Salad #17 : Archimedes' Principle Revisited

In the mid-eighties, my preoccupation with the human mind, its complexities, its aberrations, its machinations and its unpredictability, bordered almost on the obsessive. Although I was barely 22, I was struck by the number of unhappy people I met, and of the degree of the absorption of those people in their own unhappiness. Out of those encounters and the accompanying conversations and resultant thought processes, was this article born.

I request the reader’s forbearance for what will probably be the longest post on this blog. The only reason that I am sharing this, a full 25 years later, is that I am convinced that it still continues to be relevant.

At some stage in my early adulthood, I actually did want to be a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist; I abandoned that objective very quickly because it was prevailed upon me that to embark on that career was to invite a life of destitution and penury.

Read on, dear visitor. And do leave a comment at the end on this article’s relevance. Thank you !

“Archimedes’ Principle Revisited”
or
“Metaphysical Physics – With a Dash of Geography” (1987)


“ When an individual is immersed in self-pity, the volume of the individualism immersed is equal to the volume of self-respect displaced “

1.       PURPOSE

I have mused, on many an occasion, about the precise connection between self-respect and self-pity, about where the former ends and the latter begins; and I have had little difficulty in convincing myself that the two are indeed directly an irrevocably linked, that the decadence of one leads to the nascence of the other, and that the second stage is not possible without the first.

The purpose of examining this basic principle from a metaphysical perspective and in the context of the late twentieth century, is to advance the suggestion that this is a real phenomenon, that every person experiences it at one point of time or another in his life, and that the concept deserves a judicious amount of thought.

2. DEFINITIONS

Self-pity is a state of the mind characterised by the presence of a perpetual and lugubrious preoccupation with oneself, in a manner that seeks to explain that the protagonist has been severely and undeservedly wronged, and that all the other characters in the scenario are the villains of the piece.
Self-respect, on the other hand, is a state of the mind characterised by the presence of an equable awareness of oneself as an individual who matters in the scheme of things; in a manner that precludes the possibility of extreme egoism or excessive superiority, but simply incorporates the acceptance of one’s virtues and vices – to the extent one has realised them – with satisfaction, and even a microcosm of complacence.

The equality referred to in the enunciation of the Principle above seeks only to be philosophical – and therefore is immeasurable and has no mathematical connotation whatsoever.

The principle is best explained by considering a diagrammatic picturisation. One of the causes of self-pity is paranoia: please consider the case-study “then diagram” just after the conclusion of this section.

A “then diagram” is a drawing of a mental state that can only be executed by a person who has experienced that which the drawing seeks to explain; and by the same token, can usually only be comprehended by a person who has had a similar experience (no presumptive aspersion on you, reader !)

A “then diagram” is distinct from a “when diagram”, which is a projection of a perceived future happening (I have done a couple of these); and from a “now diagram” (which is the picturisation by a third party of a current happening.

3. “THEN DIAGRAM” – THE ZONES

The Zone of Megalomania and Extreme Egoism is that area which obviates the possibility of any self-respect or self-pity, for the simple reason that they are not attainable. A mind that resides in this region is secure in the knowledge of its own superiority and untouchability; the person concerned can never feel sorry for himself – only for others…….and the question of self-respect does not arise, as the turgidity of the ego leaves no room for that noble feeling. The Revisited Principle therefore discounts this Zone.

The Zone of Self-Respect and Individualism is the perpetual residence of the thinking mind, and it is this Zone which the Revisited Principle considers in the first instance. A mind inhabitant in this Zone enjoys the feeling of living in a mental Utopia, with an approach that is distinctly positive but does not go to extremes.

When any of the conditions required for continuity in this Zone fall short of fulfilment, the mind enters the Zone of Self-Pity and Nihilism. In this area, rational thought does not exist, and the mind perpetually fights to stay on the surface of a seething quagmire of confusion, uncertainty and adverse attitudes. Success or failure in this schizophrenic battle determines the entry of the mind into the lower Zone.

The Zone of Perennial Vegetability – or the Kitchen Garden – marks the beginning of the end of the mental decadence initiated by the mind’s admission into the Zone of Self-Pity and Nihilism.

4.       “THEN DIAGRAM” – THE LINES

The Line of Superiority is the metaphysical equivalent of the Arctic Circle, and separates the Zone of Megalomania from the Zone of Self-Respect; or, in other words, separates those who are normal thinkers from those who imagine that they are supernormal thinkers.

The Line of Inferiority  is the metaphysical equivalent of the Equator, and is the tightrope between mental equilibrium and neurosis.

The mind that lies between the above two lines is what is usually classified as a “normal” or an “average” mind.

The Line of Irreversibility is the metaphysical equivalent of the Antarctic Circe, and is the borderline between neurosis and the first tentative advances towards flaccid insanity.

The mind that lies between these two lines is unstable, but not irredeemably so.

5.       CASE STUDY: ACUTE PARANOIA

These, then, are the stages of paranoia. The alphabets indicated are as in the diagram:

A:  The stage of distinction (“I matter !”)                   
 In which an individual is secure in the knowledge of his self-respect, and proceeds unworried along his routed course

B: The stage of disillusion (“So what ? Everybody else matters, too !”)
In which certain circumstances come about to make the individual stop dead and wonder whether his routed course is the right course

C: The stage of distortion (“Some of them matter more !”)
In which the individual convinces himself that the routed course is the wrong course

D: The stage of disturbance   (“I matter least !”)
In which the individual finds this conviction beginning to affect his mental equilibrium, and feels the first stirrings of pity at the fact that, while all men are unequal, some men do appear to be more unequal than others

E: The stage of disembodiment (“I don’t matter at all !”)
In which the individual loses control of rational thought and begins to draw several conclusions – all of them wrong – from the circumstances surrounding his problem.

F: The stage of disintegration (“Why me ?”)
In which the individual begins to cave in on himself, since the ramparts of his self-respect have proved too ephemeral and flimsy to withstand the continuing assault of self-pity

G: The stage of dissociation (“Who am I ?”)
In which the individual, having comprehensively abandoned his own identity, begins to search for it all over again

H: The stage of dysfunction
In which the individual discovers the he who seeks, does not always find; and succumbs to the forces that contrive to drag him into the no-man’s land beyond the Line of Irreversibility.

6.      ENDNOTES

The metamorphosis explained above is not entirely irreversible. The presence of latent willpower, a supportive soulmate or a genuine, concerned friend have been found to be invaluable in bringing the discomposed mind back to the land of the living, even as late as Stage F.

Beyond F, however, the rot is usually found to have been set in too deep.

At Stage H, the volume of individualism immersed is metaphysically equal to the volume of self-respect displaced (and replaced by self-pity). The mind that once reposed squarely between the Lines of Superiority and Inferiority, now reposes equally squarely between the Lines of Inferiority and Irreversibility, with a possible final extension into the Kitchen Garden.

QED.

The gradual reduction in size of the rectangles depicted in the diagram denotes the notional shrinkage in the intrinsic value of the mind as it passes through the successive stages.

Let not the facetious tone of the Revisited Principle (in relation to its enunciation, that is ) bias the reader in favour of the viewpoint that what s/he is reading is fictional. There have been detractions from medical exactitude, but these in no way interfere with the validity of the concept.


[ Reproduced in original and unexpurgated form from “Brain Waves” by O.D.Nanus © 1987]