Intro | Mind, body, spirit
| The mind | The brain
| The spirit | Awareness
| Volition | Memory |
What can I tell you about the human condition that you don't already know - or aren't already thoroughly confused about? You can become lost forever trying to unravel all the competing paradigms about human psychology, or more specifically human behavior. We probably need different paradigms at different times, so regardless of what any authority posits as "the" paradigm of life, none can ever be fully true. Having a way of understanding the world around us is one of the fundamental things we all need, and each of us usually has some kind of paradigm. Undoubtedly a lot of the fun in life is coming to a new understanding of things - discovering that some piece of experiential knowledge that life has hammered into your soul now illuminates a new part of life's puzzle. Rather than try to be an authority and force psychological frameworks on people, I'll just say that the following self-composed paradigm, distilled from many hours of observation and experience, is the one I currently use, and it is unbiased (or untainted) by the horde of psychological theories. It also isn't all that different from any of the others. It may save you countless hours in creating a difficult character - that is trying to figure out how a difficult character would act, and why. In studies of twins, especially those separated at birth, some remarkable similarities surface. Twins may like the same styles of clothes and same types of stories, despite never having met each other. Twins raised together often sense when the other is facing danger. How much of that is derived from physical similarities? Or is it a psychic - mental or spiritual - connection? Most people (somewhere over 95%) believe in the spiritual aspect of life. But we are challenged by reality. We know that electrically stimulating certain areas of the brain will cause a near death type of experience where the person enters a long tunnel and sees angels or people from his past. What they see seems to be determined by their religion. But does locating something in the brain mean it's just a biological function? No, demonstrating the experience by stimulation doesn't disprove it any more than inducing a near death experience by drowning and reviving someone would. But how can you use this in a story? If you hint in a story at a character's personal beliefs, you are on safe ground. But going farther and saying, "God said do this or that," or making answers to problems fall from the heavens as if sent by God, and you immediately cross the line into the untenable - people instinctively know that the line between physical reality and spirituality is a matter of personal beliefs which vary from person to person. That isn't a line you can safely cross. Yet the spiritual is a major part of the guidance system of every person's behavior. One person would fight in a war and would pull the switch on a convicted murderer. The next person will campaign against both. Why? How do you get a handle on it, and how do you use it in a story? The mind, which is closely associated with the brain, is not something that we thoroughly understand. We don't know exactly what all the biological influences are and how strongly they interact. We do have clues. We know that drug induced states and drug dependencies can overcome judgment and turn a person with admirable behavior into someone who will commit violent crimes to support the habit. We know that sex is a biological desire that can be completely subjugated by the desires of the mind, creating someone who rapes or takes advantage of sexuality for his own gain (power, money, etc.). We don't understand how memory works. But we see clues when electrical stimulus to the brain causes memories to replay. Yet memories seem to stored in many different areas of the brain. Injuring one part of the brain may not destroy the entire memory. Compare this "virtual" memory to a hologram. The images of an object required to create a hologram can be stored on two pieces of film. The object bears no resemblance to the image. But when two lasers transmit the two images at a central point, the image magically reappears hanging in space before you. What happens if you tear up three fourths of both images? The hologram can still appear, but without the detail. Is the memory a virtual reality created from many disparate parts, including a spiritual part? We often think of the mind as something that captures events and information, and under the right conditions the person can exactly recall all of it. Yet the mind registers the unusual things, not the other stuff. Does the mind have "stock" images and sensations that form the background of memories and recall, and only registers the new and unusual? We also see clues to memory in the mind's ability to hide from memories that are too unpleasant. We see in every person the ability to avoid dealing with realities that we are not ready to deal with. And when reality forces a person to deal with it in some way, the person's coping behavior can become a neurosis. How do you get a firm enough handle on your character's mind to use it successfully in stories? These areas are not simple areas, but here are some constructs, followed by how to use them: The brain is the device that communicates with the body and with the world. The brain processes and stores information, like memories. It is