Or, Every Good Therapist Already Implicitly Understands Everything I Have To Say, Here, But Most Of Them Probably Haven't Put It Into Words So Maybe It's Still Useful
Regarding the "Every Good Therapist Already Implicitly Understands Everything I Have To Say, Here," part of the subtitle -- yeah? I think that is probably true. It was definitely woven into / corraborated by my training and clinical experience.
We were also taught, and I believe, that therapy is one of the best ways for clients from various Dark Worlds to form long, deep, stable relationships with their therapist -- who is, ideally, an inhabitant of the corresponding Light World.
When this happens and it works, it can be a powerful way for the client to get a lot of training data about what it is like to interact with someone who doesn't defect, who in fact cooperates even when the client defects, and maybe the client eventually becomes brave enough to venture cooperating in the therapist-client relationship and have that go well.
And then if the therapist is very good they can help the client find safe places to cooperate in their life outside of therapy.
This is the first time that this particular value of therapy occurred to me! I hadn't considered "someone who's never had a stable, reliable relationship with a person from a better world now can" as a major piece of what therapists are offering, but it's obvious in retrospect and it makes me even gladder that therapy exists as a concept than I was before.
Firstly, thank you for writing this, I very much enjoyed it.
This put into words a feeling I've been struggling with for a while. A few years ago, my wife and I hosted thanksgiving for my family. My sister and her family were not just attending but also staying at our place, and she offered to give us some money to help pay for dinner. This upset me, not in a blow-up-at-her kind of way, just in a decline, complain to my wife, and be grumpy for an hour sort of way. Even at the time I knew she meant no ill will by it, but my gut reaction was something like "what, does she think we can't afford to provide food and lodging?" But I think the actual hurt was from what you described: I thought our relationship was such that we were all so far into the green that a large meal and a few nights of lodging barely merit logging in the ledger. By offering money, she signaled (unintentionally, likely just trying to be nice) that our relationship was more of the "discrepancies must be immediately rectified" type. Contrast that with if she had instead, say, offered to bring a dessert. Despite being financially identical, it feels more like we're all contributing to the green, a no one's keeping score dynamic.
A few extra miscellaneous thoughts:
To be fair, you have to have a very high emotional intelligence to understand Rick and Morty. The inner turmoil is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of [the rest of the copypasta is left as an exercise for the reader]
I don't know who Zack Davis is, but I think I get the gist from how you describe his interactions.
I've long been confused by dares, and only more confused by double-dog dares. I didn't understand why people would give them any weight. Why does "I dare you!" motivate anyone to do anything? I had assumed it was a display of strength, that "I dare you" was a challenge to your courage (malicious), and to decline would see you branded as a coward. I hadn't considered a dare as permission to act outside of your norm (benign). Let's short circuit the system. TRUTH: "what do you want us to dare you to do?"
To toss a possibly-interesting data point into the mix, I seem to be in the gray area between the clusters (which according to you is surprisingly rare?). Definitely a bit closer to the light world, but a fair amount of dark world stuff resonates with me as well, e.g.:
-None of the truth or dare items make me react "I would never be willing to do this thing or answer this question" but several of them make me react "I have no idea *how* I would do this thing or answer this question".
-I know very little about Zack Davis, but your summary of his worldview ("look, if we all hit ‘defect’ together... etc.") is a startlingly precise description of how I feel about gift-exchanging and why I hate it.
-"Life is pain" seems currently-more-true-than-false to me (to the point that I endorse a weak form of antinatalism) but it's less "life is pain, people are evil, and most things that seem good are traps" and more "life is pain, people are idiots, and most things that seem good work poorly or not at all for boring non-sinister reasons".
Thank you for this post. I'm going to be honest and say that reading it made me feel jealous at a deeper level than perhaps ever. Like, yes, I really *want* to be around more people who I feel safe with and who feel safe with me, who challenge me to live more fully and be curious and mischievous and silly together, to lose control and surrender.
I don't think the problem is that I'm all the way down in the dark world: I do believe that (most) people are fundamentally kind and trustworthy, and that it is *possible* to trust each other to a level where it feels safe to do the things you describe here. Maybe the problem is more that the *idea* that these things are possible just never comes up, and even if it would come up I'd have no idea *how* to actually get there from where I am.
Perhaps I am just unlucky that I'm not really part of any high-trust groups, and as a result never gotten the practice at how to interact with such groups, which means I am less likely to *become* part of one in the future. I don't believe these things are impossible, but I just don't know how to get there myself.
(Sorry for the self-pity, but it's just what came up when I read this and I'm sick of hiding how I feel.)
