THE WHITE TIGER: A PAUSE, A REFLECTION, AND THE PATH TO PSYCHOLOGICAL FREEDOM
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom... E O Wilson
This post may be one of the most important that will ever be posted on The White Tiger...
The character of information/knowledge
There is a tired adage that states, “Knowledge is Power.” Knowledge is not power. If you check the definition carefully, you will find that knowledge is the accumulation or acquisition of information, which, in fact, can be correct or incorrect.
There is a specific process for reviewing scientific research studies that involves looking at a number of factors, which will not be elucidated here. The point is that if the study does not meet certain criteria than it’s published outcome has very little merit, meaning, the study offers new information, it may just be invalid or incorrect. In our societal fervor for new information, we sometimes fail to take this into account, leading to misinformation or incomplete information, which may be acted on, with sometimes significant untoward consequences.
The character of wisdom
Wisdom, however, has vetted knowledge through experience. Wisdom is the experiential art of understanding. It is a knowing that is attained through application of information (knowledge), overlaid with experience, giving birth to sound judgement, sound decisions, and meaningful guidance. The power of wisdom is it’s breadth and depth of understanding - it is the understanding that is so powerful.
A PAUSE
As The Foundation Series progresses, it will become apparent that our reactions to the world around us, particularly to our fellow human beings, are shaped very early in our life experience. This knowledge, which has been soundly proven, bestowed without the associated wisdom, has the capacity to create psychological angst that is both unnecessary and psychologically unhealthy. Hence, we pause here, to offer wisdom and understanding by reflecting on specific lived experiences, before proceeding to the deep substance of The Foundation Series.
The White Tiger is in no way a platform for my personal experience. Great care was taken to try to move past that as a succinctly, and expeditiously, as possible. However, in looking forward, and considering the potential psychological impact of the new information that is to be delivered in The Foundation Series, it became apparent that the importance of preventing any psychological angst, caused by the acquisition of this new knowledge, is imperative. In order to create a foundation for the needed understanding, it will be necessary to share two personal experiences….
A REFLECTION
I don’t remember exactly how old I was, I think somewhere between 11 and 13. I was standing at the stove cooking something. My father came up behind me, slid his hand around my waist, pushed himself close to me, and kissed me on the neck. In those brief seconds, my world, as I knew it, imploded.
It is only in retrospect that I came to fully understand that my mother was chronically clinically depressed her entire life. She could always be found lying in bed and crying. She struggled to navigate the daily chores of life, so I became the little mother to my siblings, and by proxy, the little wife. What I understood at that time, and at that age, was that my mother was not a resource for safety and security. I would have to save myself.
I knew I was in deep deep deep trouble. What happened at the stove was the culmination of a progression of ever increasing gestures of covert incest. It was the first indication that covert was about to transition to overt. Coming up with a plan to save myself had to be conscious, deliberate, and very quick. What I chose was to be as disrespectful to my father as I could be, just short of him putting me through a wall, of which he was quite capable. That was my action plan and I enacted it immediately. The contention that developed between us became great and dramatic, leading to his developing an ever growing and ever more obvious disdain for me. This antipathy towards one another progressed and grew through the years, however he never touched me again.
Our contention grew through my deliberate acts of disrespect. One day I pulled up a vine that he had planted in an incredibly inconvenient place…and the camel’s back broke. I can see it perfectly. I was standing outside continuing the yard work after pulling up the vine. He pulled up in his pick up truck within a few feet of me, the window down. The pure crystal clear hatred - radiating from his eyes…the venom in the curl of his lip - and then he said it… “I should just kill you.” He kept his favorite hand gun under the driver’s seat at all times. I will never know if his right hand twitched on the steering wheel, or if the thought was what I saw in his eyes.
The opening line of the first post of The White Tiger was courtesy of my mother. The specifics, leading up to the climactic event about to be shared, are far too dense and long to share in this context. The shortest version is that my parents eventually divorced and my mother moved in with me-the reliable family caretaker. All of my mother’s self-hatred and self-loathing, her disgust with my father and her life, formerly vented onto my father, was now turned onto me like a firehose.
