Sunday, October 14, 2007

Mental Forms

Humans model their parents and other social beings into the perfect form for that slot. We all may come out modeling our father on 'the father', expecting him to be that image, and negotiating the differences between that image and the likeness we perceive and experience. These negotiations are destabilizations, and can affect our ideal form, or our perception of the person, or our perception of the kinds of actions that the person does. We then sometimes transfer those assumptions about actions performed onto other people who do those actions.

It may be a good choice to stop trying to place flawed people into perfect forms. Most people do not have perfectly formed mothers and fathers, sisters, coworkers and bosses. Begin rejecting the portions of others that are imperfect, rather than negotiating them to perfection.

If others do not know how to behave, let that be a piece of knowledge in itself. "Son: This man is not a perfect father form. I don't need to model myself after him nor do I need to respect him as though he were. I will continue to model myself after the perfect father form as I want to be and work with this man to the extent that is appropriate."

So the chair. If your chair is not perfect, do not approach it as such. You do not have a problem recognizing that your chair is imperfect. But we do have emotional attachments to humans, and sometimes to special chairs that make us want to work with those humans and chairs to make them better. Some chairs we should throw. Some we should take artistic advisory from for new chairs. Some are good.