THE CAGE OF HUMAN INATTENTION AS A CLOSED CYCLE

THE CAGE OF HUMAN INATTENTION AS A CLOSED CYCLE

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© July 22, 2014

We get ourselves in situations in which we feel there isn’t anything we can do to make it better.  The more we try to do something the more we become blind to the reality of the situation.  

We are trying to do something which, in the nature of the thing, is impossible to extricate ourselves, and therefore we develop a feeling of chronic frustration.

Chronic frustration is like living in a cage, forever running around the cage to get out, only staying forever in the cage.  When feeling so trapped, we are like the gerbil on the wheel in the cage, running faster and faster and going nowhere.

In modern parlance since the 1970s, we have called this being in the "rat race," or the everlasting cycle in pursuit of one end, of one’s own end, going around and around afraid to stop, to take a “time out,” or to abandon the wheel. 

The most acceptable way to escape the wheel and the "rat race" has been euphemistically called "burn out," or burning the candle at both ends until there is no longer any wick.  

The least acceptable way is to abandon one's career purposely, emphatically and dramatically.    

We called such people in the 1970s who did this as “drop outs,” and not necessarily in charitable terms. Yours truly was such a drop out.  

So, how do you get out?  That is the wrong question.  

What has to be understood is that there is a trap only if someone can admit to him or herself that they feel trapped, and being so trapped is no longer acceptable.  It is the acknowledgement that we are the observer as well as the observed when it comes to our person, a total entity within ourselves, a corporate body, if you well, with capability of executing personal and professional change irrespective of what others might think or approve of or not.

I was in my mid-thirties in the upper 1 percent of earners, and resigned my executive position although married and the father of four pre-teenage children with no other income than what I had saved, which was modest.

What did I do?  I took a two-year sabbatical, read books, played tennis, and wrote one, and when I was nearly broke went back to school, full time for six years to earn a Ph.D. in social & industrial psychology, totally abandoning my training in chemistry and engineering and management. 

Subsequently, a career developed in consulting, working as part time adjunct professor, then as an organizational development (OD) psychologist, promoted to executive status with this same hi-tech company, retiring again in my 50s to write books.  

I share this with you because you can see it has a consistency, if however not forced. It found me ending up where I would have liked to have gone from the beginning, but didn't believe I could afford to.  That said my income has been modest compared to those years prior to my first retirement.  

Do I have any regrets? Absolutely none!  I'm where I am supposed to be.   

The key to getting out is first embracing the feelings and limitations of bondage.  When you say to yourself, “I am trapped.  I cannot get out of this,” you are describing the trap precisely and the condition of your freedom. 

When you discover the present flow of thought,or the way it is, and then couple that with the existing flow of experience, you run into your chronic frustration.  

Chronic frustration is the cage you have created.  It is no trap.  You are the process.  By design or default, by the choices you have made, you are precisely where you expected to be.  

This is not happening to you.  This is “you.”  You’re not its victim, but its designer.  It is you.  

So, instead of asking, “How do I get out of this,” the question simply disappears.  You step out of the cage and move on, as I did.

I have written a book about this, which is to be published soon on Amazon’s Kindle titled, "WHO PUT YOU IN THE CAGE?”

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