Mind Full

(*NOTE - if you find this too tedious, skip down to the poem at the end of this post :-)

I have been thinking a lot recently about how we relate - to each other, to ourselves, to our environment.  Why do we act the way we do?  What makes us feel the emotions we do?  What compels us to make the choices we do?  How do we overcome that which has been put upon us?  Here are some thoughts -

When I first studied Freud, I recall a sense of being annoyed by a white male's explanation of the mind.  Over time, however, I have come to see the benefit of organizing models of the human psyche.  Whether his ideas and explanations are final explanations or just primitive building blocks, they are evident in the works of later psychological scholars either as a basis or comparison.  

Identifying and describing the id, superego and ego are  very helpful to us in understanding our personal, private and public selves.  By this I mean, the id defines the very essence of who we are.  Depending on our degree of healthy and accurate self-knowledge and assessment, the id may be known or not by ourselves.  We are not always conscious  that our actions are reflections of the id, that is our instinctual drives, the drives toward pleasure or away from danger or hurt.  Here is where the flight or fight instinct lives.   I think there is sometimes also an active “invite” instinct where we try to adapt to an environment that we unconsciously perceive as pleasurable or safe.  We try to invite ourself into an environment that may not be compatible with our true self, simply because we perceive that being in that environment may be beneficial in bringing safety or pleasure.  In our inviting, we may place ourselves in places and situations that are in direct conflict with our uncoordinated, instinctual id. 

Our ego is the part of us that represents common sense and reality as opposed to the passions of the id.  It is in allowing the ego to come forth that chooses the life we live.  The ego is our out loud, or in plain sight, expression of who we are.  The superego is the part of us that facilitates the relationship between the id and ego.  It is where our pre-memory experiences, cultural norms and societal messages are internalized and, when called on to do so, sent to the ego for external expression.  It is no wonder that Freud put such emphasis on experiences of the very young and bonds, or non-bonds, with early care givers in forming the superego and ego.  

It is interesting to note that Freud did not use the terms id, ego and superego.  It was his translator, James Strachey, who latinized Freud's terms "das Es", "das Ich", and "das Uber Ich."  Rather than id, ego and superego, these terms literally mean "the It", "the I" and "the Over I."  Too bad that these terms were not used, as they are more self-explanatory than the latin substitutions Strachey gave us.  

So, why does this even matter?  It sometimes makes my brain hurt just thinking about this kind of thing, yet it does help me understand that, probably, since the human race began we have been trying to understand our connection with that something outside of us that is larger than all the universe, yet at the same time wholly contained in every individual living thing.   I believe that something is what people call  God.  Or god.  Or love.  Or divine presence.  Or spirit.  I don't think it matters what it is called, it only matters how it is expressed.  

Perhaps the reason I am so interested and concerned with how the mind works is because I have a sense that in order for one to truly express what we call god, we must first find god.  Our mind holds memories not only from our lives but, I believe,  from the lives of others and every event in the universe.   This bring us to Jung . . . . . . whom I shall leave for another day.  I think more important than knowing and explaining our mind and how it works is our feeling how our mind works - how it helps us make connections to people, to science, to love, to living - to that which is meaning filled for us.  

I have always been a bit envious of the poet who can reduce what took me hundreds of word to say to just a few lines of poetry.  Today, as a full explanation of the meaning of life,  I give you David Whyte's -

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are too tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.