The Cost of our Assumptions

The Cost of our Assumptions

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3:28 Our two main cultural assumptions regarding not-knowing and self play off each other and create a powerful interplay of consequences. In our culture, not-knowing is bad, and one of the main things we don’t know is who or what we are—what a self is. Since we feel we have to know what a self is in order to be one, we rely on our cultural perspectives to tell us what a self is or should be. From this mental-emotional blueprint we proceed to construct a self using programs, beliefs, assumptions, and conclusions. What we invariably end up with is a sense of self that is isolated and conceptually oriented. With no discernible alternative, we just assume that this is simply an inevitable part of being human. In our culture, these two “facts of life” work subtly in tandem so that we are completely dissociated from an experience of real being.

3:29 Operating from these core cultural assumptions fosters a number of negative conditions that we each mistakenly suppose are a result of some flaw within ourselves, or simply a part of life that we have to put up with. The conditions are so pervasive, so familiar, and so distressing that we rarely allow ourselves more than an occasional glimpse of their existence. Although they influence entire domains of our experience, these conditions are so elusive that our first challenge is simply to locate them. In an attempt to simplify the nature and scope of these consequences, they are identified here as five general effects:

Emptiness

Self-Doubt

Feeling Trapped

Suffering

Struggling

3:30 Essentially everyone has these issues to a greater or lesser degree. Some people are more sensitive to one or two of these effects, while others may relate more readily to a different set. Yet if we look deep enough, and through all of the disguises that frequently cover up their presence, everyone will discover all of these dispositions operating in some form within themselves. Freedom from these effects will only come about through discovering the assumptions from which they arise. This will be part of our work throughout the book, but for now a brief look will assist us in realizing the profound influence they have on the way we live.

Emptiness

3:31 From time to time, most people run into a core feeling that might be described as emptiness or meaninglessness. It is the sense that something is missing in one’s self or in life. It sometimes arises as a feeling of being personally incomplete, as if there is a void that needs to be filled, and that obtaining whatever is missing would make one feel whole. The feeling may appear in different forms, but in each it comes as a raw and simple sense, even though what’s behind it is not so simple. Frequently people experience these effects as almost physical: an ache in the heart, or in the pit of the stomach, or as a hole deep within the core of themselves, and always as something uncomfortable. I’m referring to this rather complex condition as “emptiness.” Do you know what I’m talking about? Can you find it in yourself?

3:32 Accompanying this sense, or included in it, is almost always a feeling of isolation and separation—the sense that you are alone, even in a crowd. Most of us are not happy being alone, but neither are we completely happy in our relationships with others. Both seem to hold a “promise” that remains unfulfilled. We find some sense of hope in the beginnings of fulfillment—in either being alone or in relationships—but this almost always degrades into vague feelings of disappointment because it never goes all the way. We then tend to assume goes all the way. We then tend to assume that real fulfillment is simply out of reach, either temporarily or permanently depending on our personal history and programming. But none of us questions the foundation of our relationship to this matter. We don’t notice that overlooked cultural assumptions may be the source of both our desire for happiness and our failure to achieve it.

Self-Doubt

3:33 Some people are surprised to hear that everyone has feelings of self-doubt. The seemingly most powerful and confident people doubt themselves from time to time. But the sense of self-doubt that we’re discussing here goes deeper than merely doubting one’s actions or capabilities. The deliberate pursuit of the issue of self-doubt invariably leads us to discover a deep inner embarrassment, a very personal sense of inauthenticity. I have never met a person who was free of this feeling, nor one who could easily address it. It might be buried deeply, but once they understand what I’m referring to, virtually everyone admits to experiencing this sense of inauthenticity. It’s the feeling that you may be the only one who doesn’t really know who you are or what life is about, or the uneasy feeling that you may have been left out of some privileged “cosmic” information loop.

3:34 One result of this sense of insecurity and uncertainty is an inclination to “improve” our self-image. Here we pretend, misrepresent, embellish, fake, and so on. No matter how sophisticated or subtle the artifice, deep down we’re aware it is fraudulent, and as such it further contributes to a sense of inauthenticity. The sense of self becomes even more tangled as we add such distortions as phoniness, insincere sincerity, affectations, adulterating or withholding expressions of our “inner self,” and many other patterns and activities too subtle to identify. In simple terms, we doubt our selves. We have a deep and often unacknowledged sense of self-doubt.

Feeling Trapped

3:35 Feeling “trapped” is a commonly shared experience within our culture, and it covers a wide range of feelings and circumstances. We might feel stuck, powerless, ensnared, restricted, limited, dominated, imprisoned, incapable, helpless, or ineffectual. We can feel trapped by outward circumstances such as a marriage or job, a city or family. We can also feel pushed around by obscure forces within us, unable to free ourselves from our own weaknesses or history, or from the influence of someone. We may feel stuck in patterns of behavior or reactions, such as flying off the handle with little provocation or feeling intimidated by others. We seem trapped by the limits of our own ability. Even a sense of having to dominate others can be understood as a trap and be difficult to stop.

3:36 The issue referred to as “trapped” can take many forms. It is found in our inability to change something, or to get free of things we don’t want. It can refer to our own abilities, perceptions, feelings, or beliefs, or it can be about any number of situations or circumstances. It is the entire domain of feeling incapable or “stuck” in some way.

Suffering

3:37 No one will deny that a certain amount of pain, even some form of suffering, seems to be a part of life. Yet when we look a bit closer we see that many forms of personal suffering may not be necessary. Of course, if we knew they weren’t necessary, we wouldn’t endure them. Or would we? We might have to allow some embarrassment to emerge before we’re ready to confess that we have more say in our distress than we’re willing to admit. The embarrassment is itself one form of suffering, even if it’s relatively insignificant and manageable. The point here is that most of our fears, reactions, upsets, longing, thwarted desires, anger, stress, anxiety, doubt, worry, embarrassments, and other painful experiences are very often an unnecessary consequence of personal and cultural assumptions.

Between grief and nothing, I will take grief.

—William Faulkner

Struggling

3:38 Given our experience of emptiness, self-doubt, feeling trapped, and suffering, we naturally have a desire to “solve” these problems or make them disappear, replacing the painful experiences with more pleasant, self-affirming ones. This whole endeavor could be called struggle. Especially in our culture, competition is common on many levels, and in many subtle as well as obvious forms. Even when all is well, if you look beneath the surface of anyone’s daily life, you will likely find a background unease, a muted sense of some inner struggle going on continuously. This inner struggle often manifests as our individual attempts to achieve something in the world, or to become fulfilled in some way.

3:39 Struggling to survive the demands of life is a constant activity. Worrying and trying to avoid the bad things of life are a struggle. Trying to overcome personal defects or resolve unwanted inner feelings always occurs as a struggle. We see obvious and sometimes unacknowledged power struggles emerging in our relationships, both intimate and casual. Trying to learn something new is often felt as a struggle. Struggle can even be found in many innocuous acts such as choosing what to wear to work or trying to sound smart at a party. This constant effort to persist in our culture is most often a struggle for “social survival.” If we scrutinize our every thought, feeling, and action in terms of effort, we will find a great deal that we might call struggle.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Three, The Cultural Matrix

Peter Ralston