cynical version of myself would say that the wholly self-efficacious person is just an illusion and that perhaps it is only a function of not knowing the person well enough. If you are one of these truly self-efficacious people, then congratulations, and please write a book about how to be you.
It is terribly difficult to become a stable, self-affirming human being. So many things could go awry in our upbringing--imperfections of rearing either by commission or omission. On an even less controllable level, we do not get to choose our environment or our particular culture until we reach an age where we are quasi-independent and then we are already so immersed in it that we either cannot escape it or we don’t even notice it (Like a fish’s conceptualization of water [cf. “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace]). Even more outside of our control is the macro culture in which we operate. In a culture that is always offering and demanding more and better and prettier and faster and stronger and skinnier, how in the hell are we supposed to mature into stable and content human beings? Is it really so hard to understand why so many of us feel deeply flawed? We are like flowers expected to blossom impressively and unceasingly while subsisting only on a diet of brackish water, and then castigated when we fail to meet the impossible expectations.
Operating daily in this environment with such a deep sense of deficiency inexorably leads to some form of self-loathing. This is painful. When you combine the painful self-loathing with the sense or actuality of ineffectualness then the resulting condition is often one of helplessness and hopelessness. We feel deeply flawed and wish to change but have neither the power nor the ability to do so. It seems like common sense, therefore, that we clamor to escape this condition—this self—as constantly as we can. We fear that to continue to struggle in this state will invariably lead to a reinforcement of our deficiency and consequently of our hopelessness.
In what ways is it carried out? “The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves,” writes Eric Hoffer, “the greater is our desire to be like others” (True Believer, p. 99). This latent, or in some cases manifest, dissatisfaction with ourselves fuels the desire for escape. The two predominant ways that we transpose (i.e. escape) ourselves are displacement and projection. With displacement, we attempt to offload the undesirable and unseemly parts of ourselves by supplanting them with the identity, features, or characteristics of another. The more this other is (over)abundant with that which we are lacking, the greater is the displacement. This is why it is no coincidence that celebrities are so obsessed over by the masses. They are, or at least are perceived to be, the platonic ideals of beauty, charisma, power, confidence, and intellect. They so completely embody all those things that we so woefully lack that the pull toward displacement is as natural but also as strong as a small meteorite toward a giant planet (was going to say star but that’d be too punny).
Although this kind of displacement occurs most obviously within this realm, it is not completely contained to celebrity worship. More subtle and routine displacement takes place on a daily basis with other “normal” human beings. The level of displacement is proportional to the degree to which the other embodies that which we lack. It happens in “real time” with coworkers, friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers. But today it mostly transpires in the digital world of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. And this is where it intersects with that other avenue of transposing: projection.
Where displacement is the substitution of desirable aspects of others for undesirable aspects of the self, projection is the broadcasting of the idealized self to others. Now, although I am obviously not an expert on the history of this behavior, I feel relatively confident in presuming that some form of this projection has occurred as long as we’ve been hominids that walk upright and gather together into groups. It makes sense that we would project a certain type of ourselves when out in public that would be quite different from the private self. Not many people would feel comfortable interacting with the scruffy, disheveled, basketball-shorts-with-no-underwear-and-shirtless me that is my private self. So when I go out I need to present myself in a halfway acceptable fashion. This does not happen only with regard to our physical appearance (although that’s a large part of it), but also with our personality.
Unless I’m surrounded by people that I feel completely comfortable with, then the self that I am presenting is in some way contrived--either to be more affable, humorous, serious, professional, competent, or whatever. In other words, we suppress the aspects of the self that may seem less desirable either to ourselves or to others while simultaneously projecting the aspects of ourselves that may seem desirable. We do not limit ourselves to projecting features of ourselves that we might actually contain. Often, we attempt to project a certain characteristic so that people believe that we contain this feature when we actually do not. However, to anyone else who is halfway perceptive this will usually come across as pretentious and inauthentic.
With social media, the opportunities for projection of the idealized self have added a completely new world to the typical scenarios of the past. We still have to project our idealized self in the “real world” when we go to work or to the movies or wherever. But that is only contained to the relatively few people we interact with face-to-face on a weekly basis: family, friends, coworkers, strangers. By comparison, our digital selves have abundantly more “connections” than our actual world could ever comprise. With the amplified audience comes the increased capacity for validation via “Likes” and comments.
This does not exist in the real world. When we walk into our workplaces in the morning we don’t get bombarded with compliments; when we say something in a meeting we don’t receive a litany of praises. More likely than not, we’re barely noticed because, like us, everyone else is too concerned with their own self. Additionally, our digital selves are constantly “on,” continuously projecting that idealized version of ourselves that was once just confined to our public interactions. Lastly, the projecting of an idealized self on social media is much simpler in comparison to the public self projection. In the real world, I have to actually control my emotions and urges and behaviors and speech, I have to interact with potentially unexpected people or situations, I have to adapt to different situations and act accordingly. Not so much with the digital world. The blend of audience/validation capacity, continuous broadcasting, and comparative ease make the digital world extremely attractive to the idealized self.
The digital world is unrivaled in its capacity to allow individuals to construct and maintain a projection of their idealized self. I can exaggerate the features of myself that I accept, inject characteristics about myself that I lack but want to project, and control my environment much more than I can in my real life. Look at all the pictures of me doing fun things in fun places with all these fun people. Check out this cool picture I took of this great meal I ate for my 29th birthday. How many Likes will this status update get?
However, this fertile digital ground for idealized-self projection can be a proverbial two-edged sword due to the fact that it is a panoply of other idealized selves. Everyone else is also broadcasting how adventurous or cool or interesting or perfect their lives are. The interchange of all these idealized digital selves can then interact with that other form of self-transposing—displacement—to create a projection/displacement competition. When I am confronted with your idealized self, suddenly my idealized self does not seem so ideal anymore; this then leads to a surfacing of the actual/flawed self and a form of displacement ensues. However, instead of the full-bore substitution that takes place with celebrities, a different procedure materializes.
