WAS-INFO extra 3

Information Service by Siebel

Bahnhofstr.41 - 65185 Wiesbaden

Germany

Tel.: +49 611 302432 / FAX: +49 611 302434

Just for fun two examples:

The first one: “The Missing Ingredient”

(another example: the offended-line: The Art of Touchy Reactions)

The Missing Ingredient

A Contribution to Problems in Partnerships

by Walter Alfred Siebel

In general we rarely consider our body with especially large interest, unless it makes itself conspicuous in an unpleasant way. Otherwise we prefer treating it like the objects, which we treat embarrassedly or take them for granted. We look at an object, identify it and say for example “aha! a coffee-pot”. We consider that it is favorable, if coffee is found in this pot, to close the lid in order to keep the coffee warm. We have this way of dealing with the coffee-pot relatively experienced in our repertory of behavior. Minor deviations, whether for example we deal with a coffee-pot out of parcelaine or with a thermos container, are for our routines only minor modulations, they do not pose us a problem, they are only a kind of challenge to make certain small changes of our routine programs.

Now we assume, we would be at home and would suddenly feel like drinking tea. Then the program “tea - drinking” runs, a certain practical program or ritual under inclusion of (determined, therefore trained) motor and rational conditions. We must move there, where we would like to prepare the tea. In so far our motor activity is involved already directly at the start. Occasionally disturbances now appear in the program. Each error message, which appears now, annoyingly needs a personal position. A message of error puts therefore, if you want so, a demand, that I bring forth (express) my opinion, take position, reveal myself.

If I find out, that the ingredients for making tea should be missing, but that I am just now “unable” (perhaps I would not like?) to go shopping, then in general a bodily sensation of the unpleasant kind is switched on to it. What however has to do this bodily sensation of personal disturbance with the missing ingredient? From the set of circumstances of the missing ingredient does not logically follow vexation, that means, it needs a decision to annoy me or others. I disclose a retraction

(a mentally intendable change of my state into an “unpleasant” direction, mostly apparently spontaneously appearing):

Attention! Anger! Transvaluate! Transvaluate is to be understood here as part of a psychological recycling. This has as requirement the identification of person and matter. We can (do not have to, however) identify us with our behavior or with any other circumstance or with a circumstance, in order to subsequently confuse us with it, then. The missing ingredient can thus be integrated in our (because of the error message: Tea is missing) vexation - program started as retraction, so that it runs down almost like by itself: We do somehow not feel right (without the tea, or because of the fact, that it is missing). We here have to do with a negation, but we have also in fact to do with a missing ingredient, so to say, with a gap, which we can fill with a negation of its own. For there, where previously stood the tea, an empty place looks at us. 

Well now, a gap wants to be filled. It stands in the room (pardon: in the closet) and demands a content. There are two possibilities to answer this demand: either we wait, whether somebody else is found, who now fills the gap, or we would like to fill the gap personally.

After the former the Nevada - model follows, here modified into waiting for the automatic filling of the empty place with our tea of desire - or considered from the point of view of household: the innerfamiliar slave trade.

After the second the necessity follows to decide again, when we want to go shopping. For, if we want to drink tea now, we would have to start now the program 'shopping', logically. Before I consider this program, once more to the theme of the gap.

A gap can have an evident form. The evident form is the empty place in the closet. In any case this form limits our wish of starting activity and already stops the tea - program at the very beginning. The motor energy is braked abruptly, it can be transformed now - for example into vexations or, what - ironically with regard to this article - anybody else may prevent, into the animation

(a mentally intendable change of my state toward “pleasant”, apparently never spontaneously appearing):

Insight with the following start of the shopping - program. But things really should not go so simply in every day life.

Since we must accomplish this purchase - program however in any case, for it could be, that we perceive sometime once more the wish for tea, we must decide however, in order to be able to appropriately grant us then the fine real treat of a cup of tea, to go with the vexation and if necessary with the legs or drive by car to the teashop. We could of course, if we just now do not feel like vexations, transform the energy into a kind of mental alertness (vigilance). A smiling, clear cheerful face needs the activity of only 14 muscles. Annoyance consumes the just named motor energy also through activation of very much more muscles, as claims the animation of insight, corresponding with efforts of support (supply for the cell activities, food etc.), a sad look - possibly representable as crabbed mood with the 8 chewing muscles. Annoyance activates at least 34 active muscle parts, which want to be nourished likewise, and then this can still be raised by including the muscles of the neck, if necessary still more “southern” excursions of the back up to the small of the back (that because of the missing ingredient aches). Thereby we then reach at least 52 groups of muscles (if necessary still more) unlike the 14. Providing these 52 muscle-groups or -organisations of course needs quantitatively much more regeneration than the supply of only 14 muscles, that means: Sadness, doggedness, holding ones napes stiffly, being annoyed is a powerful work.

