We all get to decide what is 'legitimate'. What Jung was pointing to is not all pleasure and pain is equal, or valid, given all motivations motivate via pleasure and pain be they our motivations/ legitimate or cuckoos that have accumulated in our nest. To distinguish between legitimate pain and illegitimate pain we firstly have to distinguish between our actual motivation and all the rest which we do via an emotional detox. The discomfort as we starve secondary motivations can be considered legitimate pain. Going forward we now have the ability to identify feelings and to manage them. "I'm feeling this pain but that's just my ego sulking from being disrespected. It's ok, not a big deal, walk on' Instead of the 'cause' of the pain being someone else we can just accept they do as they do and it's up to us how we respond to what they do. We don't want ugly flavours in our cup unless unavoidable - shit happens - so it's the flavours that are important to manage and we start to do that directly. After -all, we're generating those flavours, we're generating those meanings that we're then consuming. Others do as they do, if I have expectations I want them to satisfy that want/expectation exists in me and is downstream of my motivations. Some motivations are hardwired in so I satisfy them on their terms or they will claw, instead of purr. However, a given motivation has a certain force and doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's in amongst other motivations in our 'basket of motivations' which also have their power. A motivation can exist but, for all practical purposes, not exist if other, much more powerful, motivations are present. Our distant ancestors, out hunting or gathering, quickly forget about food if they're being stalked by a saber toothed tiger for obvious reasons. The food motivation still exists but it's force is insignificant compared to new survival motivation/s and they'd only return to satisfying their previous objective once they were out of danger.

They didn't go ' hmm, sabertoothed tiger, what does that mean? should I feel fear and try to avoid becoming lunch?' it's all instinctive - the fear/pain is there and to escape that pain, and the pain they believe is awaiting them should the tiger catch them, they seek to escape that tiger. Utilizing our brain, we might be aware of various options to satisfy our new, very pressing, objective but without the driving motivation, those options are redundant and we'd stay collecting food. Back to my point; just because a motivation exists doesn't mean we can feel it and if we can feel it doesn't it's powerful enough to be a priority. That it is powerful enough to be a priority doesn't mean we have to satisfy it either as, unless we want to live like Buddha on our own under a tree in a forest, life involves compromises and if we know how we can delete a problem motivation or minimise it's force if we deem it to be more destructive than constructive.

Our short term objectives often contradict our longer term objectives. Our objective is to get a good job which requires studying for an exam today but we'd prefer to go to the beach or just be online. That we can select relatively painful options is not evidence we're not motivated by pleasure and pain, it's evidence we've got smart enough brains to understand we've got many future moments to experience and can understand some causes and effects. We'll gladly suffer 4 units of pain now if we believe we'll get to experience 20 units of pleasure in the future. That's a good deal, a good investment and one we typically make all the time. Indeed, if we can't accept legitimate pain we're completely trapped and limited to just bouncing from instant gratification to instant gratification unable to make investments for tomorrow even when they're rationally good investments. Accepting it's all pleasure and pain means accepting the only thing limiting us is relevant knowledge - what to do - and then being willing to do what needs to be done despite the pain. In a sense we climb up levels and climbing requires effort but organise our motivations well and climbing becomes fun. We're enjoying the moment yet many of our activities are also positive as regards our future. Life is good and life gets better and better.

Ever noticed how clean a river is after it has flooded? All the trash, algae, mosquitos and the swamps themselves have gone and the river is now flowing vigorously along its natural path. We can also understand a detox along these lines.

We have a river of energy within us which also benefits greatly from being flooded now and again. When we detox we closing all those upstream tributaries/ motivations that are syphoning off our energy for their own purposes. Unknowingly, we're irrigating fields/ motivations that are not actually ours. This syphoning is resulting in a lot less energy flowing down our natural riverbed and these now sluggish waters allow blockages, and then swamps, to easily form. In those swamps a seperate eco system develops; life forms that shouldn't be there are. Algae, mosquitos etc thrive in those stagnant waters. In nature this is ok as the next flood will clear them out - no big deal - but what happens if the next flood never arrives? When we go upstream and stop supplying those foreign fields - reclaim that energy - we've now got a flood which removes the blockages and the swamps. 'Magically' our actual motivations are now getting well nourished, 'magically' the mosquitos/ symptoms have gone, but it's not magic. We can chase mosquitos - midstream therapy - or we can go upstream, reclaim our energy and let gravity do the rest.

