#3 - It's not you, it's us.

Resisting the trap of Third-Order Suffering.

Sep 29, 2024

Just a quick note before I move on to telling the story of how this theoretical project became painfully autobiographical: I want to return to a line from the last post:

“We cannot shame our way out of this.”

Image description: Sullen men in kinky shoes self-flagellating.

One of the concepts I’ll unpack as this develops is “Third-Order Suffering” — the idea that the system we live in has taught us that “because we have all we need to thrive” when life turns to shit, it’s usually because we’ve made bad choices. And even if we haven’t, it’s still entirely our responsibility, our problem to solve.

“After all, everyone is responsible for their own problems,
why should you be burdened by other’s ineptitude?
Of course, you, too, are responsible for your own crises.
Surely they are your fault.
don’t you have everything you need to flourish?
Sorry, that sounds mean.
Some of them aren’t entirely your fault.
I know they landed like an unwanted package at the wrong address.
Sadly, honey, they’re still yours.
They belong to you now,
and so are yours to solve,
to project manage,
to fossick for help where you can find it.”

What this misses is that we live in a large series of interconnected systems — all of which have an impact on how we live. While I’m all for healthy levels of personal responsibility, even the context in which we learn to ask for help, seek wisdom, and, where necessary, acknowledge our mistakes should not be the domain of an autonomous individual but a community of care.

There are reasons we do not all have collective life on hand — which I’ll get to — but in the meantime, I want to make it abundantly clear that the point of “Congratulations!” is not to make you think, “I really should do better”, but to help you see that these are very common experiences.

It’s not you. It’s us. We make choices about our lives in a context that we did not create but that we can shape.

We can’t shame ourselves out of this. There are very good reasons that so many of us resonate with lines from that poem (which will hopefully become clear in the coming weeks). And the reasons are not because we’re terrible people who are too incompetent to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

The only way out of this cycle begins with understanding why things are this way and exploring kinder, more hopeful possibilities. From there, we can start changing the stories we tell about ourselves, each other and the world.

Perhaps this process will inspire us to take brave risks, begin the process of Retethering, and offer courage to each other as we do so. But if all we get by seeing ourselves in this poem is a dose of humiliation and a kick up the ass to try harder, we’re falling into the same trap that got us here in the first place. There is a toxic mythology that undergirds our being in the world — you didn’t invent it, but we can resist it.

Please, put down the whip. This is an invitation to kindness, compassion and hopeful curiosity, not self-flagellation.

Take care,

Shane.

If you already have too many subscriptions, but want to support my writing as a one off, a lovely way to do that is:

Buy Me a Coffee or Beer.