hubris and nemesis

3/6/07 Tues 1128

A quote from Chalmers Johnson:

If an individual’s thinking is short-circuited and does not rise to the level of making judgments, he or she is able to understand acts, including evil acts, only in terms of following orders, doing one’s duty, being loyal to one’s “homeland,” maintaining solidarity with one’s fellow soldiers, or surrendering one’s will to that of the group.

And, another:

…

but it (this phenomenon) is ubiquitous in military life, where, in order to prevail in battle, soldiers have been conditioned to follow orders instantly and to act as a cohesive group. In such roles, “Cliches, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention which all events and facts arouse by virtue of their existence.”

This speaks to the stuff I was thinking about yesterday, about choice and choosing.

I wondered if the remark about ‘standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality’ was a statement that applied to our overall social environment.

It certainly seems that having had that dream about being frozen at the midpoint of a decision about jumping in after Scott or staying on the sand above and getting him at the ocean was about choosing, and about that moment of choice. Perhaps that’s one of the issues I’m working on with Sharon. I think that may comprise a good bit of the free-floating anxiety I experience, and that is that point of decision. Why should making a choice be so agonizing? I made a choice just a little while ago. I’d planned, reluctantly to go shopping to get Katie a gift, and immediately got hung up on several choices: go to Powell’s and use the book money Chloe gave me; OR, go to the mall bookstore and get her a book, even though that means I won’t be able to spend my gift card, and then stop by to see Don? Do I even want to leave the house? (Because of having left the house yesterday—feeling the need to stock up on this alone time because Gary was home yesterday and I made a couple trips out since I wasn’t going to be alone anyway. And, the kids have next Fri off during the time that Gary’s out of town working. Needing to stockpile; sort of store up this feeling of –what, peace? Or of being beholden to no one but myself? Relaxation of the parental radar? Alone time to gather some insight.) Stay home, but go empty-handed to Katie’s dinner to celebrate her birthday? For some reason that consequence has troubled me and has been the source of second-guessing and more angst than would be appropriate. It’s like a sticking point that drags me back in to the throes of the decision, even when I’ve already made my choice: ordered her a gift online. It was just this image of me showing up empty-handed. I did choose me. I chose to stay home. Perhaps this whole decision thing is a sort of illustration/demonstration about my issues with choice. And knowing/accepting the consequences. There was something about the consequence of seeing myself show up empty-handed, even though Katie didn’t get me a gift (which I’d half-heartedly used as a rationale) that caused a rise in anxiety. Is it even worth examining. Perhaps it is a demonstration that making choices doesn’t guarantee there won’t be ambivalent feelings.

I remembered a dream I had, or was having, when I woke up this morning; it seemed like a bit of a serial dream because I had several wakings. Once again I fell prey to a confidence that it was a clear enough dream that I’d remember it. I forgot it. It seemed to have to do with my mother, somehow, or going from one door or maybe closet to another (weird, I just had an image of a vignette from something like a sequence from ‘Monster’s Inc.’ Only a tantalyzing flash). It’s a shame to lose a long string of a dream, or stream of a dream like this…sometimes things come back. Oh, wow, here comes a bit. I’m over on the west side of town, shopping or something. And I’m trying to get home and the route I see in my mind is past St. Johns and out along highway 30—so I guess it’s our current house I’m trying to get to.