Probably, I've explained emotional detoxing well enough and now I'm really just explaining the same thing different ways. Be it flooding our river, weeding our garden they're the same thing - e/motivational detoxes to remove that which is sucking available energy and disorientating us away from nourishing our actual motivations. Then we have to grapple with ego vs emotions and survival vs emotions but at least we've got some clarity. Ego vs emotions tends to resolve itself anyway.

I will throw out a few other ways our motivations can be understood as these analogies/metaphors ( can never really understand the difference between and analogy and metaphor) do perhaps colour in some areas of the model a bit better.

horses and carriages

if we zoom into our sequence it's a bit more complicated

knowledge is power - relevant knowledge so what is relevant ? it would seem it would be very useful to understand what species we are, our characteristics etc.

Visualising our motivations pulling us through the environment like horses pulling a carriage is often useful. Our brain is in the carriage doing it’s best to manage our horses/motivations. When we’ve got too many horses harnessed up, each seeking their own type of satisfaction, our brain has to juggle, and try to manage, a lot, yet many of those horses are not ours and are actually pushing against us.

Basically, our team of horses/motivations is a tangled, contradictory mess which our brain has lost control over. We’re just been dragged to wherever the balance of power between our fighting motivations are taking us remembering we’ve got immediate motivations/objectives - lets find a coffee - and longer term motivations/objectives all jumbled up together. We’re not in the environment for no reason, we’ve got objectives we’re seeking to satisfy and our objectives are downstream of motivations. We don’t have the objective to get a coffee if we don’t like coffee.

When we do a VM detox we’re just stopping, unhitching our horses/motivations and no longer feeding them aside from our survival motivations. Given they’re not being fed, the motivations that are not hardwired in, that are not our primary motivations, wander off/ die off.

Now, instead of having a jumbled up team of ,say, 15 horses, we’ve only got our handful of primary motivations and life is much simplified. There was only ever lil ol us needing to navigate the environment so for what did we need all those horses in the first place? They were just confusing us, impeding our actual horses and stressing us as we had to try and feed them all.

The jump in sense of well being is the natural result from deleting all those random, accumulated cravings -escaping the constant struggle - and from experiencing less is more.

When we get that less is more we get that, aside from extremes, it’s not reality that’s the problem, it’s our expectations of reality. Want a lot and we’ve got a long, probably contradictory, shopping list we’ve compelled to spend our limited time and energy trying to tick off - pouring ugly stress into our cup - and we’re probably heading away from where our actual interests are anyway.

What’s the point of that?

The longer our shopping list the lower our potential happiness ceiling given it becomes literally impossible to satisfy all our motivations via the same path. Choose path A and our motivations that are not satisfied on that path are disgruntled and clawing. They’re dripping ugly flavours such as frustration into our cup. Yet choose path B and we’ve now got a different set of disgruntled motivations; those that would have being purring on path A are now not amused. No matter how competent we are our level of happiness has a low ceiling. Awkward.

Pleasure and Pain

That our motivations motivate via pleasure and pain is obvious to some - how else? - but not to others. Superficially, the objections against we’re just acting in accordance with how pleasure and pain, via our different motivations, seem valid; After-all, we clearly willingly do painful actions, we don’t always select the instant gratification option. Sure, but we’re smart enough to understand we have many future moments to also experience so we take those moments into consideration. We’re willing to suffer 4 units of pain now if we believe doing so will give us 20 units of future pleasure as that’s a good investment, but doesn’t change that we’re selecting what we believe is the more pleasurable option.

If we go to the gym, we’re selecting a more painful option than reclining on our couch, but we’re only going to the gym if we believe that investment will be worth it long term. If we’re working hard now to enjoy the benefits/pleasure having money, and status, provide and look forward to a pleasant retirement whilst at the same time keeping the pain at bay we believe not working hard will bring on us, we’re still motivated by pleasure and pain as it is currently experienced.

Our ego purrs if we’re respected, claws if we’re disrespected so we naturally gravitate to the pleasant bio chemicals rather than the unpleasant ones. We get respect by being good, and successful, as we currently define good and success to be. As defined by our tribe, not as defined by a tribe elsewhere obviously.

A given motivations force equals the distance between the pain we believe we’ll experience by not satisfying that motivation and the pleasure we’ll experience by satisfying that motivation. That specific motivation doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s in our ‘basket of motivations’ competing against, or aligning with, all the other motivations that currently exist within us. Thus, the balance of power between our motivations, as measured in pleasure and pain, is what decides our objectives, decisions, actions and then reality.