the link with the physical world. The brain's only real motivations are security (protection) and operating the body. For example, many physical skills or operations can be relegated to the brain. Jump in the car after work, put your brain on auto-pilot, and "the car finds its way home" while you think about your new assignment at work and listen to music. The autonomic nervous system and lower portions of the brain have learned the route and do all the right things, including reacting to potential accident situations if the brain has had enough experience or training. But if you wanted to stop off at the corner market and pick up milk on the way home, chances are good that it won't happen if you're on auto-pilot. Yet many people can delegate large lists of things to this part of the brain and do things with very little thought. The spiritual is, at minimum, a land of ideas. Ideas about what has value to the person, and what values in this world are better. For an example of a personal value, is it better to write horror stories about trips to the dentist, or to write stories that help others understand painless dentistry, or is it better to design buildings? For an example of moral values, is it better to rape, pillage, and plunder an enemies nation, or is it better to help a conquered enemy rebuild his world? These are ideas which compete for the mind's attention. Without the brain, the mind has no place to reside and work. The mind has no connection with the physical part of life, and is unable to carry out actions that result from ideas and desires. The mind, or psyche, is where the spiritual land of ideas interacts with the physical world to prove or disprove the conflicting world of ideas and desires. Motivation deals primarily with the mind. The mind is a person's awareness. The mind is where competing ideas and desires collide and decisions are made. "I really hate that person for stealing my money and my wife, and I would really like revenge. Should I poison his soup?" On the edge of awareness, and always slightly illuminated, is the spiritual idea - "don't kill!" Anger creates a physical desire to act, and the loss of love powerfully motivates. The man steals the other's car and wrecks it, to get back at him. The judge decides a ten year prison term will increase the authority and position in the person's mind of the laws sufficiently to prevent him from doing it again, or possibly killing the next time. The judge may be right. He may be wrong. Spiritual ideas, like don't steal and don't kill, are only external until the person integrates them through experience. The next time he faces the same situation, revenge may still have more value to him than a prison sentence. Think of awareness as a flashlight illuminating a portion of a room. The floor is covered with basic desires. The walls are covered with memories. The furniture makes up the current situation and the current desire or motivation. The ceiling is covered with ideas which float around. Some ideas carry the weight of authority behind them, and some memories carry the weight of experience and are anchored to memories on the walls. The strength of the competition illuminates the beam weakly or intensely. Only a portion of the room can be illuminated at one time, but the person can adjust the beam to display any part he wants of the floor, wall, and ceiling. But weighted ideas remain illuminated. It's the person's choice whether to emphasize the floor or the ceiling - but no matter how the beam is adjusted or shifted, both the floor and ceiling remain partially illuminated - it's a matter of focus. Another form of focus takes place within the illuminated area of the psyche. A concept of self takes shape. Memories and experience and wants and desires link into a system which gains critical mass with an inertia all its own that says, "this is what I am." For most practical purposes this person is a new creation, able to experience the world without the hindrance of previous memories and experiences. Beyond that we can only speculate. Beyond that is a matter of faith and belief. Do people actually think and make decisions, or does the strongest competing desire flood awareness with its presence and make the person act? Perhaps for some judgment is mechanical, and for some it is more considered - weighed. For some there does not appear to be any defining element in their awareness and whatever desire is greatest wins the competition. The illusion of free will is, "I'm doing what I want - following my own desires," yet they are victims of their own desires. For others, centered in their awareness, in their concept of self, is a fundamental question: "what kind of a person am I becoming?" It is primarily a question of direction. As they make choices in the desired direction, their resulting memories and experience anchor the idea of what they are and what they are becoming more and more firmly. The sense of self becomes greater. The person is able to experience feelings not just selfishly, as in what has value only to him and those he has a selfish interest in, but in the happenings in the lives of all others. These people not only understand the consequences of their behavior, they have feelings about those consequences. They can understand the impact of an idea and of their actions in other's lives. No longer motivated simply by the strength of their own desires, they can weigh one idea and a corresponding