When displacement occurs with the famous, the perceived gap between the first-rate representation of features in the celebrity that we grievously lack can easily engender substitution due to the chasm of difference that exists between myself and the celebrity. But this chasm does not exist between me and a “peer” in the digital world because I perceive myself to be more-or-less equal with the other people in my “social network.” When a peer appears to contain an exceptional characteristic superior to my own it is met with jealousy and envy—not substitution—because to substitute would be a tacit admission of the peer’s fundamental superiority. Therefore, rather than displace myself via substitution, I displace by projecting a more exaggerated version of my idealized self. Others in my digital world then view this exaggerated idealized self and a similar sequence ensues.
With our idealized digital selves, we can forget or at least temporarily escape our flawed selves by eliminating anything other than flattering pictures, pruning out everything that is banal about our lives, and repressing all defects. We escape our ineffectual selves by way of transposing (projecting) ourselves into an idealized self. Because we can so effectively escape our deficient selves by projecting this idealized self, and because the digital self offers such an alluring alternative to the milieu of “real life,” our digital selves have become increasingly vital to our overall identities. When the actual self is experienced as flawed and ineffectual, yet the digital self can be projected as an ideal, the resulting tide is one away from enrichment of the actual self toward transposing to the digital self.
Which finally brings us back to the Niagara Falls story. Everyone arriving at the Falls and instantly snapping a selfie and posting it to the digital world is a symptom of self-transposing. The Falls do not matter to our actual selves. Of what nourishment is a natural wonder to a self that is vapid? This is not so different from watering empty flower pots. No, what matters--what is vital--is the projection of this “experience” as part of the idealized self. This experience means nothing unless we can broadcast it to others as part of our idealized self. We are constantly striving not to enrich ourselves through the enjoyment of life, but rather as our own PR firm marketing us to the digital world.
It is terribly difficult to become a stable, self-affirming human being. So many things could go awry in our upbringing--imperfections of rearing either by commission or omission. On an even less controllable level, we do not get to choose our environment or our particular culture until we reach an age where we are quasi-independent and then we are already so immersed in it that we either cannot escape it or we don’t even notice it (Like a fish’s conceptualization of water [cf. “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace]). Even more outside of our control is the macro culture in which we operate. In a culture that is always offering and demanding more and better and prettier and faster and stronger and skinnier, how in the hell are we supposed to mature into stable and content human beings? Is it really so hard to understand why so many of us feel deeply flawed? We are like flowers expected to blossom impressively and unceasingly while subsisting only on a diet of brackish water, and then castigated when we fail to meet the impossible expectations.
Operating daily in this environment with such a deep sense of deficiency inexorably leads to some form of self-loathing. This is painful. When you combine the painful self-loathing with the sense or actuality of ineffectualness then the resulting condition is often one of helplessness and hopelessness. We feel deeply flawed and wish to change but have neither the power nor the ability to do so. It seems like common sense, therefore, that we clamor to escape this condition—this self—as constantly as we can. We fear that to continue to struggle in this state will invariably lead to a reinforcement of our deficiency and consequently of our hopelessness.
In what ways is it carried out? “The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves,” writes Eric Hoffer, “the greater is our desire to be like others” (True Believer, p. 99). This latent, or in some cases manifest, dissatisfaction with ourselves fuels the desire for escape. The two predominant ways that we transpose (i.e. escape) ourselves are displacement and projection. With displacement, we attempt to offload the undesirable and unseemly parts of ourselves by supplanting them with the identity, features, or characteristics of another. The more this other is (over)abundant with that which we are lacking, the greater is the displacement. This is why it is no coincidence that celebrities are so obsessed over by the masses. They are, or at least are perceived to be, the platonic ideals of beauty, charisma, power, confidence, and intellect. They so completely embody all those things that we so woefully lack that the pull toward displacement is as natural but also as strong as a small meteorite toward a giant planet (was going to say star but that’d be too punny).
Although this kind of displacement occurs most obviously within this realm, it is not completely contained to celebrity worship. More subtle and routine displacement takes place on a daily basis with other “normal” human beings. The level of displacement is proportional to the degree to which the other embodies that which we lack. It happens in “real time” with coworkers, friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers. But today it mostly transpires in the digital world of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. And this is where it intersects with that other avenue of transposing: projection.
Where displacement is the substitution of desirable aspects of others for undesirable aspects of the self, projection is the broadcasting of the idealized self to others. Now, although I am obviously not an expert on the history of this behavior, I feel relatively confident in presuming that some form of this projection has occurred as long as we’ve been hominids that walk upright and gather together into groups. It makes sense that we would project a certain type of ourselves when out in public that would be quite different from the private self. Not many people would feel comfortable interacting with the scruffy, disheveled, basketball-shorts-with-no-underwear-and-shirtless me that is my private self. So when I go out I need to present myself in a halfway acceptable fashion. This does not happen only with regard to our physical appearance (although that’s a large part of it), but also with our personality.
Unless I’m surrounded by people that I feel completely comfortable with, then the self that I am presenting is in some way contrived--either to be more affable, humorous, serious, professional, competent, or whatever. In other words, we suppress the aspects of the self that may seem less desirable either to ourselves or to others while simultaneously projecting the aspects of ourselves that may seem desirable. We do not limit ourselves to projecting features of ourselves that we might actually contain. Often, we attempt to project a certain characteristic so that people believe that we contain this feature when we actually do not. However, to anyone else who is halfway perceptive this will usually come across as pretentious and inauthentic.
With social media, the opportunities for projection of the idealized self have added a completely new world to the typical scenarios of the past. We still have to project our idealized self in the “real world” when we go to work or to the movies or wherever. But that is only contained to the relatively few people we interact with face-to-face on a weekly basis: family, friends, coworkers, strangers. By comparison, our digital selves have abundantly more “connections” than our actual world could ever comprise. With the amplified audience comes the increased capacity for validation via “Likes” and comments.