The drug addict values that drug more than almost all their other motivations given the massive gulf he’s experiencing if he has the drug vs not having the drug. That motivation has a lot of power thus overpowers nearly all of his other motivitions in his basket of motivations/ matrix of motivations.

This is relevant to understand because then we can understand the potential benefits we receive when we prune back our existing matrix of motivations; we’re freeing ourselves from the existing matrix that is holding us rigid. We’re caught in our own web so we prune back that web to free ourselves. In practice, we’re better off to occasionally leave our overgrown web bringing our actual hardwired motivations with us and let most of the rest blow away with the wind. It’s ok, we can spin another web but at least this time we’re spinning our own web and thus keeping it relevant and simplified.

Our beliefs are motivations in the sense that if we want ‘A’ and we believe we can get ‘A’ via ‘B’ we’re now motivated towards ‘B’. We want milk and we believe there’s milk in our fridge so now we want to go to our fridge. If our belief was accurate then that motivation is satisfied. If not, if there’s no will in our fridge we need to scan for other options in order to satisfy that motivation. But that motivation only has a certain power, we’ve got other motivations/objectives queued up so even though we may believe we can get milk down the corner store the cost, in time, effort, sacrificing other objectives, may not be worth it. But, at base, what is worth it traces back to how pleasure and pain is currently experienced in us. Traces back to our motivations, and the balance of power between them, given that’s what is determining the objectives we’re juggling in the first place. What’s the point in retaining wildly inaccurate beliefs unless they’re serving us well? There’s no point so by detoxing our motivations we’re also now able to run a comb through our accumulated beliefs as many of them are now redundant given we no longer have the related objective given we no longer have that want/motivation.

If we’re no longer so dependant on status for pleasant bio chemicals we’re no longer so dependant on being ‘good’ as currently defined. Suddenly boxes we believed needed to be ticked are now irrelevant. For the humble it’s weird people can’t upgrade their beliefs even when it’s obvious they’re not working.

Seen a man

Pushing against accepting this is that our societies need ideals to be functional. That many of those ideals may not stand up scientifically does not negate their value. Sure, but as adults we have the option of looking beyond the colourful veil we’ve been taught to deem the reality. Indeed, once that veil becomes a matadors cape we have no choice but to zoom out and look for alternative paths.

At the same time, that we feel discomfort/pain when others contradict our beliefs and values is not necessarily a negative, nor even trace back to ego. We can just understand communities need common beliefs and values to be functional and allow for quality lives. We can be humble and still want others to respect the ways, and norms, of our societies. Here, the question would seem to be where is our civilisation in it’s lifecycle because if we believe it’s past it’s zenith and rapidly deteriorating then that’s just how it is and we have to make our decisions accordingly.

Being on a ship in good shape sailing mostly calm waters is fine, but all ships rust and calm seas turn rough making life somewhat awkward. Nothing last forever and we find ourselves experiencing this life thing in the context that currently exists.

Grandmas world no longer exists, yet her beliefs and values linger on. If they’re functional for us then that’s great, if not then of what use are they? We might want to press refresh.

Knowledge is power

this good, but beyond the first page don't need to tie everything in. can just riff is self contained sections

Towards the cynical, dominated by ego, end of the spectrum we have someone like Trump. Would we want to be experiencing what Trump is experiencing ? Of course not, although, if we’re ourselves dominated by our ego then perhaps we would as what is the consolation prize seems to be all that matters. Seems to be all there is.

At the other, albeit almost impossible, extreme pole we have where Buddha was. Pruned back to the bare motivational minimum - he still had to survive - he’s fill of light/joy and there’s nothing he feels he needs to do as there are no unsatisfied motivations. While we can’t delete our ego, if we’re alone there is no hierarchy, there is no status so our ego effectively doesn’t exist. The cultural reality our ego lives in doesn’t exist - Buddha was completely outside that bubble.

