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Re: What makes these people so different?
I personally know someone who suffered abuse at the hands of a priest when he was young, then joined the Green Berets in Vietnam and suffered tons of trauma there. He's the only one left out of his 100 some group that hasn't either died over there or killed themselves after coming back. He's had many struggles with his PTSD and continues to suffer to this day. But he is probably the kindest, gentlest person I know.
My curiosity isn't merely an intellectual pursuit. I think knowing the answer to what makes people resilient and capable of rising above will help give us tools that can help others live better lives.
I think over the years I've also increasingly embraced the idea of anti fragility. That humans need some level of stress and struggle to really grow and flourish. Or the Japanese notion of kintsugi, or what Ajahn Brahm says about the bent and crooked trees seem more beautiful to him than the straight trees. A line from a show I've been watching expressed gratitude for the pain and stress of life rather than regret or aversion, "I'm grateful for my pain, its what's brought me to where I am today."
To be clear, I'm not saying pain is a good in and of itself. Only in conjunction with the repair does it provide a benefit.
person
Re: What makes these people so different?
I have experienced great hardship - mostly in the realm of mental health troubles.
I know what happens if you do nothing, do not struggle to better your situation and yourself. Nothing happens, it even gets worse. I did this for (far too many) years.
I know too firsthand what happens if you do struggle to better your situation and yourself. Slow progress at first, uneven progress, but longterm benefits that you could not even dream of.
So, for me, the possibility of bettering our situation and ourselves is not in question, I know it can be done. Even if 'authorities' say that it cannot be done, it still can be done.
What to me is an open question is why some people start struggling and why some make moderate and some massive efforts.
All of the great success stories of overcoming hardship that I have read - and I love and seek them out - have apparently included great effort over a long period of time, starting with one small step, and then another, and another... until it snowballs into a beautiful life.
marcitko
What makes these people so different?
From another thread. I wanted to explore without taking away from the original topic.
@person said:
@Kotishka said:
Pd: one case I can share is the following family. Missing father (fighter for Frente Polisario) and a mother that could not take care of them. Environment of war, horror, and poverty in Western Sahara. They tried their luck emigrating to Spain. One stayed. The others returned.
1. Became a soldier at the Frente Polisario.
2. Became a drug addict and homeless.
3. Studied in Rabat and ended up becoming a university philosophy professor.This last example surprised me. He managed to defy all odds and predictions. He managed to break what seemed to be his determined path. Not everything is as fixed as it seems, but the power that those "structural configurations" might have upon humans is a possible and, unfortunately, common reality.
My sister is really into those stories by people who have had horrific childhoods only to escape and break the patterns, like in your last example. This has raised the question in me that I've never really gotten an answer to. What makes these people so different, that they're able to do this with their lives? I think this is kind of what positive psychology is trying to answer, not just what our pathologies and traumas are that cause us misery and stress. But what are the positive qualities that bring people striving and flourishing.
If only looking for just the positive qualities its easy to miss the neutral or hide from the negative ones. I think its those regular neither positive nor negative qualities that lead to the striving and flourishing. Mainly the qualities of knowing and of heart release.
Two aspects of knowing come to mind that can help lead to positive change.
One aspect could be the knowing of one who's suffered one of the worst things imaginable. When you've experienced it, you know. You know when you've felt the worst thing possible, that you've felt it. You know it. That comes with a sort of power of knowing the experience of the thing. Others who've never experienced it can only know it intellectually. They have to imagine the experience and most are dearly afraid of actually experiencing it. People think about their greatest fears often. But the ones who've gone through it don't have to be afraid of the imaginations like others. They know. I think there's a relief that comes with that knowing where others feel anxiety. Its in that relief the heart has an opportunity to open. Because it already took the wound and knows it. It doesn't have to be afraid like others.
Another aspect could be the knowing of one who's experienced their greatest desires. Imagining and achieving greater and greater desires are what drive a lot of people. People have desires for different things but the infatuation and imagination is similar. Some people get their greatest desires. In getting their greatest desire there often isn't much else left to do but go for it again. Why settle for a lesser desire when your greatest one is accessible? So again and again and again until that greatest desire becomes meaningless. And then again. They know the experience of having their greatest desire in abundance and all the details of what that really means. People who haven't experienced it can only know it intellectually. They have to imagine the experience and many can't do much else but imagine the experience of achieving their greatest desires.
