From: alpinist@eskimo.celestial.com (David Butler)
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas Ashers!
Organization: =>ESKIMO NORTH (206) 367-3837 SEATTLE, WA.<=
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 02:56:23 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.150945.15862@news.cs.brandeis.edu> rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:

>Control freaks obsessed with their illusion of choice in every matter
>concerning their own actions are deluded and at least annoying.
>They extract through oral vacuum pressure the liquid bits from dung.

     Well, personally I'm about as far from a control freak as one can
get.  Mostly go by live and let live.  I can see from your post why you
dont like the blanket statement "you choose how you feel" because of the
implicit assumption one might make from that "anyone who feels bad wants to
feel that way and so should be ignored or even derided".  Sorry but I don't
subscribe to the connection.  When I say one chooses how they feel I don't
mean 100% of the time or in response to every situation that occurs in
the day by day course of every life.  But there is great benifit to realizing
that if one makes the effort to change from being a constantly reactive
black box (stimulous - response) to trying to stop the automatic reaction
and put in a little hesistancy, a little thought in between, to create a
stimulous - choice - response reaction as part of their regular repertoire
they may find that they are better in control of themselves, their situations,
and their feelings.
     My post was in response to someone who was going on how bad situations
mean that one must necessarily feel bad, and if you perceive that you have
tried as much as you think you can then you have tried everything and 
you can then drop into a morass of hopelessness.  If you are continuously
feeling terrible, or laying importance on the negative situations you
find yourself in then yes, I do claim that is a matter of choice.  But
you are right that one doesn't control every feeling that comes across
their mind or their reaction to every single circumstance (your short
term reaction anyway).

>People who claim that they control everything they feel through choice are
>nasty when hurt.  Rather than saying "ouch" They say "I choose to accent the
>positive.  I choose to feel fine.  Its ok, dogone it."  Then in
>their actions and attitudes, they take out their hurt and anger sideways
>on whoever is around them, then saying that if that person reacts
>to their unconscious attack that the person is inferior for not 
>exerecising their "choice" to ignore the attack.  The world is reduced
>to a series of inputs and outputs, stimuli and response, a map to be navigated.
>They have become experts on map navigation, but are lost in the actual 
>territory because they ignore any part of reality, even within themselves,
>which does not match their map ("_everything_ I feel is my choice").
>They either make what they feel fit their views else they deny it.  The best 
>way to deny is to take it out on someone else unconsciously.

    There are certainly people like this but this is nothing like how I
would react to a situation.  But it does fall into your belief that belief in
choice = control freak.

>  The 
>most successful at this strategy fall into a class people 
>best termed as "Bliss Ninnies" who filter out everything negative 
>(_especially_ the parts they have generated themselves) from their 
>conscious perceptions, like children who think they become invisible
>when they close their eyes.  

    Well, your getting closer on this one.  I am hardly in a constant state
of bliss.  (Hey, I do lurk around on ASH) We all have our negative traits.
I do tend to ignore things I don't like until they go away.   And I am quite
adept at making myself socially invisible.
    
>Of course, you could choose to take the positive from this situation and 
>not get pissed about it, but you'll probably kick a dog when
>no one is looking, or more likely, try to "help" a person whose
>down by shouting at them to feel better while whining a series of 
>"Why" questions which are totally condescending.  I mean reallyt, 
>if ypou have all the answers ( and they are all "choice"), what are you 
>doing here?  "Helping" those less fortunate than yourself?  You aren't a 
>counseler-in-training I hope.  Probably not--just someone with all the answers.

    No, to all of the above.

>BTW, I do believe that some of how I feel is a matter of choice, but my life
>has gotten really screwed up as a result of buying into someone else's
>beliefs that resemble those you expressed.  Itsa a mindfuck when 
>someone gains your trust and then screws you over and then tells you
>that its your "choice" to view it as a positive experience and that is the only
>healthy choice, and totally believes in the rightness of what they are saying.

     Yes, people screwing you over is one of the negative aspects of life.
You do choose how you are going to react to and feel about their actions -
and very much you are not obligated to like what they do or feel the way
they say you are supposed to feel or react.  Thinking that they are not
worth liking or hanging around with is a totally legitimate reaction in such
an instance.  If they are control freaks and you don't like that then certainly
you don't have to buy into their views.   And I never said that choosing
how you feel is the same as viewing a negative experience as a positive one
that would certainly NOT be a healthy choice.

>I wish I could put a smiley thing here somewhere, but I think not.
>Obviously, somne of my anger is not directed at your post, but at 
>other people, who I "chose" not to be angry at until I ended up in 
>the hospital from all that anger and hurt tht I "didn't have."  Of
>course, the people who taught me this won,derful coping tactic are quite
>wealthy and happy.  They deal with it by occasionally wrecking people's 
>homes, shooting people, driving people to suicidal behavior (some successful)
>and oh yeah, most important, denying all this to themselves and others, 
>"choosing" instead to look at only the positive. Chickenfuckers.

     Bummer that you may have sought help from such people.  Yes control
freak do like to set themselves up in positions of authority where they can
dictate law unto others.
     My origional post was just an attempt to show that there are other ways
of looking at things and that it is a matter of personal choice.  Whenever
someone comes along with an even partially positive message on this group
I've noticed a number of replies that tend to be defensively negative.  Many
of the people are hanging onto their unpleasant feelings and beliefs and
react as if they really don't want that to change - and then try to argue
that they have no choice in the matter.  You get used to feeling bad then
it becomes comfortable and familiar and changing (even for the positive) is
so unfamiliar that it becomes threatening so people put up a smokescreen of
denial or rationalization so that they can continue to feel bad, while not
pleasant is at least predictable and they are used to it.
      I do not subscribe to the theory of Cognitive / Behaviorism that claims
that every emotion we feel is a result of our cognitions.  But our general
reactions and overall feelings over time are a matter of choice and our own
personal lifestyles and decisions.  I have found that the Cognitists have
created some very useful tools for trying to get ahold of and mapping change.
But those are hardly the be all and end all.
      There are as many different ways of approaching a problem as there are
people (even more).  You have to find what is comfortable for you and more
importantly what actually seems to work for you.  If you continue to feel bad
over a long period of time and continually finding yourself see things only in
a negative light, then there are other ways of looking at things and there
are other ways of trying to change.  At that point (over the long run) your
lifestyle and the way you feel has indeed become a matter of your own choices.
      You don't have control over everything that happens outside of you (in
fact over very little of it.)  You don't have control over every single emotion
that flits across your mind or every single reaction you display to every 
single situation you find yourself in.  But you can make your perceptions be
majority positive if you want to work on it, you can make your reactions
in the majority controlled and helpful (or otherwise usefully positive), and
you can make the majority of your feelings be positive.  That choice is
entirely up to you.
      I didn't claim it would be easy and simple.  I didn't claim that you
have to behave according to any strict standards or see things as I want you
to.  And I didn't claim that anyone who feels bad or is in a bad situation
is in any way inferior.  But I did say, and still havent changed my mind, that
you choose how you feel and you choose how you react to others and situations.

-- 
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* Dave                          *               The Alpinist               *
* alpinist@eskimo.celestial.com *            DARE to be stoopid!           *
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