Obviously, I am intelligent. Where I stand on a curve will depend on where you are standing, but I think I have proven that in a battle of minds I can at a minimum hold my own. I have degrees from good schools, high test scores, and above average children (I am not a big fan of Garrison Keillor because of his politics, but I won’t deny he is witty).
But what drives me to post? I get anxious when I haven’t written anything in a while. I am not using by brain for useful, planned work. Were this the case, I would long ago have completed a more comprehensive economics text, and rewritten by treatise on Goodness. I would take projects one at a time, and focus carefully and creatively on that subject, on that work, and do it thoroughly and well, then move on to the next project.
What I have concluded is what may have long been obvious to the more careful reader, which is that I use my brain as camouflage, as a means of diverting my own attention from the gaps in my own focus, from emotional weaknesses. When I write, it looks to all the world like work. It looks like creative output, useful effort. And it is that.
But it is not fully what I am actually capable of. In all too many cases, it is a diversion from needed work, in particular from planned, organized work. This works in large measure because I am good at what I do, at least in my own estimation.
This needs to change: not the posting, but the metastructure within which it happens. Seeing this–seeing this emotional reality, FEELING this emotional reality–has caused me to realize this change is needed.
Generalizing this, though, it occurred to me that camouflage is all around us. Consider a cop or soldier who worries daily about violence even when it is not present or remotely likely. There is a t-shirt some soldiers wear that says “I may look normal, but I’ve already killed you twice in my mind”. I worked with cops, and they are some of the most fearful people you will meet, not in the sense that they are unwilling to engage in dangerous work, or are paralyzed with anxiety, but rather in the sense that they are very closed to all people they do not know well. There is a great deal of what might be called social xenophobia.
Now, clearly in some respects this is an adaptive behavior. They need to some extent to be able to treat people as objects. They need to distance themselves emotionally from what can be very stressful, and occasionally fatal work.
But is this not also an ideal place for people who are already socially isolated, somewhat paranoid? I felt very comfortable being in the police department because I did not have to deal in emotions. I could just be in my head, and that was OK.
Or to take the opposite end of the spectrum, what about people who lack a stable sense of self, of boundaries, of personal initiative? Would they not be drawn to “helping” professions? Would they not blend in, would they not camouflage their basic weaknesses as strengths? Would someone who does not know who they are or what they want not potentially be a very good care-giver?
I have told the truth here, and then I have operated upon that truth analytically. This post is an example of what I am talking about, but as I have said tends to be the case, it is hopefully nonetheless useful for someone.