The future and the imperative of continuance in action
Structurally speaking, all existence is future-orientated. If, for example, you should consciously or subconsciously sense that your future is in question or in jeopardy, a structural contradiction will form, and apprehension, fear, anxiety, or depression is sure to appear.
That’s why things that are new seem to attract us as much as they do. They spell “future”. Nothing gets our interest quite like the latest scuttlebutt or breaking news. We humans are implicitly drawn to new opportunities, second chances, fresh adventures, things to look forward to, and promising tomorrows. Our existential structures love anything that opens, promotes, or catalyzes future confirmations, and that is why they loathe closed doors, blocked pathways, or dim futures. After all, that is precisely what The Structure that guides us is all about: Our potential, our future, a brand new us. Remember, “continuance” is one of existence’s primary imperatives. Indeed, without continuance, without a future, we can’t exist at all.
What’s new?
Marketing executives, for example, slap the word “NEW” across the products they sell, hoping to make them sell better. The latest model of anything will always seem more interesting than the previous one. This is why learning new things that we didn’t know before interests us so much and why we pay so much attention to almost anyone who has something new to tell us. It’s all about continuance. Your future is your continuance; they are one and the same.
Continuance and the survival “instinct”
Some confuse the continuance imperative with some sort of animal instinct and link this imperative to survival. You can certainly say that survival is related to existential continuance or existence, but one’s continuance is not an instinct. It’s a structural imperative. Continuance is part and parcel of existence itself. You can’t get along without it. No living thing can. If you’re no longer “on your way”, as it were, it’s because you’re not around at all, and nothing can be more contradictory to one’s existence than an existence that cannot continue being what it is. That’s why we do what we can to avoid death. Again, we avoid death not because we’re following some sort of animal instinct, but because we’re following an existential imperative. All living things do the same thing. We’re all in this together.
Nurture or nature?
Which part of us is most responsible for our behavior? Is it the body, or is it the mind, the head, or the heart? What is it that carries the most weight when it comes to our psychological development: the nurturing we receive from the environment or the powerful influence our genes exert upon us?
In order to answer that question, let’s look at what we already know. We know, for example, that life is a relational process that shapes who we are constantly becoming.
We also know that we’re governed by an existential Structure that works in synergy with both our genetic selves and our environmental selves. (Those selves that are created by the relationships that we establish with the world around us.) Both are necessary if life and, very especially, conscious life, is to remain possible.
As far as the influence that our genes exert over our relational activity, keep in mind that the point of departure of every relationship we establish is genetic in nature. In other words, in spite of the fact that our total psychological beings are a combination of who we are genetically and who we are environmentally, all relational activity is primarily influenced, tainted, or marked by our genetic make-up. As long as the nature of those objects with which we relate affirms (positively confirms) the nature of our genetic selves, all will be well. If, on the other hand, the relational echo coming from our environment contradicts the nature of our genetic selves (negatively confirms), unwanted conflict will occur.
This is why we are genetically drawn to those environmental scenarios in which we believe we can obtain positive confirmation while we naturally (structurally) tend to avoid and ultimately defend ourselves against environmental contradiction.
Birds of a feather
If your genetic self is kind, understanding, and generous, you will tend to establish relationships with those who are kind, understanding, and generous. Likewise, environments that threaten to be the contrary will make you feel anxious, ill at ease, fearful, and apprehensive.
This paradigm holds true no matter what one’s genetic background may be. The genetically mean, aggressive, and parsimonious will feel contradicted by those who have opposing genetic backgrounds while those who are genetically kind, passive, and generous will feel vulnerable vis-a-vis those who are their opposite. Birds of a feather really do fly together—or at least they try to.
Reality and virtuality. Relational relevancy. Control issues.
The Structure that oversees our psychological status and ultimate behavior does so in rigorous cadence with what each one of us considers relationally relevant, along with what we sense is real and what isn’t.
Relational relevancy, on the other hand, refers to the intimacy or structural importance a subject may have with his or her environment.
Example of relational relevancy:
A riot in New Delhi, India, may not be relationally relevant to Jane, who lives in Detroit and has never had any relationship with New Delhi or its people, a situation that inevitably will, for Jane, render New Delhi relationally irrelevant. However, were Jane to be living in Detroit but had a best friend who had gone to Delhi for a visit, or New Delhi was a place Jane had often visited, the riot in that country’s capital might be relationally relevant to Jane.
