Libidinal Investment

Working on my own path in this old world, I had an experience with a spouse I believe to be a psychopath and his nutter-clan.  Why the categorization?  The definition and offshoot emotions explain my state of present mind and the ordeal from which I am "recovering."  What an odd word, "recovering."  Because in reality, it was simply a well placed and powerful wake-up call to reclaim and restate myself.

 

Scientology in my family and extended family members brought the awareness of this belief system to me.  MUCH of the data and processes do work.  Having said that, I feel that power and a segregatory element of socialization offers a rather well-tread path of control.  We all want to belong, to find that brotherhood of like minds.  And we seem to desire a connection with decency, on the whole.  I watched a very interesting interview with Jason Beghe on his experiences in Scientolgy, and he has now departed that organization.  He made a rather remarkable observation, one that hit home: many of us get involved to help others.  His physical affectations and choice of colorful adjectives in the interview reminded me so of myself when attempting to fathom what happened to me in the aftermath of a narcissist/psychopath in my recent history.  He repeated numerous times the statement, "I just don't get it."  He was speaking of many levels...most of all, I suspect, of what went wrong.  Where did the ideals fall short?  How did that drive to be of service to humanity take a surreal fork in the road?  Where did loyalty to the organization (or in my case, the clan) override the desire to aid mankind?  Why did a choice have to be made and why couldn't the call to help humanity fit with the goals of the organization? 

 

One of Hubbard's famous ideas is that of the "stable datum" - the principle that confusion sits at the base of uncertainty and insecurity of self must be reached.  Too much information brings a condition of disordered thoughts and a hodgepodge of reactions because the initial point of questioning the unknown part was not comprehended.  I agree with this.  In dealing with the aftermath of horrific upset, many of us mortals find ourselves on shaky terrain because our own beliefs and place of being finds us in less than grounded territory.  Our visions seemed tilted and the directions we took to engage in actions and group connectivity faltered.  We felt that communication had been in play and that our highest interests of kinship with the attraction of community had found agreement with "reality."  But, not just any reality, the entity or substance from cumulative choice and like beliefs.

 

And therein lies the rub.  To maintain this "reality-entity" one must offer his own thought processes to the alter of agreement, all for the common good.  Doctrines keep that definition of the "common good" in line with group leadership's belief systems.  Perspective determines the outcome.  This is no doubt the reason for our confusions when we assign ourselves to collectives.  Even within the smaller aggregations of families, we find that our feathers are ruffled, on the lower end of the emotional upset scale, and our worlds of personal ethics blasted on the highest levels of anguish in colliding beliefs.

 

Fear of loss tends to keep us in place; even in the very groups which were joined with the hope that THAT anxious concern of danger would be put aside in the camaraderie of togetherness.  So what happened?  As I muse and assess my own life situation with an evaluation of my place within spirituality, I suspect that emotions overflowed the banks of reason.  I will give Hubbard his due in that this life and associations appear formatted as a game.  The stakes exist as  emotional investment.

 

Just why is emotional investment such a powerful control mechanism?  I have the feeling it centers around idealization and the libidinal investment.  Libido is not just about sexual action.  The definition includes "instinctual psychic energy that is expressed in conscious activity."  As we who seek answers take the bits and pieces of the montage of our lives and sort with information from others, this particular definition makes awareness of Hubbard's friendship with Aleister Crowley all the more fascinating.  Thelema, Cowley's created "religion," was one that rivalled Baal with heavy emphasis on sexual interplay.  This is the reason Sandra L. Brown, author of Women Who Love Psychopaths, tells all to "stop sleeping with dangerous men."  Bonds are cemented and the mind will work feverishly to execute a rationale.  So, too, in group liaisons. 

 

How and why is this appropriate in my own path of evolutionary awareness?  For me, time with a psychopath set a battle scene that assaulted my core belief systems and spirituality of being.  Reason SURELY entails perspective.  Cause, intelligible motive, and inference along with exercise of mental capacity, all, lay the foundation for sanity.  This is a complex weave of life-threads and the tapestry must include not only our own expressive display, but a reverence for differing designs.  Diversity should be encouraged and coupled with cognizance of the effects spreading as ripples in the pond. 

 

I am reminded of Ursula LeGuin's "Turn of the Lathe," where the protagonist awakes every time from sleeping to discover a "new reality of life."  The world changes each time the cycle of sleeping and waking occurs.  The hero is an ethical presence and as he discovers "the truth" of this "reality," he tries valiantly to save the therapist who has at first attempted to aid him, and then began to use him to alter the world for his own determinations.  In the end as the therapist finds himself faced with a landscape of charred and burning earth, he goes mad at learning that he, too, is a creation of the hero's.    As George Bernard Shaw said,"I never thought much of the courage of a lion-tamer.  Inside the cage, he is at least safe from people."