Reasonhood
I recently read a brilliant essay called Reasonhood. It’s about the relationship between reason and adulthood and deserves much consideration and accolades for its author, Brandon Peele. Though I have a short attention span and a long to-do list, it caused me to slow down, immerse myself in new ideas and think.
Personally, I believe we are living in an age of unreason. Like the Romans who went mad eating from plates tainted with lead, our societal toxins, technologies and pace have numbed much of our ability to reason. Thus, reason like truth, is easily manipulated these days, even if we reach for it. I wonder if we have been so damaged by our cultural conditionings that as a society we are incapable of knowing what reason is anymore.
In generations past, humans had to become adults earlier. Work, marriage, and children usually entered life during puberty. It’s been our blessed existence for the past fifty years that has allowed people to remain children—emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. (Even aspects of the current New Age movement reflect a spiritual naiveté born from life being relatively easy.)
I guess the definition of adulthood depends on our personal and shared journey and how it shapes our ability to reason. Reason seems grounded, somber, and sober. But, is there also room in reason for joy, spontaneity, fun? Our definition of adulthood is much different than what we thought it was as children. When we were kids, adulthood was our most desired destination, full of freedom and enjoyment. But as we age, adulthood increasingly brings responsibility, struggle, compromise, loss, and we yearn to be children again with all the unconscious bliss it represents. Of course, corporate brands, the media and government are more than happy to oblige the illusion.
Each era defines adulthood. And I believe it’s our era’s unwillingness to truly embrace change that holds us back from accepting adulthood. The precipice into adulthood is scary. We are usually forced through the door, unprepared. If we could forge a new definition of adulthood that transforms our childish follies through reason into a deeper joy of life, we’d have a lot more adults out there.
Brandon stated, “Without reason and the structure it can create, imagination is only escapism and can not become honest self-expression”.
I agree that imagination requires the structure of reason for it to meaningfully manifest in the world. As someone with a dynamic imagination, and maybe not enough reason as structure, I struggle with expressing my imaginative musings in a way that is honest in its clarity. But I am adult enough to realize that old emotional patterns have painted my reasoning abilities and I continue to search for solutions.
The 60’s birthed a new thought form, which unfortunately was not completely understood by its recipients. Like children with a new toy, it was played with, escaped through, but not fully utilized. There seemed to be no apparent reason behind its emergence beyond the moment. New knowledge and truth arose during the chaos of that time which could not be properly applied because we were not mature enough as a culture. Without reason, it became escapism.
We are experiencing a similar time now, where the potential for a major transformation is available to us, but many are merely escaping into technology, busyness and media instead of sex, drugs and rock and roll. If we could restore our reason and the wisdom within it, we could see the opportunity in our current experience. That would be our transcendence into adulthood.
Brandon concluded that, “Reason allows the observation and transcendence of a particular emotional state (e.g. sadness, madness, anxiety, fear, and shame) and the realization that one is experiencing that state and therefore cannot be that state”.
This is an important point. If you can observe yourself having a negative experience, then you cannot be that negative thought. It is simply an experience that is to be felt, reasoned through and learned from. Knowing you are more than an emotional state is critical to the rise of the adult within. And reason is a great tool to manage errant emotions.
By the time we reach what should be adulthood, our emotional patterns are set in place. What we have been taught to believe about ourselves, the emotional charge connected to these beliefs and their external triggers, are well established. Being an adult helps us recognize these patterns when they are occurring. And that’s important. But it is hard not to react, even if it’s only on an unconscious level. (Which many of our patterns have become by the time we are so-called grown-ups). Teaching people how to break out of these orbits once they are able to recognize them would be a tremendous boost to reason, adulthood and humanity.
Brandon’s treatise on emotions should be a book in itself. As a culture, we do not know how to experience or express our emotions, let alone use them as tools for our growth and happiness. We either engage them as feel good drugs, bury them deep within denial, or turn them into weapons. Gratitude might be our most powerful and neglected gift in cultivating a healthier relationship with our emotions.
Brandon argues, “Conditioning, repetition, and perception do not yield an objective reality, only one that is mutually agreed upon.”
But then doesn’t this mutually agreed upon reality become objective? Theoretically, I think he’s right. I want him to be right. Though, if we are the result of our conditionings and we respond accordingly, doesn’t that become our reality? And, if so many others share that same manufactured reality, what about the few who profess to see past it all? Are they seeing into a truer reality, or merely seeking to escape reason? Either way, those escapees often evolve humanity by living outside of it, so something must be going on there.
Language. I don’t think there’s a more important concept in his essay than language. We cannot become what we have no words for. Like a ship in the fog, we might feel something coming, and evolution via chaos will always generate new things to consider. But how can emerging thought become mass reality without proper languaging that resonates with the idea? Language reflects consciousness. The word computer didn’t exist (I don’t’ think) before computers did. The technology revolution arose from a bunch of strange people, living on the outskirts of reality and reason, using fledging languages, both verbal and digital, to create a new world. It wasn’t until the complete language arose which expressed these alien concepts that the masses were able to slowly understand and accept them. That’s when this new technological thought form hit its tipping point and transformed humanity.
The consciousness movement with its emerging “programming” of social responsibility, sustainability and wellness, among others, is analogous to that first wave of technology. But it is still seeking the right languaging for mass engagement. Much of the current vocabulary stems from the movement’s infancy, and is stale, mistrusted or no longer reflective of the current state of these trends. Once we discover the relevant language, communicate on a level all can understand, the consciousness movement, which in effect is the next generation of transformative technology, will have its tipping point and again the world will be changed forever.
Brandon says, “An adult will never fully believe what he says is true, only go forth the best way he knows”.
It took me a long time of thinking I knew it all before realizing I knew nothing and maybe never would. Being satisfied with that uncertain reality and understanding its power was probably the most adult moment I’ve had in my life. Everything you believe can change tomorrow. The adult in us knows this and is able to thrive within it. Now I move forward with my second set of eyes wide open, knowing what I know, accepting what I don’t.
Although I applaud Brandon’s Aids to Reason, I wonder how realistic they are. Most people are unwittingly addicted to each of his Barriers to Adulthood, (Media, Chemical Dependency, Emotional Dependency, Frenzy and Social Contract). So, the first and maybe most profound step towards Reasonhood would be the recognition of these unconscious addictions. External guidance and wisdom should then be available to people who truly want to become adults but need support in doing so. That’s where the government, media and corporate brands can make a difference. Most of us need help growing up.
I believe there are many closeted adults out there, waiting for the opportunity to come out when they aren’t so afraid. Along with his great suggestions to assist in this growth, experiences that force the illumination of our cultural programming, there are various other practices and tools that could serve to awaken the sleeping adult within us. We just need to make them acceptable, and available through multiple platforms.
Brandon’s essay was a guided mediation in its own right. I have been hovering around the edges of beginning a letter. I want to create a new corporate position that would engage and apply many of the principles he expressed to increase both company morale and productivity internally, and reputation and revenue externally. This position and its progressive concepts don’t currently exist in the corporate mind-set, so I have to take myself down that rabbit hole and search for the language that will lift people beyond what they believe to be true, a little further into their knowing adult who might have the wisdom to listen. Reasonhood helped bring my focus into that magical space between imagination and reason.
I’m interested in where it brings you.