If anyone's looking for art that reflects the two-worlds model, "La Vida Es Un Carnaval" by Celia Cruz is a pretty direct statement that A) Cruz lives in the Light World, B) she notices that some other people live in the Dark World, and C) she thinks they should live in the Light World instead. I listen to this song semi-regularly and after reading this essay noticed "wow, this reminds me of 'Truth or Dare.'" (not in the sense that it conveys a detailed insight about the mechanics of the two-worlds model, just an awareness of its existence/power)
I'm curious if anyone reading this has any similar examples!
I'm enjoying this essay but haven't finished. I'm distracted by the graph of the bell curves that has two big ones. Are you trying to imply there's genuinely a third modality in between the two big modes, or is the small yellow lump in the middle trying to reflect the fact that when you add two overlapping distributions you'll get a notable number of elements that are in between? (My guess is that you wanted to communicate the latter, but I'm genuinely unsure.)
(The key distinction is whether there are fewer people between the big modes and the middle than there are people who are dead-center. A third mode implies a force pushing people to be balanced that sometimes snaps.)
I'm not sure if I'll successfully answer your question, and ftr I wasn't super happy with the graph (I wanted to just show a single curve but the single curve made it hard to make clear what I was trying to gesture at.)
What I was trying to show is:
• There are sort of three *fundamental* philosophical buckets; the pessimistic one, the optimistic one, and the neutral-on-that-question/seems-like-a-wrong-question one.
• Those buckets themselves have a sort of normal-ish distribution, in that there are more people who are sort of mundanely pessimistic than there are Brents Dill, and there are more people who are sort of mundanely pessimistic than there are nominally-pessimistic-in-outlook-despite-actually-being-pretty-neutral.
• The adjacent tails of the pessimistic and optimistic buckets actually overlap somewhat; the most optimistic of self-identified pessimists see the world and behave in ways that actually look a lot like the most pessimistic of self-identified optimists.
• The third (agnostic) modality seems smaller/rarer/less popular than the other two; there are fewer people who don't seem to have a philosophical allegiance that's either positive or negative.
I thiiiiiiiiiiink that I intend something like "the actual noisiness of the environment pushes people to be balanced" and it sometimes snaps *because of* the filtering and prion effects described above. Like, the world is ACTUALLY complicated, but our ability to maintain our grip on that fact can snap if we slide down a slippery slope (and slippery slopes are there to be slid down).
The Light World and the Dark World both exist; reality throbs with rapturous beauty and debilitating horror. It seems like the trick is to be aware of both and know how to navigate both; to bloom in softness when danger is distant, and to protect yourself when danger is near. I think the key to doing this gracefully is a well-tuned awareness of danger. But, of course, it's hard to learn how to be soft and playful when your world-model treats insignificant risks as significant ones. And if you are surrounded by actual danger, then it is doubly difficult to claw your way to a better place. If you do not already have faith in the goodness of the world, it is hard to imagine how you could escape a mire of badness without help.
I will preface this with a statement that I am only at the beginning of this missive. I read the link to 'Different Worlds' and I have to say my Spidey-Sense tingled while reading it. I fear this might be at the root of a deeper concern.
There is a concept that I learned in therapy decades ago that was called "French and Turkish" The concept was to allow couples to focus on two layers of communication. The therapist would say
"I Love You"
The words (French) were said by the therapist in various extremely affected ways that transmitted different information (Turkish) than the phrase. The ask was to spend the effort to 'feel into' what the 'Turkish' might be from your partner.
I have a deep concern that there is a Deeeeeeep Turkish in 'Different Worlds' that links to the 'Just World Fallacy' that Conservatives love to trot out as justification for Bootstraps, Racism, Rape, etc.
Not for nothing - 'I have a black friend' was deftly folded into 'I jumped off the four story roof and survived so there is no reason you can't!' in a disturbing way.
(I hope that the piece also conveys that it's not nice to push or shame folks who do not have Safe Privilege? Like, I tried pretty hard to acknowledge that Safe Privilege IS a privilege, in the above.)
The 'French' was there, but the 'Turkish' felt (to me) a bit edgy.
It is lovely to have curated shared safe spaces, but there seemed a thread of 'I can do it, why can't you?!?!" and a deeper undercurrent that there is an infectious quality to those who have not had the privilege of strength and safety.
No intended thread of "I can do it, why can't you" ... the reason why they can't seems very clear and real and explaining it is what the piece was for.
Definitely an undercurrent that there is an infectious quality to those who have not had the privilege of strength and safety, because there *is.* But there's an infectious quality to many, many illnesses, and that doesn't imply anything about the moral fiber of the infected person.
