Your Childhood Makes All the Difference
Your Childhood Makes All the Difference
We cannot return to childhood, but we can embrace our childishness.
Friday, April 26. 2024, the last day of my Kickstarter campaign for Operating Manual for Enlightenment. Your last day to purchase the expanded edition:
“Ontogenesis is a brief and rapid recapitulation of phylogenesis, determined by the physiological functions of heredity and adaptation.” ― Ernest Haeckel, 1899
The Evolution of Form
In 1866, Ernst Haeckel coined the phrase “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” which means that an individual’s embryonic development proceeds through the stages of the species’ evolution. That is, the zygote is structured like the first multicellular organisms. The embryo has the structure of an early aquatic animal. The stages of the fetus manifest more highly evolved life forms which metamorphose into the baby animal in its present stage of evolution.
It was a heady theory for 1866 when Darwin’s theory of evolution was staggering people’s senses. However, there is no truth to it.
The truth is that the embryonic development of higher animals proceeds through similar states of development, not earlier stages of evolution. The early embryonic stages look like primitive animals, but they are not. They are similar, less developed forms.
The development of individuals from different species proceeds through similar stages because they have common ancestors. They have inherited similar biological strategies. For example, mammals and fish have similarly structured hearts and brains. For the most part, we have the same set of organs that grow from similarly differentiated tissues that move along different paths to maturity.
Our bodies are not optimal. Women are reminded of this in childbirth, which is much more difficult for the two-legged than the four-legged. Our joints and eyes need redesigning since they rarely last a lifetime.
The Evolution of Mind
Our minds have evolved, but it’s hard to see how. We’ve found various “missing links” between the structures of apes and humans, but there remain entire missing dimensions between the thinking of humans and other animals. That could be because there is no record of a gradual emergence of mind, or because the emergence of mind was not gradual.
Through the fossil record and anthropological past we can only compare the change in various arts and crafts. Not only don’t we know what early humans thought, we hardly know what recent humans thought. We cannot extend Darwin’s theory to the evolution of our minds.
We want to know about the evolution of our minds because we want to know where it’s going and whether it’s close to getting there. This is a practical question: which of our problems are the result of our environment and which are a consequence of our under-developed mental machinery? It could well be that human beings simply do not have the brains to be a successful species.
Your Childhood
Our adult problem-solving abilities were forged in childhood. In this “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” analogy, the paths along which you think as an adult follow the lines you learned as a child. This occurred well before you recognized you were creating mental pathways. These paths are rooted in your feelings of support, adequacy, curiosity, patience, attention, and creativity.
As a world-worn psychologist who specializes in learning, I trace the struggles of many adult clients to their childhood experiences. I also trace the thinking of many high functioning, untroubled adults to what I presume to be their deficient childhoods. These people do not come to me with problems, they’re well rewarded. They create problems for others.
Most high functioning people are emotionally and socially unbalanced. They cause psychic damage from positions of power and authority. We’re aware of the corporate criminals and political sociopaths, but almost by definition, a leader is someone who has exceeded their competence.
I don’t see this as inevitable. I see it as a systematic human failure. Some leaders are competent and humane, and these people are in an entirely different league from most others.
It’s not clear if we should blame those who are inept or those of us who put them in power. If the inept were impeded by their ignorance, they would learn or seek help. Instead, we reward and entrench ineptitude.
Nature Versus Nurture
Successful species emerge by following a narrow evolutionary path. We see the successful species but we don’t see the 99% of other species whose paths led to dead ends and who died out. Evolution doesn’t make poor species better, it eliminates them.
There are certain features of the current human species that will be eliminated, while other traits will prevail. The question for us is whether we have any control over this. I’m not talking about eugenics, I’m talking about learning. Good human properties are not genetic, they’re epigenetic; they’re learned. Are we learning? And if we’re not, what does this mean for the future?
Back to Square One
"Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid."— Hal, in 2001, A Space Odyssey
This is the point of my book, Operating Manual for Enlightenment. To regain control of your thought patterns, you must remember how you got them. You must examine the foundations of your personality.
The book focuses on the fundamental aspects of personality that were forged in childhood. You can’t return to being a child as that was a separate complex in and of itself, but you can focus on the feelings you have now, that are separate from how these feelings guide your thoughts.
As we think of a hierarchy of needs—ranging from the physically basic to the spiritually transcendent—we have a hierarchy of thoughts. These thoughts range across our skills, needs, and aptitudes.
We don’t focus on our separate aptitudes because our personalities are in constant motion. We don’t stop to examine ourselves, but we can learn to. We can learn to disengage from our reflex patterns and conceptual instincts.
To a large degree, we have been deluded into thinking that if we stop asserting our personality in the world, the world will stop. And while it’s true that your ego might stop asserting itself, your mind will not stop. You will find that when you stop thinking, you see yourself better.
Becoming Reacquainted
The Operating Manual for Enlightenment begins by speaking to your parts and exhorts them to claim their autonomy. Your parts do not need to endlessly slave in a continued effort to keep your ego inflated. You have identities below your ego, and you can let these parts speak.
It’s only by giving the components of your identity a measure of autonomy that you build respect for yourself. Each part has its own needs that range from gratitude to regret, and from guilt to appreciation. You cannot become a child again, but these parts are always young. You can regain curiosity, humor, freedom, respect, value, and safety.
As we grow up, we learn we are not the center of our world. We learn to defer to authority and accept our role. But the truth is we are the centers of our psychic worlds. We only have ourselves to answer to.
The root of our ability to love others is our ability to love ourselves. We’re all afraid of loneliness, but true engagement must come from a respect for ourselves as separate. The Operating Manual says that enlightenment begins with getting to know yourself better.
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