Reasoning vs associating
05/24/06
I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information I’m wanting to take in. I haven’t even checked in with this morning’s news; plus there are two news program interviews I want very much to listen to. I spent most of this morning digesting one already. Just a panel discussing the latest updates from Iraq. I laughed to myself thinking that my listening is like football time where 15 minutes can easily be 45 because of the clock stopping. So a 51 minute program can take well over an hour to get through. Part of it is this troublesome trait of mine of my attention and engagement cutting away and me not realizing it in time to bring it back so I don’t miss something important to the situation. (That’s what happened when I talked to x last week—only it happened right in the middle of a sentence. The part of my attention that wandered was the part who was keeping together a vision I was trying to convey in a conversation.) This is not just annoying, but I fear could be dangerous if the lapse happened coincident with a gap in real life, such as in needing to see everything while driving, appearing and something driving right through it. I would really be a more effective person if I could have more governance over my attention.
So it’s 11:30, and I’m going to feel cheated if I spent the entire time off taking in news programs. Which brings to mind another trait of mine: Andrea called it a “completion drive”. (I’m going to look that up, she said it as casually as if it were a known term, so maybe it’s a drive that’s been studied and written on. Maybe I could learn something about it.) That’s part of what keeps me repeating a bit of the clip until I “get it”—the meaning a sentence was meant to convey. I feel a strong need to get the meaning, even in more inconsequential conversations. I am noticing that trait manifesting in many ways just in the mundanities of living. I noticed it when I was covering the beans for a quick-soak—there was a part of me that was very aware that the water level rise about the beans just one inch and no more. Or washing out cans for recycle and making sure not even a small piece of food lingers. Those kinds of things.
I did just go on the net to see if there was anything about “completion drive”. I didn’t find much beyond the short excerpt of an article that spoke of “completion drive” as something positive to have; the article dealt with people who lack it.
Well, it’s a term that is quite succinct and describes my experience, so I’m going to keep it. I might check some more detailed search sites a little later, and go on writing about some other things I’ve been thinking about.
Last night I was on the phone with Joy and wanted to talk about some of this stuff I’ve been writing intensely about in the last few weeks. In fact, I really need to read it again—(there’s a part of me that feels uncomfortable with that—wants to read straight through from the diaries from the beginning and not read my latest until I get to it in sequence. ! Right now I’m on diary #4,5,6—all housed in two little notebooks. ! All right. I see how pervasive this trait is as I become more and more aware of the ways it manifests.) because I’d like to refresh my mind on it; these are all topics I was planning to condense and discuss some with Dr. Wright. (And I’d like them all to stay present with me, so they can be included in a conversation. What often happens is that I lose my access to them, thoughts and ideas, and therefore they go un-voiced. I suppose that’s part of the attention-shifting thing, that loss of the way in to thoughts I wanted to air with another human being. It makes me feel very dull sometimes. That happened with x, too.)
SO my latest are still ruminations about war and it’s nature, but also an expansion of my thinking about humans making associations and responding to them in knee-jerk fashion with their emotions, no matter how irrational. Joyce and I had a bit of a conversation about that, though I didn’t feel like I really got to the meat of it in baring thoughts I really wanted some meaningful feedback on. I’d like to have done better. It’s true that I’ve come about as close as any with Joy in being able to have these kinds of conversations, and I’d have liked to have explored those thoughts more deeply with her. It’s funny in conversation how sometimes something will be said that seems to have completed a part of a conversation,, and then it’s difficult to think of more to say. Even if there is a feeling that there is more.
I guess I really do view ideas as being entities in a room, or objects, and that I actually go in and get them, and that sometimes access is blocked.
In talking about irrational associations, of which there are many examples exhibited each day, I lost touch (that access thing again) with some examples that had driven the notion home to me, and in fact it had energized me when I realized them. THOSE were the kinds of things I really wanted to get into with Joy, and I didn’t feel I quite achieved that. It was still a good conversation, still deeper than most. I suppose that’s why I want to reread all this stuff I’ve been writing the past few weeks.
Anyway, she gave me a wonderful example that I’ve already used and it’s made a situation clearer: “’The pope is fat’; is that a criticism or an observation?” In the first place it illustrates that nature of association. Because the word “fat” usually has a hint of pejorative, the listener might find the speaker’s words to be critical, and even take offense (even the ‘critical’ part is illustrative, because a lot happens: the listener associates the pejorative to the pope before feeling offense, but it happens very quickly), and this is largely dependent on who the listener is. Who the listener IS will make it more likely that they will see the sentence as an observation or as a criticism. (I have noticed in my life that there are statements of fact and observations that by the nature of what’s associated with them seem offensive, even if the content is truly neutral. Just saying them, they’re often taken as if a critical remark has been made. A neutral tone is often taken as a critical one.) Anyway, I asked Gary if he had contacted his mother about babysitting Thurs (tomorrow) night because if she’d said no, then I’d want to contact Drew; it would be a last-minute request even then. Gary heard criticism in that, and I used the example of ‘the pope is fat’ to illustrate how who we are often determines if we take something as critical or not. This is a sort of thing that happens a lot with Gary and me. In the case of last night, I asked the question and he responded no, he hadn’t had time, and then added, “I had an all-day seminar remember?” There was something about the way he said that, there was definitely an aggressive tone. It was meant to express annoyance at me—or maybe it wasn’t “meant”, maybe is was just an uncensored expression of his annoyance at me. He didn’t attempt to conceal his negative feelings about me in that moment, and it hurt. So I said, “There is no reason to be nasty about this. You didn’t have to say it that way. I didn’t speak to you in that tone. There was no call for you to take that tone with me.” I think I just left it at that, and a little while later I think our moods were more neutral again and I asked about a transfer of money over from one account to another with the concern that we weren’t covering our bases each month without needing windfalls to get us through. He responded to that with a raised voice, implying that I should know that that’s not true: “Just look in the checkbook! We’ve had some extra expenses this month—that’s why we came up short!” It was a response that was out of proportion to what I thought I was asking; I guess that’s what I meant to say. But at this point I told him he couldn’t talk to me that way and I left the room to go downstairs with the boys for a while. Later when I came upstairs I mentioned him expressing annoyance at me in a retaliatory way, when I have done nothing to provoke it. He said he thought I was attacking him about calling his mother. I said I wasn’t, I was asking for information (this is also a dynamic of ours, that he takes requests for information from me as critical in nature.). Then I was able to use “The pope is fat” to illustrate how something’s meaning can change a lot, just depending on who the listener is. And it seemed like he ‘got’ it!