Regarding the "Every Good Therapist Already Implicitly Understands Everything I Have To Say, Here," part of the subtitle -- yeah? I think that is probably true. It was definitely woven into / corraborated by my training and clinical experience.
We were also taught, and I believe, that therapy is one of the best ways for clients from various Dark Worlds to form long, deep, stable relationships with their therapist -- who is, ideally, an inhabitant of the corresponding Light World.
When this happens and it works, it can be a powerful way for the client to get a lot of training data about what it is like to interact with someone who doesn't defect, who in fact cooperates even when the client defects, and maybe the client eventually becomes brave enough to venture cooperating in the therapist-client relationship and have that go well.
And then if the therapist is very good they can help the client find safe places to cooperate in their life outside of therapy.
This is the first time that this particular value of therapy occurred to me! I hadn't considered "someone who's never had a stable, reliable relationship with a person from a better world now can" as a major piece of what therapists are offering, but it's obvious in retrospect and it makes me even gladder that therapy exists as a concept than I was before.
Firstly, thank you for writing this, I very much enjoyed it.
This put into words a feeling I've been struggling with for a while. A few years ago, my wife and I hosted thanksgiving for my family. My sister and her family were not just attending but also staying at our place, and she offered to give us some money to help pay for dinner. This upset me, not in a blow-up-at-her kind of way, just in a decline, complain to my wife, and be grumpy for an hour sort of way. Even at the time I knew she meant no ill will by it, but my gut reaction was something like "what, does she think we can't afford to provide food and lodging?" But I think the actual hurt was from what you described: I thought our relationship was such that we were all so far into the green that a large meal and a few nights of lodging barely merit logging in the ledger. By offering money, she signaled (unintentionally, likely just trying to be nice) that our relationship was more of the "discrepancies must be immediately rectified" type. Contrast that with if she had instead, say, offered to bring a dessert. Despite being financially identical, it feels more like we're all contributing to the green, a no one's keeping score dynamic.
A few extra miscellaneous thoughts:
To be fair, you have to have a very high emotional intelligence to understand Rick and Morty. The inner turmoil is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of [the rest of the copypasta is left as an exercise for the reader]
I don't know who Zack Davis is, but I think I get the gist from how you describe his interactions.
I've long been confused by dares, and only more confused by double-dog dares. I didn't understand why people would give them any weight. Why does "I dare you!" motivate anyone to do anything? I had assumed it was a display of strength, that "I dare you" was a challenge to your courage (malicious), and to decline would see you branded as a coward. I hadn't considered a dare as permission to act outside of your norm (benign). Let's short circuit the system. TRUTH: "what do you want us to dare you to do?"
Great stuff as usual!
To toss a possibly-interesting data point into the mix, I seem to be in the gray area between the clusters (which according to you is surprisingly rare?). Definitely a bit closer to the light world, but a fair amount of dark world stuff resonates with me as well, e.g.:
-None of the truth or dare items make me react "I would never be willing to do this thing or answer this question" but several of them make me react "I have no idea *how* I would do this thing or answer this question".
-I know very little about Zack Davis, but your summary of his worldview ("look, if we all hit ‘defect’ together... etc.") is a startlingly precise description of how I feel about gift-exchanging and why I hate it.
-"Life is pain" seems currently-more-true-than-false to me (to the point that I endorse a weak form of antinatalism) but it's less "life is pain, people are evil, and most things that seem good are traps" and more "life is pain, people are idiots, and most things that seem good work poorly or not at all for boring non-sinister reasons".
Thank you for this post. I'm going to be honest and say that reading it made me feel jealous at a deeper level than perhaps ever. Like, yes, I really *want* to be around more people who I feel safe with and who feel safe with me, who challenge me to live more fully and be curious and mischievous and silly together, to lose control and surrender.
I don't think the problem is that I'm all the way down in the dark world: I do believe that (most) people are fundamentally kind and trustworthy, and that it is *possible* to trust each other to a level where it feels safe to do the things you describe here. Maybe the problem is more that the *idea* that these things are possible just never comes up, and even if it would come up I'd have no idea *how* to actually get there from where I am.
Perhaps I am just unlucky that I'm not really part of any high-trust groups, and as a result never gotten the practice at how to interact with such groups, which means I am less likely to *become* part of one in the future. I don't believe these things are impossible, but I just don't know how to get there myself.
(Sorry for the self-pity, but it's just what came up when I read this and I'm sick of hiding how I feel.)
If anyone's looking for art that reflects the two-worlds model, "La Vida Es Un Carnaval" by Celia Cruz is a pretty direct statement that A) Cruz lives in the Light World, B) she notices that some other people live in the Dark World, and C) she thinks they should live in the Light World instead. I listen to this song semi-regularly and after reading this essay noticed "wow, this reminds me of 'Truth or Dare.'" (not in the sense that it conveys a detailed insight about the mechanics of the two-worlds model, just an awareness of its existence/power)
I'm curious if anyone reading this has any similar examples!
