this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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Everett True Comics
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A place to appreciate the twentieth century comic character Everett True of "The Outbursts of Everett True." Feel free to check out the sticky.
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Yeah, I think that's part of it. I guess you're right that it doesn't HAVE to be part of the human condition, but making it otherwise takes a lot of work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths
I see no evidence for objective "truths" where human consciousness is concerned, but in this context, what I'm describing is closest to number 2, samudaya: (origin, arising, combination; "cause"): there is dukkha (unease, disbalance) when there is, or it arises simultaneously with, taṇhā ("craving," "desire" or "attachment," lit. 'thirst').
anything you expect that does not occur exactly how you expect it upsets you only if you've already attached yourself emotionally, spiritually or any -ally to your presupposed outcome.
Avoid the tendency for attachment.
which does sound like a lot of work, but I don't think it is.
It's just about going about thinking in the right way, or understanding how events unfold in a particular way.
Supposing less is the key, since you're never going to know enough to predict anything correctly enough with any kind of anxiety-soothing consistency.
I was going to quibble about "no evidence for objective “truths” where human consciousness is concerned" but it's an active area of research and I'm not up on the field. So instead:
I guess if you're sitting in meditation or working with a cognitive behavioral therapist then sure, there are plenty of known techniques. But when your family member's dying and you're just about losing your job and then some bozo almost kills you with his car, then it can be hard to avoid the tendency for attachment.
avoiding attachment to preconceived outcomes doesn't mean you can't organically feel emotions.
if your family member is dying you can reel sad, and if a bozo near-hits you, feel free to scream "cunt" at the bad driver as they screech away if you live in the areas of the world where it's cool to say that.
those emotions aren't something you assumed the course of and committed yourself to ahead of time, they're natural reactions to events that have occurred or are occurring.
What i, and it sounds like samudaya is referring to is the tendency to attach your own expectations to events external to and independent of you, which fosters the erroneous belief that what you think is happening is happening and is all that is happening because you are observing it or a party to it, like buying a sweater from a rude woman who doesn't seem to like you at a flea market who you don't understand is holding back her roiling frustration at having to part with her late husband's favorite article of clothing but needs to make the mortgage next month.
or screaming at a football match on TV despite the players being physically removed from you, not being aware of you, never having met you or having any connection to you, and your enthusiasm or frustration not having an effect on the game or their play.
Why scream? you've emotionally attached yourself to what is going to happen and the generally false expectation that your team winning or losing affects your life and self in any way.
getting angry that a player lost or gained control of the ball doesn't affect your life except in the predetermined emotional investment you've pinned to certain colors or designs or people you have no visceral and often passing relation to.
Similarly, True isn't always reacting to these situations in some proper way, he's lashing out in what he apparently assumes is "righteous" anger as a result of his own expectations of what the world "is", how he understands the situations before him(he cannot) and the effect his actions will have(he canmot).
they are fun comics, but maybe that was the one day the man posing finally felt comfortable being in public, or the first day he brought his kid to the beach and was putting on a show for him, or remembering the first time he was brave enough to swim after his mom took him to the beach after his brother drowned eight months ago.
i like this comic, it's common to try to smush and reform the world into a likeness we would rather see or can more easily understand, but the reactions of True and most of us most of the time aren't reactions to what's happening so much as reactions to your own personal expectations, assumptions and conclusions mistakenly and habitually applied to an external and independent reality that any individual, even one as large as True, is a very small, limited, barely aware part of.
I generally agree with what you're saying, the one part where we differ is when earlier you said:
which makes it sound pretty easy. To use your example, people do get emotionally invested in watching sports games and doing so can have several healthy effects (e.g. socialization). To get those healthy effects while remaining unattached through right thinking takes conscious work.
that's like saying drawing or playing the violin is hard.
if you've never done then before, drawing or playing the violin is hard, but after you practice for a while, in any capacity, a lot of the movements become natural or second nature and practicing becomes more comfortable.
and you are making progress the whole time
I don't know if I'd say the common sportsfan attachments are healthy by themselves, socialization certainly is, and i think it's okay to emotionally invest in anything, even sports, if you're aware you're doing it.
it's when you're allowing yourself to be affected and to automatically interact with the world based on an affected state that's the problem.
reaching without awareness based on attachment/expectations is sort of like someone who's never driven a car letting a self-driving vehicle take you out for a spin.
the car will mostly go along with the traffic around you, but you have no way of steering or pushing the brakes yourself,are not actually in control of your destination, and if you get into any real trouble you won't know what to do, can't turn on the hazards and might end up causing an accident.
back to reality, might end up getting in a fight over a basketball game that has absolutely nothing to do with you other than your human tendency to attach meaning to a pattern, real or imagined.
emotions aren't an enemy or wrong; they are powerful and should be understood and regulated so that you can spend your time living rather than being internally tossed around in the sea of your bodies' autonomic reactions and buried under the weight of repetitive assumption.
mistaking habitual passion for conscious action.
Right, the language we were using was "a lot of work." As you say, "after you practice for a while" drawing or violin playing become second nature. But that practicing is a lot of work.
Similarly, meditation and CBT techniques to control attachment are remarkably simple, but you have to practice them regularly which is a lot of work.
i missed where you said practicing awareness or meditation or cbt is "a lot of work" earlier; i was still responding to the original topic and your comments above.
i said "...avoiding attachment, which does sound like a lot of work, but I don’t think it is."
and you said you differed because it isn't easy to avoid having natural emotional reactions, which is a different topic than acting on manufactured attachment.
Although having natural emotional reactions is common and healthy, it is different from acting out on manufactured emotions driven from expectations.
as you say, practices like cbt "are remarkably simple".
simple things are not always easy(lifting weights), but the original topic of avoiding acting on manufactured attachment and its derivative "avoiding attachments based on expectation" are frank, momentary acknowledgments that are simple and easy, but may be unfamiliar.
chopping down a tree by hand is simple and "a lot of work" each time. Avoiding acting on manufactured attachment is simple and easy.
being aware of your emotions doesn't mean not having emotions at all, which is where you seem caught up, it means paying attention to where your reactions are coming from.
are your emotions the result of external input that personally affects you, or from expectations of what you've internally decided the external world should be like?
if you are unsure, you can safely err on the side of avoiding an outburst.
also, if not lashing out seems like it should be "a lot of work" and thinking about not lashing out as a hard-won achievement helps one to not lash out, that's fine too, although I'd be wary of the feedback loop of imagining not doing something being a lot of work.
Use your expectations to your advantage.