“Enough has now been said to prove the general law of perception, which is this, that whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, (part) always comes out of our own head.” — William James, from The Principles of Psychology (1890), “The Perception of ‘Things.’”
The Truth is Always More Complicated Than You Think
Counselors are taught to think that they know important things because those who pay for them are looking to hear important things. But what is important and what you think are important are different. If you’re confused, conflicted, or disturbed then your problem almost certainly relates to the mistakes you’re making in deciding what is important.
As a client, you’re looking for valuable guidance, and as a therapist you want to believe you can deliver it. It’s natural that an uncertain need will buy an uncertain product because you’re attracted to what fits. From an exchange point of view this is a positive collaboration, but from the point of view of growth, learning, and insight it’s a failure.
Most psychotherapy doesn’t create change. The client isn’t looking for real change and the therapist is trained in delivering what’s normal. Not that much different from an A.I. learning model. But a successful therapist learns through exceptional encounters with what can’t be explained. A successful therapist learns, but institutions cannot be built on what can’t be generalized.
Counseling can succeed because the client or counselor may doubt their story. They may doubt themselves as well, but it’s really the story that needs to change. Doubts provide cracks in the facade of coping strategies and comforting behavior therapy. The point where one or the other party admits ignorance is the juncture between the old and new story. That’s where progress starts.
Being Driven By Our Thoughts
Thoughts are cars on roads that do not lead to your destination. Of course, your thoughts do lead somewhere, but they keep you in a neighborhood of common ideas. The thoughts that take you forward will travel on unfinished roads or, in some cases, on roads that don’t yet exist.
People who experience a mid-life crisis sometimes buy sports cars. Sports cars are sold at inflated prices, require high maintenance, and can only drive on well-paved roads. They’ll get you to your destination faster, but the destinations they can reach are those that are the most well-traveled. Sports cars are for reliving the past, they won’t take you into the future.
This is a metaphor for what many of us do when faced with life problems: we buy a sports car to travel faster on well-paved roads to places we’ve already been. It is possible to plot a path to a new destination, whether that be in thought or location, but a fashionable vehicle that best drives in circles is one of the least practical ways of getting there.
What you need to do is set off on foot. The conceptual meaning of that is to engage at a simple, physical level. A level at which you can see your decisions with the most time and the finest resolution. Your progress will be slow and you’ll encounter obstacles that will seem incidental, but they’re not incidental because the details are of your own creation, and you need to deconstruct them.
Birds Are Real, but Goals Are Not
Living things speak various languages and most of these languages lack words. Words create picture stories that abbreviate the things being spoken of. Having more words helps, but no amount of words can recreate the full experience.
All living things have bodies and bodies engage, interact, and learn. I was going to say they understand, but the concept of understanding is a word trap. If to “understand” is to stand beneath the workings of the situation, then it is self-referential. To “stand under” presupposes there is something else for you to stand on that is above or beside the situation; something that you already understand or presume to.
In this sense, the word “understand” refers to an infinite sequence of ever finer appreciations that culminates in complete knowledge. But we never have complete knowledge, not even close, so we never really understand.
What we do is learn, and that’s a process not an endpoint. You can begin learning and stop learning at any point. We’re taught to learn things in sequence, but this is a manipulation designed to have you think along certain lines and, by this means, to come to predetermined understandings.
Incremental Appreciation
Learning is the process of incremental appreciation, it is never complete and it has no set sequence…
To better understand your opportunities,
