Intellectualism is thus a very congenial solution, at least for the intelligent, to the problem of trauma. It creates an illusion of life–the “life of the mind”–without forcing awareness of what lies hidden. What lies hidden must always lie hidden.
And it seems to me too–what I am seeing in myself–is that psychological defenses become internal aggressors as I grow and change. Your “core self”–which in fact is highly mutable, and usually observable in pieces–interacts with “defenses” for some time in tandem, to keep at bay emotional charges which are painful and which cannot be processed by that person at that time.
This alliance can last a lifetime. What becomes clear to the contemplative, though, is that the defenses, themselves, exist to keep one in a condition of stupidity, of ignorance, of a lack of awareness. The exist to prevent expansion, and are thus simultaneously prisons. And as I grow, as one grows, their walls become apparent as anxieties, as a desire to return to the status quo, as an energy that in one moment is homey and calm and comfortable fires in the living room; and in the next as strident attacks on you as a traitor and betrayer.
Growing isn’t easy.
One last thing: I notice in myself that work often makes me much more anxious than it ought to. And I think what I do is overemphasize the relative difficulty and importance of each piece, because my dissociative tendencies tend to want to make me deemphasize everything. I have, in other words, to more or less yell at myself to get anything done. Otherwise, I tend to “dope” out. I get stupid.
And this blogging has historically been a form of such stupidity, which may seem ironic. But that is changing.