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SYSTEMIC PATTERNS PERSISTENT

 

SYSTEMIC PATTERNS                                 PERSISTENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                            Mark M. Bell  M.S.  ED.

 

Homeostasis, nature's complex balanciact  is our body's chemistry maintaininitself. 

 

The autonomic nervous system supporlives and homeostatic processes keehealthy. 

 

How many could survive if their breathing,

 

walking or eliminating were dependent upon

 

thought related processes?  To what end are

 

we freed from those functions?

 

For homosapiens (wise men) life's meaning

must be revealed using the mind, control center of life and thought.  Cerebration, ephemeral process which creates hopes, dreams, suddenly present are as quickly gone.  "I think therefore I am", may best be put, "I think therefore I may become".  Become whom?  That is an evolutionary question indeed!  Based upon nature's proclivity for inevitably higher life forms, it would mean growing more aware of the moment and becoming more loving and caring.  Nature has freed us from the labor of maintenance, for glory of thought and growth in awareness. 

      Within an ever increasing cerebral capacity of homo sapiens lay the seeds of their enslavement, however.  Just as wet clay is molded on the potter's wheel and hardened in the kiln, we are beset by mind forged manacles.  Before we realize, potential for self realization is stifled.   The spontaneity of a child's expressions and thoughts soon harden into mind dulling habit.  Creativity is often debilitated due to early emotional and educational experiences.  Only by relearning and freeing ourselves can we develop our potential and recapture our creative spontaneity. 

      Psychotherapies [some three hundred and fifty at last count] and "awareness programs" are attempting to pull the mind out of the rut it is in.  This impasse is the habitual reflexive type of thought [systemic thought pattern] which perpetuates old hurts or trauma.  It is this rut which keeps us from meeting the moment at full operating efficiency, as nature has surely provided.

      We learn by repetition until recall is instantaneous.  One views amino acid links as a vehicle for memory itself.  Thought involved association and by linking one concept to another we build vocabulary, language and intelligence.  Compounding the problem is the fact that just as physical pain lingers beyond physical pleasure, a parallel exists with psychical pain and pleasure.  Thought patterns develop subtly as a normal course of thinking and learning and we become inveterate.  A good test of cerebral acuity would be to overcome the pitfalls of early development by understanding pathways of thoughts and making them spontaneous rather than habitual.  We have to eliminate undesirable thought patterns.  A mental picture of a vigilant Buddha observing himself would depict this wisdom.  A requisite for psychical equilibrium is freedom from habitual reflexive thoughts that result inevitably in neurotic symptoms.  These thoughts and associated mechanisms should be understood, lest we attribute more mystique to them than is required. 

      The cerebral cortex or forebrain consists of "old mammalian brain" [limbic system] and cerebrum  [neocortex].  All mechanisms necessary for thought and feeling lie therein.  Evolving through time, the neocortex has mushroomed in size surrounding the limbic system [the latter is the limit of many primates' evolutionary statement].  The limbic system is known to be a major emotional center in homosapiens.  It was known fifty years ago that patients with rabies exhibited major emotional disturbances [anguish, rage, terror] provoked by the virus' attack on the hippocampus, part of the limbic lobe.  Numerous other data support those findings.  Interconnecting neurons [wires if you will] conduct all external and internal impulses, including thought.  How we are "wired" and which electrochemical impulses are transmitted, determine our specific reactions.  Habitual though patterns develop into reflex type actions as conducting power of nerves increase with frequency of use.   We condition ourselves until thought patterns become fixed by habitual repetitive use.  Our basic "nature" directs this habit formation in our early vulnerable years and they become reflex type thought reactions over time. 

      Emotions do not depend upon simple reflex mechanisms.  The hypothalamus is involved with higher limbic centers, however precision of neuron groups involved in emotion is comparable to reflexive behavior.  Thought patterns cause habitual reactions and neurotic symptoms as well as behavior necessary for survival.  In the strict sense, neurotic behavior is habitual and not reflexive because the stimulus originates cerebrally with no peripheral nerve excitation.  Results are however reflex-like, when physical or psychical stimuli are perceived. 

      A psychical blueprint begins to emerge, consisting of a genetically directed psychic system more complex than our physical system.  Our "nature" is determined at conception and within variable parameters, minimally altered by circumstance.

      Photography offers a way to clarify the composition of this psychical blueprint and associated systems.  The developer's pretreated paper seemingly blank is the psychical blueprint; developing solutions are like the triggering stimuli interacting with the paper [blueprint]; the developed print  is like the response, varying and dependent upon the type of solution [triggering stimulus] affecting the paper.  The response can be a thought or feeling and is reflexive-like.

