Who Did This?
a tale of two pilots, a meat suit, and a perpetual battle
A lot of life’s puzzles revolve around figuring out what to do. What career path to pursue, who to marry, how to pay your taxes, what restaurant to eat at for dinner, how long to brush your teeth for whether to reach for the last bruschetta on the dinner date how to finish this horrible grammatically incorrect runaway sentence oh god.
Sometimes daunting, other times trivial, every person lives these experiences every day - the mundane everyman’s quest. For how much easier and better life seems it would be if we already had the answers, the comical cry-laugh truth is that a lot of the time we do have the answers. We just don’t always do what we should with them.
We’ve all had the experience of feeling like a tiny person helming the controls in the cockpit of our own head. Only, the controls do nothing except for make loud rude sounds and conjure images of mustachioed hippos flying around on winged burritos. We know what needs to happen, how to pilot the body to victory. But all we can do is shake our fist in indignant exasperation and watch helplessly as our renegade meat suit bumbles its way into another mishap, ad infinitum. If a picture says a thousand words, this meme captures this dynamic perfectly, both in imagery and in number of self flagellating obscenities:
It’s a beast of many names, and comes at all hours of the day to ensnare and cause mischief. You feel its presence when you open Youtube in the middle of the work day for an innocent break, only to watch in horror as hours start to skip by like children at the park. It’s there again when you tuck yourself sweetly into bed at 10pm, eager for a full night’s rest, only to still be awake 5 hours later, eyes bloodshot, head swirling with Internet conspiracy theories and anxieties that have their own anxieties. Procrastination, shoddy self control, and poor discipline are a few incarnations of this shapeshifting scourge. How best then, to fight off the pest that walks our footsteps, eats food off our plate, stares tauntingly back in the mirror?
Every threesome has the potential to get messy. With the 3 characters involved in this scenario, it’s practically guaranteed. In one corner we have the hero - you. Rational Self, full of knowledge and good intentions, earnestly trying to lead the team towards greener pastures. In the other, the devilish villain - also you. Chaos Self, not necessarily malicious or ill intended. More of a live wire, a loose canon - ready to muck up the works at a moment’s notice. Caught in the middle - Body Self. The aforementioned meat suit carrying out the actions dictated by the two tiny pilots duking it out for control. Thankfully, it takes the Chaos Self a lot of energy to wreak havoc, and the Rational Self is often left alone at the controls. But when the Chaos Self awakens to stir the pot, a pitched battle ensues.
One primary reason the Chaos Self is able to win these showdowns is a lack of clarity or detail from the Rational Self. Though the Rational Self has the correct general idea, the Body Self’s evolutionary programming leads it to trust specificity over not-yet-verified accuracy. While the Chaos Self suggests comfortable and enjoyable options the Body Self has experienced many times before, the Rational Self advocates for change - beneficial, but new and uncomfortable. Keep in mind, the Body Self prefers the concrete short term gratification offered by the Chaos Self over the abstract long term gratification proposed by the Rational Self. Without a detailed offering and a specific plan on how to get there, the Rational Self finds itself behind the eight ball.
Oftentimes the Rational Self doesn’t realize its plan is half baked, or thinks the level of detail should suffice to win over the Body Self. It’s easy to convince yourself your ideas and plans are bulletproof while they marinate in your inner monologue, shielded from external perspectives and circumstance. By expressing ideas in less forgiving mediums, such as writing, or conversation, contradictions and glossed-over weaknesses are nakedly exposed.
Almost always, while writing out my thoughts on a given topic, I come across the dusty unconsidered corners and polka dot holes scattered throughout my thinking. Similarly, I can viscerally recall my body’s knee jerk reaction to certain inflection points in conversation. Heat across the face and tinging in the neck and fingers - the confluence of the embarrassment of being wrong and the excitement of having perhaps grown closer to being right. Armed with a considered and thought out plan, the Rational Self can more easily bat away the advances of the Chaos Self and steer the Body Self to calmer waters.
Even with a clear plan, the Rational Self still can find itself on the losing side of the battle. There can be myriad causes - energy level, emotional state, unaddressed trauma, peer pressure - hell, even the weather. The Chaos Self is very popular and has many allies. Each one of these causes has its own literature that we won’t dive into here. In order to level the playing field, the Rational Self is forced to think more strategically. When I've thwarted myself yet again despite a well thought out plan, it’s been helpful for me to introduce cognitive distance and communicate with myself as if advising a close friend. When the reserves of willpower and motivation are nearly tapped out, an injection of manufactured “external" accountability provides the much needed boost.
We’ve often experienced this dynamic when friends call upon us for advice. We can view their situation with birds eye view clarity and scope, and well-considered advice seems to flow effortlessly out of us. On the other side, the desire not to disappoint a friend we value and respect can be a powerful force. With ourselves it’s more difficult to create the distance and zoom out from the thicket of trees to see the forest. Furthermore, though our conviction not to let down those close to us can be very strong, we can be paradoxically inconsistent with holding ourselves in the same regard. Both sides can be a powerful tools for the Rational Self to reframe its relationship with the Body Self.
Finally, a common reason for distrust between the Rational Self and the Body Self is the Rational Self’s often cantankerous and judgmental attitude in defeat. Once it’s clear the battle’s been lost, the Rational Self seethes in the cockpit, hurling insults at the Body Self while the Chaos Self twirls the control joystick and mashes buttons gleefully. To the Rational Self, it’s a justified and even productive reaction. If only the Body Self wouldn’t give in so easily to the inferior pilot, they both could be living the lives they want. However, though the Body Self may be cowed in the short term via the negative reinforcement, in the long term the Body Self may come to take the criticism to heart. This can then result in lowered confidence and artificially diminished ability. Rather than instinctually reprimanding the Body Self and perpetuating a negative cycle, the Rational Self can seek to observe non-judgmentally and strive to understand the root cause or rationale for being passed over. By continually pushing to understand the root causes, thoroughly detailing the plans it hopes for the Body Self to execute, and creating a cognitively distanced relationship with the Body Self for specific times of need, the Rational Self can pilot the Body Self to scooping up much more low-hanging fruit in its perpetual battle with the Chaos Self.
For my part, I’ve got a lot of work to do to improve in this area. I’ve been recently trying to implement some of these strategies and I’m feeling optimistic, but it’s always difficult to predict the outcome. I’ll have to take it up with me - it’s tough to get that guy to listen to most anything I say.