Virtual relationships
Relationships that are not accompanied by relevancy are invariably experienced as virtual or quasi virtual, whereas those which are relevant can be experienced as either real or virtual. The more we feel that an experience is relationally relevant to us, the more we’ll be convinced that it’s real and vice versa. In other words, the more convinced we are that something is relationally relevant, the more real that we’ll be convinced that it is. On the other hand, the less an experience is relevant, the harder it will be for us to believe it’s real.
Relational relevancy and personal conviction play primary roles in our perception of reality or virtuality.
How we decide what is real or virtual depends solely on the nature of the data each one of us requires in order to be convinced whether a relational experience is real or virtual. This is vital as depending on whether or not we experience an object or event as real or virtual, we will think, feel and behave accordingly. Reality brings a certain degree of responsibility and ownership to relationships, whereas those relationships that we experience as virtual carry far less structural weight. In the end, that which decides if a relationship is real or virtual or if it is even relationally relevant depends entirely on the level of conviction we may have pertinent to our relational experiences.
Keep in mind that, as humans, we do not think, feel or behave the same way when facing a virtual experience as when facing what we are convinced is concrete, real, or actual.
Examples:
- Our thoughts, emotions, and subsequent behavior will be radically different if we only imagine that we might have cancer (a virtual experience) than if that is, indeed, the case.
- We hear that our neighbor up the street has just died, but this news produces little or no emotional response in us. We never met nor knew our neighbor; therefore, our neighbor was not relationally relevant to us. His death will remain as a virtual experience for us.
- Attending a rock concert will have a very different psychological impact on us than if we witness that concert on television.
- Actually going to a ballgame is not the same as listening to the same game on the radio.
- Going to school over Zoom will have entirely different psychological implications for us than actually being physically present in class. One experience is lived as only being virtual, whereas the other is experienced as being real.
- Talking to Jack via cell phone is more of a virtual experience than talking to him face to face. Texting Jack will be more virtual than speaking to him over the phone. Carrying on a conversation with Jack in one’s imagination will be more virtual still than texting him. The only way to have an actual, real, or concrete relational experience with others is by doing so in actuality.
Is one’s level of conviction always determined by the same factors?
No. Each and every one of us has his or her own particular requirements for determining what is relevant or real to us and what isn’t. For this reason, and as suggested before, what might be a believable and, therefore, convincing source of information for person “A” might not at all be convincing for person “B”.
For example, for Sally, even the suggestion from her mother that something is real convinces her that real it is, whereas for John, whatever his mother tells him is real is suspect of being just a product of her imagination and of little value. John needs higher quality and an increased amount of evidence presented to him in order to be convinced that something is real or virtual. For Sally, on the other hand, just a hint from someone else that an object is real or not is enough to create, in her, an unbreakable belief.
How we defend ourselves from the possible contradictory effects of some realities.
Interestingly, we humans are acutely aware of the actual or suspected presence of contradiction and, therefore, psychologically destructive possibilities that some real experiences can have on us, very especially when contrasted with those we feel are only virtual.
For example, while passing what appears to be a bad road accident, some of us simply will turn away so as to avoid actually witnessing what we suspect might contradict our state of being. In this way, we’re able to dodge the emotional implications of a truly contradictory experience. In essence, we avoid reality by turning away so as to safeguard the integrity of The Structure we rely on to continue existing. When an object or event is experienced as virtual, we are still able to control its potential contradictory effects on us. In other words, we are better able to manipulate the reality of the event as we wish. When, to the contrary, there is little doubt that an object or event is real, we sense that we have lost control over its potential emotional impact. Equally, the reverse of such a scenario is true. Any object or event over which a subject senses they have no control is, inevitably, experienced as “real.”
Avoiding contradiction
If, for example, one were given the choice of knowing what others think of them, only those with decidedly high levels of self-esteem would take on the challenge. (Many of those who would opt to have such knowledge, however, might be disappointed with the results). Most of us would prefer being governed by our imaginations when it came to second-guessing what others really think of us. All in all, in an attempt to keep a possible contradictory event on a strictly virtual plane, we most often tend to avoid embracing any and all possibly contradictory realities.
When facing a possible contradictory relationship, like hearing bad news or information that might oblige us to confront convincing contradiction, we might cover our ears, say that we’ll talk about the matter later, look away from the potentially contradictory object or event, or simply find a way to annul the source of potential contradiction. Whatever our method of avoiding contradiction may be, if it works, we’re likely to use it. As usual, we will behave in any way necessary to avoid confronting contradiction.
