Mental Traps_ The Overthinker's Guide to a Happier Life - Andre Kukla [47]
Whether the trap-free life of traditional consciousness is happy or productive depends entirely upon the luck of the draw. If the external authority is benevolent and wise, its decisions will be good. But the authority may also be Hitler or the Reverend Jim Jones. The problem with traditional consciousness is that it leaves us no protection against Jim Joneses or—a far more frequent danger—those who would make our lives narrow and dull. For traditional consciousness is given up to authority without reservation. If we retain the option to reconsider our commitment in case things don’t work out well, then we’re only playing games with ourselves—the putative authority isn’t an authority at all, however punctiliously we follow its dictates. In this case, ultimate authority remains in whatever self-generated criterion the external quasi-authority is to be judged by. Modern consciousness is only pretending to be traditional here. Except in rare circumstances, traditional consciousness is unalterable, for the advisability of any possible change is judged on the basis of the traditions themselves. If we could persuade biblical fundamentalists to entertain the question of the validity of the Bible, they would only seek the answer by looking it up in the Bible. We never get more than one chance to live traditionally. If the draw is unlucky—if the authority is self-serving, foolish, or mad—there is no turning back. We must follow it over the edge of the cliff.
In any case, for the modern mentality to which this book is addressed, traditional consciousness is no longer a live option. Absolute authority is finished for us. There’s no one to push our buttons, keying planning, calculation, and prescription in and out as the occasion requires. And so we return to our dilemma: if we shut the prescriptive mode down even for a moment, allowing ourselves to run free, how will we get it switched on again when it’s needed?
The intractability of this dilemma depends on an unconscious assumption. We’ve come upon unconscious assumptions before in our analysis of mental traps. But this one is the Primal Assumption upon which the entire structure of trapped modern consciousness is based. We suppose that impulse—the non-rational and non-prescriptive wellspring of action—is incapable of returning the reins to prescription on its own initiative; and that even if it could, it wouldn’t know when it was appropriate to do so. That is, we assume that only rational calculation can tell us when rational calculation is needed. If this Primal Assumption is true, then we must indeed always keep the prescriptive apparatus running, always strive to stay on top of the situation, always be minding the store.
What would life be like if the Primal Assumption were false? It would mean that the urge to plan, calculate, and prescribe arises impulsively, like hunger and thirst, when the situation calls for it. It would also mean that we can stop planning, calculating, and prescribing when the need for these activities is over, for we would know that we’ll spontaneously begin them again when it’s useful to do so. Prescription would take its place alongside the other activities of life rather than being their foundation. We eat, we make love, we walk, we sleep—and sometimes we plan, calculate, and prescribe. In sum, we would cease to have mental traps. Modern consciousness would then have given way to liberated consciousness.
Is impulse capable of shouldering such a load of responsibility? Let’s divide this question into two parts. First, once impulse rules, is it capable of returning the reins of action to prescription on its own initiative? Second, can it do so appropriately—is it capable of discerning when prescription is needed?
The first question