The Inner Narrative

[jimmoyer]

MikeyDB posted:
That inner narrative doesn't spontaneously arise in the minds of children or anyone else...it is product of far much more than personal anxieties about peer acceptance and "fitting-in". Unless we take the time to share other people's self-view...
------------------------------MikeyDB posted above--------------------------------------------------------


Absolutely right.

Abs-itively Pos-olutely. Had to do the spoonerism.

MikeyDB, I'm not sure what triggers us to look at our own presumptions, but I'm damned sure we constantly need to do so. A lot of unnecessary pain. Or is it ? Do we need to go through the process. Is it a higher form of Due Process ?

Anyway, I'm finding self-improvement a lot more interesting and tougher and a lot more rewarding than the hoarseness of political debate. I like the political debate for entertainment, but I don't expect too much from it. It also helps to divorce your ego from the politics, eh ? Well duh, right ?


I'm a hoser. I know that's old.

 

[jimmoyer]

Karrie succinctly asks:

Is that an inner narrative or brain washing?

---------------------------------------------------------------

The answer ?

Anti-climactic drumroll...

Just short of a missed orgasm...

The answer

is


YES.

 

[karrie]

Is that an inner narrative or brain washing?

YES.

lol. how cryptic.... do I assume you mean that it's a product of both?

 

[karrie]

MikeyDB, I'm not sure what triggers us to look at our own presumptions, but I'm damned sure we constantly need to do so. A lot of unnecessary pain. Or is it ? Do we need to go through the process. Is it a higher form of Due Process ?

Anyway, I'm finding self-improvement a lot more interesting and tougher and a lot more rewarding than the hoarseness of political debate. I like the political debate for entertainment, but I don't expect too much from it. It also helps to divorce your ego from the politics, eh ? Well duh, right ?

I agree... the idea of self improvement is much preferable than winning some imaginary victory via an internet squabble over politics (although I do still like my squabbles). I guess perhaps that is my inner narrative... striving to evolve into something better. I've done so with most difficulties in my life.... strived to rise above, be the bigger person, find the positive aspect I could focus on. I've struggled to always be as moral and true to myself as I could, even if it doesn't make me look good on a society level. Even if it means falling out with 'the group' because I won't walk a path I feel is unfair to someone else.

 

[jimmoyer]

Mi, corazon...asi...

Karrie, incisively cuts to the chase, asking,"do I assume you mean that it's a product of both? ", regarding brain washing and inner narrative.

The answer...

bring in the ominous drum roll....

Answer:

It does not matter if it is a product of both, because the end result is whatever your inner narrative is doing to you. Never mind who gave it to you. You got that cold from some handshake before.

The "you" in that answer is a generic YOU. Pero, no usted.

 

[jimshort19]

Credentialist Inner Narrative.

Your example of an inner narrative planted by the education industry with the complicity of society is accurate. That the same society will make it a fulfilling prophecy is a proven fact also. This example seems to have no good implications, for the realization that facilitates change in this case makes withdrawal from an imposed reality and resultant material failure radically more probable. The lie is prefered to the truth by the society as a whole and any opposition will be crushed.

While the fatalistic inner play script may be malignant in part, the notion of having a few lies that one believes is hardly radical. If one speaks the truth too much, one should not count on profiting by it, so why seek it? For happiness? Who is happily abused but a martyr? To urge introspection is to urge long suffering. Not everyone is well suited to fight the good fight in this way. It is your blessing and your curse.

But do tell, please. What is your inner narrative today? I'd rather not look at mine. I'm taking the day off.

 

[MikeyDB]

I disagree Jim. It does matter how that inner narrative is stimulated and what contributes to it. If you were born a Catholic you'd understand....If you were born a Moslem you'd understand...if you were born a Methodist you'd understand...

If you lived in oppulent luxury never experiencing drawing your water from a communal watering hole and never experienced agonizing hunger you'd understand...

Examples....

 

[jimmoyer]

Je ne comprend pas.

No entiendo, Senor MikeyDB.

I'm not sure I understand you MikeyDB.

If you are saying you have understanding even if you don't experience something, I'm not sure how that relates to the lint in the "inner belly button."



Sincerely, I'm not sure I understand.

 

[MikeyDB]

The inner narrative is informed by much more than brainwashing and is a complicated amalgam of situational dynamics, life experience and forces and dynamics imposed by conditions far beyond individual control....

Do you believe for a moment that the inner narrative of an African American child would be the same as the inner narrative of a white child? Are the expectations of your peers and your local community the same? Is your experience of the way "power" is created and exercised similar to the way "power" is created and exercised by the kid who doesn't live in a ghetto or a barrio or the slums of a city?