This was lovely. I particularly liked learning about Beth Thomas, who I'd never heard of before. 💖
I'm enjoying this essay but haven't finished. I'm distracted by the graph of the bell curves that has two big ones. Are you trying to imply there's genuinely a third modality in between the two big modes, or is the small yellow lump in the middle trying to reflect the fact that when you add two overlapping distributions you'll get a notable number of elements that are in between? (My guess is that you wanted to communicate the latter, but I'm genuinely unsure.)
(The key distinction is whether there are fewer people between the big modes and the middle than there are people who are dead-center. A third mode implies a force pushing people to be balanced that sometimes snaps.)
I'm not sure if I'll successfully answer your question, and ftr I wasn't super happy with the graph (I wanted to just show a single curve but the single curve made it hard to make clear what I was trying to gesture at.)
What I was trying to show is:
• There are sort of three *fundamental* philosophical buckets; the pessimistic one, the optimistic one, and the neutral-on-that-question/seems-like-a-wrong-question one.
• Those buckets themselves have a sort of normal-ish distribution, in that there are more people who are sort of mundanely pessimistic than there are Brents Dill, and there are more people who are sort of mundanely pessimistic than there are nominally-pessimistic-in-outlook-despite-actually-being-pretty-neutral.
• The adjacent tails of the pessimistic and optimistic buckets actually overlap somewhat; the most optimistic of self-identified pessimists see the world and behave in ways that actually look a lot like the most pessimistic of self-identified optimists.
• The third (agnostic) modality seems smaller/rarer/less popular than the other two; there are fewer people who don't seem to have a philosophical allegiance that's either positive or negative.
I thiiiiiiiiiiink that I intend something like "the actual noisiness of the environment pushes people to be balanced" and it sometimes snaps *because of* the filtering and prion effects described above. Like, the world is ACTUALLY complicated, but our ability to maintain our grip on that fact can snap if we slide down a slippery slope (and slippery slopes are there to be slid down).
The Light World and the Dark World both exist; reality throbs with rapturous beauty and debilitating horror. It seems like the trick is to be aware of both and know how to navigate both; to bloom in softness when danger is distant, and to protect yourself when danger is near. I think the key to doing this gracefully is a well-tuned awareness of danger. But, of course, it's hard to learn how to be soft and playful when your world-model treats insignificant risks as significant ones. And if you are surrounded by actual danger, then it is doubly difficult to claw your way to a better place. If you do not already have faith in the goodness of the world, it is hard to imagine how you could escape a mire of badness without help.
I will preface this with a statement that I am only at the beginning of this missive. I read the link to 'Different Worlds' and I have to say my Spidey-Sense tingled while reading it. I fear this might be at the root of a deeper concern.
There is a concept that I learned in therapy decades ago that was called "French and Turkish" The concept was to allow couples to focus on two layers of communication. The therapist would say
"I Love You"
The words (French) were said by the therapist in various extremely affected ways that transmitted different information (Turkish) than the phrase. The ask was to spend the effort to 'feel into' what the 'Turkish' might be from your partner.
I have a deep concern that there is a Deeeeeeep Turkish in 'Different Worlds' that links to the 'Just World Fallacy' that Conservatives love to trot out as justification for Bootstraps, Racism, Rape, etc.
Not for nothing - 'I have a black friend' was deftly folded into 'I jumped off the four story roof and survived so there is no reason you can't!' in a disturbing way.
And so I get to the end and I guess I feel more neutral-ish than I did at the beginning.
I guess my elevator-pitch reply is:
It is nice to have (what I'll call) Safe Privilege, it is not nice to push or shame folks who do not.
(I hope that the piece also conveys that it's not nice to push or shame folks who do not have Safe Privilege? Like, I tried pretty hard to acknowledge that Safe Privilege IS a privilege, in the above.)
The 'French' was there, but the 'Turkish' felt (to me) a bit edgy.
It is lovely to have curated shared safe spaces, but there seemed a thread of 'I can do it, why can't you?!?!" and a deeper undercurrent that there is an infectious quality to those who have not had the privilege of strength and safety.
No intended thread of "I can do it, why can't you" ... the reason why they can't seems very clear and real and explaining it is what the piece was for.
Definitely an undercurrent that there is an infectious quality to those who have not had the privilege of strength and safety, because there *is.* But there's an infectious quality to many, many illnesses, and that doesn't imply anything about the moral fiber of the infected person.