In both cases the neutral quality of knowing allows for a freedom from some of the mind's greatest fixations. Greatest fears and greatest desires. And when you free up that many resources, you can do a lot with em. Like focusing on striving, or flourishing, or just on the breath.
Re: Gabor Maté and Ayahuasca
I was reading the "No Buddhist Quotes" thread and the latest quote by Mate stood out.
“The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!”
― Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
He talks about the problems of individualism in one breath and then here he says impositions from others are false and that real being is all about us. I don't get it, it sounds completely absent from any sense of living with other people. Like, its really important to have connections and community, but we all should live like we're the only one who's views matter.
What I mean is, when being in community we need to be aware of and consider other individual's and the group as a whole's interest. It doesn't seem possible to me to be fully genuine and be in community, unless that necessarily small community also happens to align with your own authenticity. If you're a member of a motorcycle club, there is some expectation from the group that you come riding a motorcycle and don't want to join in by driving your Prius. You can join a Prius group instead, but at some point have to interact and cooperate with the motorcycle club. At that point there needs to be some sort of accommodation and the community's interest imposes constraints on us.
Its possible I truly don't get it, the attitude is pretty alien to my mind. But that doesn't mean I'm right. Is there another way? Am I missing something? Is there a way to be fully authentic and be part of community? I'm genuinely asking.
person
Re: Gabor Maté and Ayahuasca
Trauma is not really a blaming of the world for one’s troubles though. It is incorrect coping, often because the person doing the coping does not have the skill or context to correctly relate to what is happening to him. That trauma exists and malforms our lives is beyond doubt, it’s just whether you choose to be kind enough to yourself to see it.
There is such a thing as toxic positivity, which is thinking that is insensitively positive, and in effect blinds you to what is really going on.
Jeroen
Re: Gabor Maté and Ayahuasca
There are structural situations which make certain decisions or scenarios much more likely. There is still some autonomy as not everything is solid and determined. Your self-concept is modeled by what surrounds you, by what you engage with, and your own specific dispositions. This goes from your temperament, to your parents, to your local and global sociocultural milieu which composes your reality.
I have seen people repeating patterns that trace back to their parents, and these to their own parents. It reminds me of kamma and habits (unskillful actions) which are inherited and copied. To help them realise these connections does alleviate and provide a path towards change. This does not mean to blame the world and adopt the role of victim. This ends up making people spiteful, angry... a full of new unskillful means!
The story of an annoyed Yama comes to mind. I refer to it constantly: the Lord of Death hearing two people suffering from their misdeeds, blaming their past kamma. Yama replied: it was you that commited those actions!
🙏🏻
Pd: one case I can share is the following family. Missing father (fighter for Frente Polisario) and a mother that could not take care of them. Environment of war, horror, and poverty in Western Sahara. They tried their luck emigrating to Spain. One stayed. The others returned.
1. Became a soldier at the Frente Polisario.
2. Became a drug addict and homeless.
3. Studied in Rabat and ended up becoming a university philosophy professor.
This last example surprised me. He managed to defy all odds and predictions. He managed to break what seemed to be his determined path. Not everything is as fixed as it seems, but the power that those "structural configurations" might have upon humans is a possible and, unfortunately, common reality.
Kotishka
Re: Gabor Maté and Ayahuasca
@Jeroen said:
@person said:
What do you mean by social expression? You mean like genuinely being part of a group, like the example of proudly belonging to a motorcycle club? Or a nation in your example, to socially express yourself as proud to be an American can be a problem in some areas of the country these days.Not really, merely that European people tend to identify more as members of a social fabric consisting of family, community like neighbourhoods, city and province members. There is more adherence to the idea of unity here. It’s kinda hard to describe, but for example my stepfather gets a socially funded budget to buy care in the home from the government because of his Alzheimer’s.
Like I've said, I must live in some sort of cultural bubble, this sounds like the type of people I live with. Maybe the difference is community I know comes more directly from the people in it, rather than mediated through the government?
I've listened to a few interviews of him. He does say things to balance his overall presentation, I guess they come across to my ears as some level of lip service. He probably thinks it but doesn't truly believe it deep down. Maybe he's just not my cup of tea?
