On living and loving
How should a man caught in the routine of existing not forget that he is a man, a unique individual, given only this one chance of living?
September is suicide prevention month.
Imagine reaching a point in life where death is the only thing that makes sense. Absolutely nothing interests you anymore. Not people, not work, not sex, not even your family. When the soul has nothing to feed on anymore, do you see why suicide would make sense?
I believe that suicide is a process. A process of experiencing your soul lose hope slowly and eventually reach soul death. Soul death here is from a psychological perspective, not a spiritual one.
The will to live comes from the soul. The ability to know the self and yearn for life too comes from the soul. Not the body. Not the mind. So when your soul dies, everything becomes everything. Experiences have nowhere to fall onto where they can be differentiated into enjoyable or not. It’s like losing taste. A taste for life in this case. Anhedonia in psychological terms.
In a world where chaos seems to be the default setting, we have to rely on our soul’s yearning for life to keep going. Now, if the soul itself is dead, why wouldn’t modern life push people to want to die?
How do we prevent suicide? My take is that suicide is a psycho-social issue. Socially, are our communities set up to build hope in people? On a community level are we building or killing people’s hope? Psychologically we can only do so much if the social environment one is living in is set up to demotivate people and squeeze the life out of them.
Suicide prevention is a systematic issue. Prevention measures cannot stop at an individual level. They’ll have to involve collective measures. As it stands most of the so-called prevention measures are reactive and not preventive.
On love.
I have realized that a lot of us oscillate between shame-based identities and pride-based identities.
A shame-based identity is highlighted by thinking about oneself from a point of not deserving. A point of lack. A point of being at the mercy of others. It’s viewing yourself with negative filters on. It is viewing your needs and feelings as a bother to others, as not deserving of other’s attention, as not important.
A pride-based identity on the other is based on the defenses built to protect the shame-based identity.
Shame and pride-based identities are based on one’s survival style. A survival style develops in responses to identity formation violations we experience as children. Each is named after the stage of identity formation that was violated. They are connection, autonomy, attunement, trust, and love-sexuality.
In connection the shame-based identity is shame at existing; feeling of not belonging, and feeling like a burden. Its pride-based identities are pride in being a loner; pride in not needing others; pride in not being emotional.
In attunement, shame-based identities are: being needy; feeling empty, unfulfilled, and undeserving. The pride-based identity used to cover up the shame-based ones are: being a caretaker; pride in being the shoulder everyone cries on; making oneself indispensable, and needed and pride in not having needs.
In the trust style: feeling small, powerless, used, and betrayed. Defense against these is: acting strong and in control; a strong drive towards being successful because one would otherwise feel powerless; feeling larger than life and being a user.
In autonomy the shame-based identity is built on: underlying anger, resentment towards authority; being rebellious; and enjoying disappointing others. The pride-based identities used to cover this up: being nice, sweet, and compliant; a good boy/girl; fear of disappointing others.
In love-sexuality, shame-based qualities are: feeling hurt, rejected, physically flawed, unloved, and unlovable. The pride-based identity is highlighted by qualities such as rejecting others first; need to be perfect; not allowing for mistakes in self and others; the need to have everything together.
These play the same role as attachment styles. They impact our intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. Relating to oneself and others from either of the identities is relating to them from a defended state.
Biologically, the state of being defended cannot coexist with that of love.
Love requires appropriate and reciprocal vulnerability. Vulnerability and being defended cannot coexist.
No wonder we are so poor at the art of loving and being loved.
You may argue that being in a defended state is necessary but remember that a defense develops in response to an offense. The offense here is from the past and is very context-specific. However, due to not processing that past we continue to project it into the future, approaching life and everyone/everything from a defended state. Sadly, even where there is no offense we come defended.
You can only imagine the biopsychosocial cost of being eternally in a defended state.
Late last month Amapiano artist Mpura and Killer Kau died. I felt it. Seeing them in this video which was released after their death was heartbreaking. May they rest in peace.
Is it me or is this year filled with so much loss?
Losses of all types, not just death.
To equanimity.
And maybe a little Henny and ice.
We’ve got this! In sha Allah.