THE INNER STRUGGLE

THE INNER STRUGGLE

1. Introduction

Every person goes through an inner struggle in one’s life. We have children who struggle to strike a balance between obedience to their parents and fulfilling their own whims and fancies. As the child grows up to be a teenager, this struggle becomes even more acute. On the one hand there is the urge to do what one wants to do and on the other the societal norms. This constant conflict goes on within oneself.  The knack of balancing between the two forces demands great courage and prudence. The “right” and “wrong,” the “proper” and “improper” consciousness develops within the child that grows up to be an adult. By the time the child becomes an adult he/she will have formed certain convictions based on the experiences of inner struggle. All these experiences of inner struggle come from the fact that human beings are social and more especially dramatic beings. The society demands lot of “dos” and “don’ts” and each person picks up some of these and personalize them. Thus, establishing oneself as dramatic person in the society one lives in.

2. Human Person in the Drama of Life

Human beings have different patterns of experiences; one of them being, the  Dramatic pattern of experience. For humans apart from the mere biological functions we have what is known as dramatic functions. Unlike other patterns it is special and specific to humans.  For the human person more than eating and drinking, there is what is known as a ‘dignified way of eating and drinking.’ We often hear elders in the families insisting on good manners, etiquettes and table manners.  Even when it comes to work human beings don’t just work but they are concerned about the dignity of work. Humans are also concerned about their style of grooming (fashionable clothes, hair-style etc.,) and this again emerges from the fact that humans are dramatic beings. Sex for humans is not merely biological activity, but it is shrouded with meaning. Biological experience cannot be ignored in man but it can be transformed in man. Therefore the approval of the society and culture has a great role in the life of human being. 

In the human person as insights accumulate the dramatic insights too accumulate. The society, family, parents, friends teach the person a lot of things; a person learns many things from them. They influence the formation of one’s conscience. This is how the psychic censor develops in the person which helps one to monitor one’s instinctual or neural demands. In the drama of life each one discovers, selects and develops the roles one will play in interaction with others and the character one will carry through life. In the human person it is usually the psychic level that controls instincts or the neural demands. Inversely the neural process too demands for expression on the psychic level; the demand for entry into consciousness. The neural demands can be met in a variety of ways: biologically, aesthetically, intellectually, dramatically; but there are limits to their flexibility, and to violate these is to run the risk of abnormality.

3. Dramatic Bias

In the drama of life as the insight can be desired so too it can be unwanted. It is possible that one does not wish to understand certain things because one is fearful of making discoveries. This leads to bias, bias comes due to exclusion of an insight which again leads to exclusion of further questions that would arise from it and the complementary insights that would lead one to a balanced viewpoint. As a result of bias, behaviour is affected, and this leads to misunderstanding in ourselves and in others. As a result of bias there arises introversion, a withdrawal from the outer drama of human living to the inner drama of fantasy. A split appears in the person between a persona which is mask or appearance maintained before others and an ego which is myself as I appear to me.

4. Consequences of Dramatic Bias

Dramatic bias could have serious consequences on the individual. As described above it is basically the result of a flight from insight which gives rise to psychic trouble. Let us see what could be some of the consequences of Dramatic bias.

4.1 Scotosis

Scotosis is an aberration of understanding. It leads to scotoma or a blind spot. It is a disease of censorship. Scotosis arises in the censorship that governs the emergence of psychic contents. It is anti-understanding; it blocks understanding. It refuses to accept insights and build on the insights. Scotosis is an aberration not only of understanding but also of censorship. It is usually an unconscious process but sometimes it could also emerge in our consciousness in different ways. Scotosis comes in the form of unwanted questions, images, and insights.  

4.2 Repression

Just as wanting insight brings forth schematic images that give rise to insight, not wanting has an opposite effect of repressing from consciousness; repressing a scheme that would suggest the insight. It is an exercise of the aberrant censorship that is engaged in preventing insight. Usually censorship is constructive, but in scotosis the primary activity of the censorship is repressive. It is basically preconscious activity and must be distinguished from suppression or conscious refusal to behave in a particular fashion.

4.3 Inhibition

The effect of repression is an inhibition imposed upon the neural demand functions. When affects gets dislodged from images, and attach themselves to other objects, strange behaviours arise. For instance we see some people getting sexually aroused on seeing a tree.

4.4 Performance

Scotosis affects the smooth performance of the dramatic actor. This is seen in the slip of the tongue. Sometimes things that are repressed deep within oneself comes out involuntarily.

4.5 Dreams

The dream is a psychic flexibility that complements the flexibility of neural demands. Dream is essential for securing a balance between neural demands and psychic events. In dreams the neural demands rejected by the censor during the day find expression; in dreams censorship is relaxed. It is a way of giving expression to unsatisfied neural demands. It is a means of restoring equilibrium; it functions as a safety valve.

4.7 Sexual Aberrations

The sexual development in a person is one of the materials for scotosis. Sexual development includes both physical changes as well as psychological.  Thus, it has a lot of room for waywardness. Random mistakes can be balanced by dreams, healthy environment, adequate instruction, timely guidance etc., however, if there arises a chain of such mistakes, it could lead to scotosis. When such a situation of a chain of mistakes arises, proper development of affective attitudes are hindered. Eventually, the conscious dramatic pattern/censor can no longer integrate and give adequate representation to the distorted demand functions. Then neural demands assert themselves and one loses control over one’s life.

5. Cure to Dramatic Bias

Psychic illness is closely associated with the flight from insight, recovery from it is connected with intellectual illumination. Refusal to understand can be cured only by insight. Cure consists in a series of insights or flashes of illumination. Insights should happen in the dramatic pattern of experience for a person to recover from a dramatic bias. A psychoanalyst could be of great help for the person to recover.

6. Conclusion

The inner struggle of life basically comes from having to live up to certain ideals of the society. While we uphold the social norms, we also find difficult to integrate it with our neural or physical urges. There is a constant struggle in human beings the struggle between keeping the social norms and doing what one feels like doing. The issue of dignity, good name, and social norms can be considered all within the context of dramatic pattern of experience. The secret of living a good life as a dramatic person lies in proper handling of the inner struggle. To be a well balanced human being in society one needs to be open to insights especially insights related to dramatic pattern of experience. A good human life also demands openness to guidance and the strength to fight the inner battle that one constantly experiences in one’s life.

Bibliography

Lonergan, Bernard. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, 5^th ed. In Friedrich. E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran eds., Collected works of Bernard Lonergan, Vol. 3 Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.

Pen, Robert. Communication for Communion. New Delhi: Intercultural Publications, 2011.