{"id":598,"date":"2024-04-21T14:06:43","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T18:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=598"},"modified":"2024-04-21T14:06:43","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T18:06:43","slug":"the-root-of-all-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=598","title":{"rendered":"The Root of All Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"

So it is Sunday, the Leafs have already charted their course to ignominy, and the Jays game isn\u2019t on for another few hours. It is Sunday, and in another headspace, I might be sitting and \u2018listening\u2019 to pronouncements from a pulpit. It is Sunday, and in yet another life, I might be suiting up for the long cycle or run of the week. It is Sunday and in the current iteration, a time for reflection. . . and trying to make sense of the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019re rioting in Africa,<\/i><\/p>\n

There\u2019s strife in Iran,<\/i><\/p>\n

What nature doesn\u2019t do to us<\/i><\/p>\n

Will be done by our fellow man!<\/i><\/p>\n

The \u2018Merry Minuet\u2019, penned now some 75 years ago and popularized in song by the Kinston Trio 25 years later (the Kingston who??), the tune may, just may continue to resonate. No need to even search and replace<\/i> \u2014 pretty much a constant state. Civil War <\/i>has just hit the big screen (as they used to be called) \u2018documenting\u2019 the warring of rival factions in a \u2018near-future<\/i>\u2019 US, following secession of various states. This time with no \u2018altruistic\u2019 justification \u2014 just another p______ contest, vying for power and control. Just another polarized lose-lose. Well those are all very jolly thoughts!<\/p>\n

It is Sunday and, by some prescriptive observances, a time to suss out the roots of all <\/i>(this) evil <\/i>(at least until the game comes on). Depending on how far down this particular rabbit hole one wishes to dig, a dozen or so centuries should do it. So the Seven Deadlies<\/i>, it turns out are not the brain children of Thomas Aquinas \u2014 but he did do a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to explicating (psychobabble for mansplaining) the dynamics of same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seems evil is, well, a non-thing<\/i>. Lest Brother Tom be dismissed with a wry \u2018oh really!\u2019, his point is, in 13th century monk-speak, evil is \u2018the privation of good\u2019. Good (again, recalling what day it is, God with a spare \u2018o\u2019) is the thing;<\/i> and it follows that doing bad s____ is the failure to do good stuff. There, that\u2019s all cleared up!<\/p>\n

Climbing out of the rabbit warren (or maybe just doing a little sideways burrowing), I thought I\u2019d have a look at the evil rankings \u2014 less of a mouthful than \u2018non-good rankings\u2019. A bit like picking a political pole to see who tops the list. Seems my fave, is generally pretty far down in the stats \u2014 like batting in the low \u2018200\u2019s\u2019. . . on the team, but not a heavy hitter. Wrath<\/i> (as Tom would put it) bats 6th, ahead of only Sloth<\/i> \u2014 but who could expect much more from a sin that looks like it spends its day sleeping.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the risk of dissing the front end of the batting order, I\u2019ve come to see Wrath as a pretty main actor \u2014 you can field a team with no right fielder \u2014 but sooner or later some left handed, pull hitter will drop a fly ball out there. And then where would you be?<\/p>\n

So with apologies to Greed, Lust, Gluttony and the rest of the big boys, I\u2019ve promoted Wrath \u2014 or what I\u2019ve come to deem Reactivity<\/i> to hit cleanup (I\u2019ll let the baseball metaphor go soon, I promise). Like anger (aka, wrath) this is a \u2018secondary emotion\u2019, one that rides piggy back on other \u2018primary\u2019 ones. Our cleanup<\/i> emotion\u2019s job (now 4th in the lineup!) is to take advantage of the table that\u2019s been set; to \u2018single in\u2019 the potential runs on the bases, to consolidate \u2014 to justify its existence. Can\u2019t you just read all that grand rhetoric between the autocratic lines?<\/p>\n

So, if we buy into the pontif<\/i>ications (how many metaphoric tunnels is too many?), and consider the rest of Old Tom\u2019s ruminations, there are some situations where Wrath \/ Reactivity is justified. In Sunday-speak, it might be deemed \u2018righteous anger\u2019. The trick, of course, is being clear about the bright line that divides this OK losing of one\u2019s s____ from its much more ubiquitous buddy, common garden vengeance<\/i>. And perhaps sparing a thought for OT\u2019s flip side of the 7 Deadly coin \u2014 the other<\/i> list (much less titillating, and popular), the seven Heavenly Virtues (it is Sunday): the non-things<\/i> of Wrath\/anger\/reactivity counterbalanced by the things<\/i>, Patience\/compassion\/forgiveness. (Hmm, where is this all going?)<\/p>\n

A significant part of my week is spent exploring the roots of and implications for reactive responding<\/i>. In common parlance, forgetting to engage brain before opening mouth. Or worse, not even being aware that mouth may need a bit of a governor. As a balm for all this ensuing noise and friction, I\u2019ll spend even more of my week banging on about pause buttons and (wait for it) interoception \u2014 pulling back all that invigorating and \u2018righteous\u2019 bile and focusing on one\u2019s own physical state. To take a page from Tom\u2019s vellum, and much (much) older wisdom, flipping Wrath on its head and inserting a few seconds of, well, nothing<\/i> (\u2018equanimity\u2019 if we really need to put a word to it). Then making an informed, intentional call. One last allusion: checking one\u2019s swing, laying off the pitch out of the strike zone, taking the \u2018walk\u2019 \u2014 literally.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what\u2019s that sound \u2014 ah, yes that distinctive lyric: Take me out to the ball game. . . So here endeth the homily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So it is Sunday, the Leafs have already charted their course to ignominy, and the Jays game isn\u2019t on for another few hours. It is Sunday, and in another headspace, I might be sitting and \u2018listening\u2019 to pronouncements from a pulpit. It is Sunday, and in yet another life, I might be suiting up for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}