This does not exist in the real world. When we walk into our workplaces in the morning we don’t get bombarded with compliments; when we say something in a meeting we don’t receive a litany of praises. More likely than not, we’re barely noticed because, like us, everyone else is too concerned with their own self. Additionally, our digital selves are constantly “on,” continuously projecting that idealized version of ourselves that was once just confined to our public interactions. Lastly, the projecting of an idealized self on social media is much simpler in comparison to the public self projection. In the real world, I have to actually control my emotions and urges and behaviors and speech, I have to interact with potentially unexpected people or situations, I have to adapt to different situations and act accordingly. Not so much with the digital world. The blend of audience/validation capacity, continuous broadcasting, and comparative ease make the digital world extremely attractive to the idealized self.
The digital world is unrivaled in its capacity to allow individuals to construct and maintain a projection of their idealized self. I can exaggerate the features of myself that I accept, inject characteristics about myself that I lack but want to project, and control my environment much more than I can in my real life. Look at all the pictures of me doing fun things in fun places with all these fun people. Check out this cool picture I took of this great meal I ate for my 29th birthday. How many Likes will this status update get?
However, this fertile digital ground for idealized-self projection can be a proverbial two-edged sword due to the fact that it is a panoply of other idealized selves. Everyone else is also broadcasting how adventurous or cool or interesting or perfect their lives are. The interchange of all these idealized digital selves can then interact with that other form of self-transposing—displacement—to create a projection/displacement competition. When I am confronted with your idealized self, suddenly my idealized self does not seem so ideal anymore; this then leads to a surfacing of the actual/flawed self and a form of displacement ensues. However, instead of the full-bore substitution that takes place with celebrities, a different procedure materializes.
When displacement occurs with the famous, the perceived gap between the first-rate representation of features in the celebrity that we grievously lack can easily engender substitution due to the chasm of difference that exists between myself and the celebrity. But this chasm does not exist between me and a “peer” in the digital world because I perceive myself to be more-or-less equal with the other people in my “social network.” When a peer appears to contain an exceptional characteristic superior to my own it is met with jealousy and envy—not substitution—because to substitute would be a tacit admission of the peer’s fundamental superiority. Therefore, rather than displace myself via substitution, I displace by projecting a more exaggerated version of my idealized self. Others in my digital world then view this exaggerated idealized self and a similar sequence ensues.
With our idealized digital selves, we can forget or at least temporarily escape our flawed selves by eliminating anything other than flattering pictures, pruning out everything that is banal about our lives, and repressing all defects. We escape our ineffectual selves by way of transposing (projecting) ourselves into an idealized self. Because we can so effectively escape our deficient selves by projecting this idealized self, and because the digital self offers such an alluring alternative to the milieu of “real life,” our digital selves have become increasingly vital to our overall identities. When the actual self is experienced as flawed and ineffectual, yet the digital self can be projected as an ideal, the resulting tide is one away from enrichment of the actual self toward transposing to the digital self.
Which finally brings us back to the Niagara Falls story. Everyone arriving at the Falls and instantly snapping a selfie and posting it to the digital world is a symptom of self-transposing. The Falls do not matter to our actual selves. Of what nourishment is a natural wonder to a self that is vapid? This is not so different from watering empty flower pots. No, what matters--what is vital--is the projection of this “experience” as part of the idealized self. This experience means nothing unless we can broadcast it to others as part of our idealized self. We are constantly striving not to enrich ourselves through the enjoyment of life, but rather as our own PR firm marketing us to the digital world.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Some Thoughts About Distraction (Part IV)
I recently traveled to Niagara Falls with my wife for our fifth wedding anniversary. Those of you who have been fortunate enough to visit Niagara Falls will nod in agreement at this understatement: it is an astonishing spectacle to behold. Even all the touristy, commercialized, kitschy crap that surrounds the Falls isn’t enough to deaden the experience. Such immense natural power and beauty is a wonderful affront to the senses. And truly, the Falls are something that you experience with all of your senses. First off, the tremendous rumble of the Falls makes itself heard from miles around; what starts out as a faint hum grows with intensity to a crashing roar as you draw nearer. The Falls are felt in both the percussive reverberations and the vaporized mist that emanate from the colossal force of it all. The Falls can be smelled, and therefore also tasted, in the mist-ified H2O molecules and fluttering oxygen molecules that carry with them the carbon erosion sediment that is also seen in the greenish tint to the raging water. The visual display is remarkable and mesmerizing and hypnotizing and befuddling and awe-inspiring and I won’t ruin it by trying to describe it all. The calculus of all the sensual experiences combines to become something truly greater than the sum of the separate parts, each sense enhancing the other to produce what is a magnificent encounter.
When you add to this overloading sensory experience some of the facts about Niagara Falls, it is no wonder why it is such an astounding sight to witness. The Horseshoe Falls, which is the unquestioned main event of Niagara Falls (sorry American and Bridal Veil falls), covers a span of nearly 2,200 feet and is 173 feet tall at its crest. Nearly 682,000 gallons of water flow over the edge every second, which turns out to be close to 59 billion gallons of water every day. To try to put that in perspective, enough water spills over Horseshoe Falls in one day to fill almost 700 Rose Bowl Stadiums (which can seat over 90,000 people). Those nearly 682,000 gallons of water falling 170 feet at the speed of gravity is enough power to create over 2,500 tons of force. That is roughly the equivalent of dropping 63 fully loaded semi-trucks from a 16-story building every second.
Now, you may be wondering at this point, “Well, Craig, that’s all well and good and everything, but what the hell does this have to do with anything?” or “When did this become a tourist piece about Niagara Falls?” Both very good questions. I bring this all up to highlight the discrepancy between the kind of enrapture that the Falls demands just in its stature, and how it is actually experienced by homo sapien moderna. And the indictment, if there is any, of this behavior is such that I would be among the first getting subpoenaed. So I’m in no way licensed to sit in judgment from my proverbial high horse.
