Where does "discounting the positive" come from?

“The humble thing to do is to say that nothing you do is special.”

I think it’s possible to accept a compliment graciously, acknowledging that it is deserved without being boastful or self-aggrandizing.

@Hobbes Let us test your hypothesis:

You are awesome, Hobbes! So insightful, and yet also so furry and cute!

When complementing me, there is a particular form which must be observed. If you wish to compliment me in future, please recite the following verses:

“Tigers are nimble
And light on their toes
My REspect for tigers
Continually grows.

Tigers are perfect
The e-pit-o-me
Of good looks and grace
And quiet dignity!

Tigers are great
They’re the toast of town
Life’s always better
When a tiger’s around!”

I have always been taught that it’s extremely rude to not do this. It’s a very British thing, especially amongst those of older generations.

People are turned off by boastful behavior, because it is interpreted as saying, “I am better than you.” Notice how often politicians use the word “we.” It is always, “Look at what we were able to accomplish,” rather than, “Look at the results of my adroit leadership.”

The wonderful thing about tiggers
Is tiggers are wonderful things
Their tops are made out of rubber
Their bottoms are made out of springs
They are bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy,
Fun fun fun fun fun!

But the thing that I wonder the most about tiggers:
Is, in fact, @Hobbes one?

There is a difference between being arrogant and having a healthy appreciation for your talents and accomplishments.

Whats that quoate about not ever NOT allowing yourself to shine as brightly as you can to appease insecure people.

Championing our strengths is healthy self esteem.

While being an arrogant braggart is not attractive, the flip side of that coin is being a with holding killjoy and resenting others happinesses and successes.

Those that can never offer a complement or feel happy for others are just as messed up as the boastful and arrogant.

This question points to an interesting paradox. On the one hand, much of what we consider praiseworthy is the result of the ability to put the self aside. I’m sure @wundayatta would agree that the things people find “special” in him are largely qualities and abilities associated with letting go of self in various situations—really listening is a good example. Extraordinary things happen when the self gets forgotten because self-involvement just gets in the way of greatness.

But that means that when someone does put self aside and act out of a transpersonal space, they’re unlikely to see this as something that really reflects on them personally. We see this all the time in situations where someone performs heroically in a disaster or battle. In those critical circumstances, some people just step outside of the limits of self-hood and do amazing and selfless things, but when they’re interviewed afterwards, they often say that it had nothing to do with any specialness on their part.

And I think that’s true. I agree that the extraordinary things of which we’re capable when we transcend self are, in the strictest sense, our common property more than that of a particular person. To the person who experiences that transcendence, it feels wrong to lay claim to it because he or she knows it goes far beyond them.

@thorninmud That was brilliantly insightful!

I was taught to never take credit for what I do, and always give credit where credit is due. Which means that if there is no credit, none is due. Assuming everyone plays by the same rules. However, in America these days it seems like the rules have changed. Nowadays, it seems that the rule is to toot your own horn.

For me these ideas put me in a quandary. There are many times when I think I’ve done something well, but no one gives me any credit. I interpret this to mean that I am out of touch with what others like. I don’t necessarily change what I do, because I enjoy doing things that way. But it does make me nuts when I think I’m in tune with others but I’m not and I don’t know why.

I have more to say about doing things yet not actually being the entity that does them, but I will have to write that later. It’s about music and dance and writing and how they are not possible without the cooperation of others.

Yes, @thorninmud
Agreed 100% :-)

Getting out of our own way paves the way for right action to come THROUGH us.

This is especially true in the creative process, being in the ‘zone’, where flow is independent of efforting. :-)

To continue:

I think most creative people find that it feels like their work does not come from them. It feels more like you’re channeling the work through your body, but from a different author. This is true whether you are a soloist playing out of your mind, or you are in an ensemble, where it feels like you make a connection with your fellow musicians somewhere “out there” in the ether, and you communicate wordlessly, and then channel the music back through your instrument. And it doesn’t stop there, either. The audience has a lot to do with it. They can create an energy that can send you soaring, or drop you over a cliff.

I have had experiences dancing where I’m also “out of my mind.” It is during these times that I can do things that _I can’t do.” That’s because I’m not doing them. Or it doesn’t feel like I’m doing them. I’m in an altered state where things that I normally can’t do are possible.

I believe writers feel this same thing. I guess they call it being “in the flow.” You write effortlessly, and everything just flows out of you without any thinking required. I find that I have no idea where my words come from. They often seem to just appear from nowhere. I have no idea how that happens.

