I got home went to my bed with a bottle of pills laid down in bed and pored all of the pills into my hand. I looked at them for about an hour before I decided to put them back.
I did something similar when I was twelve. The only thing that prevented me from going through with it, ironically, was that the person most responsible for reducing me to that state wouldn't like it, and I didn't want to hurt them. I was always such a good boy, you see?
Most people, I believe, have experienced the situation in which they are working late on something they feel
must be completed, stressing beyond all measure of reason until they finally give in and go to bed, even though they think they've failed by giving in. They just have to accept that they are too tired to go on. When they awaken in the morning, of course, everything seems so much more manageable, the problem so less insurmountable. They are refreshed, and ready to face the problem anew. However, when one knows for a fact that there is no respite when they awaken - that the next day will be the same, and the day after, and the day after that, it becomes easy to wonder if it might not be better to never wake at all. So you reach for the pills.
The fundamental barrier to acquiring aid for those in need, or preventing the situation in which they suffer from emerging elsewhere, is that if your experience is threatening to the tribal security of others, their potential support and sympathy turns to something ugly. You exist to serve
their emotional needs, to validate
them, and the wider story of your life, and of the world they inhabit, is meaningless. Empathy is a commodity extended only to those who cannot threaten the security of the self. One
oohs and
awwws over little baby lambs, but not over crocodiles or venomous spiders.
Not so much a story that follows, as a gradually-pieced together comprehension that underlies my story.
I often become disillusioned with the degree to which people supposedly calling for positive change are blind to their own mendacity, wilful ignorance, or contradiction. It's no revelation that in terms of political and social analysis I stand outside the camp, whatever that camp may be (and I stress that while, for example, a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew might believe themselves separated by vast philosophical and cultural distinctions, and engage in all manner of heated arguments and opposition, they are only reasonably distinct within their own perspectives. They can argue over the nature of God all they want, but to one without monotheism they are all simple variants on the same thing, and their claim to be diverse is, shall we say, a relative matter at best). It is no revelation that I am mistrustful or indifferent to the political and moral positions of those around me. I would suggest that people's own preconscious motivations are allowing them to discard sounder branches and boughs of thought in favour of well-worn and politically beneficial tracks that conform to the tribalist pattern. And in doing so, ironically, they often maintain what I would categorize as injustice (or, at least, social realities detrimental to sapient dignity) in opposition to their stated intent; because to challenge the ideological models on which a platform rests would threaten the social structure to which one is indebted - and thus would be detrimental to one's ambitions. The brain knows what it needs to do in order to preserve the societal model the creature is a part of. Millions of years of evolution have made it almost reflexive. This, I maintain, is what many misunderstand when they mock (with very telling zeal; Lady Macbeth comes to mind here) the idea of “conspiracies”. The fact that people are not overtly gathering around a table to plan out their manipulations with knowing grins doesn’t mean they aren’t working the system, comfortably and very much preconsciously.
A person’s true motivation is below the surface, and often invisible, both to that person and to others. One should never take the mask at face value. One should not identify motive on the level of the assumed belief, the stated objective, the spoken plea to morals or principles, for these are
not the motivation, and failure to understand a person's motives can lead to your chasing shadows, or becoming disappointed and ultimately in conflict with others when they inevitably act in opposition to their supposed principles. I'm not saying everyone lies all the time, of course. But often, as you examine the catalogue of your interactions with them, there will be discrepancies. Leaving aside the incredibly important fact that such discrepancies might be the result of your own perceptual grid distorting your perspective, and that it is dangerously arrogant to assume that you know a person's
real motive when they don't, you must then try to build a consistent model of their motivations. Keeping in mind your own susceptibilities, you can make the attempt to genuinely understand them, and this is the key to ensuring that they cannot disappoint you, and so cannot anger you.
The motivation lies in the instinctual hardwiring. In most people - the vast majority in my experience, and I'm talking 999 out of 1,000, at least - that is a tribal model. Group affiliation and individual status within that group are the twin poles by which choice of behaviour is judged, in any situation wherein basic survival needs are sufficiently met. The importance of the unifying question “where do I fit into the social group?” cannot be overestimated. In the past it would anger and frustrate me when I'd face the contradictions of other people - I won't say "hypocrisy" because that is a loaded word that I don't think should be tossed around, particularly when conscious intent is often, I believe, lacking. But eventually I reasoned that all people, unless truly, honestly insane (and that state is of course very rare), are in fact consistent. If there is contradiction between their statement of identity, intent, principles, etc. and their behaviour, attitude or perspective on an adjacent issue, then it is a mistake to assume that they were being inconsistent. It's not their fault that you failed to look beyond the mask and thus attempt to understand them. If what they say, do, believe, follow, etc., doesn’t match what you have on the card in front of you - then the definition on your card is wrong.
