The Decency of Subtle Lies

Part 1: The 'I' in 'Us'

Disclaimer:

This blog, this post and the content there in are not to be taken as "law" or "the norm" nor are they intended to imply, directly or otherwise, that all friendships and relationships meet the qualities discussed here in.
The thoughts projected in this article are solely based on personal experience and need not necessarily apply to your life as a reader. Positive criticism is however welcome.
We good?  Okay, let's begin.

The Friendship:

We've all heard the rather popular saying; "No man is an island", right? If my English teacher was any good, this is intended to mean that no one can get through life alone. At some point or at some level we all need someone else to help us with something or just be there when you need to vent about how life just doesn't seem to be going our way.
 
Have you ever really stopped to think about your friendships though? And by think, I mean like really take a step back and assume an observer role, completely analyzing each and every one of them from as far back as you remember?

Well I won't lie to you, I haven't either. But with a quick glance over the past 15 or so years it has become rather undoubtedly clear that there's more to the friendship ties we make as human beings. These are influenced by a host of personal, social, cultural and even spiritual factors. Granted discussing all these individually will turn this into a lecture and I'm not too good with those: not yet at least😊.

I want to pay attention to personal factors and especially one in particular: The Self. Extensive studies have been done and several philosophies advanced over the years on particular features of The Self. 

Sigmund Freud, an accomplished neurologist has in several of his studies sought to explain The Self and how it responds to various factors in and around it.  

His most notable works on this subject matter (in my opinion that is) is the discussion on The Ego and the ID: which is the title of a book he published in 1923 discussing the concepts of personality development (which in my case I'm referring to as The Self), the ID, the EGO and the SUPEREGO and how all these correlate or influence each other. It's an interesting read that you should definitely check out. But those who are almost as lazy as I am, occasionally, check this out.

The I

I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that this is how we all are. Whether I’m right or wrong really doesn’t matter. *wink* 

Okay, now that we have that cleared up, here is what we all do. We all, consciously or unconsciously, make friends or get in relationships not because we value the other person (at least not entirely and definitely not at first), we all do it because it makes us feel good. 

The Self is entirely governed by the simple laws of Pain-Pleasure and Reality Principles. The reason why the most traumatic moments of our lives change our very existence and leave us scarred for life is simply coz they are spots of ink on a parchment we call the soul that can only be purged by death. The Self my employ several defense mechanisms in a bit survive such experiences. 

One such method is making friendship ties with other human beings. And yes, I just claimed that the only reason you have friends is because you are miserable.

Primarily, we tend to enjoy the things that make us feel good because from the moment we gain consciousness of our thoughts and actions (and even long before, according to Freud) we start distinguishing all that makes us happy from anything that makes us sad, upset or otherwise.

The tricky bit, I have found though, is the ever so elusive midpoint. The right amount of yin to my yang, the equal amount of darkness to my light. If you can’t relate to this you just haven’t lived long enough, either that or you are the luckiest “bastard” to have ever walked the face of God’s Fine Earth. 

What you're probably wondering is how it all relates to your friendship and relationship habits, right? Well it’s really simple logic, when you think of it. Everyone you claim to care about that is not you is basically an extension of your own selfish desires or drive towards happiness. As it so happens, the only reason why most of us relate to the whole no man is an island thing is because there is some level of pleasure and joy in feeling part of something. 

This may in turn dictate how we carry (behave) ourselves around those we want to seem, or mostly just remain, desirable to. You follow? Good.

Now let me interest you in a small “theory” I’ve been working on. I haven’t quite found a really catchy name for it yet, but when I do it will probably sound better than: The Tri-face Toss Paradox. In this “theory” (I put that in quotes to avoid offending any and all actual scholars who put in hundreds of work hours developing actual theories through a set universally approved scientific and scholastic principles and practices.) I analogize the basic geometry with the intent of deriving a probabilistic analysis of a three face coin toss, wherein my coin is one’s personality. Granted this “theory” may be marred with inconsistencies just try and follow the idea I’m trying to put across.

Let’s start by assigning sides to our coin: I have taken a liking to the Freudian description of personality so naturally I chose to go with the ID, EGO and SUPEREGO trifecta. For heads, often (and I think almost naturally) taken/assumed to be good, I saw it would best describe the SUPEREGO; as it is the embodiment of all that is considered good or socially acceptable: The Conscience. For tails, well I think given my first choice, this was a rather straightforward one: the ID, that dark underbelly of human desire whose sole intent is immediate gratification. Which then leaves the EGO to take the almost always neglected “side”, the "cylindrical" surface or basically what we consider the thickness of the coin.

In an even toss of a fair coin, which is what is primarily accepted in statistical analysis, the chances of getting either heads or tails is exactly 50% for either result. This in our case means if there was indeed just a way to leave the action-reaction forces of The Human Self to match that of an even toss, we would either be doing very bad things that make us really happy or very good things that may in turn make us miserable: at any one particular occasion. 

Huh? Well if we were to approach our situations with the result of a fair toss as a mechanism for basing our very actions/reactions to said matter, on the chance that either you’ll go with what the SUPEREGO dictates that you do, or blindly (without second guessing) do whatever it is that the ID desires; you don’t need to be a genius to know that that will almost never end well.

Shoulder devil (ID) vs Shoulder Angel (Superego)

The chances of actually tossing a fair coin and it landing on it thickness: or in this case standing are slim to none, right? But this theory of mine deviates from generally accepted logic and dares to allude that there is a chance of this happening. It goes a step further to imply that this is the desired outcome of the Tri-face coin toss.

The EGO, playing the role of the mediator, acts at a conscious level with influence from both the ID and the SUPEREGO. A healthy personality, in my opinion, is simply one that accepts it is evil just as it is good. One that is aware that the darkness came before the light, but that doesn't necessarily mean the light came with the sole intent to chase away the darkness, no. Peaceful coexistence of both this forces might appear hard, mostly because it definitely is, but it is not impossible.

Two "I's" make an "Us"

Ignoring the looming grammatical incorrectness of what the above title implies, just try and follow the ideal I'm trying to drive at. When your significant other is trying to express jointly held opinions to a third party, they refer to the two of you as one unit: an Us (and maybe sometimes a "We", but that's a whole other topic for later). When the cool kids discover you have the potential to join their 'ranks', soon, one of them goes like, "Hey, come hang with us."
  
'Just get to the point already, ugh!' Okay, okay. Chill out. More often than not, it is in human nature to seek mutual understanding. It almost literally forms the underlying fabric of any socialization ability our individual personalities seek to master. We are so lost in trying to understand who we are, we don't see ourselves turning to others in a vain attempt to have them help ease the turmoil of mind numbing confusion. 

The individuality of a person might often appear lost to the generalization of a social grouping; friends, lovers, colleagues etc. but in retrospect its what forms the grounds of said social grouping to begin with. It's the whole "birds of a feather..." concept when you think of it. I dare say it was and still is the inspiration of/for the belief that "If you show me your friends, I'll tell you who you are."

In conclusion, the greatest gift we have as human beings is that of free will. The ability to make a choice... Nay! The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion. For any two I's to make an Us, either I inadvertently succumbs to need of union of oneself with another all within the bounds of free will.



PS:

Hey there, you! *Waves frantically while smiling sheepishly😁*  Thank you for taking your time to read through all that, drop me a comment on your thoughts, or just for show 😊. Share if you found this helpful or at the very least enlightening at any level. 

I welcome you all on this journey at attempting to understand, all the while appreciating nonetheless, life and all it's mysteries and miseries. 

See you next week for part two.