I have a lot of respect for Dr Maté, I think he cares deeply for his patients and for wider society. That’s why I find this book so gripping, it is ultimately so human, and it makes an argument on multiple levels for how capitalist society has failed to create an environment that is as healthy for humans as what might be natural. Yes there is a lot of affluence, life expectancy is up but there is also a lot of disease, suffering and premature death.
If you don’t like his message, maybe it’s because of your own attachments? There will probably be quite a few people who choose for their way to make a living rather than listen to an argument about how our culture is toxic and we need to make some drastic reforms to the way we live in order to be healthier?
Not sure how to put this politely, but the argument that if you don't like something or agree with part of it is due to some deficiency within said person is really demeaning. I'm pretty able to live a healthier life without feeling the need to blame the world for my difficulties. Again, its not so much about the points as it is the tone, its judgmental and overly neurotic to my ears.
person
Re: Gabor Maté and Ayahuasca
@person said:
What do you mean by social expression? You mean like genuinely being part of a group, like the example of proudly belonging to a motorcycle club? Or a nation in your example, to socially express yourself as proud to be an American can be a problem in some areas of the country these days.
Not really, merely that European people tend to identify more as members of a social fabric consisting of family, community like neighbourhoods, city and province members. There is more adherence to the idea of unity here. It’s kinda hard to describe, but for example my stepfather gets a socially funded budget to buy care in the home from the government because of his Alzheimer’s.
I've listened to a few interviews of him. He does say things to balance his overall presentation, I guess they come across to my ears as some level of lip service. He probably thinks it but doesn't truly believe it deep down. Maybe he's just not my cup of tea?
I have a lot of respect for Dr Maté, I think he cares deeply for his patients and for wider society. That’s why I find this book so gripping, it is ultimately so human, and it makes an argument on multiple levels for how capitalist society has failed to create an environment that is as healthy for humans as what might be natural. Yes there is a lot of affluence, life expectancy is up but there is also a lot of disease, suffering and premature death.
If you don’t like his message, maybe it’s because of your own attachments? There will probably be quite a few people who choose for their way to make a living rather than listen to an argument about how our culture is toxic and we need to make some drastic reforms to the way we live in order to be healthier?
Jeroen
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
“We are born not knowing who we are, we don't know how to think. We only know how to feel. It is through our feelings that how we are raised creates the trajectory for our future lives.”
— Natasha Khazanov
Jeroen
Re: Gabor Maté and Ayahuasca
I like a lot of what he says about the problem of alienation and disconnection in the world today. To me though his words fall too much into a good/bad dichotomy rather than seeing the interplay of connection and individuality.
I think I must live in some sort of cultural bubble. There's the research that says that the most and least materially successful people are the givers, the distinction has to do with avoiding the takers. Successful people I know are that way because they are industrious and maintain and add value to their world, and they are generous and build strong connections with others. They aren't status driven, they do what they do because they enjoy creating and want to share it with others. But they also gate keep and reject those who would take advantage and not seek to contribute in kind. So I agree that status seeking and the other ills he highlights have downsides, I more push back on the overall tone (which I've done elsewhere with Mate). It comes across as a wholesale rejection into the "bad" pile and becomes blind to the positive aspects of individualism and the down sides of collectivism.
Everything is a balance, and the problem is, is that because conditions change you have to be continually rebalancing. ~Dan Carlin
A big part of the reason our western society has moved to an unhealthy level of individualistic attitudes is a reaction to the way collective cultural attitudes oppressed many individual's genuine expression.
People need one another, and a sense of belonging is vital to human well being. But an intrinsic part of belonging to a community is modifying one's attitudes and behavior to allow for social cohesion. Even an attitude of "no judgements" and "all are welcome" impose constraints on those who want to be able to choose who they invite to their party or want people to remove their shoes in the house.
My predilection would be if individuals could realize the importance of relationship and community and make the voluntary choice to be part of various collectives. I can see a big potential pitfall of that way of doing things though. That we all form small pockets of groups that have very different habits and language with no over arching sense of belonging to other groups, such that our tribal instincts kick in and conflict increases, or we fall into a sort of modern day Tower of Babel situation.
person