Now, obviously, you exist in time and space. I am an American. I was born in Texas. I live somewhere, drive something, have dogs. But my culture as it exists today does not “nest” me. I am not surrounded by like-minded people who expect me to act a certain way, and who I can in turn expect to act a certain way. This cultural cohesion is retained to some extent in rural areas, but almost entirely gone in large cities. We are atomized. We go into our closets at night and consume feelings projected from we know not where. Do we feel the movie sets? The actors when they are NOT acting? The script writers dreaming up the latest sadistic murder, or punchline?
My intent with all my work is to help create something like a common culture, that people WANT to embrace, and which permits all sorts of creative, synergistic diversity. But for the time being, we are largely on our own, to guess and make our way like children learning to walk. This is not a tragedy, but an opportunity. We are certainly in no way CONFINED by our culture.
That was point one. The second, related point I wanted to make is that I think our personalities and following behavior patterns can be expressed as one or more wave functions. People that are highly congruent only have one wave. They are what I am terming monophasic. I don’t know if it is the best word, but I’m running with it. Most people are polyphasic: they have multiple competing selves, motivations, emotional energies. They want and fear at the same time. They act for something, and against it as well.
In strength training, muscular growth–hypertrophy–is perhaps one fourth of the constructive growth of strength. The overwhelming bulk of it is getting more muscle fibers to fire, getting them to fire more often, and getting them to fire AT THE SAME TIME.
Behaviorally, congruence, effectiveness, is getting all your phases into a single wave function, with one movement, forward. When you are congruent, your awareness can be focused on the task at hand fully, which makes everything more interesting. If you are doubtful, holding back, allowing some relic of your past experience into the fray, you are less effective, and life is less fun.
For my part, I think I can see, finally, where my second, self destructive, phase comes from, and am increasingly able to disrupt it, which can only work to the good.
Few thoughts.