Choice is an Illusion? LO4631

John Woods (jwoods@execpc.com)
Fri, 5 Jan 1996 15:03:27 -0600 (CST)

Replying to LO4598 --

With regard to the idea just below, I want to put a slightly different
twist on it (see further below):

>> punching my friend + grieving = learning not to punch him
>
> This event fits the "Affective Learning Cycle" nicely. An
>*event* is followed by *feelings* related to the event, followed by a
>"what happened" question that helps one marry the feelings with the
>event, followed by *learnings* about the event, followed by
>*applications* of those learnings in similar events. The cycle repeats.
>
> Event. Feelings. What Happened? Learnings. Applications.
>
> In this case:
> Event: I punched my friend.
> Feelings: grieving, loss, fear, regret
> What Happened: I felt bad feelings when I punched my friend.
> Learnings: When I punch my friend I feel badly.
> Applications: I will not punch my friend.

First of all, let's say this is true, i.e., I hurt someone else and I feel
bad about that. Thus it makes sense for me not to do things that I feel
bad about. Here's an interesting sidelight to this idea: If we hurt
someone else, we are very likely to feel bad about that. Why, we might
ask, is this so? I didn't experience the pain of the punch. Someone else
did, and still I feel bad for having inflicted pain on another. My answer
to this question is that, if we are aware of the pain we are causing
another, we cannot avoid feeling bad about that. We will identify with
that pain in some way ourselves. I would say that, from a holistic
perspective, this is our bodies letting us know that to hurt another is to
hurt ourselves. In other words, it is part of our biological endowment to
feel bad when we do damage to our world. It is also part of our
biological endowment to feel good when we help another. In other words,
though in our minds, we may not understand why certain behaviors evoke
anxiety and pain and others evoke joy, we will still experience such
emotions depending on whether we tear down or contribute to the world we
are part of. We have the ability, using our self awareness, to explore
our feelings and begin to understand them as cues that indicate how well
we are doing at getting along in our lives. If we feel good, you can be
sure that's because we are contributing. And if we feel bad, you can also
be sure that's because we have somehow or other hurt someone else.

One might argue that many people hurt others and don't feel bad. That
happens because they have dehumanized that other person or they have some
distorted set of values that say this is what they have to do to survive.
But at some level I don't think normal people can avoid feeling bad about
such acts. And I would say again that this is a manifestation of our
nature--that we are indeed one with each other, whether we are conscious
of this or not. There is a wisdom in our bodies that we may become
conscious of and learn from. It's pretty amazing.

--
John Woods
jwoods@execpc.com