Therapy Takeaways: A Matter of Perspective So, this evening was the third actual therapy session.  I

Therapy Takeaways: A Matter of Perspective So, this evening was the third actual therapy session.  In keeping with the goal I set for myself last week, I’m kinda doing a processing/debriefing/navel-gazing shortly after as a way to track progress, track issues, and look ahead for future direction.  As I said before, this isn’t a thing where I recount the particular people, places, etc. that get talked about, but instead am looking for the most striking, enlightening or noteworthy essential element underlying the session, upon reflection–or as I called it before, “the takeaway.”  This week’s therapy takeaway: A core value for my character is a consistent prioritizing of pragmatism ahead of sentimental concerns, and I need to spend time identifying and examining specific challenges that arise from that particular principle/bias.First, I should be clearer about what I am and am not talking about.  In fact, the “not” side of the equation may be more helpful, so I’ll start there.  I am not using “pragmatism vs. sentimentality” as a stand-in for “logic vs. emotions,” “reason vs. passion,” or anything so neat and cut and dry.  I’m not saying that at any given time, I’m voting for Mr. Spock over Captain Kirk because of what primarily drives them.  I’m also not casting the dynamic in terms of “a focus on ends and outcomes and Effect vs. a focus on means and process and Affect.”  Instead, I think the more apt contrast is valuing a perspective that attempts to capture, appreciate, anticipate and act based on a more expansive temporal and situational context over a perspective that attempts to capture, appreciate, anticipate and act based on more specific and localized temporal and situational context.  In terms that are easier on the tongue and typing fingers, “seeing and thinking big picture vs. presence in any given moment.”  Both are valid ways of seeing the world, but I definitely–unconsciously, even–have a preference, a go-to, a “default setting.”I don’t necessarily think that all pragmatism is rational and logical, any more than I believe that all sentimentality is inherently non- or irrational or emotional in character.  (See also: rhetoric.  Make that capital-R Rhetoric.)  Nor do I feel that one has more inherent worth than the other, only relative usefulness given a set of circumstances.  The thing that IS important to this takeaway, however, is that I very much have a strong preference for the pragmatic over the sentimental, and that preference shapes a LOT of shit for me.  These aren’t entirely new thoughts for me, but I haven’t ever really spent a lot of time grinding through and nailing down specific areas where that particular bias creates conflict for me that I then have to manage.  It’s a perspective bias that is so powerful and fundamental for me that it borders on the tectonic, and when there’s conflict-friction, a pressure and snap related to it, by the time my psychological tsunami is about to crash down on somebody’s world, it all seems so huge and inevitable that I rarely consciously examine the underpinnings.  On the one hand, that deep grounding helps me project an aura of relative confidence, self-possession, composure and makes me a fairly persuasive and effective advocate.  I suspect that it’s also a large part of why I’ve spent so much instinctual energy as a child and conscious effort as an adult working to really understand human motivation, patterns of feelings within myself and others, and how to analogize with and navigate those emotional landscapes that are common within my culture and beyond.  It has made me diplomatic and good at smoothing and resolving conflict, heightened my empathic awareness of others, helped me counsel friends and clients and even total strangers who are in some level of emotional distress.  It has made me a practiced essentializer, able to take in, chew through and digest large systems of causality, spot cracks, bottlenecks, dead-ends, etc., all without getting distracted or lost in the weeds–which is an incredibly useful skill to have, both in my existences as a teacher and as a lawyer.  These things aren’t really news to me and I’ve considered them before.On the other hand…well, I haven’t spent much time looking closely at the downsides or even just potential problems of favoring the pragmatic over the sentimental perspective.  I suppose that some part of me hasn’t really relished the idea that my “looming wave of personality” may be causing damage that I don’t intend, and yet still must, in all fairness, own a certain amount of responsibility for.  (Hint: It’s my ego and susceptibility to guilt.)  I don’t like the idea that simply by unapologetically being my authentic self, asserting my truth, and in spite of any efforts I make to be diplomatic and accommodating and respectful, that I am very likely still pissing people off, offending and saddening them, intimidating and overbearing them, and walking obliviously all over their toes like any given insensitive douchebag.  My pragmatic viewpoint finds no pragmatic solution and so, rather than change or examine the value producing it, such realities are weighed, found to be sentimental, secondary, and I move right along without spending any more energy on it, lest I start obsessing on feelings of failure and self-guilt.  Put simply, I end up unintentionally hurting people’s feelings and/or offending their sensibilities, but rather than spend any time owning it and potentially growing, I shrug it off as inevitable, don’t have to feel responsibility or accept any blame, and get to go right on about my business.  Definitely not flattering.  Definitely uncomfortable.  Definitely don’t like thinking about it.The other aspect of this oblivious blind spot that I think really bites me in the ass is that there are plenty of folks who are either coming from a more balanced perspective or a more sentimental one who read my bias as “not understanding” or completely dismissing their feelings.  