Take a time machine, visit Buddha and tell him he’s fantastic, great etc and he’ll laugh awkwardly. It’s awkward because to even understand the meanings of your words he has to fire up his brain and process those words. Fantastic? Great? What does this person mean by those words? How are they defining them so I know what beliefs they have about me that they’re motivated to communicate to me. Calibrating to your words is, for him, a lot of unnecessary uncomfortable work yet what does it matter to him what notions happen to be swirling inside your head? It doesn’t matter -why would it? - and if it did he wouldn’t be sitting out in the forest on his own. Hence the awkward laugh. You’re trying to be nice but he doesn’t want pats on the head and doesn’t want to want pats on the head as then he’ll be a bear dancing for applause. He left that circus a long time ago and doesn’t want to go back. He’s very happy as is. Thanks, but no thanks. Awkward.

He’s left the cultural reality/bubble, his brain is not processing what his senses perceive into label and meanings - not bothering to divide the swirling shades of grey into black and white. What is just is. Effectively, at that extreme, there’s no real distinction between him and not him because why? For what does his brain need to make those distinctions? When we lack nothing everything is perfect as is.

Trump desperately wants those pats on the head. He’ll purr, or at least his ego will purr as that matters to him. Indeed, given his dominant ego, that’s all that matters to him. They’re drinking from different wells with Trump unaware the other one exists.

Towards the poles of the spectrum the perspective is extreme. There's nothing 'right' or even 'better' about the 'not wanting pats on the head' perspective. Nothing inherently 'wrong' or 'worse' craving pats on the head given 'right, wrong, better or worse are subjective. They're just different and individuals are free to define them/catagoise them as they want. The vast vast majority of us reside somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, somewhere in the fat part of the bell curve, and there we necessarily need to value approval, 'pats on the head' given we need to navigate the cultural reality. We need to be motivationally aligned with it to be able to navigate it effectively thus wanting pats on the head is a plus, not a negative. A feature, not a bug. The point I'm trying to make is not that wanting approval/status/respect is somehow bad, or a negative, but that that motivation can become too powerful causing us to become rigid and unable to access the other well. We can go so far into the cave there's now little light, can be there so long those walls have become the reality. As regards accessing happiness, we've gone too far towards the Trump end of the spectrum and might even celebrate we're there yet we're holding up the consolation prizes.

That our survival motivations overpowers our emotional motivations is completely normal - our first priority is survival. that our ego motivations overpowers our emotional motivation is, in many situations, also completely normal as we need to be part of a functioning group to survive. Those who stayed within, and aligned with their group tended to survive and reproduce whilst those who departed, voluntarilty, or otherwise, to 'find themselves' struggled to survive on their own in the dangerous world of the past and still dangerous today in many ways. Outside of a group, even if they survived, how did they successfully reproduce? They didn't, whilst those within the group did, thus we've descended from the more social types. As groups got bigger, as waves of ever bigger groups swept the landscape, our species social capacities got continually upgraded, not because we particually needed to be able to gossip to each other but because communication abilties were required to estbalish, and maintain, ever larger groups. Without language how big could our groups get? Without a powerful ego how big could our groups get? What happened when a bigger group met smaller group? Things got very awkward, very quickly. for that smaller group. they were displaced and in their place was now those with the capaciity to form, and maintain the larger group that was needed to survive. In time, an even larger group appeared on the horizon and our small tribe got replaced by a bigger tribe. this arms race continued until we got to the super tribes of today.

Like it or not, whether it contradicts our existing beliefs and values, or not and thus generates discomfort/pain or not, if the US decides it wants what Vzenezula has, or Iran has, or Greenland has, or just doesn't like Cuba, life gets awkward for those populations, or will get very uncomfortable unless they agree to the US terms. Nothing has changed and why would it?

I like to quote Springsteen as he’s someone able to access both wells, can move along the spectrum- therefore he mixes and matches from both. Pours his own cocktails. For those no longer chained to the bracken well it’s screamingly obvious the other one - the one that’s emotionally nourishing is much tastier and satisfying. A billionaire, famous, lovely, happy family life he has it all.

‘I haven’t worked a day in my life - thanks’ ‘If you’ve got to have a problem then too much money is a good problem to have’. Very high level stuff, he obviously figured out this life thing a long time ago.

Yet, he’s extremely humble. Not because he’s trying to be, not because being humble is cool, or something but because it’s moronic not to be. After -all he’s just another relatively intelligent Ape scurrying through the environment down on this little planet seeking to feel great. Yes, his ego feels great via the world his brain constructs but that’s not all there is, though if we get too deep into that world it becomes all there is.

Well my feet they finally took root in the earth

But I’ve got me a nice little place in the stars

I swear I found the key to the universe

In the engine of an old parked car

Flexibility is key. To be able to access both wells but first we must delete the chains that hold us at the relatively bracken well. Must firstly discover the other well exists.

