It’s nothing but our myopia that compels us to treat symptoms rather than the underlying causes of a condition, to mistake manifestations for mechanisms, to manipulate the appearance of a thing in hopes of changing its quality.
I’ll accrue more wealth, then I’ll worry less. I’ll make more friends, then I won’t be lonely. I’ll rub on this gel to relieve my chronic muscle pain. I’ll get a facial and use creams to keep my skin healthy. I’ll take this cough syrup to soothe my sore throat. I’ll have a beer to relax my nerves.
Most operate at this level of reactive self-soothing, with no available systems or practices for shifting this paradigm. Furthermore they swim in perpetuity through a soup of advertisements for topical ointments—badgered by serpentine sophists who reassure them that lacquer and garb will get them where they want to go.
I can change my environment, change the people around me, get a new car, clean my house, upgrade my website, dress differently, take up a new hobby, or force a new habit. When people talk about “making a change,” these are the kind of changes to which they typically refer. It’s no wonder: all of these changes are gross; they go straight to the result I’m looking for. And all of these changes could have some positive effect. If I’m lucky they might even in some rare cases have a durable net-positive effect. But it will be luck if they do. And the probability that I will revert to previous patterns is very high.
That’s because this is blind reverse engineering. I’m trying to rig the experience I want by artificially constructing a context in which to have that experience. I think that if I can create conditions associated with an experience I want to have, then I’ll have that experience. What’s more, I have no idea what that experience is actually like in the first place. I don’t know what it’s like to generate that experience from within myself, as an extension of my own highest values. So even my conception of the experience I think I want to have is likely based in abstractions.
Subjective experience is in dynamic intercourse with external circumstance; it isn’t determined by it. If five different people encounter the same scenario and all take the same actions, it’s possible for each of them to have a wildly different experience. In terms of subjective experience, the motives behind actions are of far greater importance than the gross actions themselves. Any action—including actions we would normally associate with positive, healthy behavior—can potentially be covertly motivated by narratives which have unintended, systemic side-effects.
Ex: John didn’t know his father. John’s mother was addicted to drugs during his childhood. She was often abusive. She told fictional stories about things she did, to make herself seem brave. She lived with more than eight different boyfriends before John was 15 years old, and cheated on most of them. John began working when he was ten to make money for food. He formed a narrative: “I’m not safe with my mother; I must guard myself against her because she is dishonest, selfish, and will hurt me.” John is now an adult and has had a few intimate relationships with women. But in each of these he looks for evidence to believe his companion is dishonest, selfish, and will hurt him. And to no surprise, he finds what he’s looking for—whether it’s there or not. The narrative broadens: “WOMEN are dishonest, selfish, and will hurt me.” John begins training MMA (“no one is going to take care of me, so I’d better learn to take care of myself”), makes more male friends and races motorcycles on the weekends (“women are liars and cheats; I can only bond with men”), starts lifting weights, and builds an impressive physique (women are not reliable companions, only a source of short-term pleasure, so I just have to look good enough to get them in bed”).
If you subtract the narratives motivating these behaviors (in parentheses), all of these seem like actions associated with positive behavioral change. But in John’s case they’re merely symptoms of his fear of intimacy because he carries around the narrative that he is unsafe around women. So his subjective experience of these actions might not be so positive at all.
Making durable behavioral shifts depends on addressing behavioral motives. Once one develops some skill in observing these motives over time, and can align with higher values as opposed to reactions to trauma, then external changes can be made as a natural extension of these values. If it’s done the other way around... well, you saw what happened to John.
So what are highest values, and how do I know if I’m motivated by them, as opposed to a narrative I’ve formed in reaction to trauma? Perhaps using John again as a concrete example will better demonstrate the meaning of this term.
John begins training MMA because he enjoys the game of strategy and intelligence applied to physical movement. He finds that practice leaves him thinking quicker on his feet, planning ahead with precision and urgency, and resilient in the face of challenges. John makes more male friends and races motorcycles on the weekends because he values building culture around common practices and pursuit of skill acquisition, and having the support of other individuals with whom he shares common interests. He also enjoys the adventure of riding through nature and the thrill of the way the bike feels in motion. John starts lifting weights and builds an impressive physique as an extension of his pursuit of wisdom and self-understanding. He wants to better understand himself—his tendencies, capacities and limitations—and finds that strength training is a great modality to do so.
We can see that John’s actions in the first and second cases are identical on the surface. But as his motives for taking these actions are radically different, so too is his subjective experience. Just empathize with him for a moment: when you imagine being John in each of these cases with two sets of motives, the contrast is so great it’s almost like being two different people.
In the first case, John’s choices to make changes in his like are all in reaction to narratives formed in reaction to past trauma and perpetuated through biased interpretation of his experiences over time. For John in particular, his narrative is something like, “I’m not safe because women are selfish liars who will hurt me.” As far as he’s concerned, this is not a narrative he chose to believe and reinforce over time; it’s simply reality. And as long as he accepts this as unequivocal truth, much of his behavior will be mere reaction to this narrative and attempts to prevent the trauma from recurring. He is stuck in a trauma loop.
In the second case, John’s actions are extensions of his values. These are experiences he wants to have while he’s alive. And these values persist even in the absence of all narratives formed in reaction to trauma; they persist even in the face of changing circumstances and challenges. They are more fundamental to John as a human.
The extent to which I develop skill in taking a step back to notice when such fear narratives are motivating my actions: this is also the extent to which I set myself up to take a step forward in the direction of my highest values.