      Artistic nature, caustic personality, romantic, hedonist, self-denial are all blueprinted from birth.  The subject will react predictably to a given stimulus and it can therefore be considered a ‘triggering' stimulus for their particular blueprint.

      Psychical Blueprint  -  part of genetic structure and more dynamic than physical blueprint.  Part of system which reacts to environmental circumstances within organic and chemical parameters.  Causes mental predispositions or primary psychical needs, in turn dictating an individual's very "nature".  Based upon our psychical blueprint we extend ourselves into society with a predisposed set of psychical needs.  The latter will shade our behavior for life and occur in differing number and calibration within each individual.  The combination and domination of one need or another and extent to which an individual can satisfy same, will indeed control their very behavior.  In identifying primary psychical needs I with forego broader concepts such as love, in favor of more specific ones.  Several primary psychical needs are self-respect, respect of others, acceptance, achievement, independence, security, love of beauty [aestheteism], adventure [i.e. romance, exploring] and knowledge.

      Triggering Stimulus – frustration, rage, anger, hostility, fear and sorrow initiated by unfulfilled primary psychical need.

      Response –

Habitual reflexive type thoughts initiated by triggering stimulus.  Response is initially reflexive because thought stream requires no associative cognition other than initial awareness of triggering stimulus.   Defensive or neurotic behavior inevitably follows [i.e.depression, withdrawal, phobia, compulsion, obsession, anxiety attacks].

      Physical needs are less subtle than psychical needs.  Deprivation of essential physical needs can led to a permanent shutdown of the system [death].

Deprivation of primary psychical need fulfillment, causes one to misdirect energy by fixating on the need.  Concentration and productive areas of endeavor suffer as need is magnified out of proportion due to a focusing and dwelling upon it.  Triggering stimuli caused by unfulfilled primary psychical need, cause systemic patterns of thought and in turn defenses and neuroses.  Need must be satisfied or eliminated for peace of mind to ensue, as energy used to satisfy need fuels stimuli and resultant neuroses when that need is unfulfilled.  Triggering stimuli and neuroses can be eliminated by using the very mechanisms that fixed them where they got stuck in the first place.  There is no magic bullet nor instant cure involved.  Concentration and desire are essential, however.

      Can anything be done to vary emotions and behavior fixed by habit for so long?  Our blueprint [nature], the environment within which it waxed and our triggering stimuli are essential ingredients to an understanding or emotional function.  We are our own worse enemies and conversely can be our own best friends.  Experiencing our own lives, ignoring painful truths, we know our emotional history better than anyone.  Responsibility for psychical equilibrium must inevitably be our own.  It should not take any army of psychotherapists armed with three hundred and fifty psychotherapies, to accomplish an end for which nature has provided; equilibrium of mind and spontaneity of thought.  We must sort out that which we were victimized by and that by which we were self-victimized.  Only then may we approach the moment out of strength of action rather than reaction.

      Habitual reflexive type thoughts [systemic patterns persistent] may be dismantled.  Triggering stimuli, identified as the trigger of habitual –reflexive type thought, must be experienced with new awareness and caught in thought prior to triggering the usual habitual reaction.

      The following two examples will illustrate:

Phobia is projection of a triggering stimulus onto an object thereby making it external so that it may be controlled or avoided [projection onto an action is equivalent to compulsion].  Phobia will always remain until entire systemic pattern of thought causing the behavior is dismantled by exposing cause of stimulus.  Secondly, depression often deals with past pain linked to a present [by systemic thought patterns] which may be quite different from that past.  A person who was obese and cannot "let go" of their "fat psyche", even though they are years and pounds beyond, is but on example.

      The realization must be made that life is a linear event and what we wish to change yesterday is  not possible, yet changing the way we presently think of it is.  Understanding life as a series or chance events may help one seize and change the present.   This may best be accomplished whilst unencumbered by systemic patterns of thought which have controlled us in the past.  Spontaneity and equilibrium may than enable the individual to reach full self realization.

      Chemistry and history are the foundations upon which our mental and emotional lives are constructed.  If the two are balanced and the grace of nature and life shine together upon our being, a well adjusted product should result.  Less favorable combinations of the same, may have a deleterious affect upon the psyche and take powerful insight and effort to undo. 

 

 

 

 

                         Bibliography

 

Darwin, Charles,  "The Expression of The Emotions in Man and Animals"  (University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.,  1965).

 

Changeux, Jeran-Pierre,  "Neuronal Man",

(Pierre-Changeux, 1985).

 

 

 

 

 

 

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