Comments on: What is the why? vs. Fake it till you make it

By: well done!!!!

well done!!!! — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:02:12 +0000

[...] and military reunions. …Well Done - Des Moines DesMoinesRegister.comwww.desmoinesregister.comWhat is the why? vs. Fake it till you make it I was recently introduced to my favorite new word of easily the past five years: unpack. Since [...]

By: communicatrix

communicatrix — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:05:58 +0000

Diedre - God, that _house_!!! I have it memorized, down to the gold foil walls in the bedroom and kitchen. And you’re right about the painting: soooooo “Night Gallery.” I half expect to see Rod Serling walk out from behind crazy Jessica Walter and say “Picture this…”

That’s a good, succinct way of putting the change in how we deal with our mishigoss as elders. I’m finally understanding the old saw about repeating history–when you’re young, you have no context. When you’re old…well, you have no excuse!

By: Deidre

Deidre — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:54:40 +0000

I love Play Misty For Me and it is also definitely a father issue (as well as perhaps an architecture one, oh how I love Clint’s house in that one). Although Donna Mills horrible painting nearly ruins it for me, it looks the like the picture that gets painted of Kramer on Seinfeld.

I think the “unpacking” gets easier as you age because you learn to uncode your own personal symbolic language. For me the cycles of disaster get smaller because I can stop myself midway through without getting too far off track.

By: communicatrix

communicatrix — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:32:08 +0000

Sally J. - Your *high school* teacher?!? Why am I not hearing about this word until now??! Argh (and “har”, for the pirates.)

Unpacking is hard work, but as my pal, Beverly Sills, once said, “There are no shortcuts to anyplace worth going.” Part of real satisfaction/happiness is a job well done. And the harder the job…

Mary Ellen: It stands to reason, as it’s hard to see anything while you’re soaking in it. I do think (haha) that a think/act combo is good for those of us at either end of the thinking-to-action spectrum. Who are those people in the middle, anyway? They must be the ones who are successful in every sense of the word by age 26.

By: Mary Ellen

Mary Ellen — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:29:05 +0000

There is a fascinating new avenue of research in the field of psychology surrounding this very issue. It’s a cross-fertilization between cognitive-behavioral theory and mindfulness. While not completely eschewing our meaning-seeking natures (which is good because I’d be forced to burn the text), this new paradigm suggests that the search for “the why”–the “unpacking”, can be the neurological equivalent of struggling against quicksand–the more you try to escape the turmoil by thinking your way through it, trying to figure it out, the deeper you can lodge yourself into it. Accepting what is and how best to move forward is the “fake it till you make it” approach. The meaning, these researches have determined, is best found once you’re out of the quicksand that is the depression/anxiety/ compulsion, etc. That thinking itself could be part of the problem is a notion I find both shocking and fascinating, given that I get drunk on thought on a somewhat regular basis. So much of life is a dialectic. Why didn’t I learn about that earlier? If you’re interested, the book is “The Mindful Way Through Depression” by Williams, Teasdale, Segal and Kabat-Zinn. Thanks for so clearly articulating a conflict I’ve given lots of thought to.

By: Sally J.

Sally J. — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:22:58 +0000

My favorite high school English teacher talked about “unpacking” poetry and dense prose. Gawd, she was amazing. We read some heavy shit in her class, too — No Exit, Waiting for Godot, Crime and Punishment. I usually talk about unpacking in the negative, as in “I don’t have time to unpack it, I just want to read and enjoy it.” Unpacking = Hard Work.

By: communicatrix

communicatrix — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:22:25 +0000

Renita - I love the idea of toggling, esp. after you’ve got some theory AND experience under your belt. I’ve been listening to Steven Covey’s 7 Habits on my iPod, and he talks about this, too–the idea that you don’t have to stop everything in one area to work steps in a particular order.

Life is fluid; needs change. It’s mostly me creating these artificial barriers.

Thanks for the great input.

By: Renita

Renita — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:09:59 +0000

I think the trick is to continuously toggle back and forth between action and contemplation. What you say about The Big Lie is so true: we think if we could just figure out why we do the unsavory things we do we could immediately and easily stop doing them. But what seems simple in theory usually isn’t in practice. So I think it’s like trying to steer a boat — you need to be moving in order to change course (conditioning).