And that’s usually just not the case.  Rather, I typically *understand* those feelings, often resonate with them, appreciate their impact on the situation, but am usually not willing to get all the way down into the muck of my own emotions to be *in* it, experiencing it with them, method-actor style.  As a result, I often plow ahead during cross-purpose conversations, largely detached from my own personal feelings so as to minimize the impact of selfish impulses or potentially unfair attitudes, and just kinda assume that they are doing the same.  And then, by the time I realize that they *aren’t* and that I’ve managed to thick-headedly kick the anthill of their emotions sufficiently to ensure that they’re so riled that they can’t even really hear me out because they’re too busy *feeling* what I’ve stirred up…  Well, then I’m the cornered dunce who generally has to take one of three roads, none of which has a very satisfactory outcome.  Probably the best I can do at that point is eat a bunch of crow and burn up a bunch of energy attempting to backtrack, apologize and work a diplomatic angle, and maybe try the conversation again later with my antennae out a little better.  Less awesome, I sometimes will acknowledge and try to validate the emotional response, but still press on earnestly, when I really should just shut the fuck up–probably some ill-advised mixture of stubborn pride and perennial-mentor FoxBear-splaining paternalism.  Probably the ugliest road I occasionally go down is the one where my perspective bias leaves me impatient and frustrated with the other party’s emotional response, and I indulge myself, allowing myself to feel like they’ve “betrayed the spirit of the exchange by dragging self-centered, short-sighted, myopic bullshit” into what I unilaterally had decided was a low- or no-feelings pragmatic or logistical exchange, jointly de-escalated in order to preserve the connection.  Frankly, out of the moment, I know that it’s a monster of my own creation, born of an unthinking arrogance that just assumed the rules of engagement and then justifies my emotional reaction by simply declaring that *my* value bias and priorities (and then, conveniently, my feelings) are correct, and that theirs value biases (and hence, feelings) are inferior bullshit.  It’s an unmitigated hypocrisy, plain and simple, and I know it.  I usually keep it wrapped up in so many layers of insulating quasi-rationality and justifications that I rarely have to acknowledge it for what it is–and never in a heated moment of conflict, of course.  But I’m introspective and honest enough with myself to own it and call it what it is, when I stop and think about it cold.  I just don’t like to, because it’s fucking ugly and embarrassing and runs afoul of all manner of principles I hold to and hold myself out to others as promoting.  It makes me feel like a fraud, a failure, ashamed and gross.  And sure, I can console myself with a glib little quip of Whitman: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” but at the end of the day, I know that sort of consolation for the ego-feeding functional self-delusion that it is.Yup.  Sure as fuck don’t know what to do about that shit.  Maybe I’ll figure it out in therapy.  Maybe not.         I think that the pragmatism bias–as much as it frequently makes me the blind bull in the proverbial china shop–also makes me very fucking bad at mindfulness and present-in-the-moment activities.  I’ve repeatedly invested significant time and effort into developing and routinizing meditation practice, but never been able to sustain it.  All of my focused efforts toward truly being in a given moment, present in my body, present in my experience, have been merely episodic and opportunistic.  Well, at least as an adult.  I think that as a kid, I was better at it, better at stopping to smell proverbial roses and feed the birds.  And I think that deficiency prevents me from experiencing a lot of certain kinds of joy in my life–small bits of joy that are out there for me to tap into every single day, but that I take a pass on, choosing instead to be somewhere else mentally, thinking eight steps ahead in eleven different directions.  Again, the expansive perspective focus means that I end up missing the localized joy of being alive in this moment, and then the next moment, and the next.I feel like that’s an area for growth, one I’ve perceived and made efforts to work on in the past, but never seem to get much traction on.  Not sure how to improve on that, yet.  Likely should take that point–and the historical track record–with me to another therapy session.So yeah, no.  I’m never gonna be the guy who reads Chicken Soup for the Soul or goes to haunted houses or fails to roll his eyes and pretend to vomit at exaggerated cuteness and sappy holiday schmaltz.  I’m probably always gonna be the guy reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or some elaborate escapist fantasy or sci-fi novel, who’d rather go to the gym or catch up on house chores than watch Steel Magnolias.  I’m gonna be the guy who will prefer to talk for hours about personal spiritual development or relationship dynamics than endure ten painful minutes of talking about sports or what people are currently binge-watching on Netflix.  But maybe…maybe…I can try to pay more attention for the next few months to how pleasant it is to drink hot coffee on a cold morning, the tiny feathers of the bird eating at the feeder at the window, the heavy feeling of blankets pressing me down into the warm bed, the exhilarating and bracing snap to the first breath of cold air when I walk out to the car, the purr of the happy cat in my lap, the unburdened laughter of children, the twinkling of Christmas lights.  Because the big picture is made up of little moments, and all those tiny sips and snippets of joy should add up, right?  Right?*sigh*  More next time. -- source link

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