The Hairy Mammoth of My Heart?
By Tripp Hudgins, obsessed with what others think of him
I was reading this article this morning on why we should stop caring what other people think of us and I just had to stop. It was too jarring a concept. Admittedly, it’s not the first time I have encountered the idea. C’mon. Of course not. Still, lately it’s been harder and harder to take.
Your Great2,000 Grandfather’s Social Survival Mammoth was central to his ability to endure and thrive. It was simple — keep the mammoth well fed with social approval and pay close attention to its overwhelming fears of nonacceptance, and you’ll be fine…Our bodies and minds are built to live in a tribe in 50,000BC, which leaves modern humans with a number of unfortunate traits, one of which is a fixation with tribal-style social survival in a world where social survival is no longer a real concept. We’re all here in 2014, accompanied by a large, hungry, and easily freaked-out woolly mammoth who still thinks it’s 50,000BC.
Why else would you try on four outfits and still not be sure what to wear before going out?
With this pithy social sciencey/anthropological gloss, I was drawn in. I wanted to know more. Yes, cultural evolution. Yep. I can dig it. But then things got rough. The descriptions of how this drives us mad hit too close to the bone. And then I started coming back to the word “survival.” Why is this Mammoth so hard to overcome? Well, it’s right there. Survival. If we do not conform, we will die. This imprint is more profound in some of us than others, I think.
You see. I want to fit in. I want to do it in a creative and fun way, a play at uniqueness, but without the approval of others, I have no sense of self. I want to do what it takes to be accepted. Acceptance means love. Love is life. It’s that simple. It’s all tangled together. Tell me how to be loved and I’ll do it. I will absolutely suppress what does not conform.
Suffice it to say that at forty-nine years of age I’m a recovering alcoholic on a psychotropic cocktail of medical miracles. That’s how this works. Yay.
Enter the “Authentic Voice.” As an academic, I find the notion of “authenticity” to be deeply problematic. I mean, what’s authenticity without an outside force judging it? And do you think you can actually escape completely the psycho-social environment as you craft your authentic self? Of course not. Anyway, I whine. Here’s the author’s opening foray.
Your Authentic Voice, somewhere in there, knows all about you. In contrast to the black-and-white simplicity of the Social Survival Mammoth, your Authentic Voice is complex, sometimes hazy, constantly evolving, and unafraid. Your AV has its own, nuanced moral code, formed by experience, reflection, and its own personal take on compassion and integrity. It knows how you feel deep down about things like money and family and marriage, and it knows which kinds of people, topics of interest, and types of activities you truly enjoy, and which you don’t. Your AV knows that it doesn’t know how your life will or should play out, but it tends to have a strong hunch about the right step to take next.
In spite of my misgivings about “the authentic,” I grok what the author is after.
And this is where I stopped reading.
My survival is at risk. I’m afraid of not doing what is expected of me. If you need something, I try to do it. The closer our relationship is, the more likely this is the case. I will tie myself in knots trying to be who you need me to be. This is what love looks like, no? Of course it is.
Note, the disparity between how I function with those I know well and those I don’t is dramatic. I have great boundaries with strangers. I have good boundaries with acquaintances and colleagues. My friendships are a confusing field of trying to make people happy and trying to be myself. My family? Damn, but that there is why I’m in therapy. They are good people, but if I’m not trying to please them then I ain’ breathin’.
So, I skipped to the end. It happens.
This post was all fun and games until “start being yourself” came into the picture. Up to now, this has been an interesting reflection into why humans care so much what other people think, why that’s bad, how it’s a problem in your life, and why there’s no good reason it should continue to plague you. But actually doing something after you finish reading this article is a whole different thing. That takes more than reflection — it takes some courage.
You ain’ kiddin, buddy. Not in the least. It takes serious courage to tell the Mammoth where to stick it. Why? Because the Mammoth is the people who love you, for whom you work, those who pay you a wage or take care of your kid because they like being grand ma, or the person you married for better or worse and the last thing you want to do is add to the already overwhelming worse.
But this here is the nasty truth: not being yourself will make things even worse than they already are. I like this image of the wooly mammoth because I can envision it destroying all the furniture in my apartment trying to follow me around. All those expectation crush everything around us under their weight.
Suffice it to say that at forty-nine years of age I’m a recovering alcoholic on a psychotropic cocktail of medical miracles. That’s how this works. Yay.
The wreckage can become comfortable, of course. We can become accustomed to the chaos and pain. We can become accustomed to the fear, depression, and self-deception. Though they are a kind of living death (Yes, you are a zombie. Mmm. Brains.), you come to love it because at least you are surviving in some fashion. You aren’t thriving, of course. I know I’m not…even though those closest to me want me to flourish. They practically beg me to make choices that support my flourishing. And yet…
I am a coward. I’m trying to overcome it, but there it is. I’m afraid of that Authentic Voice. He wants me dead. He wants me isolated from all that I love and all that protects me from the big bad world. He has no sense of self-preservation at all.
And that there is the point, no?
Yeah. I’m gonna have a pop tart and try to work myself out of this mess.