It would really be pleasant and encouraging if upon witnessing Niagara Falls we simply absorbed the spectacle in a few moments of mindful amazement. Unfortunately this is not the case. As we saunter up to the Falls, it seems that our first instinct is not to marvel in slack-mouthed wonder at the remarkable scene, but rather to instantly take a selfie in front of it, hopefully aided by the selfie-enhancing “selfie-stick,” and then directly post it to all social media outlets. This is then followed by slouching over our screens as we scan for likes and views and comments, all the while with backs turned to one of the Seven Wonders of the natural world. We gape at our screens completely transfixed, rather than be mesmerized by what is thundering uproariously behind our backs. This example of how we experience Niagara Falls is a corollary of the transposed self. A symptom of the yearning for self-forgetting. I’ll get back to the Niagara Falls story a little later, but before I do that I should talk about all this “transposed self” business and what it has to do with distraction.
As I mentioned in previous post(s), I have split distraction into two large subcategories: idle distraction and distraction as transposing of self. The two categories bear the primary similarity in that they both generate from the estrangement we feel toward our ineffectual selves and serve the purpose of abetting self-forgetting—this could be said of distraction in all of its forms. While idle distraction is primarily an anesthetic to the self vis-à-vis entertainment, distraction as transposing of self is the escape from the self by way of projection (of the “idealized self”) and displacement (of the unwanted self). But more on that later.
The avenues that we can travel down to distract ourselves in this way are abundant. Indeed, many of the pathways cannot be completely separated from idle distractions and perhaps belong to both categories. Numerous forms of entertainment—whether in film, TV, literature, etc.—although maybe considered idle, are most certainly also prime distraction avenues for their projection and displacement of self opportunities. Are not the most popular and profitable movies those that feature heroes or princesses or some sort of imitation of these ideals? The characters in the prodigiously popular movies are continually some sort of unrealistic assortment of characteristics: strength, beauty, honor, talent, humor, popularity, intelligence, (sex) appeal, bravery, manliness, self-security, and so on. There is no coincidence here. There exists a nationwide (and worldwide) obsession with celebrities—not only the TV shows and movies in which they appear, but also (if not especially) their personal lives. The countless paparazzi and gossip rags and gossip shows and gossip sites. Is there any distinction in modern day America between a gossip show and a news show? I could expand on this (but won’t because time lazy) but I’m not going to so that I can continue along the pattern that I set up for myself: that is, looking at distraction primarily through the lens of (digital) screens.
The opportunities for distraction by the transposing of self in our screen-mediated world are staggering both in the sheer multiplicity of options as well as the volume of time lost. One of the biggest time leeches of our contemporary lives is the world of social media. I haven’t researched this so please do your due diligence before trusting me on this: but I’m pretty confident that a new social media app/site is invented every second.
Okay, perhaps I’m off by a few seconds or so, but it sure seems like it’s true. Please witness the following list of social media apps/sites that are in existence today (this is just a small sampling): Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Renren (popular in China), Google+, Snapchat, Tumblr, Tinder, Grindr, Pinterest, Twoo, YouTube, Instagram, Vine, WhatsApp, vk.com, Meetup, Medium, Classmates.com, Chat Roulette, Foursquare, Goodreads, Myspace, MyLife, Netlog, Skyrock, WeeWorld, We Heart It, Yik Yak, Kik, and Academia.edu (for a more comprehensive list, check Wikipedia). I am fairly certain that you can find a social media app/site catering to literally anything. Only want to communicate in emojis with Scandinavian Furry fanatics? Well, there’s a social media site out there with your name written on it (figuratively, of course).Want to digitally mingle solely with people who share your given name? There’s a social media site out there with your name written on it (literally this time)!
Our obsession with social media is about as restrained as a Jimmy Buffet emblazoned, tie-dye, knee-length nightie at a black tie gala. The use of social media platforms have been steadily on the rise since their inception, and gained and continue to gain tremendous popularity the more portable technology becomes (source). According to recent research, the average American spends about two hours every day on some sort of social network. This figure includes those individuals who do not use social media at all (I’m not convinced these people are real…kind of like unicorns). So, when you take those unicorns out, the figure jumps up to an average of 3 hours and 15 minutes per day per person (source). Something also to consider about this research is that it is conducted in the style of self-report, which can be susceptible to the so-called “social desirability bias,” which basically means that people may tweak their responses in a way that seems more acceptable. My assumption here--based off what I would probably do in the situation--is that the person being surveyed most likely would not want to come to grips with the fact that they spend four hours every day on social networks, even less so admit this out loud to the surveyor, and therefore conveniently reduces it down to a more reasonable sounding “about 2 hours.” So, as far as I am concerned, that average figure is actually higher than what is reported (I know that’s not fair but whatevs). Even if we accept that average figure as accurate, it is still an astounding amount of time spent on social media. Sleep: Work: TV: Social-network are basically the four pieces of the pie chart of our lives.
The way we consume social media has become increasingly mobile and therefore increasingly ubiquitous in our everyday lives. What once required sitting down at a desk and clicking around on a desktop computer or at least lounging on a couch with a laptop now requires only a phone or a watch or a bracelet. Our mobile technology is always with us and therefore by extension so is our Facebook. Nowadays, most of the time we spend on social media is spent on some form of mobile technology (source). And this trend only continues to rise.
The mobility of our social media is concerning for numerous reasons, but the impact it has on our (non)focused driving habits elicits a digital double-take. The days of the Snapchatting driver unwittingly running over the Twittering pedestrian are upon us. My quick search of the internet could not yield any results for a database that records these double-whammy (pun kind of intended) incidents, but I’m sure it’s either out there and I failed to find it or it will be created in short order. According to a study completed by AT&T, a whopping 70% of people use their smartphones while driving. Some of that is for texting and e-mailing, but a sizable and growing chunk is used on--you guessed it--social sites. More specifically, “27 percent of drivers report checking Facebook, 14 percent admit to tweeting, another 14 percent to using Instagram,...and 11 percent to checking Snapchat” while driving. But wait, there’s more: “17 percent have taken selfies while driving and another 10 percent engage in some sort of video chat” (source). Again, this is a self-report study so it’s only the people who are willing to admit that they SWD (selfie-while-driving). What could be more important than Facebooking your driving experience in real time? Answer: nothing.