People exist within a political framework, and they share a worldview defined (whether they acknowledge it or not) in terms of certain perceptual grids; structures established by a combination of neurology and the input of others (input that takes hold all the swifter for those inclined to conform to what they observe in, or are fed by, others - as most social animals are). It enables easier navigation, and tracking of status within the social order, because the grid can be shared and all external matters or stimuli can be related to points on that grid, allowing a cohesive response from all community members. Thus, people view the world in terms of these perceptual grids. At initial response to stimuli, this means that things only tend to register in certain ways; they reach the person through the grid and are automatically shaped by it. On the level of decision making - analysis of incoming data, we might say - there is a strong psychological need to maintain and strengthen the grid, as it is the ward against chaos, the means by which one knows that they have status and position within a group structure, and their psychology requires this. Anything that can be interpreted in terms that confirm or sustain that grid, that reinforce the assumptions on which it relies, will be made prominent and worthy of attention, and this will in turn reinforce the supposed validity of the grid. Conversely, anything that might be seen to conflict with the grid, and challenge the assumptions that inform the worldview in question, is either twisted, contextualized or interpreted in a manner that actually reinforces that grid (or at least fits comfortably enough within it), or else it is downplayed, if not discarded entirely. On occasion, it is violently rejected. Once a belief system is in place, then reality can be understood only in terms of that filter, so long as the filter remains in place; indeed, the grid is supposed to in fact
be reality. This is how political and social ideology works. The assumptions will always look reasonable, for they are seen to - obviously - match up with reality. If you place a blue film over your eyes, the world appears blue.
Most humans are tribalist. They naturally locate themselves within smallish group structures, their motives being almost paradoxical. On the one hand they seek security through conformity, through knowing they are one with the group, and they modify their behaviour and thinking to match those around them. Paradoxically, they desire individual status and thus jostle for position and recognition. This is the basis of all tribal politics.
Tribalists are dependent on their grids. They tend not to appreciate anything that disagrees with their notion that the world is blue, so to speak. Sometimes they attack it. Often they just discard it as not worth causing conflict over - most people prefer allies to foes (although we must keep in mind that societal aggression - jostling, posturing, signalling - is inherent to the tribalist, and normal to their social interaction). However, if the input openly threatens the integrity of the ideological grid - and thus, on the level of basic motive, the security of the individual in question - that input is treated as illegitimate. As, often, is the one bringing this alternative forward. Tribalists do not mourn the refuse that they discard. If it couldn't incorporate and thereby serve the system in some form, then good riddance to it. Input must reinforce the worldview that serves to provide the desired security, status, and promise of needs met that group membership brings to the social animal (and plenty of opportunities for signalling and posturing, too, which is where their desires and impulses turn when survival is no longer an immediately pressing concern. Classic tribal behaviour - they fight and squabble for status, but comes the outsider and they’re back-to-back). Challenges are only tolerated if they don't challenge at all. Which is why I'd claim that the bulk of any society is conservative and reactionary, and those who proclaim themselves progressive usually are not. Instead they reinforce the system with a few proposed tweaks in place, unwilling to truly threaten the very structure that they manipulate and ride into positions that benefit them. You stir the pot, certainly (political manoeuvring in large part depends on this, as the current order must be shaken up somewhat to allow movement, and the order reforms slightly altered in the aftermath), but you don't break the pot or scoop all the broth into a new pot.
What this reduces to then, is that people often believe they're doing things for one reason - often quite sincerely - when really they're driven by other motives entirely. When certain behaviours or attitudes do not measure up to the stated definition of what one is and does, that is because the stated definition is mere noise, signalling, and a non-tribalist knows that such is not to be taken seriously.
One’s own societal and economic system is dependent on certain ideological positions and received truths being in ascendance, and certain left unquestioned, leading a worldview to privilege certain conceptual paths while leaving others untaken, no matter the benefit or even necessity of doing so. Society must be defined along certain lines that avoid the pitfalls of awareness or dissent that might threaten and challenge the tribal structure - and thus the security of the individuals who are found among it.
