Was just talking to my friend about this. How this apocalypse is such a great time to rip up your old consensus reality contract.
In the past the facade of ‘the normal life’ was harder to get people to see. But the facade is cracking at last. All the ways that were supposedly safe (yet soul-destroying) are now seen to have never been safe in the strange game we play in the planet.
The root problem is the fight for our own sovereign freedom.
Oh it’s cracking up big time and my sense is that people are splitting: some are going harder on the normotic side (relying on AI for basic human communication and therapy) and others are fighting harder than ever for the soul and learning to tolerate all kinds of ways of being. I wonder how it will play out over the next few years.
I love your writings Maria and this concept feels so important in our world today! I hadn’t heard of this term or Christopher Bollas but I found myself nodding throughout! Thank you for sharing !
Thank you for reading! I really recommend Bollas if you like psychoanalysis. He is a Freudian with a very refreshing take on things and his own suite of concepts that I, at least, really connected with. And he’s such an inspiring, creative person outside of analysis.
This was a beautiful essay, naming something that I have been struggling to put my finger on for a long time as well. Feeling oppressed by it and having difficulty pointing at exactly what those around me are doing (parents or in-laws or aquaintances) that makes me feel instantly unseen and unknown. I would try so, so hard to deepen a connection, convinced that if I scratch the surface, if only I make enough effort to create some intimacy, their inner world would inevitably reveal itself to me, and they would be able to get an intimation of my own inner world. This concept helps me get some level of acceptance, that maybe for some people this has been buried for too long, and too deep, and my attempts are neither welcome nor even comprehensible to them, and most likely doomed to fail.
Thanks for sharing your insights! I’ve been thinking about this in relation to parenting and child development and think that Bollas’ work might help to deepen my thinking. To me, it seems that the “child of normotics” is almost every child these days, as institutions expect children to be able to comply and conform even before kindergarten and many kids spend most of their waking lives in school or aftercare or activities that make it difficult for them to have any autonomous time. Within schools, any deviation from “normal” or signs of creative living or subjectivity are pathologized, often leading to ADHD/autism/ODD etc. diagnoses that may or may not be helpful but will certainly get your child marked for extra normotic training — rewards, stickers, attention in exchange for compliance. And the expectation is that you parent like this, too, keeping things consistent between school and home regardless of what your child actually wants or needs as an individual, as though consistent inputs and outputs into your child-machine will yield a consistent result. I know my child could not and would not exchange his soul for inclusion at school and I’m grateful for his dogged fight for his Self.
Was just talking to my friend about this. How this apocalypse is such a great time to rip up your old consensus reality contract.
In the past the facade of ‘the normal life’ was harder to get people to see. But the facade is cracking at last. All the ways that were supposedly safe (yet soul-destroying) are now seen to have never been safe in the strange game we play in the planet.
The root problem is the fight for our own sovereign freedom.
Oh it’s cracking up big time and my sense is that people are splitting: some are going harder on the normotic side (relying on AI for basic human communication and therapy) and others are fighting harder than ever for the soul and learning to tolerate all kinds of ways of being. I wonder how it will play out over the next few years.
I love your writings Maria and this concept feels so important in our world today! I hadn’t heard of this term or Christopher Bollas but I found myself nodding throughout! Thank you for sharing !
Thank you for reading! I really recommend Bollas if you like psychoanalysis. He is a Freudian with a very refreshing take on things and his own suite of concepts that I, at least, really connected with. And he’s such an inspiring, creative person outside of analysis.
Brilliantly insightful as always M.
Thank you so much!
This was a beautiful essay, naming something that I have been struggling to put my finger on for a long time as well. Feeling oppressed by it and having difficulty pointing at exactly what those around me are doing (parents or in-laws or aquaintances) that makes me feel instantly unseen and unknown. I would try so, so hard to deepen a connection, convinced that if I scratch the surface, if only I make enough effort to create some intimacy, their inner world would inevitably reveal itself to me, and they would be able to get an intimation of my own inner world. This concept helps me get some level of acceptance, that maybe for some people this has been buried for too long, and too deep, and my attempts are neither welcome nor even comprehensible to them, and most likely doomed to fail.
Thanks for sharing your insights! I’ve been thinking about this in relation to parenting and child development and think that Bollas’ work might help to deepen my thinking. To me, it seems that the “child of normotics” is almost every child these days, as institutions expect children to be able to comply and conform even before kindergarten and many kids spend most of their waking lives in school or aftercare or activities that make it difficult for them to have any autonomous time. Within schools, any deviation from “normal” or signs of creative living or subjectivity are pathologized, often leading to ADHD/autism/ODD etc. diagnoses that may or may not be helpful but will certainly get your child marked for extra normotic training — rewards, stickers, attention in exchange for compliance. And the expectation is that you parent like this, too, keeping things consistent between school and home regardless of what your child actually wants or needs as an individual, as though consistent inputs and outputs into your child-machine will yield a consistent result. I know my child could not and would not exchange his soul for inclusion at school and I’m grateful for his dogged fight for his Self.