I endured psychological abuse that defies print and all forms of communication. There was no bottom to it’s intensity, or it’s insanity. The intermittent physical abuse was much more tolerable. That is, until the day that I had to fight my mother for my life.
It was a day like any other, filled with the vitriol that came from a place so deep in her and poured onto me like sulfuric acid. The escalation continued unabated until, with the very same look in her eye, the very same clearness, the very same intensity as my father, she said, with a chilling calmness and resolve, that was so pure there was no mistaking it’s truth and intention….“now I am going to kill you.” And there we were, rolling on the floor, mother and daughter, sweating, clawing, out of breath, panting, locked in a physical battle, me trying to keep her from getting her hands onto my throat, and she, with superhuman strength and determination, trying to get to my throat so that she could choke the life out of me.
The most unique thing about the human experience, and understanding the human psyche, is that out of all of the species on the planet, we are the only one that has free will. We can choose. We can opt in or opt out, whenever we want, however we want. However, there is a caveat that has never been explained, and that is the issue of the 90 percent. If 90 percent of our decisions, actions, and behaviors are driven by the subconscious or unconscious mind, how free is our will exactly? Perhaps true access to our free will can only come after knowing or understanding the 90 percent.
My family was a treasure trove of dysfunction, however that is true of so so many of us. How many of us are there in the world having to navigate the lasting impression of being raised in environments and/or circumstances that have left hurts, wounds and scars? My parents are among them.
My father had an area of dense scarring all across his lower back. His parents would use switches for discipline. A switch being a very thin very resilient green branch from a tree. He had to choose the switch and it had to be correct or he had to get another. He was switched until he bled leaving long full scars, healed by secondary intention (meaning that they were open wounds that were left to heal themselves) across the whole of his lower back. His mother’s mother, my great grandmother, used to have black eyes when we went to see her. She kept telling us she fell down the stairs or ran into a door. She may have, but it was not unassisted.
My mother was raised in foster care. Her mother was an alcoholic who chose to keep her older sister and only came to visit her in the foster home. She was sexually assaulted by her stepfather and her grandfather. Then…she married my father…
We can go back generation after generation, and the story is repeated. So what we learn is that our relationships are shaped by people, who like us - until now, never had an understanding of the 90 percent. We use the free will discussion to blame people for their actions and behaviors. Your mother was abused. How could she become an abuser? Your father was abused. How can he become an abuser? The answer…it is the 90 percent. It is improbable that my parents grew up fantasizing about becoming abusive parents, possibly they fantasized about the exact opposite. It happened anyway. It is the belief that we think we can change via mind over matter - and yet, how many times has that been so utterly unsuccessful?
THE PATH TO PSYCHOLOGICAL FREEDOM
No one would blame me if I was an angry, bitter person, or if I was curled up in a ball in the corner of some psych ward. People would say, “of course, my god, look at what she had to live through.” All of us who have been exposed to unkindness in any of it’s forms (which probably includes most of us), have the right to anger, resentment, hatred, loathing, disdain, blame, and judgement. However, the path to Psychological Freedom is not lined with those things.
Forgiveness is not a word that I use personally or professionally. It is fraught with ideological baggage, but more than that it is fraught with Efforting. (Efforting is a made up word and I absolutely love it for its clarity) How many times have I heard, “I tried so hard to forgive so and so. I really tried. I just can’t.” There is your Efforting. Somehow forgiveness requires an act of will and intention that many people cannot conjure up because the pain outweighs and overshadows the intention.
I cannot say that I have ever forgiven my parents. I can say that I have ceased judgement of them. Cessation of judgement requires no effort. In fact, the less effort the better. It is the letting go, in the presence of the wisdom of understanding. If you were to distill down forgiveness, put it through the next smaller gauge sifter, you might find you are holding cessation of judgement…
The magic that flows from the cessation of judgement of others is the creation of the most beautiful, loveliest thing - the cessation of judgement of self. And here we are, standing at the gateway of the path to Psychological Freedom - Welcome - Please, come in.
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The White Tiger is written sequentially. To gain the greatest understanding it is recommended, and helpful, to read The White Tiger beginning with the original post forward. All preceding posts can be accessed by clicking this link https://substack.com/@thewhitetiger