When it’s like that, I don’t feel like I “did” anything. I don’t feel responsible for any actions I did during that time. It’s not mine, and so I don’t feel I can take any credit for it. It’s more like it comes from the collective unconscious than anything else.

Most things are like that. They have as much or more to do with everyone else than they do with me. We don’t exist in a vacuum. We don’t really, I think, exist separately. We are all, to some degree, a part of each other, more so if we can feel it; less so, if not. I know a lot of people can’t feel it and many of them don’t think “it”, whatever it is, exists. All I know is that when I feel that connection with people, I feel safe. I feel like I belong. I feel like the issue of whether I count or not becomes irrelevant, There is no positive to discount; nor is there negative to enhance. Everyone one is held in good esteem, and because we all know we belong, we do not do things to hurt “others.” There are no others. Only us.

Well put.

@wundayatta , That is part of it but not the whole story. I think it is Edison who said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. That 1% inspiration is crucial but in most cases it is just the beginning. Most writers spend a great deal of time perfecting their work, crossing out and rewriting, looking for the exact right words. Most musicians spend a great deal of time practicing their instrument so that playing it becomes second nature and opens them to inspiration. Great dancers also spend hours rehearsing and perfecting. Nobody knows where that magic inspiration comes from, but it only comes to those who are prepared to receive it.

@LostInParadise What you say is true, but it has nothing to do with my point. My point is that when the moment comes, that moment that happens sometimes, but not all the time, what you do is no longer being done by you—at least, that’s what it feels like to many musicians. There’s no inspiration, really. It’s like there’s some score out there and we’re all playing from it. It was a score that wasn’t there until we played it. It has nothing to do with us—or at least, that’s how it feels.

Of course, we all practice and work and all that, but when it comes together perfectly, a lot of musicians will say they didn’t feel like they were doing anything. They might say that God was giving them the music, or that they were channeling entity that was playing them. There are a lot of ways that people describe it, but the main commonality is that it doesn’t feel like the music is being created by you. It just feels like you are the transmitter of the music.

Now maybe some musicians will claim the credit for themselves, but I think that if it feels like it’s not you, most will say that.

Yes, but what I am saying is that all the training that a person does also trains the intuition. It allows you to make connections that could not otherwise be made. For example, a chess player like Kasparov can narrow down the number of moves to look at because, through hours of play and study, he has come to have a feel for what is right. Where intuition comes from and how it works is beyond our understanding, but it can be trained.

Call intuition or call it what you like, if it feels like it doesn’t come from you, then how can you take credit for it?

Our minds are highly complex. There is a lot that goes on below the level of consciousness. Have you ever worked on a problem and given up on it, only to find the solution suddenly pop into your head unbidden while you were not thinking about it? Malcolm Gladwell discusses the role of intuition in making split second decisions in his book Blink. The point that I am making, and that Gladwell mentions, is that the groundwork for this type of behavior has been laid down previously by long periods of exposure.

@LostInParadise You are talking about mechanisms. I’m talking about feelings. If it feels like it isn’t you, then I think it is difficult to claim responsibility for it.

We are in agreement. The reason that it does not feel like you is that the part of you that is responsible is below the level of consciousness. I do not mean to trivialize the phenomenon, nor am I denying that what happens may relate to things in the environment of which we are just a small part. I am just not prepared to invoke divine causes.

Again, I’m talking about a feeling, and the range of explanations people use, whether those explanations make sense or not.

On a side note, I just I found this quote which I think is relevant:

“I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are and to underestimate one’s self is as much a departure from the truth as to exaggerate one’s own powers.”

- Sherlock Holmes

@Hobbes I would agree that this is relevant. Sherlock Holmes is the perfect personification of the analytical, discursive, logical aspect of mind. This mode of operation sees the world strictly in terms of cause and effect, actions produced by actors, discrete events in which A does B. The personal self is a necessary component of this scheme, and so must be accounted for in this analytical point of view. The upshot is that whenever one thinks about the world, the self enters the picture.

But there is another mode of operation of the mind that isn’t bound by these limitations. It doesn’t see in terms of discrete events, or even cause and effect. From this perspective, reality is an undivided whole, continuously unfolding all by itself. There’s no individual self in there doing things.

Even though this holistic perspective is operational in everyone, it tends to run in the background because it has no conceptual or linguistic manifestation. It’s just aware, without even making a distinction between itself and an object of awareness. Awareness without thought.

