darkly dreaming

I came to the realization that there is nothing more freeing than ‘no’. It gives you the ability to pack it in, to reach for disillusionment and cut losses. Perhaps to appease your family, your friends, your better judgement. Or worse, you can see it as a statement about yourself; a resolution about your absolute value, a universal statement that for all time describes your worth. That is the power that we allow ‘no’ to have over us, and it is the absolute inauthentic decision to allow it to be at all.

The phenomenological truth is that in that moment you have absolute power. When someone says yes, they are giving you permission, they are in essence taking the power from you into themselves, and it is by their leave that you go forward. This is not inauthentic on principle, but it is not an authentic moment, rather the conclusion of a previous moment. ‘No’ however, is a moment of ultimate reality. It is an abrupt disruption of the normal flow of your life, and it is a truly existential moment. In that ‘no’ you are alone, you are denied access perhaps even existence. Whatever you do going forward will be an authentic choice, or an inauthentic acquiescence to an outside power, and the removal of your freedom.

First, the inauthentic reality of the moment. ‘No’ is not necessarily arrived at by a permissive request, but it is an assumption that one has been made, or should have been made on that point. It is inherently an overt attempt to deny your freedom and to remove your power. From a position of ‘no’ it assumed that a decision has been made for you. Inauthentic existence is one that accepts this presupposition and willingly accedes to its truth as ultimate reality. I will of course refer the matter to Sartre for defense on the point of no choice being a choice. Should you accept ‘no’ on the basis of it being a rejection, on the terms that the rejector has set, you are relieving yourself of responsibility; you are destroying your freedom. Such an inauthentic decision is freeing in relation to the anxiety that responsibility of decision has. It is soothing to pretend that the matter is resolved by the refusal of a power, that the responsibility is no longer yours. Yet, such a position denies your existence as a free individual, and denies your ultimate responsibility in bad faith.

The authentic decision in relation to ‘no’ is simple, pursue or retreat. Sun Tzu is very clear on the power of retreat as an art of war; that in doing so we do not accept defeat, we plan for ultimate victory. Retreat done in an authentic manner is a choice, and an empowerment based on your freedom. ‘No’ allows you the opportunity to evaluate the situation, and take in all factors that have bearing to the situation; giving ample time for pruning where unrelated concerns have grown in the fertile ground of doubt. In fact, there is no greater moment of existential reality than in the denial. There is no way to escape your responsibility to choose in this moment. It cannot be overcome by the force of prior choices, and it will not be solved by inevitable means. Any movement requires choice; responsibility demands it. It is also the situation in which courage is most drastically required to face down the denial of your existence, and the reality of the abyss that surrounds us.

Something denied is power gained. The power to truly make a decision where one may not have existed before. This is the fear and anxiety that we have of rejection in general. It will force us to choose, and we are anxious over the existential reality that we must face in that choice. It is better for us to avoid these moments of rejection; even to run from them in order that we might pursue a lie of existence. When faced, ‘no’ is a clearly defined opportunity to assert your freedom to be. There are only two choices, though variations of each choice may exist. In the face of ‘no’ you must bring yourself to resolution, draw up your courage and march solidly into choice. Willingly or unwillingly, you are given the opportunity to experience your existential reality in full.

Should you press forward, you will do so with no illusions about your resolve, and you will do so without doubt as to your courage. The opportunity to retreat has been given and forsaken in lieu of the advance. One who presses on in the face of ‘no’ does so at her own expense, and without any momentum or power gained from afar. It is a bestowal of power in the situation, absolute power. Tension and anxiety force you to evaluate your position, your character; your very existence. Meaning can only come from you. What you assign to it will be the truth, and no other can take that power from you. Courage to be in the situation must arise from within, and must be fueled by an unencumbered resolution of doubt. Evidence, either factual or affective, must be secure and confident in your mind. You must believe yourself capable of pressing forward, and this same belief will give you the courage to face the reality of non-existence staring you down. In this moment you are the author of your destiny; you are the maker of your existence.

Finally, the decision to retreat is not so much retreat as it is adherence to a different direction. It too requires courage, and because it is so closely guarded by inauthenticity, may require even more courage. Rage, revenge, rebellion; these feelings can encourage advance in an authentic manner. However, doubt, despair, decay; these feelings do not fuel authentic retreat, instead, the must be overcome if retreat is to be authentic. This is the power found in ‘no’. Every movement is power to choose. Understood, responsibility accepted; the moment of rejection is the peak moment for our existential existence.