Most people affiliate with structured groups - religious, political, ideological. Often they'll even equate the group with their personal identity. It's not "my theistic beliefs are Christian", it's "I'm a Christian". These groups are of many sizes, but politics will always reduce them down to the instinctively "correct" size when not united against a shared outsider (and an alliance is fluid by definition; one does not create peace through unity against a common foe, the tribal system has long incorporated allowance of temporary cooperation without the need to create enduring ties). The result, of course, is layered shells of affiliated identity, with the self right at the middle.
The tribal model and the instinctive urge to "run" it in the brain (or is the brain structured so that this is the only model it can comfortably run?) is, I'd argue, why people generally don't do well in situations where they don't know the people with whom they interact, and when there aren't implicit physical consequences - YouTube comments, etc. People talk about "anonymity" on the internet as a catalyst for aggressive or "anti-social" behaviours, but I think it's simply because they've entered a social arena with strangers; that is, people who they have no affiliation or allegiance with, and thus minimal or non-existent sense of community. As with hens or fighting fish, there exists a societal balance, partially hierarchal. Upset that balance by introducing additional members and there is conflict until a new social order can be established (again, political manoeuvring depends on exactly this as a means of "climbing the ladder", although I dislike that metaphor for its appeal to the idea of a vertical hierarchy, when
my critical view of society finds that to be only one of several structures defining access to power and status, and the tendency to prioritise it detracts from a sensible analysis of where the problems more readily lie).
People in the situations I’m discussing here - internet strangers, etc. - have been thrust into a setting absent an inherent community - and to the tribalist instinct there is
no community absent political or familial allegiance; community is a limited sphere of those one is in league with, linked by kinship or mutual obligation as defined through (and on) a shared perceptual grid. They must jostle to establish a sense of where they stand, or maybe they're uncomfortable and so given to gaining security through posturing. They are creatures of order plunged into chaos, and they must 'retune' themselves so as to plug back into order, or to have the new reality filter correctly through their grid (or grids, depending on how fused those grids are; there are differing degrees of flexibility in peoples’ worldviews, of course).
The system I would suggest emerges from
my instinctive wiring has no inherent sense of political allegiance. It is an egalitarian system - and I have little time for most self-professed “egalitarians”, for a tribalist cannot be egalitarian, their social and sexual instincts will not permit it (even limiting ourselves to the idea of supposed-objective laws that remove distinction, in practice enforcement and interpretation of such will be mired in tribalist necessities, and everything is subject to enduring social dynamics). In my default perception, all people are alone, considered as individuals despite their insistence on group membership. The emotional urge to belonging, to societal acceptance, is of course present in me - indeed, it’s likely unusually strong - but other people are considered more as drops in an undifferentiated ocean than assets of a particular group (which nonetheless has them in its clutches like some soulless monster). The average person, being tribalist, is eternally aware of other people in a sense alien to those like myself. They are locked into a framework of power politics. Who is this person? Where do I know them from? Where do they stand in relation to me? What do we owe each other? Rival, asset, threat? Continually seeking both to conform to what the primates behind and to either side of them are thinking or doing in order to be accepted, and to assert their individual status and so stand out. (This often means attacking the “acceptable targets” - those further to the fringes of the all-important group. Those that are different are treated with vague hostility - in the case of those that are different and *threatening*, it's no longer “vague").
One should not make the mistake of assuming that others will treat you with inherent empathy simply because you treat them in kind. If you are not of the tribe, and you dare to represent a threat to its foundational structure, nothing can save you.
Most people are incredibly conscious of their social status - again, this takes priority over any and all claimed principles, morals, and virtues. For people like me, the fact that another person is sitting at the other end of the table means nothing, inherently. We are the “Omegas”, so to speak. Even if we wanted to, we have no means by which to assert ourselves effectively, no “push” within the political framework as others understand it. We are neutral ground, we give way before the pushing of others, or flow around them like water. We nod, and smile, and apologise, and if you ask us privately we might well have a lot to say on various political and social matters, but we are *careful* and we know better - instinctively - than to assert ourselves. Ask us throughout our childhood or adolescence what is wrong, and we will smile and say "nothing". We deflect all attempts to draw from us an aggressive stance - and "help me!" is an aggressive stance. For we are not psychologically equipped to handle confrontation or any other form of societal aggression, including basic signalling - and we are acutely aware that the outsider who reads as threatening is a target.
