Re: K's point

[MarkMos1]

In a message dated 4/3/2002 10:48:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: mark: When the attempt to change is willful, as in getting rid of bad habits, there is inner conflict. The me that wants to be without is battling against the me that is the habit. That is a painful process, and quite limited. As we know from smokers, drug users, alcoholics, obese dieters, no matter how hard they try to be free, that inner battle rages on. gv: that has not been my experience. I smoked for 10 years and tried very hard to stop and after a long struggle, all desire for cigarettes ended. I don't dispute that it may be possible to quit all at once. But it is unlikely as the body has to get accustomed to being without nicotine. That is just an example. There are many others. mark: Of course people utilize struggle to change. But it is questionable how effective it is, even if we discount the effects that the struggle is having on the psyche (which often feed the need for the habit, or leads to other disorders). Research shows that rates of recidivism are very high for smoking, alcohol, drugs, obesity. And even if the behavior does not return, there may be an ongoing battle for decades. This is not because of a physical need, but because of the psychological causes of the addiction. I closely observed how a good friend tried for many years to stop smoking, going from one remedy to the next, but it all failed. Even the onset of emphesima, and the realization that she is going to die from it, did not stop her for long. She died two years ago. To me and to her family it was obvious that there were psychological issues that were preventing her from stopping, and not the physical discomfort of the withdrawal. On the other hand, my father smoked for many years. Around 1960 he became aware of the harmful effects of smoking. On that same day he stopped, and has never smoked again. I can still remember  the day he stopped, how shocked he was at what he had been doing to himself. gv: so you advise people to keep smoking, drinking, etc until there is a total insight and the harmful activity stops without effort? Why not stop damaging behavior now even if there is some discomfort for a while? In that way you may live long enough to have a few penetrating insights. Or you may not . mark: I don't advise people to keep smoking. I explain why it is important to look at why they are smoking, to understand it first hand. And I feel it is important to attempt to stop, or reduce it, though it may not work. This connects up with the importance of social or political action, though that too may not work, in that the psychological causes of the problems continue. But there is a question here that I would appreciate if we could look at together. Is the struggle to change ourselves or the world contributing to the problem? Isn't it the same movement of inner conflict that is causing the problems to begin with? Is it possible that the smoker is making the problem worse by resisting the smoking? That this is deepening the inner conflicts that have given rise to the need for the smoking, that this is deepening the insensitivity that block sensing the effects that smoking is having on the body? Similarly, is it possible that in attempting to change society, there is a strengthening of that which we are attempting to change? Is all this energy for change feeding into the social disorder, fragmentation, the separation of me and the world, that has brought about the problem?