This narrative is highly complex and this thread is an excellent opportunity for anyone and everyone to "fill-in-the-blanks" for and of their narrative....

While I sometimes loathe the quality and character of much of the content of the WWW, It is an exercise for everyone in learning about some of the dynamics and situations that contribute to the inner narrative of which you speak....

There's the modelling of human sexuality and the differences to your inner dialogue that will make depending on whether your upbringing was in a Methodist home or an atheists home....you may have an inner narrative that never considers the importance of personal appearance because you live where personal appearance is governed not by how wealthy and successful your family is or isn't but by the wars that rage around you for reasons you can't really understand....

One of the most powerful (potentially) attributes of the Internet and the WWW is the opportunity provided by it to offer a voice to China for instance or a student I talk to in Moscow, or to find out about the wider influences of politics environment etc. etc...

Of course what this means in terms of my inner narrative is that I have a far wider palette of color and dynamics that will influence that narrative...

 

[MikeyDB]

Just a little addendum....

Considering that not only are the contributions to the inner narrative vastly different for each and every person, the way that narritive unfolds will also be product of many different things. The process of integrating/internalizing and synthesizing experience is subject to influences beyond our control as well....

 

[jimshort19]

Mikey, the palette of your inner narrative dynamics in colour is far wider than an African American child's, ghetto kids and those who suffer wars they can't understand all put together, because they don't have the internet.

O.K.

Yes, bigger is better in this case, and your mind is expanded, but while conceit is well justified by talk, if this improved mind is not for love, what is it worth, this self-illumination, this improvement? Without moral reference the mind does not function. When sight of this is lost, the mind does not function for good, and therefore functions for ill or nothing. Where does morality fit without mention? Is it assumed? If it is assumed, methinks you assume to much. One must bring ones own morality to the net or there is little to filter the noise.

Understanding oneself and others is good, if we are first good, and evil if we are first evil. You teach an advanced lesson, but this was the spirituality and phylosophy thread, wasn't it? The net is basically good, isn't it? Friendlier than the universe. Friendly enough to trust but verify. Logic is the next best colour to truth, if it is not the same one.

Everything is only entertainment, good and bad, you and I. I like bull**** bigtime myself, and I am starting to grow on me.

 

[jimmoyer]

Hey MikeyDB, excellent posts.

Hasta manana...I'll digest what you said. Pretty good. I'll germinate some offshoots on your post.

Hasta luego.

 

[jimshort19]

MDB, "Considering that not only are the contributions to the inner narrative vastly different for each and every person, the way that narritive unfolds will also be product of many different things. The process of integrating/internalizing and synthesizing experience is subject to influences beyond our control as well...."

If what you say is so, the implications are enormopus. Like, we'd all be different.

But as sure as monkeys may write the works of Shakespear perfectly by chance, the English-speaking space aliens outnumber us. It reminds me of a popular the song. 'One in a Million'.

One in a million,
chance of a lifetime,
and life had compassion
and sent me a stroke of love called you,
a two in two million you.

We can all be different if the space aliens are excluded, but how narrow-minded is that? How big a pallet is too big? Profoundly irrelevant? Extraordinary? Downright normal. Obvious.

 

[Nuggler]

8O..................Good Lord!!.....................

"YES, MY SON.
Please explain to me, if you will, this "inner narrative" of which everyone speaks (apparently)

"Don't be a dumb shmuck, my son, it's as plain as day to all but the most socially retarded":angry3:

:tard:sorry














8O

 

[MikeyDB]

Hey Nuggler....good to have yer input...

Consider: If I believe that it's my moral responsibility to tell the truth (as I know it) and telling that truth will being unpleasantness or emotional harm to someone is my telling the truth and being honest with myself and others more important than not hurting people or is lying to protect someones' feelings or someone's self-esteem or "self-image" reason enough to forego communicating honestly.....

What do I gain by entertaining the idea that there are things I don't know and things I have yet to learn if I'm to understand/make-sense-of and engage as participant in my community my friends my country my species.... Should I respect believe and "take as my own" these words from my teachers my parents the policeman my priest my doctor my brothers and sister, from people around me who I've been told I should respect trust and believe....or should I think for myself?

Is it more important to me to be who I am or is it more important to me to be the person that someone else expects me to be...to believe what authorities tell me without question simply because they're an adult or an authority figure of some kind.....If I'm disappointed in learning that the "truth" I've been told by many of these people really isn't the truth and they're either simply miniformed or ignorant, prejudied biased and bigoted in their beliefs and outlook on life what things about me will those who say they value me for who I am as a personare cause for them to be disappointed in who I am or what I say or what I believe....