course of action against another, and accept responsibility for their actions. The sense expands to one of themselves as individuals with greater and greater freedom of choice. Choices even to seek and explore, and to set new directions. Choices to become ever more responsible for their own destiny. These people have true freedom of choice. As for me, I know I have graduated beyond the single-cell, stimulus-response amoebae. Yes, I'm now like the hundred legged worm with a brain the size of a pin point, fascinated with the ability to keep all 100 legs in synch. Now if I could just master chewing at the same time. Step, step, chew, step, step, trip. Memories are brought back into mental (the brain's) awareness as the mind returns focus (illumination) to the area in which a memory resides. I suspect that memories that support what is important to us - support an idea or desire by an experience they relate - are more easily brought back into focus than the trivia that makes up much of our lives. Details are more likely kept as concepts of what happened, unlike motion pictures that have total detail. Uncomfortable memories are rarely brought into focus, so never require action from us even though they may have great strength. We often develop strategies that assist us in not recognizing uncomfortable memories - coping behaviors - that divert us from bringing the memory into focus - even though we know it is there. We just don't think about certain things. To some extent we all do this. We don't think about religion, or politics, or not finishing school - it creates too much dissonance. When the trauma being ignored is very great, and the coping behaviors are an obstruction to dealing with everyday reality, we have developed a neurosis. The center of the individual - basic motivation Why does that fundamental question - "what kind of person am I becoming?" - ever get raised? This leads into the second construct - behaviors that result from central feelings and choices of what is valued. Why is each individual so different than others? Why does one person decide to become a stock analyst, while his brother becomes a doctor, and their sister becomes an auto mechanic? Why does one fail miserably in marriage and another remain successfully married until death? Why does one choose to help the underprivileged and another have nothing but contempt for them? Especially if they are raised in very similar backgrounds, exposed to very similar ethics. The choices we make are influenced by the central needs each of us has. The needs are well known and common to everyone, but find an infinite variety of expression. We all need to feel we are part of something, that we contribute, that we are competent, that we are loved, that we are respected. These are all feelings of social acceptance - that is, of feeling a part of the whole. Where do these needs originate? Can we blame them on habits? Learned responses? Instincts? Acquired needs? We can't be sure, but in studies with monkeys who are deprived of "love," baby monkeys who are deprived don't fare as well as other monkeys, and can even die. We label physical contact with others and being cared for, "love." I'm not sure that's the right label (and I'm not saying anything negative about love) - but social acceptance and contact do seem to be fundamental needs that have no more definable cause (or reducible source). Yet these same qualities also seem to be fundamentally lacking in some individuals. The antisocial person seems to have these needs missing or covered up. The sociopath, who has no regard for the feelings of others and can hurt them without feelings of remorse, seems to highly value money. He is motivated by money, but not by feelings or any enterprise most people believe is worthwhile. I think that central to each of us is a central motivation - the desire to find meaning (or value or a positive experience) in a social context. This ignores the physical needs for food, shelter, and sex - things which have to do with the brain, not the mind. This central desire doesn't mean that everyone is an extrovert or only does social things - many people are uncomfortable with, or don't feel the need, to do things regarded as "social." I think these things are evident in our desire to be accepted, loved, to contribute, and to be competent. For most people what is meaningful in life is defined by those around us, family, peers, religious groups, academic groups, the nation, etc. These groups define the ideas that we live, debate, and prove or disprove - those moral and spiritual ideas that both define our limits, and which we are in process of testing, both to prove experientially to ourselves and to prove in an absolute sense. For example, the rule of law was tested and proved valuable, but for many has been replaced by a higher scheme, the application of love. Those who love certainly would not violate the principles of the law, but they aspire to a more productive type of conduct. The law is basic - a place to begin - "do not do…" but love brings better results than law, and tempers some of the rough edges of the law - "do this." Mankind has proven this through experience. Individuals continue to prove this to themselves, learning it. As a person seeks meaning in a social context, the things that are valuable to other people become the things that are valuable to him. He sees what he is competent at, what has meaning, where he can