I was on a schoolbus, but I’d mistakenly taken the wrong one. I thought it wasn’t a problem because I could walk. In the dream it didn’t seem that far, or difficult. There were a couple men with me on the schoolbus who were aware of my predicament and expressed concern when I got off the bus, over at the waterfront in a heavily industrial zone, under the supports of the bridge. I assure them that I will be fine, and I have a vision in my head of where hwy 30 turns north toward the Willamette’s joining with the Columbia. However, I do begin running into major obstacles. Part of what stands between me and my destination (one of many things) are the lofts being built in the Pearl district. So I’m walking through an area of housing that’s part finished, and part unfinished. Where unfinished it is dark, and I can see raw beams and timbers exposed, it seems I’m also crossing multiple railroad tracks. Sometimes in order to pursue my destination, my way takes me up through people’s apartments in these lofts, tiny little dorm rooms really that in my dream I remark about how much people are paying for so little. Basically I walk around a mattress on the floor with various kinds of coverings—just bedspreads, one of them orange. I keep moving, following this ‘line’ that’s supposed to take me home. Then I’m in warehouses that are in the process of being converted to markets—still rough concrete on the ground and people just setting up. Some restaurants and the smell of food cooking. Perhaps there’s some sort of mission driving me home—propelling me with an urgency like needing to be home before the boys got home. Then I’m going through a really heavy-duty industral area, like a shipping yard or something. Huge vehicles moving and my fearfully keeping out of their way. Then suddenly I’ve reached the river’s edge, and I’m on a barge that starts moving, straight for the other bank. {Even though in real life I’m already ON the river’s west bank, in the dream it’s as if the Willamette makes a swing so that I have to cross it to get home} It’s a sort of glacier-blue, the milky whit-ish color, and we’re moving very quickly across. There’s a big spray being tossed up from the bow wave. I don’t remember if I get wet, or merely avoided getting wet. Maybe something about considering the river’s quality in an industrial district. Then I’m in another industrial area. There’s one occurrence, maybe it was back when I was in the semi-darkness under railroad tracks—where I felt threatened by the figure of a man…there was some aspect about him that made him seem elderly, but another aspect that felt a little sinister, like he might not be harmless. I was very aware that there weren’t other people around, and it was kind of dark.

OK. Wow. That was a nice gift from my Unconscious, to get that dream back. Or that part of it. There may have been more.

Another e-mail to Gary, here’s the copy:

Here’s what else having time alone to think results in:

I had a look at our problem with a different perspective.

“Our problem”, obviously is our relationship. You may have your ideas about what the primary root cause is, but this is mine:

At the root of *all* our dissatisfaction is the inability to come back together and heal whatever it is that caused the rift. I feel the best way to handle a rift, or disagreement is to put it out on the table between us so we can work on it together. This means discussion.

It occurred to me that in a moment of conflict, when you’ve lashed out at me: I don’t think I’ve tried to reassure you in that moment, because I’m always carried away by the pull of anger. I wondered then, “What IF”…in each moment of conflict I were to tell you that I am *not* trying to harm you or degrade you, or shame you; that my only motive is to clean something up and then go back to living–hopefully happily. At each of the points where you lash out with a remark that’s intended to hurt, what if I were to realize that if you’re lashing out you must feel attacked, and if you’re feeling attacked you must fear I’m going to harm you. What if I somehow managed to tell you in each of those instances that I’m not responding with the motive to hurt; I’m responding with the motive of fixing things.

You actually do fairly well in your role of acknowledging your part in something. I think about 60, maybe 70% of the time if I call you on something that you did, you acknowledge it. I suppose this is the part in the partnership I can’t do for you. Basically, when I call you on something I’m asking you, in a direct way, to account for yourself. Why did you do what you just did, why do you deny having done it–what is your basis for doing it?

For me to feel that we’re in a functioning relationship, I need to be able to ask you to account for your behavior. And you need to be able to do the same with me. We need to be able to make the case for each other that our own point of view is legitimate. If you want something, I *want* you to defend it. And I want to feel free to defend my view, as well as show you it’s legitimacy. Maybe you’ll give me new information that changes how I feel about my view. I honestly feel that you and I having never gotten to this point is the root cause of the suffering in our marriage. I have a theory that you’ve been unable to engage this way with me because you don’t trust me. You’ve felt hurt by me. So you can’t trust me to the extent it would take for us to be able to do the above. I have a theory that you were raised to believe, (and that you *still* believe) that to speak frankly to someone about something you’d like to change about their behavior is rude and aggressive behavior. That there’s no other way to see that than as an attack, a power struggle. And a cause for resentment. I think most people operate from that belief, which is why they say nothing while secretly wishing something were different. Because it’s RUDE. Though I believe it can be rudely *done*, I don’t believe putting something out on the table for you and your partner to look at is necessarily rude.

So, my idea is to do my best that whenever you’re letting your dislike for me show, is to take that as a sign that you’re feeling attacked, and to reassure you that I’m bringing it up as something we can FIX together, not as a weapon to bludgeon you with.

I’ve already written way too many words…

A little later; a thought that comes to my mind as I was reading the Buddha book: In remarking that sometimes our angry response may be connected to some energy from the past, does she suggest—what, that there isn’t legitimacy to the feelings one has when someone tries deliberately to hurt in some way? Her example; the wife with the husband who was always late for dinner and didn’t call. She said, “This doesn’t excuse Jim being late, but I WAS acting like a child.”