I have duties and obligations to my family my friends my employer my neighbor....and what is their obligation and duty toward me....

The inner narrative goes on and on and while I'm just a simple man of limited knowledge and understanding, I have enjoyed a life as a white male in a society that demonstrates time and time again that a white male is more valuable than a black man or a woman or a foreigner of someone who doesn't believe what I believe and who is different in custom culture and perspective....where is the path that is the most important the most honest the most real throughout this experience of who I am in the midddle of all of these very often competing and oppositional attitudes beliefs and philosophies.....

Just a brief glimpse into one man's inner narrative....

Simple stuff for you Nuggler but damn tricky for me....

You're lucky my friend....

 

[darkbeaver]

Inner dialogue for me guys, there's always a crowd in me, well two or three, some ask questions and some provide answers and the others run the plumbing I suppose.

 

[MikeyDB]

Jimshort19

I took a little extra time to read your contribution carefully so please forgive me if you thought I was ignoring you…

You’ve offered some bold statements I’d like to respond to….

“Mikey, the palette of your inner narrative dynamics in colour is far wider than an African American child's, ghetto kids and those who suffer wars they can't understand all put together, because they don't have the internet.”

“OK”

I don’t think my “inner narrative” is as much a product of access to the Internet as it is a never-ending-question that began when I was a child seventy years ago. We didn’t have the Internet then, and TV was very new.

I’ve traveled to a dozen different nations around this planet and briefly sampled twice this many different cultures belief-systems and social ethos’.

I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate. I’ve attended many different schools throughout my life as a child as a teenager as a young man and as an adult, education for me has been many things. I’ve taught senior high school in America, public school in Canada and very briefly at a Montesori School and a community college. I was born on an Indian reservation child to an Amerind father and a white mother. As a youngster I went to schools on military bases because my father was in the military, and at those schools it is required that you learn to read write and converse in French as well as English. As a young man I studied several languages in addition to the these two “mother tongues” and have a smattering of retained vocabulary from several.

I’ve formally studied philosophy and psychology, taught science and mathematics and worked for the greater portion of my adult life as a therapist and psychologist at various locations throughout Canada and the United States. As a youngster I was greedy for knowledge and understanding and on my own time and at my own pace I studied and practiced electronics and was building radios and amplifiers, test equipment and electronic curiosities ever since. I was absolutely in love with water and have spent a goodly portion of my life in around under and on water of both the salt and fresh variety.

I was raised by different people at different times, being adopted when I was three into a dysfunctional familial situation that necessitated my being moved around through foster homes and homes of “friends” a great many times.

It’s a long story and I’ve only sketched the briefest of outlines for you up to this point. I can assure you that you now know more about me now than any other person who’s shared their time and thinking with me here at Canadian Content.

“Yes bigger is better in this case, and your mind is expanded but while conceit is well justified by talk, if this improved mind is not for love, what is it worth, this self-illumination, this improvement?”

I’m sorry you feel my contributions stem from conceit, if that’s the impression I’ve given then I ask for your forgiveness and forgiveness from all the wonderful folk here at CC. I can’t give you an absolute answer to your question, I can try to “flesh-out” what I believe is an important quality that it’s taken me a lifetime to learn.

“Love” isn’t a commodity or a characteristic or an attribute….it is what life is all about.

A man and a woman share each other intimately and a miracle happens. Just as a mother is imbued with a unique interrelationship with the child she has borne every child is imbued with a similar quality. Certainly we’re vulnerable to anger hate envy greed and other less satisfying emotions, but the very first thing we learn is love. A human being is about love and everything else is secondary to that reality. Even if that initial love isn’t returned or reflected back to us, a hunger we sometimes can’t even identify compels us to seek comfort and predictability, tolerance for our awkward helplessness and understanding for our ignorance and our curiosity. We are selfish to a fault before we learn that every human being around us feels the same way that we do. We begin to “other” and in that “othering” we find a fundamental commonality with boys and girls, red boys and girls black boys and girls, skinny and fat boys and girls and until we learn prejudice and sometimes when that prejudice turns into hatred contempt and disdain we know at the basic most fundamental stage of our being that we are all the same.

I hope we can communicate further, maybe we can and maybe we can’t but my inner narrative tells me that if I fail it won’t be because I didn’t try.

 

[darkbeaver]

Exquisitly painfull this thinking stuff, but worth it.

 

[MikeyDB]

Not nearly as painful as the alternative.

 

[darkbeaver]

I feel confident in taking your word Mickey