Predetermined Reactions Through Control

Although I work to control my environment, there are many things and events that are out of my control. This is both right and good. While it would be nice to guide, direct, and manipulate all situations, ultimately the adventure begins when the control ends. And life is certainly an adventure--a wild ride that though bumpy at times is also immensely rewarding.

But the issue is control. While we attempt to control many things in our lives, the truth is that very little is under our thumb. So much of what we experience are simply things that happen to us. We are shaped through our experiences and we demonstrate who we are by our reactions. So the question is not how can we be victorious over our need for approbation in a reactive sense, but is rather how do we avoid puling over the vast olla podrida of emotions that seep maliciously through our veins seeking opportunities for advancement through abdication of responsibility.

We claim that reactions are simply reactions without any kind of foundation or representation of who we are. We claim that there is no control over reactions, emotions, and ultimately behavior, that as we experience events and respond to them, we in turn become a product of our own deliberations. All then becomes an effort to avoid inveigling tricks and predetermined machinations that form our inner beings due to outside influences. It is therefore anathema and counterproductive to develop the psyche as a shield against the constant encroachment of demands that threaten to disembody our very being.

If human responses are not governable then all is despotic, contentious, and contumacious without the parameters necessary for refined civilization. With this level of acceptance, we fall into the trap of irrevocable pessimism and loss of will. We are then victims of our own mediocre human frailty and find ourselves in a self-made slavery and personal tyranny of our design. Taken to its extreme, all personal efforts to overcome any perceived weakness are in vain. In this regard, the reaction of which we have no control is in fact a vapid expression of a shallow and constant flood of purposeless emotions.

And yet it cannot be. We are not shaped by our reactions. We shape our reactions through personal application and organization of our emotions and expressions. This requires discipline and order. But that in itself is not enough for it is useless to pretend that all emotions can be framed into a neat, clean picture of geometrical lines devoid of expression. We cannot and should not reject our emotions or attempt to deny their existence, but we do need to control them and educate them. This can be done through a process of catharsis--purging of emotional tensions--and reorganizing them into productive commodities of energy. A sort of galvanizing of the good and a dampening of the bad.

The control is impossible if we accept that we are molded purely by our experiences and our responses thereto. While there is little denying the role of events as deciding future reactions, it is also conversely wrong to deny the value of strengthening the inner self in preparation for the experiences that will fall in our paths. The adventure is wrought with joys, sorrows, fears, and excitement. Be prepared for it, react to it, and grow from it. Let us all control our reactions through self-governance, but let us also continually learn from the journey.