I love Sartre right now. Let’s start with him here.

Everything takes place, in fact, as if our essential and immediate behavior with respect to anguish is flight. Psychological determinism, before being a theoretical conception, is first an attitude of excuse, or if you prefer, the basis of all attitudes of excuse. It is reflective conduct with respect to anguish; it asserts that there are within us antagonistic forces whose type of existence is comparable to that of things. It attempts to fill the void which encircles us, to re-establish the links between past and present, between present and future. It provides us with a nature productive of our acts, and these very acts it makes transcendent; it assigns to them a foundation in something other than themselves by endowing them with an inertia and externality eminently reassuring because they constitute a permanent game of excuses.

I’m having some existential dilemmas when it comes to integration right now, and I got to thinking about the helpfulness of psychology toward authenticity.

Sartre captures the very problem that I am having with psychology, or I should say therapeutic advice, in my present circumstance. It’s the creation of an independent self, an entity that has actions of its own, and therefore controls our freedom. Sartre is right there to smack it down, and it’s the same thing that Zen talks about. It jazzed me up when I first read that excerpt the other day, and sparked a new campaign of writing, however, today it became even more clear to me realistically.

The presentation of reality to us causes fear and our natural reaction flight. That kind of encounter with existence is easy to keep away from by distraction and denial. I love doing those things, but now I find myself tired of it. I feel like I have to stop all the distractions and sit down for a while, and face it. I hate emotions, and I hate being emotional. My latest crisis is how to do what I feel to be authentic when there is no one around to do it with. This is where I really need Sartre, or some Zen master, to sit down with for like five minutes.

That’s more of a side rant to the bigger issue, and that is where do I find truth in the milieu I exist in? I’ve told my friends that coping is okay, that it’s natural to do it. But I also believe that at some point that coping has to come to account. I am an existentialist in my psychology, and I know that eventually all of these things will only keep you away from the root issue for a time. I think that it’s imperative to meet that root issue, and that it’s okay to have it destroy you at times. When you are secure enough to start recognizing your coping, you are secure enough to start working past the coping.

And that’s where I think that I’m having my current conflict. I get sage advice from friends about dealing with life, finding ways to be happy. And then one friend asked me, what makes you truly happy? It was rhetorical in context, but I chose not to take it that way. What makes me happy is not all the distracting coping mechanisms. Those aren’t real, and as soon as I know that, they are more hinderance than help. But what is the path to follow?

In a cognitive behavioral sense, we would just identify the behavior, and consciously change it to something that we want. I see this as trading one thing for another. It doesn’t really do anything about the basic level of whether we live for ourselves, or for our fear. What part of psychology is actually moving us toward authenticity? It seems that anything which strengths the idea of an independent self is really a move toward bad faith and away from enlightenment. ‘Do not mistake your finger for the moon.’ I may be an existential hedonist, that we should undergo as much pain as it takes to obtain the ultimate pleasure. It annoys me when people will not.

I suppose it annoys me more when people tell me not to do what I’m doing. Because I trust them, but I don’t think they’re right. I think they might be falling prey to bad faith themselves. ‘Don’t think, just go out and do.’ But even Zen recognizes that you have to ponder the idea of not thinking. You have to let the mind settle as it will. For me, part of the settling is recognizing all that which clouds my root issue. It’s like a simple exercise of noticing and letting go. I notice these things, these coping things, and then I let them go. (At least that’s what I really want to end up doing.)

It seems that ultimately, all actions that merely affirm the self as an independent entity, one that Sartre would see as the root of all excuses, and one that gives to the self our freedom, would be a move toward bad faith, inauthenticity. Yet, I know that I have received psychological comfort from the teachings of psychology, and given some in return. I suppose that is why they call it an existential crisis. Dilemma may be more appropriate in my case, ironic sense that is the root of the problem from Zen’s perspective, and perhaps this is my duality which must be transcended. But it looks like not today. I am puzzled as ever, but feeling deeply on account of it. Perhaps when I meet my zen master, she will rap me on the head and I won’t think so much.