February 15, 2007

Homeostasis

A typical reason to avoid social functions is social failure. A non-conformist personality or perhaps mental issues sometimes make a person difficult to get a long with. Few people want to deal with emotional problems of others, especially men, when these problems originate in upbringing, personality, or seem to exist only within their own mind. These scenarios might make a recluse of a person.

On the other hand, some people choose to withdraw from social situations because they reject these "normal" activities, they find it unstimulating. They can function socially, but they refuse it. Their self-confidence reaches a point where they no longer need the acceptance of a peer group, or empty synthetic entertainment, as a daily routine. They withdraw from society voluntarily becoming introverted, restrained, and self-sufficient. Do not confuse socialization with social personality. These people reject over-socialization or bad socialization. The introvert or highly sensitive person chooses to ignore the toxic effects of over-stimulation, and this is a natural human reaction.

It is a search for balance.

Homeostasis; the return to a internal equilibrium by adjusting psychologocial processes. It is the maintenance of the internal environment within tolerable limits.

This reaction is much like the way the body works (as does nature) where over-stimulation can be unwanted or painful. Balance is not just a goal of nature, as if nature had a design or purpose. (That is a separate issue.) It should be a goal of the conscious human self, and we can learn in part how to achieve this by paying attention to nature and even to the body, which, after all, is part of nature.

Self-corrections by nature are often labeled disasters by human society (floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, religious terrorists) but there are clear if not predictable causes. In a cosmic sense, these are not disasters but events. They are natural spasms reacting to contrived material conditions and unsustainable behaviors. The expressions are violence, war, destruction, famine, and impoverishment. They are labeled revolutionary, or should be, even when carried out by the state. They may take a long time to work themselves around to their causes. These spasms to achieve balance are to be considered disastrous in consequence but they follow logically from the radical absence of balance in the society itself.

While no one wishes these disasters, few are paying attention to the contrived situations from which they arise.

Back to introverts which are solitary: It is the view of almost every solitary that society has gone off track and cannot empathize it's own ills. They view a society that lacks a mechanism for achieving balance. Is this inevitable? The solitary people may want to affirm solitude for him or her self, not want to judge others, their institutions and situations. They inevitably condemn the world, and by extension, the artificial and contrived entity we call society.

What would a world without society be? A world of solitaries? Is a world without society possible? NO. In my opinion, solitude is only the extension of the intuitive soul perceiving the pain and suffering that comes from embracing a life containerized and compartmentalized by society that is out-of-balance.

Koyaanisqatsi? In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means 'life of moral corruption and turmoil, life out of balance'

Natural disasters are homeostasis in nature. Destruction and violence is an human attempt at balance act between the rich and powerful, and the suppressed or reactive. It is the sad interplay of economic and psychological forces of human society. It never stays at that level, it descends into physical pain and suffering.

Solitude and becoming solitary is a balancing "event" in the world of human consciousness.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good morning,

I think we have to choose our own balance. Society has nothing to do with it. Not always easy to be who we really are. I do admit that there is some pressure to be a "certain way".

The past has created who we are and it's up to us to hang on to it or move on. All depends what makes us happy.

We are free to choose.

Life is a gift and we have to decide what we want to do with it.

Gloom and doom... or see that light at the end of the tunnel...

It's our choice.

Luv you my friend...have a great day!

XOXOXOX

azgoddess said...

ah yes -- i saw both parts of that film you-all are talking about...mind-blowing to say the least...you can rent them on netflix

undertanding that we need everything in moderation creates the balance in my life...that and 'desiderata'

BBC said...

I'm not able to comprehend this whole post. Not having experienced some of the things mentioned.

But.

Sometimes I'm a loner because I get so frustrated at the human condition.

But.

I can also mix it up and even be the center of attention.

There is something about speaking before a few hundred people and having them paying attention to every word you say.

And I've been known to go to rip into the establishment in such meetings.

Balance, that I understand.

Blueberry said...

The Myers-Briggs personality descriptions state that an extravert is one who draws energy (recharges) from other people and from external things and activities. An introvert draws energy from things within and is drained by too much socializing. Having scored as an extreme introvert, I agree with this. The withdrawing, being alone, serves the purpose of recharging your batteries, getting you ready to face the world again. Withdrawing is not necessesarily a bad thing. It all depends on how you "plug-in".

BBC said...

Blueberry...

You nailed me.