You see my friends; you are bombarded with so much Information input in just one second of your lives that it is hard to filter out what is important and what is not etc etc etc. Therefore, we are hard wired to abstract out that information by associating it with earlier experiences, before reacting to it, and storing it. That abstraction process is called "gestalting" and that process can overlook a lot of important information. Hence every experience, is iconically converted into thought forms even before we act on them and give them conscious meaning.
Did you ever think of your life as a novel or series of stories? Obviously, those stories affect you as you are writing them; and they also affect others as they are writing their own life stories or novels; which in turn affect your novel; and so it goes.
Hence, the question we have to ask ourselves is what kind of stories, or novels yield healthy, rich, and meaningful outcomes for those whom we interact with as well as ourselves.
From this standpoint we are all out of contact with Reality" because it is impossible to enfold reality. So in that sense we are all relatively insane; but there are healthy insanities, and horrid insanities and all the shades of gray in between.
I think it is weird that all we living novels-- that we who live together with, and whose lives are interpenetrating each other -- are constantly revising some of our stories while letting others get moldy.
It my belief, a healthy story is not a matter of its content but a matter of its process, being in cooperative harmony with reality--e.g., we do not conquer Mt. Everest and get to the top; instead, we cooperate correctly with Mt. Everest and get to the top.
Think how different two lives will be if one is grounded in the idea of conquering, and the other is based on cooperating. In this context a good story to contemplate is--"a tree that bends with the wind survives it." However, like all other insights it is a metaphor. Therefore, one should not be attached to it. We should be able to tailor our stories, or even let go of the to fit the circumstances.
How can that latter point be? Well sometimes, we get very confused. One instant, I can immediately think of is confusing helping and cooperating. Furthermore, we can make the mistake of confusing helping with kindness. Sounds all right but in fact, that amalgam can cause to reinforce the worse habits and addictions in people we love. Sometimes the best thing we can do for someone, when we tried many other alternatives to no avail, is to leave them to work out their own problems. Your help and cooperation in dealing with their difficulties may be the very thing that prevents them from changing, revising, and altering their perceptions to change them selves.
If your story is one of cooperation, don't get confused. How for instance can you know when to withdraw and stop helping someone? How can you know if your help is crippling them even more? Well if you have been helping them, for a long time and they keep being self-defeating or self destructive; and If they disintegrating even more, over the long run, that's the signal to withdraw your help or what you think is help. You are probably just providing them the circumstances where they can better pursue the same negative path, thereby helping them weaken rather than strengthen.
I myself am a pragmatist. I measure and validate my beliefs and stories in terms of the results they produce. If the results continue to be negative and I have varied my behavior in every-which-way: I find it is time to refine my story, possibly create a new one, or get off the battlefield. For the content of out stories and the processing of it must be harmonious, and produce the results your story implies or other unpredictable good results. Remember, your story and its correlated action affect not only you but every one else especially those who identify and are very attached to you.
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