DEEP CUTS
All of us—sober or not—are connected. We share instincts, archetypes, symbols, and a pull to the divine. And when we don’t, we feel empty. Like, empty empty.
From birth, we are individuals formed in the context of a collective. A nuclear family. Society at large. You don’t become you in a vacuum. The act of becoming is interactive. (What? You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?)
No sane man is an island.
And that’s why you’ll find the word “unity” emblazoned on many a recovery chip.
But that’s not the whole story.
Flip over that chip and you’ll find the words “to thine own self be true.”
As much as sobriety is about coming together, it’s also about the alchemical concept of Separatio.
Alcohol and drugs, carved out.
Play things, play pals, and play pens that no longer serve us, sliced away.
Resentments, butchered.
This process is a kind of individuation, of course.
It’s self-actualization 101. And according to the influential American Jungian analyst, Edward Edinger, that kind of autonomy “can be achieved only by a separation from unconscious identification with others.”
These “others” are your parents. Siblings. Extended family. And so on. Some rejection of these figures—their beliefs and ways of being—is universally required for attaining selfhood.
Other “others” are cultural. The principal. The president. The pontiff.
We have to reject them, too.
As traditional institutions weaken in terms of influence and reputation, individuation, theoretically, should be easier than ever.
But it isn’t.
In fact, it’s stickier and more nebulous as we self-organize into cultural coalitions founded on affinities, associations, and “likes.”
Nobody chooses to be raised in a conservative evangelical family. Or a neo-Marxist atheist one. That’s simply karma or fate. But it’s easier to rage against something when you’ve had no choice in the matter.
What happens when the family in question is your “chosen” one? What happens when you change? And you will. “To thine own self be true” is a moving target.
What do you do when your chosen family becomes more oppressive than your biological one? When affinities, associations, and “likes” become identities? And those identities become dogma?
What started out as getting together with likeminded people—to shotgun a few beers in your boat shoes at the fraternity or snort a little ketamine in your platforms at a warehouse party—can mutate into something unconscious, unquestioned, and unexamined. With self-elected gatekeepers doling out ideological purity tests resembling CVS receipts. And you’re still in. But you feel out.
Who the f*ck are you then?
Nobody.
This is what Edward Edinger called “the danger of psychic identification.” And these identifications “must be dissolved because an awareness of radical separateness is a prerequisite for individuation.”
But damn if it’s not scary to walk away.
Because we justifiably fear abandonment.
We fear alienation.
But we will never find security by abandoning our true selves.
And our identifications may be the very source of our alienation. To be whole, we have to separate from people, institutions, and ideas that no longer resonate with our true selves. In effect: a little alienation might have us feeling a little less alienated.
The fewer identifications, the better.
There’s the Buddhist logic for this of course, i.e., removing an attachment has intrinsic value.
And there’s a neurobiological argument for this.
As the brain develops in childhood—and throughout life—it removes associations it doesn’t need, improving processing speed and efficiency with the “pruning of synaptic circuits.” In simplest form, synapses are connections. And you can have too many of them. The brain targets and eliminates the weak ones. Separatio.
Silicon Valley sells us on the idea that max connectedness is a max value proposition. And yet, the more “connected” we are, often the more anxious, isolated, and depressed we feel.
The truth is, less isn’t more. But it is amazing.
And that applies to friends, too.
As Jung wrote in Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, “emotional ties are very important to human beings. But they still contain projections, and it is essential to withdraw these projections in order to attain to oneself and to objectivity. Emotional relationships are relationships of desire, tainted by coercion and constraint; something is expected from the other person, and that makes him and ourselves unfree.”
If you have to self-censor or self-limit or self-gaslight to be friends with your friends, your individuation process has stalled the f*ck out. And that means it’s time to get the f*ck out.
When you step away, detach with love, cut ’em loose, whatever, you don’t just liberate yourself. You pay that forward. When you grow, everybody grows.
Does it hurt? Of course it does. But I’ll take pain over pandering, disillusionment, and anxiety every time. It’s addition by subtraction. It’s a trust fall into intimacy and authenticity. And isn’t that what everyone actually wants?
Drake once said, “I’ve been losing friends and finding peace. Seems like a fair trade to me.” And while I have to wonder if he still holds that sentiment after his old friend Kendrick Lamar separated him from his career, reputation, and dignity, I can relate on the peace front.
In a famous scene from Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, Jack Twist tragically says to Ennis Del Mar, “I wish I knew how to quit you.”
For many, those eight words encapsulate life’s essential struggle, whether external or internalized.
But, not for me.
I might not know how to quit Zyn. But I do know how to quit you.
Today, I’m quick to cut. And I keep my blade sharp. Because there’s no company that’s worth putting between me and me. That’s lonelier than being alone.
If you read the news, you know America is in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. And it disproportionately affects young people, one in three of whom report feeling lonely nearly every day. Maybe it’s the prolonged exposure to social media. Or maybe it’s the helicopter parenting. Or maybe they’re just terrified of the consequences of simply being themselves.
As Jung writes, “loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”
All communities are exclusive. Even “inclusive” ones. And if you have to think or speak or be or act a certain way or risk ostracization, then you aren’t really in one. Even the most authentically diverse, equitable, and inclusive community the world has ever known has one requirement for membership. Don’t have that and you’re out. Until you’re in again. And you’re always welcome to “keep coming back.”