policies

It’s a Question of Paradoxical Policies on Automatic

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In his entertaining skits, David Alan Grier’s character, Calhoun Tubbs, has a song ready for every occasion. No matter how inappropriate the situation or his application of song he wrote. He thus presents a question of paradoxical policies on automatic.

“Wrote a song about it! Like to hear it? Here it go!”
(David Alan Grier as Calhoun Tubbs, In Living Color)

Most of my personal policies are so automatic and happen so quickly, I fail to notice them in action. That is, until I question one by paying it some attention. For example, I DIDN’T NOTICE that while sitting at my desk typing this, my breathing was shallow. That is, until I NOTICED! Then, suddenly, my breathing changed. BY NOTICING, I turned an unconscious automatic conditional policy into a conscious strategy that resulted in a different outcome.

A Question of Awareness

In every conditional policy, there is an inherent question:
“Is my perception of the situation true?” Or, more succinctly, “Is it true?”

In order to NOTICE, I must QUESTION an assumption – that I perceive the situation correctly. In order to QUESTION its accuracy, I must NOTICE my perception of a situation or condition. Thus, it would seem, awareness and questioning go hand-in-hand.

My conscious awareness tends to focus mostly on outcomes. That is, did my process result as I intended? The answer to that question supplies the trigger for the next policy –

  • Yes, it worked! So, initiate a policy to –
    • Strengthen the policy through favor
    • Use the policy again
    • Increase trust in the policy
  • No, it didn’t work. So, initiate one or more of the following policies –
    • Scapegoat!
    • Blame!
    • Escape detection!
    • Deflection!
    • Confusion!
    • Reevaluate my procedures (how I carried out the policy).

Note the avoidance of a policy to –

  • Question my policy.
  • Reevaluate my philosophy.
  • Question my beliefs.
  • Take accountability.

Four Questions!

Something happened and I reacted. I might ask 4 questions that may lead me to some awareness. I might ask myself as soon as I regain my thinking capacity, “What happened and what did I do?” Then –

  1. WHAT ACTUALLY happened? (Was the situation true as I perceived it? Yes or No? Assumption: No!)
  2. Assuming my incorrect perception, how would I react/behave given what ACTUALLY happened? “Apply a new policy!”
  3. Why would I do something different given what ACTUALLY happened?
  4. Who is perceiving what ACTUALLY happened?

The same set of questions could be used to deescalate a threatening situation –

  1. WHAT is ACTUALLY happening? (What is the current situation?)
  2. HOW does the ACTUAL situation appear to me? (Inventory your sensory feedback – not your emotions!)
    1. What do I see – right now?
    2. What do I hear – right now?
    3. Where do I feel it in my body – right now?
    4. What do I taste – right now?
    5. What do I smell – right now?
  3. WHY would I assign [a negative emotion like fear] to this ACTUAL situation? (new answer: “I wouldn’t!”)
  4. WHO is in charge of my perception of this situation? (the answer to that is – “I’m the one who’s perceiving this.”)
  5. WHO’S the policy maker?” (the answer is – “me.”)

I Have a Policy for That!

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The first line of defense for choosing separation is to make that choice a belief. Policy manages how beliefs manifest, sustaining a bias-based defense system – my First-Second Degree of awareness bubble.

My Manifestation Process

  1. Perception of Separation
  2. Intention
  3. Philosophy
  4. Choice
    1. Policy
    2. Procedure/Action
  5. Outcome/Feedback

Beliefs are substantiated by philosophies, stories that obscure hidden defenses. A fertile imagination fashions my most cherished and well-used philosophies into stories that defend them. I experience these stories as comparative hierarchies of defense, thus satisfying my need for rightness.

Policies manage my perceived threats and benefits from least to greatest importance to survival. By default, I arrange this hierarchy in order of defense value. Those philosophies that conceptualize the greatest defense value rule over the others.

Every philosophy carries defense values expressed through choices, policies and procedures. When my policies and procedures project a me vs not me choice onto a comparative reality, I must defend it.

It’s Conditional!

My personal policies define my adopted or proposed courses or principles of action. Each operates as a contract with myself. Policies defend my beliefs with procedures, the actions that turn my beliefs into experience.

The result of this process is a life of competition – me working against myself. My experiences are fractals within fractals of defense. Each fractal represents a paradox of perception that defends choices, beliefs, philosophies, policies, and procedures in an outcome.

A policy is a conceptualization of a belief in the form of a conditional statement, “if/when a condition is true, then do the following action…”

  1. If/When I think X condition is true, then I will probably do Y
  2. If/When I’m convinced X condition is true, then I will absolutely do Y

This morphs into a BE-DO logic level reasoning paradox policy:

  1. X condition must BE true because I/you DID Y
  2. I/you DID Y because X condition was true

For example, “You must BE in love with me because I DO nice things for you.” And, “I must BE dumb because I DID poorly on the test!”