Gather, on whose payroll this work is registered? According to the zeal facing this work it digs its signs into the face, so to speak. It takes some years of activity and professional experience, but then this work is not to be surveyed any more. Now we know (both from the muscular as well as the mental point of view), which effects vexations could achieve, and unfortunately vexations do not follow directly logically from the set of circumstances of the missing ingredient. This means, there are activities in our life practice, which we accomplish - with routine -, without that we contribute to them particular mental wakefulness or would have to practise a particular show of affects, as long as no error message emerges.

Now I would like to proceed on the assumption gladly, that actually in each moment of our every day life the genuine feeling of self-finding and also the feelable situation of freedom transforming itself into movements are omnipresent and can be physiologically active undisturbed. Self-finding as a feeling steps only then into our every day consciousness, if it appears to be missing. As long as we have a condition of no disturbance, we can not even differentiate between self-finding and the condition of thalamic contentment, in which an internal settlement exists between outside world and inner world, between that, which I would have to and that, which I do not need and that, which I expect. As long as this settlement is there, we know this condition as absentation of disturbances. If the disturbance appears however, we notice ourselves as acutely limited in our freedom, for we must now get the tea. We can now confuse the logical consequence of the “must” with pressure, do not at all feel in a state of self-finding, but torn out of our internal contentment. Self-finding is felt then, if the missing ingredient disturbs our state of sensation not decisively.

Well now, we could admit this mental wakefulness, possibly also clarity of consciousness (lucidity), joined with the knowledge that this empty place in the closet now does not present a subjective threat, because a gap is not even a ghost, which could frighten us. We could therefore start now the purchase-program, but indeed we must say, that the individual personal history of opinion with regard to the missing ingredient correlates highly with our personal history of opinion with regard to that, which we occasionally understand by self-finding or freedom. And this can be fed in huge variety by our familiar, social experience and can present all kinds of peculiarities. We then are the poor (sweet, little) vis-a-vis of this line of development and must now even deal with the offers of the results of our primary socialisation (in addition to the missing ingredient!). We mark: We often do not even notice, in which catastrophic conditions we move around, as soon as we progress on the way to want to care for supply ourselves. A sigh to the wailing-syndrome (“lamentation, ululation”).

Naturally the experienced ways of interaction also play an important role. Who has for example in the familiy of origin made the tea? This person is missing right now. I could place myself in the said room called kitchen, and say: “Yes, now our maid Gisela is missing”. In the logical consequence I would have to get hold of her now, so that I can drink tea. There the vexation because of the missing ingredient probably is the slighter effort.

By the way the German language to the semantic field of “missing” (“fehlen”) has attributed also the possible meaning of committing an error, making a mistake, sin, become guilty etc. The sentence “Gisela is missing” can mean much more. Is it possibly her fault, that I do not get to enjoy a cup of tea?

Naturally in this situation of the view at the empty room in the closet there remains sufficient scope for decisions, to bring us either in an animative or in a retractive way into a certain mood. Even when we notice vexation coming up, we could still correct that, but who would like to miss such a favorable chance? Naturally also the danger exists with the purchase - program to transform the vexation into fun now, because perhaps it is quite pleasant to walk a few steps around the block and possibly meet somebody in the tea-shop for a little chat.

But for this article is it now more favorable in our exploration to further observe that phenomenon, which is settled more on the retractive side of our every day routine and appears possibly for some quite attractive. Therefore: We can refuel with annoyance and still make additional experiences: that the traffic is impossible; that today they all drive again dreadfully, or that in the tea-shop just now there is such a crowd and we just now again are in such a hurry. Until we get to the tea, we have to process still various difficulties and to overcome hurdles of the life-practical kind. How will the tea taste then after all this?

But before we look at the shopping - program, I must pass some theoretical additional remarks upon this true-to-life theme to also document with it my level of education relating to this, which in view of the missing ingredient - remember the gap in the closet - presents a tremendous challenge.

