Resistance And Barriers 05:
Anticipation
OK, here comes a tricky part, so put on your thinking cap, Padawan.
You erect barriers so as to keep you from experiencing discomfort. In so doing, you anticipate where discomfort is going to arise.
The discomfort that you anticipate shows up on a sliding scale involving two components. Some of the discomfort you anticipate shows up due to shit that happens in the world at large, and some of the discomfort that you anticipate is generated by you, often in the form of emotions such as humiliation and embarrassment.
So, you drive carefully. You drive carefully because you anticipate that if you don't drive carefully, you will experience discomfort in the form of an accident. Such discomfort, should it arise, would be generated by the actual factual circumstances of a car accident.
So, you don't sing in public. You don't sing in public because you anticipate that if you do sing in public, you will experience discomfort in the form of embarrassment and humiliation. Such discomfort, should it arise, would be generated by you in the form of an emotional response.
Here is the distinction that I am making: some of the discomfort that you anticipate arises because of actual uncomfortable circumstances, such as crashing your car, or falling off a cliff. Conversely, some of the discomfort that you anticipate arises in the form of discomfort that you generate, such as embarrassment and humiliation regarding, for example, singing, or speaking, in public.
In short, one possible way that anticipated discomfort arises is from the anticipation of negative circumstances, and the other possible way that anticipated discomfort arises is from the anticipation of something unpleasant or uncomfortable that is generated by you.
That's not to say that the discomfort that is generated by you doesn't have real world implications. You might be anticipating embarrassment and humiliation for good reason. For example, you'd be embarrassed and humiliated if you found yourself in public naked, so you avoid it--and a good thing, too.
So, in practice, these components overlap to a significant degree, which is why I call this a "sliding scale". In fact, as you generally operate, you don't make a distinction between barriers that arise as a result of these two components. You just avoid barriers, period.
But here's an interesting thing to recognize: while bad shit does sometimes happen out there in the real world, every fragment of anticipation regarding that bad shit is generated by you. In short, your entire structure of barriers is built from something of a fantasy, or even, you could say, of lies. You engage with your barriers as if they are real, and as if they have something directly to do with real world consequences, when, in fact, every bit of them, even the best of them, is constructed from that which you anticipate, and that which you anticipate is not real.
I didn't say your anticipation is invalid. I didn't say it was insignificant, or unimportant, or useless. I'm not making you wrong.
I said anticipation is not real.
Anticipated bad shit is not the same thing as bad shit itself--but you treat it as if it is the same. Do you see what I mean?
To add complexity to all of this, approaching a barrier, which is designed to keet you away from discomfort, is itself uncomfortable. So, you end up establishing more restrictive barriers that keep you away from previously established barriers, which themselves were erected to keep you away from previously established barriers, and on and on. The layers of anticipation that operate to establish redundant and dependent barriers become more and more removed from anything resembling that which is real, in other words.
You start out not going dancing, and you end up rarely leaving the house. Seriously. You know just what I am talking about.
So, in the way that these things actually operate, overwhelmingly, it is your mechanical and unconscious anticipation of discomfort that defines where you stop, in other words, that defines your allowable operations, and that defines the edge of your comfort zone.
Because anticipation is a species of fantasy, barriers often only loosely correspond to reality--and sometimes, they are completely detached. Because of this, and because barriers themselves are uncomfortable, and because human beings are natively grounded in playing it safe, barriers have a tendency to spread out, multiply, network, overlap, and become redundant. Accordingly, over time, a person's comfort zone tends to shrink down to a sorry little rut.
You want proof? Well, open your eyes and look around, Pilgrim.
Does this sound hopeless? Well, of course, it does.
That's because it is.
Except maybe not for you.
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