Speaking of Facebook, that heavyweight champion of social networks, here are some figures to rattle your brain. There are about 1.3 billion active Facebook users around the globe, which is roughly the population of China. The average user spends about 40 minutes on Facebook per day (source), making it far-and-away the largest colonizer of our (digital) social selves. In just 60 seconds on Facebook there are roughly 3 million likes, 240,000 images uploaded, and 3.25 million items shared (source). And just one poke (I’m guessing).
Although Facebook is obviously the behemoth older brother, some of the younger sibs aren’t exactly scrawny runts themselves. On an average day there are about 500 million Tweets, 400 million Snapchat “snaps,” as well as 70 million photos uploaded and 2.5 billion likes on Instagram. Taken separately, these figures are already incomprehensible so I’m not even going to try to combine them. But, the way we consume these social media sites tends to be an amalgamation of several different sites. We upload an Instagram here, send a quick Snapchat there, and then Like a popular article on our Facebook feed that we never read. We devour our social media like we consume our Golden Corral.
In my next post I'll share my thoughts about how this type of distraction plays out and why it is so prevalent.
When you add to this overloading sensory experience some of the facts about Niagara Falls, it is no wonder why it is such an astounding sight to witness. The Horseshoe Falls, which is the unquestioned main event of Niagara Falls (sorry American and Bridal Veil falls), covers a span of nearly 2,200 feet and is 173 feet tall at its crest. Nearly 682,000 gallons of water flow over the edge every second, which turns out to be close to 59 billion gallons of water every day. To try to put that in perspective, enough water spills over Horseshoe Falls in one day to fill almost 700 Rose Bowl Stadiums (which can seat over 90,000 people). Those nearly 682,000 gallons of water falling 170 feet at the speed of gravity is enough power to create over 2,500 tons of force. That is roughly the equivalent of dropping 63 fully loaded semi-trucks from a 16-story building every second.
Now, you may be wondering at this point, “Well, Craig, that’s all well and good and everything, but what the hell does this have to do with anything?” or “When did this become a tourist piece about Niagara Falls?” Both very good questions. I bring this all up to highlight the discrepancy between the kind of enrapture that the Falls demands just in its stature, and how it is actually experienced by homo sapien moderna. And the indictment, if there is any, of this behavior is such that I would be among the first getting subpoenaed. So I’m in no way licensed to sit in judgment from my proverbial high horse.
It would really be pleasant and encouraging if upon witnessing Niagara Falls we simply absorbed the spectacle in a few moments of mindful amazement. Unfortunately this is not the case. As we saunter up to the Falls, it seems that our first instinct is not to marvel in slack-mouthed wonder at the remarkable scene, but rather to instantly take a selfie in front of it, hopefully aided by the selfie-enhancing “selfie-stick,” and then directly post it to all social media outlets. This is then followed by slouching over our screens as we scan for likes and views and comments, all the while with backs turned to one of the Seven Wonders of the natural world. We gape at our screens completely transfixed, rather than be mesmerized by what is thundering uproariously behind our backs. This example of how we experience Niagara Falls is a corollary of the transposed self. A symptom of the yearning for self-forgetting. I’ll get back to the Niagara Falls story a little later, but before I do that I should talk about all this “transposed self” business and what it has to do with distraction.
As I mentioned in previous post(s), I have split distraction into two large subcategories: idle distraction and distraction as transposing of self. The two categories bear the primary similarity in that they both generate from the estrangement we feel toward our ineffectual selves and serve the purpose of abetting self-forgetting—this could be said of distraction in all of its forms. While idle distraction is primarily an anesthetic to the self vis-à-vis entertainment, distraction as transposing of self is the escape from the self by way of projection (of the “idealized self”) and displacement (of the unwanted self). But more on that later.
The avenues that we can travel down to distract ourselves in this way are abundant. Indeed, many of the pathways cannot be completely separated from idle distractions and perhaps belong to both categories. Numerous forms of entertainment—whether in film, TV, literature, etc.—although maybe considered idle, are most certainly also prime distraction avenues for their projection and displacement of self opportunities. Are not the most popular and profitable movies those that feature heroes or princesses or some sort of imitation of these ideals? The characters in the prodigiously popular movies are continually some sort of unrealistic assortment of characteristics: strength, beauty, honor, talent, humor, popularity, intelligence, (sex) appeal, bravery, manliness, self-security, and so on. There is no coincidence here. There exists a nationwide (and worldwide) obsession with celebrities—not only the TV shows and movies in which they appear, but also (if not especially) their personal lives. The countless paparazzi and gossip rags and gossip shows and gossip sites. Is there any distinction in modern day America between a gossip show and a news show? I could expand on this (but won’t because time lazy) but I’m not going to so that I can continue along the pattern that I set up for myself: that is, looking at distraction primarily through the lens of (digital) screens.
The opportunities for distraction by the transposing of self in our screen-mediated world are staggering both in the sheer multiplicity of options as well as the volume of time lost. One of the biggest time leeches of our contemporary lives is the world of social media. I haven’t researched this so please do your due diligence before trusting me on this: but I’m pretty confident that a new social media app/site is invented every second.
Okay, perhaps I’m off by a few seconds or so, but it sure seems like it’s true. Please witness the following list of social media apps/sites that are in existence today (this is just a small sampling): Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Renren (popular in China), Google+, Snapchat, Tumblr, Tinder, Grindr, Pinterest, Twoo, YouTube, Instagram, Vine, WhatsApp, vk.com, Meetup, Medium, Classmates.com, Chat Roulette, Foursquare, Goodreads, Myspace, MyLife, Netlog, Skyrock, WeeWorld, We Heart It, Yik Yak, Kik, and Academia.edu (for a more comprehensive list, check Wikipedia). I am fairly certain that you can find a social media app/site catering to literally anything. Only want to communicate in emojis with Scandinavian Furry fanatics? Well, there’s a social media site out there with your name written on it (figuratively, of course).Want to digitally mingle solely with people who share your given name? There’s a social media site out there with your name written on it (literally this time)!
