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From: obrien@bbncca.ARPA (Mike O'Brien )
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: marriage = commitment
Message-ID: <1507@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 28-Jul-85 22:31:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1507
Posted: Sun Jul 28 22:31:29 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 03:08:36 EDT
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Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
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I've been watching with some amazement and a great deal of amusement
as the human potential movement meets the American public head-on, here.

Many recent posters on this newsgroup have been espousing a set of
principles and viewpoints based on self-actualization, human potential,
and "taking charge of one's life."  I did quite a bit of this sort of
work when I was living in Los Angeles (a veritable haven of such folks,
of all persuasions).  I came to the conclusion that there is nothing
at all wrong with this viewpoint, and quite a bit that's right, but
the opportunities for misuse are just awful, particularly in terms of
interpersonal relationships.

Some recent posters have it right: according to this school, you can't
help feeling whatever it is that you feel, and it's extremely destructive
to deny it.  You should, if you want to control your life, acknowledge what
feel, without being obligated to let those feelings run your life.

The amusing (but distressing) part comes when people who have grown up
feeling helpless, but who have turned their lives around through these
principles, proceed to try to give advice to others about managing their
pain.  The would-be "helpers" are so dazzled by the possibilities that
they come across as the most insensitive, lame-brained, selfish bunch
of clotpoles imaginable.  "What do you mean, you're down and out and
suffering?  Shape up!  Your emotions are your responsibility and you're
only down on the floor because you want to be!"  In some sense this may
be true, but this bald a statement of techniques and possibilities is
about as useful and appropriate as a sportscaster at a funeral.  Quite
frankly, the only one I've read who really had an appropriate reaction
to all of this was Pooh.  Nice going, Wendy!  Human potentialists are
the lamest bunch of people I've ever seen when a little quiet sympathy
is wanted.  Maybe I don't feel like turning my life around today!  Maybe I 
want to have a little help just "having" my emotions, till they run out!
Then I can take charge of things, with my energy renewed.  Old people
who manage to become wise instead of childish have known for millenia
how all this stuff really works.

It's hard to think about really new things.  Bald, short statements of
the basics of human potential are going to seem really alien to those
who, in this newsgroup, just want to find/get along with a MOTAS.  To
have fun and laugh a lot while learning to confront new things, regardless
of what those things are, go watch "My Dinner with Andre."