THE ‘WHERE’S-THE-SCISSORS’ DISORDER

by Stanley

I would like to tell you about an odd personal disturbance of mine. I’ll call it the Where’s-the-Scissors disorder. It used to happen regularly with my car keys, but it can happen with anything: ‘where did I leave the scissors’; ‘where is my diary’; ‘where did I put my notes’; ‘where’s my cell phone’. The other day I had no idea where I had left my cell phone, so I rang it up on the land line – heard it ringing and searched all over the house to find where the ringing was coming from. Eventually I found it in some unlikely place.

But it’s my condition of mind that is interesting. It is based on the assumption that something is lost. When I am afflicted with this condition I know something is lost in the same instant that I turn to find it. Both go together: where is it – I’ve lost it. It’s the same as searching for a name I can’t remember. I know the name full well and I know that I know it. But in the instant I reach for it in my memory, I know I can’t remember it.

This syndrome is especially noticeable where the thing I’m looking for is right in front of my nose. ‘Where’s the scissors?’ Anyone else would see them right there on the table in front of me; but do I see them? No, I do not. I know I can’t find them because I’m looking for them. That very ‘knowing’ produces a blind spot. ‘Can’t find’ is built in to ‘looking for’.

If you think I must be getting a bit Alzheimerish I can only say that I was like this when I was 10. I can remember crying out, “Mum…Muuum where are my…..?” to which my mother would invariably reply, “Well where did you put it…?” This would infuriate me because if I knew where I’d put it I wouldn’t be asking her.

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There are many kinds of seeking and all kinds of things we seek. But there are certain quests that are doomed to fail because they have an out-of-reach quality already built into them. They are quests with a nullifying shadow. Rather like my conviction that I can’t find the scissors. It was Plato who said, (and I somewhat paraphrased him) “we never want what we already have”. It is also true, in some perverse sense, that I never have what I want. Wanting already implies an absence. It is almost like wanting turns on the deficit; just as ‘looking-for’ turns on ‘can’t find’.

Let’s hone in on something a little more specific. Sometimes in session a person will say to me, “what am I supposed to be talking about.” Such a simple, honest question reveals a propensity for impossible quests. Maybe the thing that is important to him isn’t really the most important thing. The person has the notion that there is something he should find within himself that isn’t already there. That’s the perfect set-up for the impossible quest. The very worst reply would be to try and help him find it. Why? Because you would be playing into the ‘quest’ state of mind. You would be collaborating in the idea that there is something he is not doing which he ought to be doing. Even if he found something that he wanted to talk about it might not be the right one. It wouldn’t be, would it? Obviously – otherwise he wouldn’t be asking, would he?

The very worst thing you can do is to set someone up for an impossible quest. So many religious and spiritual systems do just that. A typical example would be to suggest that there is something one must find within oneself. “The answer to your problems lies within”, you wisely suggest. That’s the trigger that sets them up. It’s only a short step to trying to find God. They’re probably already stuck on ‘trying to find themselves’. And what you suggest closes the trap that’s already waiting for them. It’s a very subtle thing. Who they are can’t be right because they are looking for themselves.

I have been guilty of unintentionally perpetrating this ploy myself. As you know I have been very keen on the technique called focusing. But it has one major snare that’s easy to fall into. In my keenness it took me a while to learn this. The technique asks people to look into the felt-sense to find what they feel. The felt-sense is a murky, uneasy physical sensation somewhere in the body; and, if you give it attention, new and important feelings will emerge. And it does work – except for people who are already inclined toward impossible quests. The first thing that hits them is “what feeling am I supposed to look for”. With that question they’re gone !! Even if they just think it.

‘Well no’, you might say, ‘just put your attention on that tightness in your chest and see what comes’. Yes, the person is willing to try it. So they wait for something that isn’t there to reveal itself. That’s the catch! If something is there, that can’t be it because I’m looking for it. You don’t search for what is there, do you?

I will go so far as to say that any instruction in how to do therapy is in danger of being counterproductive. Firstly, because the person will search for what is supposed happen and will overlook is actually happening. In doing so they become one step removed from direct involvement; and one step removed from their own experience.

The trouble is, any psychological or spiritual belief system tends to dictate what you should strive to be or to search for. They address something that is felt to be missing and therefore precipitates the search for something that ‘should be there but I can’t find it’. I can just as easily try to find Christ as my Buddha nature, or the meaning of my archetypal dreams; or the Love that the Universe is Sending me; or the Real Me; or the Meaning of Life; or just simply ‘Love’ or ‘Happiness’. Or – here’s a good one – ‘faith ’.

All harmless enough pursuits I suppose. But just be on the lookout for the various mutations of the deadly ‘I-can’t-find-the-scissors’ disorder.