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About Frustration

woepwoep said Aug 7, 2007, 2:00 AM:

Frustration is the feeling of reaching beyond reach.

Body / Physically - that's where it starts. Without the experience of this physical movement, you can not know this feeling. (see Vygotsky's work on child development)

Mind / Mentally -again, to reach beyond reach means that i want the other person to do the reaching. Vygotsky states that every mental operation builds on previous external movement.

In the AttentionFlow diagram, frustration is when the female needs to wait (action#0, not drawn) until the male pays attention to her (action #1). Her urge is to send love (action#2), so when she can not send love (#2) because #1 hasn't taken place yet, she gets impatient - that is the frustration.

Her remedy doesn't work - to push away the male, and do the attentionpaying (#1) for him. The Attention Flow is then stopped, for she occupies both male and female positions.

Comments anyone?
Best regards, Ron

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Re: About Frustration

sandy said Aug 7, 2007, 2:03 AM:

Sounds like a personal thing to me!

Re: About Frustration

Curmudgeon [no longer around] said Aug 7, 2007, 4:50 AM:

Makes no sense at all to me, except perhaps as a projection of the psyche of the formulator… uhhh, what Sandy said.

Re: About Frustration

woepwoep said Aug 8, 2007, 12:51 AM:

thanks to all who read my article.

Your feedback and non-feedback gives me an opportunity to propose the nature of conflict in general, and of inner conflict more specifically.

Propositions:

Conflict can only arise when there is something in common.
Frustration is a type of conflict, in this case an inner conflict.

So for frustration, as an inner conflict, it means that there is something in common.

Here's an example.

I ask for feedback. Then i get feedback. One person might say : “doesn't make sense to me”. Another person might say : “He's projecting his own frustrations”. And a third person might say : “listen, friend, why would you expose yourself to people who refuse to seek understanding, rather than to agree or disagree?”

I read all these feedback. And i read no further feedback, which is also feedback.

I feel frustrated, because i expected feedback of type A, and i get feedback of type B. The frustration is, that once again i am confronted with my own inability to properly express myself. Had it been the first time in my life, i would perhaps experience totally different feelings - wow ! what is happening here? interesting ! - kind of feelings.

So here i am, wanting to learn about frustration, and the feedback gives me an excellent opportunity to learn. I experience frustration. Where do i go from here?

I find deeper in myself. I see that i have a need for contact and communication. The need is such that i can express myself in any way i choose, and that the other person may only react in the way that i have imagined, hoped for, demanded.

This is all inner dialogue. I want something, and it's not happening. And by the formulation of my felt frustration, the words “once again”, i can tell that the feedback touches an inner belief of which i would rather not be aware.

What is happening with me? My need to express myself, and my inner belief that i lack the ability to do so, these two are in conflict. I dont want to feel this inability, so a voice inside me says : “you dummy, why didn't you post in a more open minded audience?” I notice how this voice offends the people who have gaven me different feedback from what i expected, how it calls them names and so on. I also notice how this voice rejoices the third person, how her feedback puts a kiss upon my frustration.

Overseeing all this, i post a new article. In this article, i write about all these feelings of frustration that arise inside me.

Best regards, Ron

Re: About Frustration

Wiseman said Aug 8, 2007, 8:51 AM:

Ron et al,

I like the idea of describing the process/flow of attention to illuminate some of the more basic transactions of social interchange. I believe that there is merit in this, but would like to know more about the conclusion you are trying to draw. It would seem that illustration of a process is illumination and represents %50 of the outcome you are trying to drive. The remaining %50 is really a “how to fix this process” guide. It is critically important that you have both of these or else your theory has no traction in an objective driven world.

I will argue about conflict and frustration however. I believe these concepts arise from only one source, and communion or commonality is not it. I believe that all suffering is a disparity between what we want the world to be in fantasy vs. what the present is. It is this and only this that creates conflict and frustration. In your case, you set up the expectation or fantasy that you wanted X type of feedback. The expectation is the cause of your frustration and not anything else. Expectation is a form of attachment to outcomes, and thusly doomed to cause suffering. The creation process should free you from expectations, not chain you to them. I suggest you view this process as that of collaborative creation, and free yourself from your desired results whatever they may be.

Warm regards to all,
Wiseman

edit: Spellcheck etc.

Re: About Frustration

woepwoep said Aug 8, 2007, 3:22 PM:

Hi Wiseman,

I like the idea of showing the process in its natural flow, and also in its opposite flow. The title of the diagram states “male view” - i mean to say that it is my mind's view. So 50% is missing, which is the female view - again, this missing is perceived only from my mind's perspective.

To solve frustration, there is a technique or method that i call unknowing. It was originally inspired by Krishnamurti, who said “dont say yes or no, because then you are stuck. Find out !”

The method is also inspired by Vygotsky's findings, that there are two movements connected together inside our belief system, and that both movements have an origin in the external physical world. One movement is from the person, the other movement is from the environment. See for detailed description my blog here.

Additional evidence for my technique or method i found in Spinoza's book Ethics, where he states something like this (sorry i dont have the book with me right now) : if the original experience was that one body that we imagined was accompanied by the appearance of a second body, then whenever we imagine again this first body then the second body automatically appears. So this in turn made me think about the two external movements internalized into one.

I believe that all suffering is a disparity between what we want the world to be in fantasy vs. what the present is.

Dear Wiseman, with the above information available, i hope to have painted the context in which i see conflict - the two external movements internalized into one movement. Your above statement defines suffering, which i call not conflict but sorrow. Sorrow is the strength to have reality different from what it is.

Lastly, you ask about the conclusion that i try to draw. My original intent was and still is, to create a theory of attention that bypasses all conceptual words, down to the levels of energy and movement.

Best regards, and thanks much for such inspirational contribution,
Ron