Into the period of the begins of mankind until the first preparation of tea I would not like to enter now in detail. I begin at the modern times, at Descartes. With his thinking the philosophy of the modern times is supposed to have begun and thus also to have been put the new age basis of science. We know Descartes of the sentence “ I think, therefore I am.” This sentence is taken over formally at all aversions and is conveyed then not really in the cartesian sense to some variations.

For example: “I feel it so, therefore is it so”. “I see it so, therefore is it so. Or more shortly: “I just see it this way.” “It is just so”. The “it” does not stand for that phenomenon out of psychoanalysis, but as substitute for each other desirable word. From it could follow: “I notice vexations, therefore it is also annoying, that the ingredient is missing.”

The seeming self-evidence of these aversive sensations serves to guarantee our sight of our personal worth. We are entitled to the claim, that there always shall be tea. We cope with the worldly tasks by producing a conception of world. The clarification of the question of guilt outside along with the paranoid constructed evidence of distrust - “who has taken the tea?” - let us fancy to be secure of what so ever. The set of circumstances of the 'missing ingredient' accuses us now indeed of a failure. Have I (complete: perhaps) forgot to buy tea? I have just passed by the tea-shop. Should I have thought at it?...

At this variant we can imagine as we fall upon us and say: “Today you are incredibly stupid again.” The belonging to the species homo stupidus stupidus appears then to be prooved. This accusation, substantially recognizable by the missing ingredient, however not only needs the kitchen as combat arena, but also demands immediate jejoinder of accusation (no misprint!), a speech for the defense in this case.

If we should own (like this is the case with me) no sufficient legal knowledge in order to proceed according to the code of civil procedure (if necessary also according to the code of criminal procedure if perhaps a criminal law should have been hurt), this gap in our knowledge does not bother us just there now, we proceed according to the learned code of laws and the learned standardizations (in the childhood home there were sufficient possibilities of experience up to house arrest as substitute for penal institutions).

The securing tendency requires the transformation of freedom into force. I am now forced by the missing ingredient (or more philosophically: thrown on the existential need of the encounter with a notbeing). The set of circumstances now has no more simply the shopping - program as logical consequence, so the word “must” would be understood right, but the sensation comes over us to have been subdued by a hard fate.

At the formulation it is to be paid very exact attention to it, that abstract nouns by their subjectification turn at least into accomplices (the situation, the chance, the sensation), that also the fate, if necessary, can be marked as accessorily guilty.

The biological requirements for the application of logic, so the simultaneousness of thinking and feeling be marked, allow the very simple doing to tune in humour; but who has a chance for this in this limitedness! The biological requirements for the application of logic become transvaluated for the transformation of the logical consequence of the “must” into the pressure to be victorious against the provocation of the missing ingredient and against its empty place, with following blockage of feeling freedom. The constructed sight of the conception of world with the guarantee of our personal worth plus the psychological recycling under transformation of the must into pressure opens then the passionistic way of interacting (the readiness to suffer with passion) with the otherwise so uncomplicated shopping- program. We march out to teach fear to the hard fate, we will carry home the tea as trophy of victory and convey it also, for victory’s sake, to a totally different enjoyment.

The moralistic confusion of the person with the set of circumstances of the 'missing ingredient' is based on the basic idea, that the person be there for the tea. For to guarantee the Weltanschauung (the personal view of the world) the person must bestow itself to the tea. For also we are there for others and other things, as a morally flawless philosophy of life says and how certain religious institutions demand of us. This equally counts then naturally also facing the tea. For securing the conception of world that “I am here in this world for somebody or somewhat else” I must therefore bestow myself to this tea for the purpose of preparation. Moralism teaches now, that this grant is something good for the tea, as a theory on charity explains to us. The vexation - program can be started however only with this moralism-program. For, if I do something for an other human being, then I can well expect, that he or she also kindly deals with me accordingly, instead of for example simply not being there, if I need him or her.

Our saying yes to the tea-ness of the tea means, that the tea would like to say yes to its consumption. Moralism not only demands deficits of the tea in its existence (tea is only then good tea, if it is drunk also), but also its being at hand, so that those who want to do something good for the tea, are in the position to do so (and because of the doing good perhaps also receive a halo). Moralism expects this yes tacitly, without large expense, so that the tea’s deficits (not yet to have been drunk) can be filled out of charity.

