Understanding Human Behaviour (Motivation)

Regular readers will be aware of how, given our entire existences are blanketed by subjectivity, it is impossible to know anything about anyone, least of all ourselves (and if not ourselves who we are around 24/7 x years then…) but that does not stop us attempting to ‘shovel the glimpse into the ditch of what each one means’ (Dylan).

 

When we see the actions/words of another we often take it at face value- this person smiled, this must mean they are happy, this person is generous, must mean they are kind, this person is quiet, must mean they are rude, but you will be surprised to know that it is almost impossible to take anyone at face value. Why? Because people lie. It has been said that one’s truth can lie (no pun intended) in their body language. However, multiple sources of the psychology of body language how shown that no one really knows what body language means, after all different cultures have different body languages and…people lie (even hips…).

 

So, how can we attempt to formulate any semblance of truth when it comes to an other? The answer is surprisingly simple. The question that many children ask ad nauseum again holds the key. Why? Yes. No, I mean why? Yes, why. No, I mean…ah, nevermind…

 

When one engages in a behaviour one must ask, why is this person engaging in this behaviour. For example, I have met many ‘kind’ people who are not really kind, they are hoping to appear so, so they act kind even if they are not. Likewise, many people who seem rude are actually very kind, just they may be shy. Whereas the kindness of the former is not genuine, it is affected to create an appearance (I was recently told, contra to Plato, that appearance is all that matters. On one hand I had the father of modern Philosophy and on the other some person, hmm think I’ll go with the other person…). Notions such as ‘fake it as you make it’ (which I have previously covered) and ‘clothes maketh the man’ are drummed into us, supporting a superficial world. Why? Because those who make society are usually the most insecure and, utterly, worthless (usually, not always). When Gandhi went to see the maharaja, he was asked I he was ashamed to appear before the king in just his cloths. Gandhi replied that he was sure the king would be wearing enough for the both of them.

 

To look at a case study, we can turn to the bible. In the bible it tells the parable

 

(Mark 12:41-44) (King James Version (KJV))

41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.

42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.

43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:

44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.    

 

Why? (shh, go away…) Because the rich man gave in order to appear generous and great in the eyes of those who watched whereas the poor widow gave out of a genuine love (though one must ask questions of a God who needs pocket money, especially from the poor) and thusly her giving was greater than the other.

 

It is tempting, and easy, to take people at face value or to let ourselves be deluded to fit in or be seen as we wish to be seen, but remember we may try to appear a certain way before the world but we may in our attempt to be seen in a certain way, in order to quash insecurity (doesn’t work otherwise people wouldn’t have to keep doing it) or to attract those we wish to attract most, in doing so we may be repulsing those who can see through our delusions to the real us (as much as one can) and in doing so lose that rarest of all things, a real friend, one who sees us and loves us for who we are, not who we think we want to be.

 

‘till next time

 

 

The Character and Being of a Person

 

It is often said that to see the true character of a person one must wait until the person faces their crucible. Hemmingway wrote (when not drunkenly beating his wives) ‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.’ And it is true, the world breaks everyone, everyone faces their trial by fire (some more often than others). It is during the said trial that one’s true character comes to the fore- some stand strong, others break, some are broken, grow hard and then become cruel. Others are broken, become cold and become kinder. There really is no map that one can plot or chart to see how one will emerge from the other side of the sheer inferno which is life, at times. However, whilst this can show the character (as Buffy the Vampire answered the question, when everything was gone all that was left was her) this need, this metamorphosis stems rather than from desire, it stands from necessity, one only undergoes the change in order to survive events which are thrust upon them (sometimes from their own in/actions). I would argue that who one truly is, as in one’s true being, cannot be seen in the trial by combat, rather it can only be seen in the complete opposite.

 

Complete opposite? You mean when one is not suffering? Aye, indeed I do. It is clear that in the majority of our lives we are never completely honest with ourselves, let alone others. We always hold something back, some kind of truth which is our burden alone. Thusly, with this burden, it can be argued that one is constantly undergoing a form of trial, namely that of life.

