The human mind is a flock of birds flying through the sky. When everything works as intended, you do not see the individual birds – only a faraway “v” shape that glides through the sky. But when the flock is failing to coordinate, you see each individual bird and miss the beauty of the flock.
The Buggers from Ender’s Game have perfect communication and coordination and function as a unit because information is instantly passed to all members of the species, and all members share the same goals. But the downside is that as soon as you kill the queen, the species is unable to act because only the queen has the will to do anything other than follow the queen.
Because our minds have multiple different parts, we do not need to consult the queen in order to act. However, it does make communication and coordination much more complicated.
So much of how our mind works builds on the past. At each moment, no one is asking us “what are you needing in order to make yourself coordinate perfectly?” But maybe we should.
Imagine yourself as a cat you have just adopted. A small, terrified thing. Hiding under the dresser. But at the same time, you are also the adult who brought the cat home and wants to play with it. For the cat, it is lonely, scary, and confusing under the dresser. But from what it knows, the dresser is the safest place. It would be quite nice if the cat could just understand that it is safe. But why should it? It does not know you and it does not speak your language.
As bad as the system is, it’s comfortable and secure. But it’s a coordination problem. If the human could tell the cat they are safe and the cat could tell the human what they are needing in order to feel comfortable, things could be very different. But unfortunately, they can’t. At least not without concerted time, effort, and understanding.
There cannot be success until we convince the part of us that seems to be on an opposing team to join us in a unified effort to achieve our mutual goals. Instead of two armies fighting to seize control of the reins.
It’s so tempting to destroy our mob. The part of us that has goals that we do not endorse. But that goal is neither possible nor desirable. But to create a functional system, we need to genuinely take the time to listen to, respect, and be compassionate towards the mob – even if part of you is frustrated. And then to honor what the mob is actually needing.
And in doing this, “I show the mob that I respect its demands, and that I’m on its side. After all, we have the same goals; and furthermore, I am not the king in my mind. I do not desire a fight (and if I did, I wouldn’t win). – Nate Soares
When dealing with our inner mob, it feels like the only options are to give up hope of fixing this coordination problem and pretending it does not exist or to let the mob take over.
If coordination was simple, Moloch would not exist. Yet, human societies work better when we value and respect each individual. In the same way, by letting different parts of our mind speak and negotiating agreements between them, representing each one’s interests, we can reach a better state, much more effectively than just choosing one and trying to squash all of the others.
But it’s hard and there is so much in our mind we do not understand and do not know how to face. Our mind can feel like an overwhelming, dysfunctional world we live in. And that’s okay.
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