Psychological reality and virtuality
Virtual relationships increase the control we feel we have over our lives. Real relationships reduce control.
Once you have established that a relationship with an object or event is real, it is the object that will enjoy the lion’s share of control over that relationship. When the relationship is only virtual, you will have more control over your thoughts, emotions, and ulterior behavior.
For example, if you virtually think or virtually imagine that your friend Sam feels you just did something stupid, you can mentally manipulate that eventuality more or less as you please. You are better equipped to control the outcome of this potentially contradicting or contradictory event because there are not environmental-sourced data that contradict that feeling. It is, in this case, up to your imagination to decide what did or did not actually take place. On the contrary, if Sam tells you face-to-face that he thinks that you’re a jerk, it is Sam that will have control over that relational experience, not you. You now are obliged to deal with what you now feel is a relational fact. You’ve lost your ability to mentally shape the relationship’s outcome as it is now beyond your structural abilities. It’s beyond your structural abilities because structurally speaking, once a relationship is convincingly experienced as positive or negative, i.e., confirming or contradictory, one is obliged to deal with its structural consequences accordingly. (As mentioned many times before, if The Structure has one dominant characteristic, it is its rigorous loyalty to its own reality. If you are convinced that a relationship is confirming, you will happily accept the consequences of that confirmation. If not, however, you will be obliged to deal with the implied contradiction and set out on a path of neutralizing or compensating for its destructive effects.
The advent of the cellphone
One of the best examples of our desire or need to distance ourselves from potential contradiction is how we react vis-à-vis certain technological innovations. The advent of the cellphone is, I believe, a perfect case in point.
When cell phones suddenly appeared on the scene, people were delighted with the novelty and status value they had. We would call anyone at any time for any reason just to remind ourselves and everyone else, for that matter, that we were at the forefront of modern living. Later, however, we discovered that cell phones could help us control our personal lives by maintaining certain relationships as virtual as well as distancing any of their potentially contradictory qualities. In other words, instead of going to see George and his annoying brother Chuck, we now could just call George, leaving Chuck out of the picture entirely. We also knew that speaking to George over the phone allowed us to keep the conversation within our control (we had a better chance of maintaining our telephone relationship as virtual instead of real or concrete, thereby better controlling any possible contradictions. Later still, came the option to relate to others by texting them. This provided us with an additional layer of virtuality and more control still over those relationships that we had via cellphone. Now, many of us prefer to text someone than actually call them. It is structurally safer. Today, one can see dates sitting together on a park bench, bar or at a restaurant table, paying no attention whatsoever to each other while texting (not calling) someone else. From a structural standpoint, many sense that it’s the best of both worlds. One can sustain at least some degree of relational activity (a structural imperative) but do so safely. The problem is that as we reduce the risks of our relational activity, we relinquish any possible benefits that full, open (although perhaps somewhat risky) relationships can eventually afford us.
The desire to lose control
The opposite of this relational dynamic is also true. There are times when we desire to lose all control over certain environmental events. Such desires will, invariably be generated by the existential Structure that guides us. If we suddenly are OK with losing control over a relationship, it is because we sense that a relationship is free from potential contradiction.
In relational terms, the difference between so-called reality and those relational experiences we have that are virtual or imaginary is minuscule. Indeed, trying to differentiate between these two levels of relational experience can be confusing or easily misunderstood. Frequently, virtual relationships can be sensed as if they were real, and vice versa. Actually, the only difference between relational experiences that one could legitimately call real or concrete and those that are virtual or imaginary lies in the subject’s level of conviction that what they are experiencing coincides with some sort of independently verifiable reality.
Relational relevancy and our perception of reality or virtuality
How we decide what is real or virtual depends solely on the nature of the data each one of us requires in order to be convinced that a relational experience is real or virtual. This is vital as depending on whether or not we experience an object or event as real or virtual, we will think, feel, and behave accordingly. Reality brings a certain degree of responsibility and ownership to relationships, whereas those relationships that we experience as virtual carry far less structural weight. In the end, that which decides if a relationship is real or virtual or if it is even relationally relevant depends entirely on the level of conviction we may have pertinent to our relational experiences.
Keep in mind that, as humans, we do not think, feel, or behave the same way when facing a virtual experience as when facing what we are convinced is real.