Our obsession with social media is about as restrained as a Jimmy Buffet emblazoned, tie-dye, knee-length nightie at a black tie gala. The use of social media platforms have been steadily on the rise since their inception, and gained and continue to gain tremendous popularity the more portable technology becomes (source). According to recent research, the average American spends about two hours every day on some sort of social network. This figure includes those individuals who do not use social media at all (I’m not convinced these people are real…kind of like unicorns). So, when you take those unicorns out, the figure jumps up to an average of 3 hours and 15 minutes per day per person (source). Something also to consider about this research is that it is conducted in the style of self-report, which can be susceptible to the so-called “social desirability bias,” which basically means that people may tweak their responses in a way that seems more acceptable. My assumption here--based off what I would probably do in the situation--is that the person being surveyed most likely would not want to come to grips with the fact that they spend four hours every day on social networks, even less so admit this out loud to the surveyor, and therefore conveniently reduces it down to a more reasonable sounding “about 2 hours.” So, as far as I am concerned, that average figure is actually higher than what is reported (I know that’s not fair but whatevs). Even if we accept that average figure as accurate, it is still an astounding amount of time spent on social media. Sleep: Work: TV: Social-network are basically the four pieces of the pie chart of our lives.
The way we consume social media has become increasingly mobile and therefore increasingly ubiquitous in our everyday lives. What once required sitting down at a desk and clicking around on a desktop computer or at least lounging on a couch with a laptop now requires only a phone or a watch or a bracelet. Our mobile technology is always with us and therefore by extension so is our Facebook. Nowadays, most of the time we spend on social media is spent on some form of mobile technology (source). And this trend only continues to rise.
The mobility of our social media is concerning for numerous reasons, but the impact it has on our (non)focused driving habits elicits a digital double-take. The days of the Snapchatting driver unwittingly running over the Twittering pedestrian are upon us. My quick search of the internet could not yield any results for a database that records these double-whammy (pun kind of intended) incidents, but I’m sure it’s either out there and I failed to find it or it will be created in short order. According to a study completed by AT&T, a whopping 70% of people use their smartphones while driving. Some of that is for texting and e-mailing, but a sizable and growing chunk is used on--you guessed it--social sites. More specifically, “27 percent of drivers report checking Facebook, 14 percent admit to tweeting, another 14 percent to using Instagram,...and 11 percent to checking Snapchat” while driving. But wait, there’s more: “17 percent have taken selfies while driving and another 10 percent engage in some sort of video chat” (source). Again, this is a self-report study so it’s only the people who are willing to admit that they SWD (selfie-while-driving). What could be more important than Facebooking your driving experience in real time? Answer: nothing.
Speaking of Facebook, that heavyweight champion of social networks, here are some figures to rattle your brain. There are about 1.3 billion active Facebook users around the globe, which is roughly the population of China. The average user spends about 40 minutes on Facebook per day (source), making it far-and-away the largest colonizer of our (digital) social selves. In just 60 seconds on Facebook there are roughly 3 million likes, 240,000 images uploaded, and 3.25 million items shared (source). And just one poke (I’m guessing).
Although Facebook is obviously the behemoth older brother, some of the younger sibs aren’t exactly scrawny runts themselves. On an average day there are about 500 million Tweets, 400 million Snapchat “snaps,” as well as 70 million photos uploaded and 2.5 billion likes on Instagram. Taken separately, these figures are already incomprehensible so I’m not even going to try to combine them. But, the way we consume these social media sites tends to be an amalgamation of several different sites. We upload an Instagram here, send a quick Snapchat there, and then Like a popular article on our Facebook feed that we never read. We devour our social media like we consume our Golden Corral.
In my next post I'll share my thoughts about how this type of distraction plays out and why it is so prevalent.
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Some Thoughts About Distraction (part III)
[If you're reading this part without reading the last post, stop. Go back and read the last post. Please :) ]
So what is the deal with idle distraction? Why so much of it? What purpose is it serving? What need is it meeting? I believe that the answer(s) to these questions are quite varied, complex, and subtle. And I certainly do not believe that I know the answers to these questions in any comprehensive way. But I think that part of the answer may have something to do with the following: idle distractions allow the estranged self to be anesthetized in the losing of attention/focus/intention in being entertained. Now, there are a couple parts in that sentence that warrant further attention and explanation, starting with this talk about the “estranged self.”
The “self” is a rather nebulous concept, metaphysically speaking. Something that has been the subject of a lot of research and philosophizing and theorizing. So rather than attempt to describe/summarize (then get bogged down, fail, and cry) such things as consciousness, ego, and personality, I will merely encourage you to visit the Wikipedia page of each of these respective subjects. Boom! That was easy.
As I am sure many of you are aware, it can be quite a challenge to grow up and develop into a healthy, grounded, well-rounded, secure adult in the U.S. Obviously, the U.S. is not some third world country where basic human necessities like clean water, dependable food sources, and a competent health care system—to name a few—are nowhere to be found. And I do not mean to conflate the two. The U.S. definitely has its own issues with poverty, health care, education, and the like; but it would not be a stretch to say that the U.S. is and has been #blessed in a materialistic sense. Largest GDP in the world by a sizable difference, local economies (i.e. New York City) that rival those of entire countries, one of the top 5 countries in the world in average monthly wages as well as disposable income per capita (source). I could go on. Still, the material riches of the U.S. hardly guarantees the ability of an individual to develop a secure, authentic self. In fact, I think it could be a detriment. More on that later.
The influences of capitalism and consumerism that pervade nearly every aspect of our society are about as conducive to healthy self-development as binge watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The convergence of the material abundance of the U.S. with the cultural forces of consumerism and capitalism combine to produce a destructive brew. From birth, we are constantly bombarded with messages and advertisements that tell us we need to buy more, be more, have more. Having “enough” is such a hazy concept that we don’t even bother to consider what it is or when or how we attain it or why we should in the first place. This relationship to never having enough material things gives way to relating to ourselves in the same way. Nothing we ever say or do or are will ever be enough. The consumeristic and capitalistic elements in U.S. culture first manufacture an environment in which nothing is ever enough--you always need more, you are insatiable--yet we strive for that one great thing that will leave us feeling satiated and complete; then we are told endlessly how the next car, or mascara, or shoes, or clothes is that very thing that will complete us. Said another way, the materialism/consumerism/capitalism of our culture first infects us with the disease of never having or being enough, and then dangles all these bright and shiny objects in front of us as the cure. But this is merely an illusion. Almost immediately after we’ve attained the thing that promised to make us feel complete does it start to lose its allure. Within a week we’ve forgotten how hopeful we were about the thing and we’re back to where we started--staring at ads with our vapid selves.