Consider rules. Most people bend and stretch the rules for their own gain, while loudly decrying any violation from others. Thus the nature of rules is to chain the competition, and to provide a means by which community aggression can be bought to bear against those who threaten one's security and prosperity, or that of one's in-group. Rules are considered paramount in spite of the individual's own sense that
they are rightly an exception, because the absence of a framework of rules and implied communal punishment for their violation is equated with chaos, and one need only look at portrayals like that of the Shadows on
Babylon Five to understand what tribalists understand by chaos. It's not what people like myself understand by it, that's for certain. One might say that people like me are the opposite of the norm - beings of chaos who are immersed in order. I was always the most well-behaved child in school, never in trouble, never acting out. Certainly never challenging someone, never contesting their desire to apply themselves. Smile and submit. Would you walk off a cliff if someone told you to? Quite possibly, because while inside I'd think it ludicrous, the alternative is saying "no". Show me a rule and I'd follow it happily and with earnest commitment; unlike most, the understanding was that it applied to *me*, and to all other drops in the ocean simultaneously. The only difficulty I ever caused was my wilful streak, because on those generally rare occasions that I didn't accept a rule system, I'd just go my own way and not follow it. Not rebel or make a fuss, of course, just do my own thing. You can't say no, but if you have opportunity to walk away... Most people are outwardly rebellious but inwardly conformist; people like me, I maintain, are outwardly conformist and inwardly individual. We always work within the rules - unless we don’t like the rules in which case they are meaningless. The tribalist majority bucks the rules at every opportunity, but holds them sacred and inviolable all the same. Compare how the tribalist views acknowledgement or implied validation of a political perspective as shared allegiance, whereas people like me hold no allegiance and are interested in the overall shape of the system and its functionality, and not power within it (which by definition we cannot hold).
From a viewpoint like mine, and assuming lack of comprehension of how others are different, there is no legitimacy to tribal politics because there is no tribe. Error; does not compute. There is no inherent sense of being part of a structured group. There's the emotional sense of connection - which covers pretty much everyone, though obviously it’s more powerful by far with some - and there is the legal and moral framework that is established, negotiated and happily submitted to (except when it isn’t), but there is no sense of inherent allegiance. Indeed, groups are the bad guys, for they warp the community like gravity wells in the fabric of space time. Caught between the rules and tribal self-betterment, the tribalist goes with the latter, seeing rules as a framework to "catch out" others and limit the competition. Rules are for the rival, not for you. The needs of the community, which consists of individuals, will not be met when tribal group identification and affiliation - and the various social structures that are inherent there - occur.
When one is a threat to what tribalists understand by "society", the only responses one receives upon staggering into the camp and saying "help me, please" are neglect, exploitation (by which we might mean "taming", incorporation into that society on uneven terms), or hostile attack. They offer an open hand, an invitation into their house, but the understanding is that you must honour the fact that it is
their house. Charity is extended with that hand, the other conceals a knife, and that knife is ready for when the outsider says "yes, this injury came from
you, when you broke me because I am not, and never will be, one of you". One of my grandfathers, in his lengthy stint with the military, visited regions where children literally fought over scraps of discarded food. He is incapable of leaving food on his plate. No matter how unhealthy it might be, or how full he is, he cannot waste food once it is there before him, for his experience makes it impossible. From the places I have been and the experiences I have lived, I likewise cannot accept the circumstances under which my wounds might be soothed. As the song says, "well if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost".
If there's a story to
my personal history of severe depression and suicidal impulse, it's the slow realization, and acceptance, that I am non-tribalist and others are tribalist, and therefore my assumptions regarding community and social interaction are inapplicable to the wider reality. That it is arrogant to ever assume that what I believe and feel should be so, can be. Which means I should stop regretting the wounds inflicted, and accept that this is the way things are. And I am so very fortunate that, unlike most who suffer as I have (so many in this very thread, to my distress) I can answer the question, "why?".
I also hope that every "drop" here finds as much happiness and contentment as possible.
***
PS: Illustration helps. The tribal model of identification compared to what I'd label as my model. The green is the community, the yellow a tentative alliance, the dots individual people, the lines linking the dots allegiance and identification.
I have no insight I can give you having never been in your position, but I hope you feel better soon.
