{"id":108281,"date":"2003-03-26T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2003-03-26T11:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=108281"},"modified":"2015-10-18T11:02:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-18T15:02:59","slug":"score-one-for-repression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=108281","title":{"rendered":"Score One for Repression"},"content":{"rendered":"

The theme of repression (and how it may not be a bad thing) continues to arise. I spoke about it the other day, spurred on by the article in the NY Times magazine<\/a>. Our first rehearsal the other night made me think of it as well: we are creating an Irish family, where a trauma has occurred, and nobody talks about it. And is it ALWAYS best to shine a flashlight into the dark corners? When is it most healthy to let things slide, to let things be submerged? <\/p>\n

Are the people who successfully repress things the ultimate survivors? What can they teach us? <\/p>\n

I read a piece today in Time magazine by Joe Klein<\/a>, analyzing Bush’s character. Something about it didn’t sit right with me. Perhaps it is the same issue that I have with the biography of Gertrude Bell I am reading right now, filled with sentences of assumptions. “She must have felt so free as she galloped across the sands … ” You were not there. How do you know? <\/p>\n

Add on the fact that everybody ses everything through filters, and you come up with some real communication problems. We all have filters in front of our eyes through which all information goes. This can lead to incorrect assumptions. <\/p>\n

For example: I have little patience with people who flake out on me, who disappoint me, who say they’re going to do something and then they do not do it. I know people, however, who have tremendous patience in that regard. They are able to let it go, to look past these flaws, and forgive. At times, I look at my friends’ behavior through my own filter. “How the hell do you put UP with that??” My filter makes me assume that my way is the most logical way to be. But that is not, actually, the case. Perhaps the people who do not write people off with impatience the second something disappointing happens have something to teach me. <\/p>\n

A lot of that is going on right now in the political dialogue in this country. On both sides. People are talking as though they are speaking the truth, they speak with such certainty, when actually all they are doing is stating the case as they see it, looking through the world with their particular filter. <\/p>\n

So Joe Klein doesn’t understand why Bush, a man of faith, seems so “jaunty” in regards to the coming war. Wouldn’t a man of faith have more gravitas? <\/p>\n

“What is it about the President’s religious faith that makes him seem so jaunty as he faces the most fateful decision a President can make?” says Klein. That seems like an extraordinary assumption to make about people of faith. Klein’s got a big filter for how he sees religious people, and what they should be like. <\/p>\n

He goes on: “And this, I think, is at the heart of what is disturbing about Bush’s faith in this moment of national crisis: it does not discomfort him enough; it does not impel him to have second thoughts, to explore other intellectual possibilities or question the possible consequences of his actions.”<\/p>\n

The rest of the article is more of the same. <\/p>\n

Today, in our self-help-ruled society, an enormous assumption is made that it is better to express everything that is going on with you at every moment, and if you hold anything back, you are “repressed”. And being “repressed” has a negative connotation. This is an absolutely accepted “truth”. It is accepted as truth along with: the sky is blue and the earth is round. Nothing to be questioned. It has been established (supposedly) beyond a reasonable doubt. (Never mind that there are no peer-reviewed studies that have actually established this.)<\/p>\n

But lately, I continue to see another side to this, another way of looking at it … (I am exchanging one filter for another):<\/p>\n

In my own life, I have started accepting repression. I’ve been working up to it over the past year, because psychotherapy was making me tired, I was no longer getting too much out of it, and to be honest with you: I was sick to death of hearing the sound of my own voice! I can just see the expressions on friends’ faces when I inform them that I have decided to consciously “repress” some stuff, in order to raise my quality of life. <\/p>\n

“WHAT?? No! Repression is ALWAYS unhealthy!!” <\/p>\n

But let me tell you this: In the past couple of months, I have been a whirlwind of productivity. I am able to get so much done in any given day, and I feel, too, like my creativity has been unleashed. It’s terrific. I attribute a lot of this to the fact that I, like that Henry Miller quote, have started to take an interest in the world around me, and I am trying to forget myself. I put my energy elsewhere. I am no longer interested at ALL in the “whys” of my psychology, or the “hows.” YAWN. <\/p>\n

For months now, too, I have thought that Bush’s rhetoric about the war was spot-on, although I would wince when that Texas swagger would come out from time to time. But that’s just from my East Coast filter about Texans: that’s who he is. It’s certainly not phony<\/em>. And I also believe, from the bottom of my heart, that the regimes in the Middle East do not respect the United States of America, think we are soft, pussies, basically. This is mostly Clinton’s fault: the debacle in Somalia, the bombing of the pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan, sending SCUD missiles flying over Afghanistan. The despots saw all of this, and deduced: “This man is not serious.” <\/p>\n

Add to that, Clinton’s sensitivity, his calling for more “dialogue, etc., roundtable discussions. This gave those regimes a free pass. (I voted for Clinton twice, just to be clear.)<\/p>\n

So showing that you are strong, and that you can keep your emotions under a tight rein may not be the most terrible quality in a President. <\/p>\n

Regardless, it is dangerous to make such assumptions, assumptions based on what our filters tell us about reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The theme of repression (and how it may not be a bad thing) continues to arise. I spoke about it the other day, spurred on by the article in the NY Times magazine. Our first rehearsal the other night made … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[141],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108281"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108282,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108281\/revisions\/108282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}