this is maybe excessively technical language but i think the technical metaphor is quite sharp and helpful for those who have a rough sense of it. to give a more phenomenological flavor: "approach" means good feels, happiness, joy, "avoid" means bad feels, fear, disgust
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and to give a more phenomenological flavor of what i mean by avoidance being badly underspecified: if you spend a lot of time searching out new and exciting things to be afraid of and anxious about, you learn a lot about what *not* to do but not about what *to* do
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so, next, i recently finally got around to reading 's "null call" and it's really good. i was very struck by his description of the signs of potential shamanism. this bit about being "wired for danger" especially
arcove.substack.com/p/null-call
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i've seen versions of this idea elsewhere with different labels. i think "highly sensitive person" is pointing towards the same thing, as is gabor mate's analysis of ADHD, and i think "sensitive" is the word i want for now, it's descriptive and doesn't have too much baggage
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so, let's imagine that there is some kind of "sensitivity" spectrum along which people can vary, with probably a large genetic component. sensitive children will be impacted more by anything that happens to them, good or bad; they feel it more, they "overupdate" on it
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there is a particular thing that i think happens when something bad happens to a sensitive child, which i had previously been using the word "trauma" to describe but i think that word is increasingly loaded with baggage so i want to try a different tack for now
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so instead i want to thread in another idea / frame i got from , sarah peyton's "unconscious contracts." there are other ways you could talk about this like schemas, i like this language because it feels respectful and true to the experience
sarahpeyton.com/category/how-t
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ah yeah i like that phrasing. ken kesey apparently talked about “breaking the script” too?
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god what i wouldn’t give to have been alive then. one of the top places i’d want to visit with a time machine