on
Radical Boy: The heart misleads
This is different. This is different.
How many times have you heard someone use those words to justify their self-destruction.
This is different.
You don’t understand.
You can’t know what he’s like.
Those are some good ones. Here are some other ones I like:
It can work this time.
It’s a both-and.
If everyone just pitches in a little.
As we know, there are a finite number of stories in the world. Worse, no one believes any of the stories have anything to do with them or their lives. That’s the funniest thing. We persist in deceiving ourselves into a sense of uniqueness, of difference. It’s false even on the genetic level. In the May 2000 issue of the journal, Science, one authority wrote that human parentage grew from such a small pool that “there’s more diversity in one social group of fifty-five chips than in the entire human population.”
What does genetics have to do with the spirit, though? With our inner selves? Not very little, I suppose, except the odd nod to the universal context in which Man has been found can provide some informative humility. Humility is in order. It’s from Pride that we make so many of our global and individual mistakes. We feel that pride in our hearts, in our selves. We want to believe we deserve what we want and that we can have what we want because we stand out, stand up and stand tall.
Not true.
The heart misleads.
In my political work, an old organizer once said to me: “If you believe it, you’ll see it.” He meant that if I could believe that a political problem, that a campaign, was winnable, then I would see the way to do it. Very well.
The trouble is when we only manage wanting to believe it. It’s something I see in my professional life all the time. People who want to talk themselves into accomplishing far more than they could ever hope to on the slimmest of hopes. Employing strategies that maybe could work, but never do. They know they want. They just want them to. They feel… they should.
I’m not making any sense. I know. I could spell it out for you but the examples are so boring that I’d lose you, so I’ll take it back to the more human territory I hinted at when I opened this up.
You’ve got a friend who’s seeing someone abusive. They emotionally abuse them. Perhaps them drop them off one night at a bus stop and tell them to find their own way home. Perhaps they criticize everything the other person does. Perhaps they scream at their partner when he or she doesn’t have time to make a quick pit stop and pick up some Kentucky Fried Chicken. You know the type. We all know the type. We all know someone who has been there. Who has done that.
It’s none of my business, of course. It’s none of any of our business, except insofar as this: if anything like peace ever descends on this planet of ours, a genuine culture condemnation of dishonestly, hypocrisy and delusion will first settle on humanity. I don’t see it any closer, but that never stopped me from trying. So, back to our fictional friend. We may know him or her well enough to say that they do not think so little of themselves as to want, to enjoy, an abusive relationship. 30 years into this life on Earth, and I can’t help but believe some people were born for abuse, unable to enjoy niceness or gentleness. So be it. Our friend is not one of them. Our friend his deluded himself or herself into believing they have acquired love and must hold onto it.
I can’t blame anyone who’s afraid of a break-up. No one has any promises for you that the next one won’t be worse. It’s very easy to tell yourself, “Well, as bad as she is, X-Y-Z is so great… I can’t give that up.”
The fear of loss only partly explains why people persist in abusive relationships, though. In my observation, this narrative that “This is different. You don’t understand. I only tell you the bad stories. You don’t see us when we’re together.” That narrative, which sounds so logical on its face, props up so many destructive relationship, because people kid themselves into believing that, even though they are re-living a tragic story that’s older than human civilization, somehow it will turn out differently for them. Tragedy, that’s all they are looking at.
You have to remember something about logic, though. Logic is only as good as the assumptions it starts with. You can use logic to arrive at some profound realizations about the world, but you can’t make logic from nothing. You have to start with something you know to be true and go from there.
The heart wants you to believe you are unique. You are special. That you have a special destiny. That’s what your kindergarten teacher told you. That’s what your mom told you. Why can’t it be true?
So, if you assume that you are unique and special and have your own destiny, then it’s easy to convince yourself that you are not locked in the same gerbil wheel of history as the rest of mankind. An abusive relationship went one way for absolutely everyone else who found themselves in one since the dawn of time? Doesn’t matter. It will turn out differently for me – I’m special. In fact, I’m not quite ready to grant you that this is an abusive relationship just yet, anyway.
And where does that put you as a listener. They are your friend. They are your family. What are you going to do? Tell them they aren’t special.
That’s for us. That’s for the artist to do. We have to help people believe the old and ancient stories, so they can find a way to live the good ones. We have to convince them of one other thing, too. That they aren’t special.
So, here. Let me help you out. As long as you’re reading this, I might as well let you know: you aren’t special.
Feel better?
Radical Boy Manifesto