The abundance of material capital in the U.S. fosters the impression that perhaps we “should” feel happier, more secure in ourselves, and more in tune with our authentic selves. But by and large we don’t. We feel unhappy, insecure, and estranged from ourselves. And the gaping juxtaposition of where we believe we “should” be and where we actually are only amplifies our sense ineffectiveness and uselessness. So what do we do with these feelings of misery, despair, angst, and ineptitude? Well, just spin the Wheel of Escapes to find out! Some of the possible answers are:
>We medicate it: In the past 30 days, more than 70 million Americans have used a prescription antidepressant, pain medication, anxiety medication, sleep medication, or some combination thereof (source). Although only accounting for 5% of the global population, Americans consume 80% of the world’s pain pills (source) and more than half of all prescription drugs (source).
>We eat it: Two out of every three Americans are overweight. More specifically, a staggering 33% of Americans are obese (source). Compare that to the global percentage of people who are either overweight or obese, which is 37% (source), and it’s obvious that America is definitely dominating the worldwide pie eating contest. Finally, the average American consumes approximately 3,770 calories everyday, the most out of any country in the world (source), and is close to double the daily recommended amount.
>We drink it: About 1 out of every 12 Americans is an alcoholic, and more than half of all adult Americans have a family history of alcoholism or problem drinking (source). About 1 out of every 6 Americans are binge drinkers (source). In 2014, Americans spent close to $175 billion on alcohol (source), which is about the same as the gross domestic products of Ecuador and Sri Lanka combined.
>We drug it: Approximately 1 out of every 10 Americans over the age of 12 has used illicit drugs in the past 30 days (source). In the span of a decade (2000 to 2010), Americans spent a trillion dollars on illicit substances (source). Perhaps not surprisingly, the United States is the worldwide leader in illegal drug use (source).
>We buy it: Us Americans like to spend money and buy stuff. It is quite literally one of the things we do best. Overall, in 2013 Americans spent about 11.5 trillion dollars buying stuff. This is roughly three times more than the second country on this list, China, which has a population more than four times as large as ours (source). The average household in the United States spent about $54,000 on stuff in 2014 (source); which, in true American fashion, is $3,000 more than the average household income in 2014 (source). We are good at debt.
>We screw it: Porn is very popular in the US, where Americans account for more than 50% of global online porn revenue (source). In just this exact second, there are about 30,000 people in the US viewing porn (source), and over 40 million Americans visit porn sites regularly (source). Overall, Americans spend about 13 billion dollars on porn every year (source), which is roughly the same amount of money that we spend on ice cream every year (source). Coincidence? Probably.
>We game it: (see section on gaming)
>We watch it: (see section on TV)
Good luck with your spin!
I don’t mean to oversimplify things and vilify American consumerism and capitalism as the sole instigating factors that lead to the production of vapid, ineffectual selves. Surely the influences and factors are myriad and complex. But I don’t think that it is a stretch to say that they factor into the discussion considerably. It is a struggle to exist while feeling ineffectual and useless. As I said earlier, operating within a prosperous and free society connotes seemingly endless possibilities. But this only heightens the feelings of ineptness when our attempts have been rebuffed. Or perhaps we have given up the attempting entirely. To paraphrase Eric Hoffer in True Believer: Of what use is freedom if the self is ineffectual? The continual struggle of the ineffectual self within the illusory realm of “possibilities” and “prosperities,” combined with the consumeristic/capitalistic culture of nothing ever being good enough, would doubtlessly lead to numerous failures—whether real, imagined, or anticipated—and to the compounding of a self that feels inept and vapid. Doesn’t it follow that the incessant exposure to this environment would lead us to not only be estranged from ourselves, but to actually pursue estrangement as well? So, rather than be repeatedly confronted with our sense of futility, we seek out further estrangement from ourselves in order to forget.
Which finally brings me to this point: idle distractions—such as TV and video gaming—function as an anesthetic from our ineffectual selves. The ceaseless staring at screens provides a pathway for self-forgetting. Our near constant distraction by way of entertainment shifts our attention/focus/intention from ourselves and therefore amplifies our self-amnesia. This further exacerbates our self-estrangement, thereby creating a mutually self-perpetuating cycle.
If you have actually managed to successfully read these posts up until this point, thank you! Next post I'll start talking about the other side of the distraction binary: the transposing of the self. This is where it gets real interesting (shameless teaser).
So what is the deal with idle distraction? Why so much of it? What purpose is it serving? What need is it meeting? I believe that the answer(s) to these questions are quite varied, complex, and subtle. And I certainly do not believe that I know the answers to these questions in any comprehensive way. But I think that part of the answer may have something to do with the following: idle distractions allow the estranged self to be anesthetized in the losing of attention/focus/intention in being entertained. Now, there are a couple parts in that sentence that warrant further attention and explanation, starting with this talk about the “estranged self.”
The “self” is a rather nebulous concept, metaphysically speaking. Something that has been the subject of a lot of research and philosophizing and theorizing. So rather than attempt to describe/summarize (then get bogged down, fail, and cry) such things as consciousness, ego, and personality, I will merely encourage you to visit the Wikipedia page of each of these respective subjects. Boom! That was easy.