I put my heart and soul, put them high up on a shelf

The struggle is always within. Everything we want exists, there’s no lack so, if we’re not happy enough where is the problem? Springsteen, never criticises anyone else, ok he makes a rare exception for Trump, because judging others in a binary good/bad manner makes no sense if we’re humble. Why should they be as I want them to be? What makes my beliefs and values superior to theirs? Who made me God? They do as they do, and that’s for them to decide, while I do as I do, and that’s for me to decide. Everyone is seeking to advance their own interests as they experience/ believe those interests to be. We all defend our interests but because interest sometimes clash doesn’t make the other person ‘bad’.

Good and bad are obviously subjective - everyone thinks they’re right - and the notion that we have extra, or superior, senses and/or massively superior IQ, allowing us to access the ‘truth’ is just foolish. Perhaps some others of our species do indeed have extra/superior senses allowing them to access a wider slice of reality than the rest of us do. Perhaps they also have a 500 IQ in an objective brain allowing them to process objectively all that extra data. Seems unlikely because our brains are not objective - that would be super weird - they obviously serve our motivations, but ok, then those exceptional specimens may indeed be able to perceive, and then accurately process, that which the rest of us cannot. But Springsteen knows he’s not one of those rare individuals, he’s just got the standard issue array of equipment to work with, so he works with what he’s got to experience what he wants to experience during this life thing he finds himself experiencing.

Tell him he knows the truth and he’ll giggle. That’s just silly, how can he, down here on this little planet possibly know the truth? We don’t even know how big the universe is, don’t know what it is yet we can know the truth about it? A troght looking out from its stream can see a little ways, we can see further but whether what we perceive is 1% or 10% of what there is we don’t know and cant know anymore than the trout can. Even if all humans deem something the truth, doesn’t make it so, it just seems to be how things are given our senses and brain. Who or what can stamp ‘truth’ on our beliefs and how can we know they know?

The humble can accept it’s all subjective. Can accept that if they were born into a different culture they’re have a different set of beliefs and values. Feels good to believe we stumbled into the right set as we’re then justified in judging others by our own set. This then allows us to look down our noses at most others - we have status. That feels good - high five. That’s something, but we can pay a high price for chasing that mediocre dollop of bio chemicals.

Thus the tragic catch 22 nature of unhappiness; those that make their way to therapists to increase their level of happiness lack the emotional buffer required to be able to accept challenges to their ego. Their emotional teat has gone dry - if not they wouldn’t be there in the first place - leaving them totally dependant on their ego teat for the modicum of satisfaction they do experience. How then can we expect them to be able to make significant changes? Take away their status and they plunge into the abyss- the pain is too great and they came in to feel better, not feel worse. Of course, they soon select a pill.

Play stupid games and we’ll win stupid prizes. Reverse engineer this; decide what prizes we actually want and we then decide what game/s we enter into and what rules we’re going to play by. Make our own rules and it becomes hard to lose. If we can’t make our own rules, if we’ve signed away our autonomy then ok, but we signed them away. The buck stops with us.

I sought and diamond rings

That said, obviously we need to survive and survive in the cultural world that exists unless we want to live under a tree somewhere. Sure, such is the game of life and we learn how to play it well, or we don’t. If we don’t then whose fault is that?

KNowledge is power because if we know how to make something happen we have the power to do so. Relevant knowledge is relevant power and as adults we get to decide what is relevant for us. If learning about our phone, or what the movie stars are doing is what we deem relevant then so be it, but we’ve made those choices. We’ve decided that’s how we’re going to utilise our brain. For someone like Springsteen those priorities seem weird - why don’t people want to understand, and take control of their own operating system? Delete the secondhand trash programming and be their own boss? It’s no coincidence that’s his nickname - The Boss - because he’s taken control of his own life which, boiled down, is taking control of our own motivations.

One type of ‘boss’ is orientated towards power over others - status - whilst the other is focused on power over themselves - manipulating themselves to generate the feelings desired. For those not seeking status others are just part of the environment doing as they’re motivated to do.

they take ownership, take control of their own beliefs and values? Being passive is simply ticking the boxes put in front of us in the belief that by successfully doing so we’ll be happy which, if that works out fine, is great of course. But if not then we need to take ownership of our own beliefs and values.

Seen a man standing over a dead dog.