 

When we are comfortable a different side of us comes out. The hurt, pain, fear which underpins our existence falls away. The mistrust and paranoia floats off into the deep crystal blue yonder of the skies and we are left with what I would could our actual, ideal being. What is left has not come from necessity as with our character. It has not come through fires, or floods, or the caves of dragons it is free from all of these, it is our self which is completely uninhibited by any form of burden. It has been argued by many (yours truly included) that children inhabit that place which many people call ‘genius’. The child’s mind is open and it can learn to talk in multiple languages, it can learn to walk (compare the first three years of a child’s development to the last three years of your life) and most importantly of all, they learn how to play. They learn how to transcend the ego of the ‘possible’ to enter into the improbable and impossible which through the power of imagination becomes not only possible but also real. Later they are taught to be like us- mistrustful, scared, paranoid, closed off to emotions and other things that we cannot understand preferring only the superficial surface. To us the possible becomes the struggle and the improbable becomes a delusion of an immature mind, let alone the impossible. People who can still retain this childlike mind are called mentally ill, or in other cases ‘paedophiles’ (note: I am using the improper use of the word as is used by untrained lay-people, not to be mistaken with the very real and serious medical condition which I would refer you to medical experts for more information on, rather I am referring to people like Elon Musk who, when his ludicrous idea to rescue the children trapped in a cave was turned down, tweeted that the scout leader was a paedophile based only on the fact that he worked with children). We may delude ourselves that we are still the child-like minds but the fear and paranoia, the self-centeredness of many adults who claim that as they like, for example, Harry Potter, that they are still as special as children, shows that nearly all of the people in the world are the results of their trials, a flawed and damaged persona used to hide their truths from even their own selves and very, very few are actually ideal beings, beings that manifest when one is truly comfortable with who one is and in the world and does that rarest of all things just for the hell of it, plays.

 

‘till next time

On Poetry

 

In our desperation to pretend (mostly to ourselves) that we understand anything about the world we like to categorise things. Usually these categories are done in the most sweeping of terms, ignoring that even the Dewey Decimal system, which is used to catalogue, most commonly, library books, allows for nuance. After all, not all physics is the same physics and not all literature is the same literature. Even though smarter minds than ours have concluded not even something as simple as a ‘story book’ can be generalised, we tend to do so with people. Examples of this being, if one is on the autistic spectrum, we say that this person is ‘logical’ and if one is more emotional then we say that they are ‘emotional’. The problem with both of these is that neither relate to what it means to be human. Many emotional people are simply that- emotional, scrape away the surface and there is more surface, whether it is the destructive emotions such as jealousy and insecurity (I know, I know, they’re the same) or less emotional emotions such as those which drive one towards wealth and fame, driven by jealousy and…and…insecurity, huh, go figure. Yet what people do not allow for is that one who is logical may also have great emotional intelligence and one is who emotional may have a logical structure to their emotions and thoughts. When these two come together in a perfect synthesis we have what we call poetry.

 

Often, when people think of poetry they think of rhyming and stanzas and metres and syllables etc. yet to say that these constitute poetry is like to say that the colour red posited upon metal is what the Golden Gate Bridge is. It is not, it is a bridge which serves X purposes etc. Likewise, true poetry is the perfect synthesis between logic and emotion, or to borrow the title of a book I wrote many years ago, ‘The Symphony of Logos and Eros’.

 

Poetry is the personification (so to speak) of emotion. To feel the emotions one must have great emotional depth. However, to wield the emotions, to bring them ‘to life’, one must have command over one’s emotion, by which I mean an understanding of what they are and from whence they have sprung.

 

In his poem, To The Moon, the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote:

 

‘Happy is he who can withdraw

From the world without resentment

And hold to his breast a friend

And with him enjoy that which

Goes unseen or unknown

Through the human heart’

(note: in early translations it says ‘he’, then later ‘she’ then later the gender is removed completely. Strange, eh?)

 

In which Goethe articulates the greatest emotional longing of many in concise, clear words which are universally understood. Edgar Allan Poe likewise takes something such as star-crossed love and explains the truth of the emotion, of the state of being and the reason why it was star-crossed:

 

‘I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.’

 

As you can see, Poe is positing that true emotions can only belong to those who are child like in spirit in that one can give over to love, completely, regardless of the gossips and spiteful, who, ultimately, have a detrimental effect on the happiness (to be fair, she was his cousin and was much younger so the actions can be seen from without as being justifiable).

 

The origins of poetry are simple. Greek poets, such as Homer (although poetry existed before Homer), used the device for a simple reason. As the written word is yet to be as widespread as it would be, and there were no printing presses for a few hundred years, stories we passed on orally and as it is easier to remember and tell a story with a metre, poetry was the most logical way in which to convey emotion. And if one considers the content of the said poems (more on Homer another week) it is about the emotional growth of one, the folly of being human, the pettiness of the gods etc. emotional accounts of what it means to be human, told in a logical structure with unambiguous clarity.

 

Although it is easy, and tempting, to separate people into categories, it is foolish as the cliché goes, still waters may also run deep. One of the smartest men in literature is Sherlock Holmes, a man which the BBC series diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of autism) but as the show also shows, even given his great intellect, he has made the choice to forgo logical, structured work for that of one of deep romance- a detective, saving damsels, foiling monsters- a  modern day knight on his steed.

The great Marcel Proust wrote, ‘Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces.’ and he should know!   

 

 

‘till next time