As I am sure many of you are aware, it can be quite a challenge to grow up and develop into a healthy, grounded, well-rounded, secure adult in the U.S. Obviously, the U.S. is not some third world country where basic human necessities like clean water, dependable food sources, and a competent health care system—to name a few—are nowhere to be found. And I do not mean to conflate the two. The U.S. definitely has its own issues with poverty, health care, education, and the like; but it would not be a stretch to say that the U.S. is and has been #blessed in a materialistic sense. Largest GDP in the world by a sizable difference, local economies (i.e. New York City) that rival those of entire countries, one of the top 5 countries in the world in average monthly wages as well as disposable income per capita (source). I could go on. Still, the material riches of the U.S. hardly guarantees the ability of an individual to develop a secure, authentic self. In fact, I think it could be a detriment. More on that later.
The influences of capitalism and consumerism that pervade nearly every aspect of our society are about as conducive to healthy self-development as binge watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The convergence of the material abundance of the U.S. with the cultural forces of consumerism and capitalism combine to produce a destructive brew. From birth, we are constantly bombarded with messages and advertisements that tell us we need to buy more, be more, have more. Having “enough” is such a hazy concept that we don’t even bother to consider what it is or when or how we attain it or why we should in the first place. This relationship to never having enough material things gives way to relating to ourselves in the same way. Nothing we ever say or do or are will ever be enough. The consumeristic and capitalistic elements in U.S. culture first manufacture an environment in which nothing is ever enough--you always need more, you are insatiable--yet we strive for that one great thing that will leave us feeling satiated and complete; then we are told endlessly how the next car, or mascara, or shoes, or clothes is that very thing that will complete us. Said another way, the materialism/consumerism/capitalism of our culture first infects us with the disease of never having or being enough, and then dangles all these bright and shiny objects in front of us as the cure. But this is merely an illusion. Almost immediately after we’ve attained the thing that promised to make us feel complete does it start to lose its allure. Within a week we’ve forgotten how hopeful we were about the thing and we’re back to where we started--staring at ads with our vapid selves.
The abundance of material capital in the U.S. fosters the impression that perhaps we “should” feel happier, more secure in ourselves, and more in tune with our authentic selves. But by and large we don’t. We feel unhappy, insecure, and estranged from ourselves. And the gaping juxtaposition of where we believe we “should” be and where we actually are only amplifies our sense ineffectiveness and uselessness. So what do we do with these feelings of misery, despair, angst, and ineptitude? Well, just spin the Wheel of Escapes to find out! Some of the possible answers are:
>We medicate it: In the past 30 days, more than 70 million Americans have used a prescription antidepressant, pain medication, anxiety medication, sleep medication, or some combination thereof (source). Although only accounting for 5% of the global population, Americans consume 80% of the world’s pain pills (source) and more than half of all prescription drugs (source).
>We eat it: Two out of every three Americans are overweight. More specifically, a staggering 33% of Americans are obese (source). Compare that to the global percentage of people who are either overweight or obese, which is 37% (source), and it’s obvious that America is definitely dominating the worldwide pie eating contest. Finally, the average American consumes approximately 3,770 calories everyday, the most out of any country in the world (source), and is close to double the daily recommended amount.
>We drink it: About 1 out of every 12 Americans is an alcoholic, and more than half of all adult Americans have a family history of alcoholism or problem drinking (source). About 1 out of every 6 Americans are binge drinkers (source). In 2014, Americans spent close to $175 billion on alcohol (source), which is about the same as the gross domestic products of Ecuador and Sri Lanka combined.
>We drug it: Approximately 1 out of every 10 Americans over the age of 12 has used illicit drugs in the past 30 days (source). In the span of a decade (2000 to 2010), Americans spent a trillion dollars on illicit substances (source). Perhaps not surprisingly, the United States is the worldwide leader in illegal drug use (source).
>We buy it: Us Americans like to spend money and buy stuff. It is quite literally one of the things we do best. Overall, in 2013 Americans spent about 11.5 trillion dollars buying stuff. This is roughly three times more than the second country on this list, China, which has a population more than four times as large as ours (source). The average household in the United States spent about $54,000 on stuff in 2014 (source); which, in true American fashion, is $3,000 more than the average household income in 2014 (source). We are good at debt.
>We screw it: Porn is very popular in the US, where Americans account for more than 50% of global online porn revenue (source). In just this exact second, there are about 30,000 people in the US viewing porn (source), and over 40 million Americans visit porn sites regularly (source). Overall, Americans spend about 13 billion dollars on porn every year (source), which is roughly the same amount of money that we spend on ice cream every year (source). Coincidence? Probably.
>We game it: (see section on gaming)
>We watch it: (see section on TV)
Good luck with your spin!
I don’t mean to oversimplify things and vilify American consumerism and capitalism as the sole instigating factors that lead to the production of vapid, ineffectual selves. Surely the influences and factors are myriad and complex. But I don’t think that it is a stretch to say that they factor into the discussion considerably. It is a struggle to exist while feeling ineffectual and useless. As I said earlier, operating within a prosperous and free society connotes seemingly endless possibilities. But this only heightens the feelings of ineptness when our attempts have been rebuffed. Or perhaps we have given up the attempting entirely. To paraphrase Eric Hoffer in True Believer: Of what use is freedom if the self is ineffectual? The continual struggle of the ineffectual self within the illusory realm of “possibilities” and “prosperities,” combined with the consumeristic/capitalistic culture of nothing ever being good enough, would doubtlessly lead to numerous failures—whether real, imagined, or anticipated—and to the compounding of a self that feels inept and vapid. Doesn’t it follow that the incessant exposure to this environment would lead us to not only be estranged from ourselves, but to actually pursue estrangement as well? So, rather than be repeatedly confronted with our sense of futility, we seek out further estrangement from ourselves in order to forget.
Which finally brings me to this point: idle distractions—such as TV and video gaming—function as an anesthetic from our ineffectual selves. The ceaseless staring at screens provides a pathway for self-forgetting. Our near constant distraction by way of entertainment shifts our attention/focus/intention from ourselves and therefore amplifies our self-amnesia. This further exacerbates our self-estrangement, thereby creating a mutually self-perpetuating cycle.
If you have actually managed to successfully read these posts up until this point, thank you! Next post I'll start talking about the other side of the distraction binary: the transposing of the self. This is where it gets real interesting (shameless teaser).
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