I however allow myself an objection to it, if we transfer this tea-ologie to the human being: To say yes to the humaneness of the human being is misjudged in moralism as saying yes to the deficits in the human, which the good human being covers, without officially asking for his personal profit.

We could think now: I am human, in that I let the tea be there for me. This does not sound so moral, but instead anthropologically more sure. For what I let be there for me in its manner of being, can not be my enemy. Here a solution is perceptible, free of violence, for partnership problems (if necessary even globally applicable). This means I am a human being. Full stop. The tea is a tea. Full stop. And I will see, how I deal with this set of circumstances. Naturally the acceptance of the tea as tea correlates also highly with the thirst for the same. This is, however, an expressed amoral, but also a regenerative measure and outlook. I dismiss or let my wish for quenching my thirst and bring it into the preparing-programm. This is relying on external impulses, differently expressed, we ourselves are relying on it, that a package with tea is available, if we would like to drink tea.

The set of circumstances of the 'missing ingredient' now however brings this discussion to the crisis, for it can be interpreted in a way, as this reliance had been transformed into dependence. This negative look interprets the set of circumstances of the missing ingredient as personal need, the authorship of the need must be clarified. Thereby reality however gets out of sight. With it we split the world in us even into two realities, I want to say: suddenly we have in our head two realities for the one world, in which we live. The reality of the missing ingredient is the one, which we can accept as such without that, and the idea to be in need, because the ingredient is missing. Now symptoms appear in such a way, that thought insertion is experienced. We suddenly hear worrying voices in our heads, immediately mutism touches us. Silence, because the tea is missing and one may not be addressed, so that not the least spark may call forth still a broader explosion. Aggressive potential, which then also even lowers the threshhold of vulnerability, that means we become more irritable.

These symptoms are some of those, which in psychopathology are described as plus-symptoms at schizophrenia. Now luckily we experience a certain generosity in our society, so that we are not immediately hospitalized because of the demonstrated behavior with the missing ingredient tea. A certain measure of madness appears in our culture even to be desired.

Let us now take to the following: We leave out ourselves and with it this risky “we” and speak of two persons, they are to be called Adam and Bertha.

Adam does not feel himself as in a good mood. He would like now to quench his thirst with the help of loving grant of Bertha. What is the difference now between the tea and Bertha? The tea belongs to the material foods. The loving grant of Bertha, therefore not Bertha herself, belongs to the atmospheric nourishments. Assumed Bertha be busy now. Now there is for Adam the set of circumstances of the 'missing ingredient' with the same possibilities, as already demonstrated. Already for the job with the tea’s sake is made use of children or other participants at the familiar housing community. Now however the question arises, to what extent Adam’s wish facing Bertha is morally blameless. After supremely judicial jurisdiction of the Federal Supreme Court by 1967 is conceded to each husband the right of joyful presentation of the atmospheric nourishments in all internal “drival” relevancies by his wife. Indeed for the attentive observeress of this chain of thoughts however arises the question, how could then the same right be accorded to her, due to article 7 in the Constitutional Law, because of the stated equality of man and woman, since it is well known, that an invitation of the directive kind “get going, come here” normally leads to soon exhaustion of the man, so that the enjoyment stays away. From that can only follow however, that the performance of atmospheric nourishment through grant according to need is morally blameless and that it is altogether only the man’s wish for grant, which makes it possible for the woman to be a good wife to the man, same as the tea is only a good tea, if it is there on time.

Let us begin our reasoning before the front door. Adam comes home from work and has the wish pleasant to him to drink tea. If the set of circumstances of the 'missing ingredient' should appear, it is simple to answer to the question of guilt. It is Bertha’s failure. Now Adam could demonstrate generosity instead of vexation, what, as I would like to say beforehand, presents however only a formal variant, when we hear Adam shout “halloo”, screaming, since she at this disaster again is not to be found in his direct proximity, “I will now go and get teeeea”. And now as far as the continuation is concerned it depends in fact on Adam’s mood, whether he cautiously goes on saying “do you need anything else to be purchased?” or whether he chooses the direct way of confrontation “ have you forgotten anything else?”

Still standing before the front door Adam can imagine, how he would like to make use of material and atmospheric foods. Material foods like tea have the peculiarity to be allowed to be consumed, so that the set of circumstances of the missing ingredient logically must be taken into consideration again and again anew. Through it a lot of human beings do earn their living, and nobody will put the reliance on material foods in question, even at diets.

