The Elephant in the Room.

Watching the human zoo of ‘I’m a Celebrity …..’ I’m struck by one human cognitive activity that could be the root of all our problems. It’s only mentioned obliquely in therapy and even old wisdoms don’t tackle it head on. It’s self-justification. At first sight it doesn’t seem particularly pivotal or damaging, in fact it can seem a positive necessity in the cut and thrust of life but delineate it as a specific cognitive activity and for me a picture emerges. I hear much talk of ‘the self’, is it real or multiple, are there higher, lower, conscious, unconscious selfs etc? but little about the cognitive activity surrounding it. I hear about the axis of love and fear but little about the active driver that positions us along it. We seem to focus on entities rather than vectors and motive forces.
Firstly lets separate some realities. The real fear of an approaching tiger is necessary and valuable, and there is a reality to one’s fundamental being, as opposed to the cognitive construction we normally perceive as being. Our fundamental reality is of a ‘being’ in a ‘circumstance’ and these constructions are our attempt to ameliorate or justify the interaction between the two. I’m-a-Celeb’s many manipulations stress the participants relationships and in every reaction self-justification appears pivotal. “I am worthy of being me, of having that, my beliefs are true, my actions are warranted, I’m a good human being etc” and the general reaction is, “Well I am too so don’t belittle me with your assertions.” It rapidly becomes an escalating competition between self-justifications. Those well practiced bluster and dominate while others feel hurt and justify inwardly or turn to friends to justify mutually. Either way the cognitive activity of self-justification dominates. It’s easy to see how every human hierarchy is both a sponsor for and a structure of self-justification. This self-justification addresses neither the reality of the being nor the reality of its circumstance. Sepp Blatter is neither true to his being nor to FIFA. His self-justification only provides his self with the appearance of success and happiness. It’s like an oyster that, when ingesting a piece of grit, endlessly coats it with calcium carbonate to ease itself from the sore. It may become a lustrous pearl but the pearl is dead matter, made by the oyster but foreign to both it and its circumstance. (It’s no coincidence Lady C loves her pearls) And like the oyster it can become habitual to add layer upon layer to our self-justifications until they becomes a solid shiny pearl, our solid shiny self, at least in our own estimation. But I am neither the grit nor the pearl, I’m the oyster and oysters can live totally comfortably in their circumstance without a need for either. They, we, can live far more vividly without the myriad of stories of self that make up the layers of the pearl. I am not stories, I am being. But how difficult it is to trust that my individuality, my qualities, my character, behaviour, my very persona is in my being not my inventions of a self. If you would like to imagine writing on a blackboard all your stories of self, ‘I am strong or weak, I am easily hurt, I am caring and helpful, I am put upon, handsome, ugly etc ….’, every one. And when they’re all there in black and white rub them all out and look at the pristine blackboard, blank but far more substantial than those scratchings of chalk. Now you have no stories to defend or maintain. As a being in a circumstance you will respond from your being more freely and vividly. You will see and hear your circumstance more freely and vividly without the need to defend your (pearl) self and the huge amount of energy you used in self-justification will be free to use elsewhere.
Without really realising it I fell into this way many years ago and found the following results.
By not maintaining beliefs of who I am, my pearl as it were, I don’t feel the restraints of the aughts and shoulds that arise from my imagining a persona I need to live up to. I’m left only with my intents as a being to be the best I can be, and somehow work as defined from the aughts and shoulds has transmogrified into the playful endeavour of simply being. This is no less demanding just not as arduous. By not having a prescribed way of doing things I’m free to play with alternatives and to evaluate them free of constructs of right and wrong. And strangely rather than loosing an identity people respond to me lovingly as real, imaginative and competent, if somewhat eccentric.
By not maintaining beliefs of who I am I can, in circumstances were I might normally be expected to defend myself, find I have nothing to defend and as such I can hear and respond cleanly without defence. I can feel free to play with and assess my own and other opinions without fear or favour. I can accept another’s opinion without feeling hurt and disagree without feeling superior. This connects my being to my circumstance far more than having to maintain some self-position by self-justification. Of course this doesn’t stop me from being unbearably smug or cursing when I bang my head, I’m not perfect.
Lady C on the other hand has a pearl the size of a tennis ball. Her powers of self-justification are second to none. As a result the other celebs find her unbearable, either a manipulative friend or an infuriating enemy, a being trapped in a self and isolated from her circumstance. But that’s aging for you. With the passage of time we seem to either loose our sense of self or become trapped by it. So for me the cognitive act of self-justification is the elephant in the room. Will someone please open the very large door? That’s it the one at the end next to the aspidistra.