Gary and I have many interactions like that one above, and I’ve been trying to explain it so he’ll understand, how I see his part in it, but this little analogy of Joy’s was the clearest illumination of how that dynamic works and how subtle it is. It brought light to the dark.
[I think I just lost some work there. I got an error message and have spent a good deal of time trying to sort it out.
There are a ton of auto recovery documents in my trash that I’m afraid to get rid of. Since the error message I got had to do with amount of memory, I wonder how much memory those are taking up.
Now I’m nervous every time I save.]
Yeah, I did lose some stuff I’d written. Because I did write that Gary put his arm around me and smiled apologetically and said he’d try to do better. I hugged him back, but said that these types of interactions are the bulk of the atmosphere of conflict between us. That he’s said he’d try to better before, yet these types of conversations still occur.
I went back downstairs with the boys, and Gary got the rider mower, our ‘new’ one that we hadn’t used yet because it needed some repairs, started. Scott had gone upstairs and so went outside with him. A few minutes later when I came upstairs I looked out the window and saw Scott riding in front of Gary driving the mower. I had an errand to do, and was doing it at the computer. Connor went out and joined them, and a few minutes later Gary came in, and said, “It is very dangerous for Scott to be out here!!” And I was perplexed, because he’d been the one that had taken Scott out there, yet his tone was as if I’d been the one that put him outside into a dangerous situation. It was very different from an alternative I would have found acceptable, along the lines of: “Hey, D, it wasn’t a very good idea for me to have taken Scott out there. Would you please keep him in the house?”, or even “It’s dangerous outside for Scott because he’s getting in the way. Could you keep him in?” It’s a huge difference and I felt stung. I felt not only anger that he would take that tone toward me, but more so because of the expression of his entitlement to express his annoyance. Again, he felt I should have somehow “known” and came and got Scott without him having to get off the mower to bring him in. He said, “You’re a mother! You know it’s dangerous for him to be outside when I’m mowing”—completely missing that it was he who had taken Scott outside in the first place. I said, “You are wanting something that is not reasonable for any person to want—and what’s worse is that you’re totally unaware that it’s unreasonable to want this and you just don’t get it. That’s where I feel up against a wall with you, because something that’s true is right in front of you and you won’t see it.”
I also said that it is this sort of interaction that undermines any positive feelings I might have about him, and is what is keeping us from giving our boys a happy home.
It appears that when he is unhappy in some way, angry or frustrated or whatever, he associates that feeling with me, and therefore reacts emotionally as if I’ve caused his unhappiness. That’s my latest working theory and it goes in line with what I’ve been thinking about: a lot of trouble in this world is due to associations being made by humans that aren’t logical, but SEEM it to the person making the assumption.
(I am happy when I’m doing something like this; writing and expressing some thoughts that have puzzled me.)
An hour left. And I still haven’t done any copying in the Mi Amigo series.
The best examples of this construct of illogical-association-emotional reaction were after the hostages were taken in Iran in 1979, and anyone who looked middle eastern found their businesses being attacked, or demonstrated against, intimidated, or insulted. I just thought of another example of it, when Rick told me that Safak had thought I was coming to take him away because Mark had cheated on me, and it seemed a logical thing—he said it as if he thought it was reasonable for Safak to think that—that I would want to come and steal Rick as a result of it. In other words, my only crime was having been victimized. But to them it seemed logical. This sort of thinking/emotionally reacting happens all the time. And I think Gary is deep in this sort of construct. I think I am getting it, just how strongly and subtly our thought processes are influenced by associations which may or may not be valid. I suppose I might be more aware than most of this fact, although I wonder how it manifests in me. And how do the ones I’m unconscious to influence my behavior in the world? I suppose that defines a person’s personality, really, is the reactivity they have to these associative-thinking—I don’t know what to call them. It seems like there should be a name for this clustering of association with emotion and behavioral response. I see them as discreet units, almost.
Anyway, Gary did eventually see that—and I’d despaired that he would. It was when I thought of it as him behaving as if I had been the one who had taken Scott outside. (Which is why it felt weird, and then offensive to me)
All right, maybe it’s time to retreat to a more innocent age, and type a little of my old diary.
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