TENDENCIES.

It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way. Oscar Wilde

Many times I have poked fun at the modern obsession with making goals. It is particularly pernicious in some counselling and self-help books. According to these experts nothing is achieved in life without the careful constructions of one’s goals. But in truth, goals are ego-driven fantasies, often quite detached from the multifaceted nature of reality and, no matter how unrealistic they may be, we are encouraged to believe that the future is ours to fabricate as we wish. And to our detriment, the compulsion to make goals keeps us in our thinking-heads.

A more interesting question is to enquire about one’s ‘tendencies’. This is a much more delicate procedure and requires one to listen rather than dictate; and not merely to listen to the many voices within, but not to be too hasty in taking sides. Big questions are usually arrived at somewhat outside conscious awareness. Eventually, you find yourself going in this direction rather than that. Sometimes when you are agonizing over what to do, you are vaguely aware that something inside has already decided. You know what your inclination is and that it will win in the end – that is, unless some demon wipes out all your alternatives. Incidentally, I use the word ‘tendency’ in the same sense as ‘inclination’.

If you say to me, “Ah yes, but it’s not always wise to follow one’s inclinations, is it?” True, but not to follow a certain inclination is merely another inclination of a different kind. We have dozens of inclinations, all at cross purposes.

A tendency or inclination is quite different from a goal. A goal is idea you place in the future that is suppose to drag the present towards it. It is, as they say in philosophy, ‘teleological’ – what we call purposeful – like the complete design of a new car before the car is made. But a tendency does not create a future – it sniffs its way forward, feeling for openings. A tendency is opportunistic, staying close to what’s available, with a constant eye on what is going on. Sure, there are basic needs, but a tendency is governed by what is possible among the shifting sands of contingency.

A tendency has been described as a ‘seed, a sort of potentiality of the soul. Wherever you are destined to go, you will go. Whatever you are destined to be, you will be – like the acorn is destined to be an oak tree. But a tendency is more malleable than that, more adaptable. You can’t tell – an acorn might become a daffodil. There isn’t really an end goal. I definitely have a tendency to grow, but if the soil is more suitable to being a daffodil, that’s what I’ll be. I may have been an acorn to start with, but oak trees may not have been on the menu. In the natural world, of course, this cannot happen; an acorn cannot grow into anything else but oak tree. But we do not entirely live in the natural world. To a large extent we have built the world we live in. We have built lots of worlds to live in – they are called ‘cultures’.

If I had been unfortunate enough to have been born in Afghanistan the pressure of circumstances, the culture, might have made me a respectable paidup member of the Mujahidin.

There is no pre-programming in my soul to make me a typical westerner. They say there are a many ways to skin a cat – so too there are a many ways to survive – it depends where you wake up born.

It’s not that you come into the world as a blank slate upon which anything can be written, that your culture and family environment completely determine what you will become. You have a nature, but it is so malleable that it amounts to having a conglomerate of natures. I am quite aware that I would be just as fulfilled if I’d become a Master Plumber or an archivist in the Nature History Museum or a photographer for National Geographic Magazine. I’m sure I would have done reasonably well in any of these. As it happened, as a young man, I stumbled across a mentor who nudged me in the direction I have actually gone. But I can say with confidence that I was not born to be a therapist. I don’t mind that because I have become quite good at it.

Our tendencies are in conflict with each other, a perfectly natural competition. As we evolve as personalities only a few are picked out for survival. Those inclinations that survive the rough and tumble of our family and culture determine what we think are our ‘choices’. The truth is: we grope our way through life. And therapy, the person-centred way we do it, is a good way of groping. Just getting hold of that is a considerable relief. It means I can let go and relax a bit.

I can’t control what’s coming at me in the next minute, never mind next year. I cannot control life however I might want to.

Have you ever wondered why a drinker cannot stop drinking or a drug addict can’t stop using. We find this amazing. “But it’s killing you”, a friend might say, believing that such a reasonable point should make a difference. Both friend and the addict think this is true. It should make a difference, so neither can understand why the addict doesn’t stop. The friend feels impatient and the addict feels foolish and weak.

If the addict had enough confidence he might say to the friend, “Why don’t you stop living, it’s killing you!” – which is just as sensible.