I left off mentioning a process. A process that we've all been through and one that is very difficult to examine because it has been happening/is happening to us as we are trying to examine it, leaving us without the necessary objectivity to evaluate the process critically.
"Socialization" is one way to describe this process, although that's an incomplete description. Because while we have all been socialized, obviously, and having been socialized has created who we are to a large extent, the process I'm talking about it is more encompassing than socialization.
From birth, our perceptions are molded by the adults around us. There is, to state it in its most primitive form, an "idea" about the world that all functioning adults more or less share on a very low level. This isn't an idea about human relations, or politics, or good and evil, per se, but rather an idea about the very basic physical nature of the world around us. Perforce, we inheirit that idea, of obviously, we need to. Some of this "idea" we figure out on our own (we could stub a toe and not need anyone to tell us it hurts), but most of it is force-fed to us by the adults we interact with as infants and children.
Obviously this is a normal, natural, and necessary process. And once we have mastered that basic idea of the world, we're able to interact with the physcial world in more complex ways, as out greater understanding of the idea procceds apace with our increasing physical capabilities. We understand on some level that it's ok to pick up the apple but not to pick up the burning stick long before we are able to physically execute either action with repeatable precision.
All this would be pretty simple if that were the extent of it. But nothing in human interaction is so simple. Because along with the useful information, we're also being fed an entire additional set of assumptions about the world. These are spritual, intellectual, etc., in nature. Some are harmless, some are incredibly damaging, but most fall into some middle category of being harmful or helpful in such subtle ways that over time we fail to notice their effects the vast majority of the time.
The end result of all this conditioning is what I've called the "shell." Over a long time, the assumptions we've internalized make up this shell.
And this is where I will perhaps "lose" a number of people. The shell does not only affect our emotions -- it dictates our perception of the world, on all levels, from the mundane to the absolutely magical. And the ability to craft our early experiences and perceptions into a solid, workable shell is not mundane at all, but rather an incredible, magical feat -- it represents the construction of order from pure chaos.
The shell has one primary aim above all others: self-preservation. Since the shell has "learned" that it is "everything," any "damage" to the shell is damage of the most serious order. This is a beneifical phenomenon, of course, in the largest sense -- it keeps most of us sane over the long haul, and buttresses us against the stresses and strains of daily life.
But if the shell is our perception of "everything," then there can be no real change, no actual learning, without the Teacher (Dom/me) working to crack that shell, to introduce the idea that the boundries we've drawn for ourselves are in fact arbitrary, and as artifical as any circle in the sand is. That it has its unique current configuration is the result of the randomness of birth and socialization and circumstance.
Given that, it's incumbent upon the Dom/me to help the submissive explore every aspect of that shell. One doesn't go about trying to crack/expand the shell without knowing everything possible about it. To do otherwise would be like going about a home renovation project by knocking down walls at random, without knowing which ones are load-bearing walls; disaster surely looms.
This exploration calls upon the Dom/me to be patient, understanding, clever, and creative. The process of attempting to see the shell for what it is, and to attempt to see how it works in the submissive's life and emotions will be met with resistance and fear, both active and passive. It is hard, draining work. But it is so worthwhile, and absolutely necessary. Without this hard and often tedious work up front, both parties end up frustrated, confused, angry -- the Dom/me eventually seems unduly arbitrary or harsh, and the submissive finds him or herself "snapping back" for no apparent reason.
Next time I'll talk about how the Dom/me goes about guiding this exploration.
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