Latest / The BitterBuffalo Podcast / Episode #10 - Definition: Why it's not healthy to define oneself

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Episode #10 - Definition: Why it's not healthy to define oneself · The BitterBuffalo Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bitter Buffalo Podcast.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, today I'm gonna talk about defining oneself.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh something I talk about a not a lot, but I talk about a fair bit, a fair amount with some of my clients.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the idea of definition can be, let's start out by with that.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: It can be helpful in some ways in our lives, right?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if I define like um fire, what the heck is fire?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's hot, it might burn down um my place, my housing, it might hurt people.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to have a definition, a common understanding of what fire is.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: In in that way, that's not a um, what would you say, that's not a moralistic definition.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just an observational definition of something.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm staring at a guitar right now.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to have, I think, not good, it's beneficial in society to come to common understandings that this is a guitar.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it helps us reduce the amount of like explaining, I guess, to get to the point of that that's a guitar, I can play a guitar rather than a drum or something like that.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, definitions can be very helpful in our life if they're kept kind of to an observational level.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and more often the observation of objects around us, you know, or even certain situations and things like this, right?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Red light means stop.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: What does stop mean?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Stop means coming, you know, you're not in movement.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: What is movement?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Movement is, you know, kind of like illustrative, but uh you have to see something movement to know what moving is.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: But then once you get that and that your mirror neurons and your brain understand that, and whatever else is involved with understanding what movement is, then you're good to go the rest of your life almost, because you know what movement is and what stopping is.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So green, I move, red, I don't move.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this helps us so much in society to have these kinds of definitions, right?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or non-judgments of things, really, is what I'm getting at.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So the kind of definitions that I'm talking about, excuse me, or that the uh ancients then when they talked about it, um, what I'm gonna refer to, I think it's Lao Tzu that said it.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Don't quote me there.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he who defines himself, a person who defines himself, she who defines himself, um can't really know themselves, right?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So sit there and ponder that for a second, right?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: He who defines himself, she who defines herself, can't really know themselves.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if I say I'm a um basketball player, right?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm not okay.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now this isn't detrimental, this isn't having a negative effect on my life if I call myself a basketball player, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But in the long run, it could.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: For example, someone who's played basketball their whole life, they break their leg, um, they have some kind of um physical thing that happens to them in their life, and they can't play basketball anymore.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not in the way that they could have in the past, right?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: That clinging to that definition can actually cause some mental harm, which turns into physical harm within our bodies, within our psyche, within our mind, whatever you want to call it, right?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm so tied to the fact that I have defined myself as a basketball player, it falls apart.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: We see this kind of all the time, right?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: People who define themselves in certain ways, like I am a um teacher, I am a basketball player.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when they can't do those things or something goes wrong within that system that they're trying to get into or that situation that they're in, it kind of plays this mental load, like I need to get back to that.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I need to continue to define myself as that thing, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if I say, let's give it a broader definition, right?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: A broader defining of ourselves.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I am a good person, and something, I do something that maybe hurts someone unbeknownst to me, or even if I intentionally do something that hurts another person, that will disrupt that idea that I'm that good person and I might go through depression or stuff like this.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a good example that I saw I've seen a lot of people go through, right?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a lot of people have um been told their whole life that they are smart.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: For example, you're going through school, man, you're such a smart kid.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're so smart, and they get those kinds of definitions thrown at them, so they start to define themselves.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: They internalize that definition as them.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then as they go through, they might get an F here or there.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: That really kind of like is the stimulus for them falling apart.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it happen with people, you know, that I've attended high school and college with.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's that one bad test or that bad grade in the class, bad grade, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: The definition of bad grade.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of just wrecks the way they've defined themselves.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they and that really plays into what um the ancients said, Lao Tzu, whoever it was, um, in terms of he who defines himself, they who define themselves, she who defines herself, they can't know themselves because you're you're trying to like live up to this definition of smart.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or even if you're like bad, I'm trying to live up to that definition too.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: It could be any kind of way of defining ourselves where we're not just seeing the truth within ourselves, we're we're living up to some um quality, some kind of thing that we think we have to live up to: a good husband, a good wife, a good executive, a good employee, good, good, good.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll always try to fit into that mold.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: But there again, that causes things like overthinking, overanalyzing.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think overthinking can actually happen.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's more overanalyzing oneself in terms of how do I get back into my own good graces, or what I think is the good graces of other people, to be that definition of that good, whatever it is, whatever role I'm trying to play here.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a very important thing to really understand in your life that the more you moralistically define yourself, the more you kind of say, I'm good, I'm bad, I'm idiot, I'm moron, I'm the best person in the world, I'm these things.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can't really understand yourself.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the next question becomes how do you really know yourself then, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't use definitions to define yourself.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh the the answer is pretty simple, and we've known it from the day we're born, right?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: We are experience.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are not what we define ourselves as.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am a set of feelings, I am a bunch of needs that those feelings indicate.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I am angry, frustrated because I received this score on my test because I really need to be valued in my life, or I really need to understand that I can progress in this class or really understand the material, whatever the case may be.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's more specific about knowing yourself and what you can do moving forward rather than I did bad, I'm a horrible test taker, I'll never be good at it.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And all these definitions get in the way of who we really are, of kind of like a productive way of understanding ourselves.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: If that is starting to make sense on you, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we have that from the day we're born.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, baby is uncomfortable, what do they do?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: They cry because they really need some support and help.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then they get that, they're good to go.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what we learn throughout our life, we learn to lie.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think the the the old saying goes, kids and crazy people tell the truth.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the unfortunate thing that kids soon learn not to.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's through definition, defining themselves.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, quit being bad.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you gonna throw those tantrums?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: You always do that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're a good, bad person, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you may have heard my uh dryer going off there.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: But but hopefully that makes sense, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're these get thrown at people over and over and over.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the the crux of it, right?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because it becomes a habitual way of understanding ourselves rather than the naturalistic way that is the truth, right?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: When Gandhi said back in the day, it's very dangerous to mix up the words natural and habitual.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: We've been taught to be quite habitual at communicating in ways that are quite unnatural.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is this thing.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is the main driver of a lot of things, is definition.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: It drives a lot of violence in our society, it drives a lot of self-violence, other violence, everything here.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because what we're doing is saying, well, this is good or that is bad.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Those are both definitions.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not an attempt to really understand someone at their core.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's very important to really understand what is being said, be specific, because we've gotten so lazy with the way we've kind of understand the use of language and how it plays into everything that we do, definitely in terms of depression, anxiety, violence, all these things in our society, all these things that we kind of want to change, you know, I guess for the better or whatever you want to call it, but to be more healthy in our lives.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I would say to for people to consider is to move away from moralistic judgments at least, moralistic definitions of themselves and of other people and of situations, and go more toward the naturalistic, which is what is the experience that it causes in me, right?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: What what am I feeling at this moment versus what do I think is right or wrong, or what is the solution?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the easy answer, but I know it's so tough for a lot of people when we've habitually been trained to define everything.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's move away from definitions and we'll start to live a healthy life.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me on today's podcast.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you got something out of that.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, join me next time, and we'll have a time of it.