It has been said that it takes a “them” to make an “us”. In other words, we define ourselves partly by what and who we are not. To a great extent, we define ourselves negatively–“not-them” makes “us”. So it is perhaps more accurate to say that it takes a “not-them” to make an us. We define ourselves socially and comparatively. It takes some amount of mental effort to activate or maintain these distinctions or descriptions, and in this effort to know ourselves, stable categories demand less attention–whether that “attention” is judged by intentional mental effort or the physical metabolism of oxygen and other nutrients.
There is a tipping point where we max out our capacity for comfortable maintaining a preponderance of categorizations. Then we simplify. We may simplify the categories (through the use of gestalts, heuristics, and stereotyping), or we may simplify the process of selecting category relevance and salience (through the use of heuristics and habituation).
Self-identity is partially shaped by what we can and cannot do. As children, we begin learning who children are partially by distinguishing what adults (“them”) can do that kids (“us”) cannot. We have to learn limitations just as we learn other categorizations. It takes mental effort (usually subliminal or habitual) to maintain those limitations just as it takes mental effort to maintain other mental categories. A great deal of the maturing process comes from relinquishing, in due time, earlier limitations. Kids can’t drive cars, but kids growing up can learn to drive cars.
Just as there are averages for words in our vocabularies that we use regularly and averages for words we can recognize but don’t use (somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 I believe), there are averages for employable mental categories although the number of these categories is even more difficult to measure than the number of words we’re capable of recognizing and distinguishing. Just as vocabulary usage is primed by context–different words expected at the football game than at the wedding, hopefully–identification of self is primed by context, and actions are primed by identification. (If you think of yourself as unable, you’re more likely to be unable than if you think of yourself as able in any given situation.)
In situations where we feel competent, much of our awareness is habitual. You know, or have a sense, where your gas pedal is when you sit in your car without thinking about it too much. Competence-habituation streamlines our deployment of attention in familiar contexts. Relatively stable self-identity does as well. So when we’re stressed, we tend to return or wish to return to familiar situations. We go to the well, often like an abused woman may return to her abuser.
By middle age, most adults begin relaxing their sense of connection with identified limitations. You may see fathers and grandfathers gardening and cooking more than they did as teenagers; it becomes “okay” for men to be less macho, it becomes more likely that women who have always suppressed what they wanted to do often begin to express and seek it (although mid-life crises may raise these issues to prominence and exaggeration for a while). Before middle age, some adults purposefully begin relaxing their sense of identification with supposed limitations. We often lower our degree of perfectionism and mellow somewhat.
In the first case, we say, “I’m just too old for that,” or, “It’s too much work,” to pretend too much. In the second case, when the relaxation is due to choice instead of exhaustion, we can call this mindfulness. Sooner or later, most people wash away a good deal of their reasons to pretend who they are, or their conceits about themselves are stripped by experience. Whether it happens sooner or later, people who are willing to relinquish unrealistic expectations and demands on themselves and the world around them find a feeling of relief. Attention that in the past was used to maintain demands and expectations becomes free for appreciation of the self, the grandkids, the moment, etc. Like learning to drive a car, “being somebody” takes effort in the beginning, but we eventually mature to where we can enjoy the scenery without driving unsafely. We don’t give up “the ego”; we learn to not put such a premium on attention paid to a sense of self.
Mindfulness allows spontaneity that is different from childish impulsiveness or addicted neediness. Once we have learned the rules pretty well–where the gas and brake pedals are, how fast to drive on highways and side roads, what various signs mean, etc.–we have a better understanding how to follow them easily and when and how to break them. Having been willing to submit to the process of learning the rules, we understand how to navigate without a great deal of stress. At least this is possible.
Personality development in adulthood is the individual balance between psychologically aging (growing older) and mindfulness (maturing/individuating) as manifested in each individual context. We either choose to embrace and develop maturity or are forced into old age.
Copyright 2007 Todd Mertz