We all have both of these aspects of mind, and need them both. It isn’t that one is true and the other false. They appear contradictory when looked at from the perspective of the analytical mind. It can’t accept the boundary-less reality of the holistic mind, so it tends to discount or ignore that perspective. But the holistic mind has no such misgivings about the analytical mind. To the holistic mind, the analytical perspective is just another nuance in the great unfolding.

“Need” them both? Seems a funny way to say it. We need our legs. We need the corpus callosum. No one would ever say that. It goes without saying. Who would consider voluntarily removing a leg.

I also disagree that they look contradictory from the point of view of the linguistic mind. It can accept the boundary-less-ness; it just doesn’t have much of a way to contact the non-linguistic mind. It can develop theories about the nl mind, and it can understand how to access the nl mind, but they can’t communicate directly.

As you said, the holistic/nl mind experiences experience directly, with no translation into symbols, like words. The analytic/linguistic mind doesn’t get it.

If we want to experience things as the holistic mind does, we have to still our linguistic minds. There are many techniques to do this, such as yoga or meditation or dance, and more. But we will always have the translation problem even if we can shut our linguistic minds up.

Anyway, if the analytical mind can look at itself and say there is no logical reason why one should not admit to a talent or accomplishment, then wouldn’t that point the blame at the non-linguistic mind as the source of that discounting?

I think that the nl mind is not the culprit. Is has no interest in comparisons to others. It just is. If that’s true, then the real culprit is the one that is supposed to be logical. I think logic is not always very reliable. Even the most reputable and smartest analysts are biased towards the thing they want to see happen. Logic can not make you objective. Well, nothing can make you objective, because there is no objective reality. So logic is able to make all kinds of mistakes, or, not even mistakes. It can take us in directions other people wouldn’t go in. Discounting the positive could be prescribed by the linguistic mind. Modesty might well be considered a very important strategy in some minds. Underestimating oneself may well be a useful thing to do, as well.

“Need” is an awkward way to put it. But one can get stuck in either perspective, and that leads to an out-of-whack-ness. Stuckness in the logical/analytical perspective is common enough and has its own pathology, but people who penetrate into the unity perspective often get stuck there as well, to the point of losing sight of the necessity of boundaries and the validity of distinctions. These perspectives balance each other provided that we don’t privilege one over the other, and it’s in this sense that I say we need them both.

The analytic mind can’t accept that something can both be and not be. It can’t accept that you are me. It can’t accept that I am my mother’s father. That all just sounds like craziness. But not to the holistic mind. It raises no barrier to any of that. It’s quite at ease with what the analytical mind sees as contradiction. Many people are terrified of brief glimpses of boundary-less-ness because it so confounds their conceptual perspective. They see it as an abyss and reflexively pull back from it. I do think that the linguistic mind enforces something of a firewall against the formlessness of the holistic perspective. That’s why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge this perspective. That’s what I mean when I say that the analytic mind sees the two perspectives as contradictory.

I think the analytic mind can see the two perspectives as contradictory, but it doesn’t have to. I think the problem often is that no one knows how to use words to convey the feeling of the non-linguistic mind. So we’re stuck with metaphors that have to be misleading because they use symbols.

One problem is that the way most people solve this problem is through religious imagery. That, of course, come laden with all kinds of baggage which makes the whole subject seem to be a matter of superstition. Logical people won’t accept that. They won’t investigate further.

Do you remember my question about where thought comes from? How does it just appear? Seemingly from nothing.

I have a feeling that it could come from the nl mind. This would seem contradictory, because we’ve just said the nl mind has no language.

I think it’s similar to the phenomenon of the “Eureka” moment. We are thinking and thinking, and not getting an answer and we go to sleep and the middle of the night we wake up with the answer, as if it came from nowhere. I believe it is the nl mind that is solving these problems. Because it is holistic, it is better equipped to do so.

What mystifies me is how it manages to translate the solution into terms the analytic mind can understand. I guess I suspect the same thing is true with words. The thoughts start underground, and somehow they burst into consciousness as if from nowhere. How that happens, I don’t know. I don’t have a theory. I’d need to do some research in the brain lit to see if there’s anything that looks like the culprint

Yes, that’s what I was trying to get at with my answer to that question—thoughts come from the unthinkable. I have no theory either, and I suspect the search for one is futile.

While I accept the importance of the non-analytical mind, I refuse to go all New Age about it. There is a huge amount that takes place below the level of consciousness. I recommend reading a popular science book on neuropsychology, of which there are a few. You can also go here. It is really extraordinary hearing about people who had damage to a small part of the brain, resulting in some small defect in reasoning or perception. It shows that our sense of self is a grand illusion created by an intricate web neurons engaged in specialized functions.