I guess the first question is, when Gary says something that has a slap or a sting to the tone, am I responding as a child, and what is my responsibility if I am? If some of the intensity comes from earlier hurts, does this invalidate the hurt I’m feeling when he does it? Again, it seems the burden of proof is on me.

So the woman in the example went out at dinners and had fun. What do I do when Gary makes a passive aggressive remark?

Later:

Last night’s dream: something about a school, or a set of hotel rooms, or some sort of lodging almost like Hy-Lond home. And a group of us are getting ready to leave, and I’m waiting to go back into an older couple’s room, in order to get something of mine I left there. I’m feeling a little

3/8/07
Thurs; 944

Funny. This is one of the few weeks where the boys are actually scheduled to be in school for 5 days, and I have Scott home again. Diarrhea. Connor’s in a snit because he’s jealous and is imagining that Scott and I are having a high old time. So he stomped off to his bus angry, but after giving me an earful for about 10 solid minutes before it thankfully came. Scott’s watching a movie downstairs, giving me a few moments to write about the visit with Sharon last night.

In the first place is the larger context of the difficulty of getting to her. Scott’s diarrhea was an issue as to whether he should be babysat or not. He’d only had the one loose movement when he first got up, as well as in the middle of the night, and he was totally fine and energetic all day, so I cleared it with the babysitter’s mother and got that arranged. But there was the suspense: will he have a runny poop again and then I’ll have to call off the babysitter? (He didn’t). (Why he woke to another runny poop today is beyond me when he was doing so well yesterday). Then, the boys dropped off and Gary alerted, I took off for my appointment with Sharon only to get sent across the Steel bridge, back over to the west side, embroiled in the traffic jam that I’d taken the route I’d taken to avoid. Still, I arrived on time, but it wasn’t comfy. The last couple of visits have been like that.

So I shared with her the pieces I’ve come up with that in some ways seem integrated and related, and some ways completely unrelated: 1) the recurring theme of my life of being among people who aren’t accountable for their behavior; or act as if they’re not and become angry when I name it. 2) men drawing close, and then pulling back 3) agony of choice and paralysis on the very point of choice
4) taking responsibility for my choices and becoming aware of the moments where I choose and 5) a new way to approach conflict resolution and problem-solving with Gary. Then I remembered what I’d learned about Nemesis, and hubris. Was Hubris a god? No, in ancient Greece it was more than a wrong-doing; it was an attitude of taking delight in the victory over another. In shaming the loser.

Sooo…in those situations with Darlene where I felt a need to win, and winning for me was satisfying a desire that HER satisfaction in ‘winning’ (and it often seemed to be the loyalty of Gary, as demonstrated by his behavior in any given circumstance) be denied her. I suppose it’s a form of hubris that Connor reacts to when Scott ‘taunts’ him: “I’m winning over you” communicated in a sing-song voice that’s below the level of most adults but Connor’s acutely aware of. There’s a fierce need to deny someone the satisfaction of hubris. Which is at heart a shaming, and a claim of superiority over the ‘loser’. Perhaps this identifies that persistent and peculiar desire to ‘win’ that comes up around Darlene getting her way, especially with claims on Gary’s attention. Nemesis is the avenger of that attitude. And, hubris was against the law in ancient Greece. I wonder if all these years I’ve been responding/reacting to some sort of hubris in Darlene, and a feeling that Gary is her unwitting ally. Then I’ve felt worried that this was evidence that I was paranoid, unreasonable, childish…

Children are very sensitive to hubris. So, perhaps in that sense I’ve been ‘childish’. Hmmmm; that’s actually a different direction than where we got to last night. Where we got to was wondering about Nemesis being an active force within me. I don’t know how we got to this, but it seemed to be in terms of revenge…and taken on myself ?????

Sharon called that a “horrifying” proposition…It’s funny that I don’t find it particularly horrifying…I mean I don’t respond to it viscerally that way. Perhaps that’s been the ‘tearing’ inside I’ve mentioned before in my diaries, and the shape of the dark abyss I’ve described? Why would I take vengeance on myself when I’m the one who has been…wronged? We talked about a certain kind of ‘righteousness of the victim’…I’m the one who termed it that way, in considering the possibilities.

~ by kaleidoscoperefractions on March 3, 2009.