"Without a transformation in 'what for
us human beings
it means to be
a human being',
we can explore and experiment with variations in our
thinking,
planning and
acting.
However, those variations in our
thinking,
planning and
acting
are limited to what is allowed within the boundaries of the context
established by our current notion of 'what for
us human beings
it means to be
a human being'."
Human beings
aren't fleas, and fleas aren't
human beings.
So there's only so much we can conclude about
human beings
from experimenting on fleas. The same applies to dogs. Yet Ivan
Petrovich Pavlov's infamous experimenting with dogs led to the
acceptance of classical conditioning in
human beings.
Having said that, there's a well-known experiment with fleas which
provokes a conversation about how
human beings
hold back in life even when there's no cause to. And even if you
don't hold an equivalence between fleas and
human beings
in the experiment as valid, its conclusion still works well even as an
analogy.
Fleas Jumping In A Jar
Open Jar
Closed Jar
Re-Opened Jar
Experimenters put some fleas into an open jar. The fleas being fleas,
jumped up and down. Some landed back inside the jar. Some of them
jumped so high they jumped clean out of the jar. Then the experimenters
put a lid on / closed the jar. The fleas being fleas, continued jumping
up and down. But this time, given the jar was now closed by a lid, try
as they might they couldn't jump out of the jar. Moreover if they tried
jumping out of the jar, they bumped against the lid. They learned if
they jumped up and down, they should not jump as high as the lid. The
maximum height they learned to jump was a little less than the closed
jar height, even if they were able to jump higher. Then the
experimenters removed the lid / re-opened the jar. And they saw
something amazing.
Even though there was now no longer a lid to stop them, even though the
jar was now re-opened, the fleas continued to jump to a height a little
less than the height of the erstwhile closed jar ie even though they
were capable of jumping higher ie even though there wasn't any
impediment stopping them with the lid off, from jumping higher ie clean
out of the jar if they wanted to. They'd learned to only jump to a
height a little less than the height of the jar with the lid on though
they were capable of jumping much higher when unimpeded ie when no lid
stopped them jumping clean out of the jar if they wanted to.
Human beings
also learn from incidents perceived as stops, limitations, threats. In
our childhood youthful years, we're unstoppable, enthusiastic,
energetic,
exuberant.
We jump up and down, both inside and outside the jar. When something
happens, when
an intention
is thwarted, an expectation is unfulfilled,
a communication
is undelivered, we're disappointed, hurt, frustrated, pained etc. We
quickly adopt strategies to protect ourselves, becoming overly
cautious, holding back, becoming risk-averse, all of which are entirely
appropriate responses to stops, limitations, and any perceived threats
... and yet ... long, long after the incidents have
dissipated, long after they've passed, our behavior is still shaped by
them. Even though there's no longer a lid on the jar, we're still
constrained as if there was. Although we're capable of jumping much
higher in life, we only jump as high as those limitations, no longer in
place, allowed.
In one form or another, this essentially
human
predicament is addressed by our most noble endeavors.
Religions
address it. Therapeutic
disciplines
address it, strategizing how best to cure it,
fix it,
change it, make it better etc. But they all address it within the
confinement of what we've come to
believe
is what for
us human beings
it means to be
a human being.
And what renders them mostly arduous and only marginally successful is
both because
our belief
itself is inaccurate and also because we've come to accept
this belief
as
truth
/ as reality without distinguishing it as simply
the belief
/ the conjecture it really is.
Werner's
work succeeds where many others fail in this regard, simply because it
first establishes what for
us human beings
it means to be
a human being.
Once that's distinguished ie once who we
believe
we are with regard to the jar within which we operate is distinguished,
new possibilities become
present,
new choice is available. What was once seen as an inflexible lid on our
choices and
actions
in life, becomes more flexible, more malleable, less constraining.
