The illusion of control

by Richard Reeve on August 30, 2009

in AziMuth

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska -- The Aurora B...
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I learn very little from the Weather Channel that I can’t learn from a glance at the sky. Still, I do get regular e-mail updates for our locale. They are most useful when I’m traveling. Severe weather alerts inform me when the family is in the midst of harsh storms. These alerts often prompt a call home and the reason is a sense of helplessness. The “what if?” scenarios get bleak real fast.

What fascinates me is that the Weather Channel is clearly good business. It focuses on one thing we can all agree that we have no control over. In that way, it serves as a metaphor for a difficult fact regarding our relationship to reality. The presentation of the complexity of variables provides a fascinating image of why life often seems so chaotic.

Living in a rural locale I encounter farmers that still exhibit an innate sense of the weather. They read signs like the dew and frost, the wind direction and the cloud patterns. They know what to expect over the next week with only a view that the rim of the sky provides. They’ve witnessed patterns for decades and their experiential database tells them when to plant, or cut their hay or harvest the corn.  They act based on what the signs tell them. It’s serious business too; miscalculations can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

See, the farmers in this valley are just tuned into a weather channel of a different order. And it’s a skill we all had only a generation or two ago. Checking the weather through the media has become an ingrained collective habit. I think the reason is simple. Regardless of the forecast, the report comforts us.  Someone is keeping a eye out and telling us what to expect now that we’ve lost the ability ourselves.

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  • I'm so much happier since I've stopped listening to forecasts for the most part. One too many 'storm of the century' alerts drove me over the edge. Now I occasionally get surprised by the rain or kept back by a snowfall, but this is so much better than the worry such things will happen. If bad weather is but 10% of the outlook I really can feel good about assuming each day will be pretty good and face only occasional distress when it isn't.

  • I stopped watching the news for similar reasons...and word of mouth works just fine, I've not missed any stories of import.

  • I was really drawn to the title of your post. I was just writing a post about parenting tonight and I mention the illusion of control--there is that idea that we somehow have control over our children. Similar to weather in the way that we can create systems of watching, measuring, interacting with and preparing for our children and the way we will parent them, but really I aim to parent like those farmers, intuitively, and based on the tell tale signs that are abundantly surrounding us in all our experiences. The third party (be it the weather channel or parenting gurus or books) are just another resource, nothing to live by, imo.

  • What's interesting is that the forecasts try to create a semblence of
    intuition, while relying soley on the rational. Thanks for such an

    intersting comment linking these ideas to parenting.

  • Some of the best moments of my life and my appreciation of Jung has come when I have recognized the numinosity of certain events in my life: inner or outer, and the realization that maybe indeed there is a deep abiding connection and purpose within all things. It does seem like just another religion ... perhaps why traditional psychology has turned away from Jung so sharply.

    It is unfortunate because Jung was empirical to a fault. Yet if your empiricism leads you to a transcendental source, or a reality that is teleologically based, an unconscious that is not just reductive as Freud made the mistake in assuming, but rather is prospective, then a true scientist must have the courage to make his results public.

  • The line that Jung would not cross in my mind is a tribute not only to the rigor of his own investigation, but it also reveals an understanding that the rational only ever goes so far. Are claiming is that Jung lacked courage to make his results public?

  • No just the opposite. Jung had the courage to walk down the path his investigations into the unconscious took him. Albeit, sometimes it took him decades before he was willing to publish, such as his theory of Synchronicity and the acausal principle underlying synchronicity and its relation to the unconscious.

    Jung did have fear, especially when he made his break with Freud. Considering Freud's pre-eminence during
    that time, it was an enormously courageous act by Jung. What then followed was his creative illness that had
    to have tested the endurance of everyone around him and himself ... to the extreme. Again, remarkable courage
    to take the path he did.

    But then, the results of his work and thought speak volumes. And are still vital and current.

  • Thanks for clarifying...and I agree.

  • Probably one of Jung's most important themes: the illusion of control we have over our lives. The more he studied the unconscious the more convinced he became we have not a whole lot of control, and a good part of our direction and destiny in life has its source in the greater unknown sea of the unconscious.

    The numinosity came from the realization of the wisdom and purpose of this unknown region of selfhood, that when discovered by the conscious self can be shocking, mysterious and life-changing.

  • I'm glad you tied this post back into Jung. I was looking toward to collective activity with exactly sense of the Self being reflected in the weather patterns encompassing the earth.

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