make a contribution, and this becomes what has great value to him. I have read some authors who think the environment is the key to every individual's destiny (Rollo May). But I think that much farther reaching than the general environment are the events in a person's life, and how the person perceives those events. We can know the general influences. In biographies and autobiographies, we can read about specific events. Doing bad - temptations and villains Although the social context provides a framework for us for meaning and value, and our core values respond to that, that doesn't mean our behavior is always good. Actually in many ways we are very selfish until we learn the consequences of our behavior. Selfish behavior drives others away. As Quentin Hyder put it, selfishness is not a psychological problem, it is a spiritual problem. It is the opposite of the idea that we want to be part of others. So selfishness is a motivation to do things that may harm others. The essence of evil in people is selfishness in the extreme. Evil is the complete rejection of others except for selfish purposes. Notice that most of the basic laws in religion have to do with man's treatment of man. Our core values sometimes lead us to do misguided things. We want so badly to be loved, or respected, or part of something that we do something wrong to make it happen. Our core values become selfish interests that blind us to other values. Then sometimes we really don't understand the consequences of behavior, and sometimes we mistake a core value for something else. The result of any of these is that we behave badly. What we can create, for characters, is the specific influences that motivate people. For example, why does a president's son turn away from his father's profession? Perhaps he saw the sacrifice his family made and decided it wasn't worth it. Perhaps he didn't feel he could ever be competent to the task. Perhaps God put a different desire in him. Or, perhaps he was born with previous experience that mandated he live a life with different objectives. We can't really know, but for our audience we can create a believable version. Does this make sense? On the other hand, what characters would try to do things that have no value in a society? If they do, then they may be eccentric geniuses, or they may be ostracized from their society, or they may be trying to prove their uniqueness - their individuation. There is motivation here that requires development. What we can gain from this is that most characters would be basically like the background they came from. That much of character development is a given. What you have to develop about a character is the unique motivations. For example, at twelve Johnny is at a crucial stage in his life (wants to prove his uniqueness in a way others can appreciate), and Johnny tells his father that all his friends are doing all kinds of exciting things. They aren't, but what Johnny is really saying is that he doesn't feel "special," not comfortable with his friends - not accepted, not making a contribution, not competent, not having value to others. He watches an air show and he and his friends are so impressed that he begins to do everything with his life to go in the direction of flight school and becoming a test pilot. Later it is him flying the plane in some dire situation. Another example, Bill and his friends do not believe in ghosts, but a very close friend of Bill has a unique experience with ghosts, and Bill later has a very brief experience that causes him to doubt. Bill can either become a fool in front of his friends, or deny these experiences. Bad behavior is the stuff of temptation and villains. Villains are basically evil - they aren't going to change in the story. But the good guy usually has a flaw - some temptation - which is the villain's way of getting to him. This is one area where character growth can come from. The protagonist sees something bad about himself and overcomes it. There are other things that a character can overcome, like a fear, or lack of courage, which have to do with "character" and discovering inner resources. Another example, "Your attitude is your life." How people perceive things determines what they are gaining from an experience at the moment. The person who feels, "It’s a jungle out there," may act suspicious of everyone, treat others calously, and may even carry a weapon. Whether the perception is true or not is irrelevant - the perception still results in an attitude that has major impact on the person’s life. Something else we can understand from knowing how people operate, is that the audience will only understand motivation that has social meaning. They must be able to relate to it. They can relate to an action movie in which mercenaries defend a village or an unknown nation, even if they aren't waving a national flag. They have trouble relating to games with strange objectives played by characters on another planet in a science fiction movie. They have trouble relating to groups that have an entirely different value system than their own. So these things would require elaborate setup and explanation. It's difficult to write movies, or characters, that differ from what we think of as normal. The normal way of life is called the human condition. Revealing the human condition is what producers look for. The human condition is what movies are about.
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