Let us remain for a moment with Adam before the front door. Independently of the trouble and the load of his daily work he will long for pleasant community. It could be that Adam gladly wishes, - the quotation is transformed - something like that “Accomplished is this daily work, produced my professional charge. Done is, what was to be done, no more burdening after the opening of the door.” The skillful remember, how just before the philosophy of Descartes, here theology, namely the Buddhist doctrine of enlightenment: “Run dry is rebirth, perfect is the holy charge, done is, what was to be done, no more after this here” (quotation of Nyanaponika “The only way”, 1956, p.578).

The longing for that, which colloquially is called 'to relax', immensely has a certain similarity with the idea of the enlightenment, which allows a look into nirvana. If this comparison is correct altogether, Bertha knows what she has to do as a personified nirvana. No drift, so nirvana literally translated, no headwind, no delusion of an independent egotrip, but the mere devotion, through which dedication is transformed into abandonment and Bertha preparing herself as holy sacrifice to longing Adam. A woman determined to this morally flawless devotion must naturally learn the way how in time. She must already early entrust herself to a teacher, in this way woman also learns that in Buddhism, whereas the most suitable teacher in our culture is the own father, with whom she spends at least 10 to 15 years in effective conjointness, without immediately having to join up a convent like in India for example. If the goal of the womanly art is reached, she is enlightened so far, that she is in the position to foresee already at a certain distance to her husband foresee, what she can contribute to the acquisition of his goal and to the fulfillment of his longings (possibly already when he has closed the door of his office to proceed on the way home). Such a woman will keep now the recurring flash-like emerging enlightenment, by devoting to the man, who finds the unrestricted approval of her teacher. Her task is then to record with the help of her sensations, how the acquired capacity in devotion finds its existential goal. That is it what she has to do, independently of her own discretion, independently of other traditions, independently of intellectual conclusions or the application of common sense. She must and she will do it so that she works and lives in independence of the knowledge of her own humaneness and thereby even completely independently also of her teacher. He can even be living at another place geographically or also die. Totally independently of her teacher as an intuitive, again and again spontaneous event of its own, through daily exercises in the meditation in Adam’s characteristics, which have led to the marriage, Bertha can feel herself, as would be her place at the bank of a large sea, as would she see the climbing tide of adamitic approaching obligingness like a luminous white incarnation of a divinity, sheltering her in her selfish errors (quotation in the place cited above, again slightly transformed).

Well now, so far to the presuppositions and the fulfillment of the presuppositions of others and to personal satisfaction resulting from it. Let us assume now the following. Bertha comes home from her daily work. As a rule veering round into this area gets a more quiet reaction, with a certain caution: Bertha comes home and would like from Adam as ingredient the friendly grant. That is really obvious however. Bertha does not make a mistake here. Women do not like to prescribe anything to a man, and not at all, how he would have to function, this he would have to be able to do out of himself. And certainly not at all a woman would like to prescribe to a man, how he would have to function as man in such a way, so that she can be at all a woman owing to his assistance (but without it she cannot?).

We (now I may bring in that “we” again), surely we will not measure here with two kinds of scales. We have the equal set of circumstances and with it also the equal right to equal truth. For each human being is born with everything, that he or she requires for “living”.

The transformation of the beauty of encounters into the presupposition of homogeneous behaviors or into the wish for fulfillment of claims at that “how” of the behavior facing us reveals the problem of helplessness as far as communicative interaction in relation with oneself personally is concerned. If it is expected of a partner, he or she should cover all fields, in which we are interested, or those on which we have deficits, then dependences are constructed, which lead to the situation that the atmosphere in a relationship becomes dependent of the mercy, which lead to renounce occasionally on the fulfillment of an expectation.

Our systems of survival acquired in early childhood (including the patriarchal view of the world) formerly have helped us surely many times, even if we would like to complain about it. It means work to change things today, the transformation of infantile tea-ology into joy at the own existence, which leaves room for the heterogeneity of others. Whether now a man looks at the situation, how it is beautiful, or whether a woman looks at the person, how he or she is beautiful, makes no difference for the cooperation, changes nothing at the adversive result. Thereby we are even more easily in the position to learn of each other and to ascertain thereby, that the imagined difference between the sexes lies in the history of our attitude of expectation, which - as an acquired one - we can examine concerning reality.