I experience a conflict in a relationship when I APPLY a morphed conditional policy to resolve it. That is, BECAUSE I perceive this conflict, I feel I must DO something about it. For example, because I am afraid, I must freeze up!

What can I do to correct my paradox of perception? Well, now that I’ve NOTICED the condition, I might question it and consider making a change – to policies first, then maybe to philosophies – and, perhaps ultimately, to my beliefs!

Choice, a Self-Referential Paradox

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Could a choice be my initial defense of what I determine as right or wrong? Right may be as subtle as best or better than someone or something else. Wrong can be just as innocuous as not as good as or worse than.

A choice is a symbolic gesture of separateness, which represents defense of that symbol.

At the point of choice, I must first perceive separation between separate things. Through a values system, I then determine what’s more right and less wrong. I attach defenses that support my determination. I then choose a counter balance of defenses that represent why I didn’t choose otherwise. My choices are always based on a need to be right, which is instinctual – survival thinking. A self-referential paradox of separateness.

For example, I made a choice to wear my sneakers today. That seemed reasonable because the hiking trail is rough. Reflecting on that choice now while on the trail, I feel grateful I didn’t choose to wear my sandals. My choice to wear sneakers was based on “it’s better to wear sneakers on the trail” vs “it’s worse to traverse the trail in sandals.” My process has evolved from determination defended by choice to choice defended by choice.

The choices I make are at the foundation of survival of who I think I am. The truths that follow those philosophies are built on paradoxical reasons. The measure of value my truth possesses is based on the effectiveness of its reasons. The more effective my reasons, the more I feel the need to defend them. A self-referential paradox of choice!

My need to compete illustrates the power of choice

Out of my need to be separate came the paradox of thought, I experience competition between thoughts. Let’s look at time for example. I experienced time as normal prior to receiving anesthesia for surgery. When I awoke five hours later, I wondered where that time had disappeared. I felt confused and surreal because I could not account for my time. So, I accounted for that time with imagery that supports my life story.

My defense of a now and a not now seem different, yet, are the same. I plug a memory into my present experience as though they are the same. “Things never change!” As long as my concept of time supports my truths, I will continue to defend it.

Somehow, memories from a past that can’t exist now, do. I’ve sacrificed the present for a past irrelevant to it in content and context. Irrelevant also is a future where memory can’t exist, yet does. “It’s always been this way and it always will be!” A self-referential paradox of time.

The addition of time reckoning to my paradoxical perspective helps justify my separateness into what, how, and why I am. I can believe I am and am not my experiences.  A self-referential paradox of being.

The great defender of paradox

From one choice come many defenses – belief, truth, reason, philosophy, process, policy, and etc. Further defense serves to strengthen the choice that serves to strengthen the defense. A self-referential paradox .

My Life Philosophy as a Story

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Overall, one experiences their life philosophy in a series of policies carried out over time. Like a story read one word at a time, I perceive my life as I would the story of a hero’s journey.

In visual perception, I feel I have clarity only on that to which I’m attending right now. The future and past are vague visions of what lay beyond a certain point of clarity I call NOW. I can only make clear that which I focus on now – all else is vague.

I’ve been writing and reading my story to this point. I’ve written and read some of it. I’m writing and reading it now. And, based on what I’ve read so far, I can imagine where the story will go in a vague future, though with a sense of certainty because I’m imagining it in what I read now.

I imagine past words must support the current words by supplying a vague sense of premise, motive, background, and direction. I imagine future words must support the current words by supplying perceptions of danger, anticipation, and anxiety. As the vague past meets the vague future in the clarity of now, I get a paradox in the confluence – like reading through turbulent water.

Back to my story!

There may be plot twists like those I’ve already read that give the future some interest to me and so I read on. How exciting! So interesting I can’t lay the book down! My curiosity drives me onward – to learn what happens to the protagonist (me) as he deals with all the antagonists along his way. Because I care, I want my hero to succeed in his quest. With dangers laying along the path, opportunities for interesting plot twists abound.

Every element of my story must fit within certain parameters. Every element must:

  • Obey the setting of the story. These are the basic laws and conditions under which every element of the story must work.
  • Cause and effect must be observed. I must account for every situation with a reason, logic, or feeling.
  • As the protagonist, I and those I care about must win in the end.

A good storyteller is one that during and after reading, I want to read more. Perhaps this explains depression in which the story begins to lose the interest of the reader. Maybe it’s just then that a surprise plot twist might rekindle that interest.

The reason a plot twist engages the reader is because s/he didn’t see it coming. Surprise! When I feel depressed, I let my mind wonder to, “What might happen next? I hope it’s delicious!”, and, “Something amazing is about to happen!” I can’t wait to read on!!!