The moral weight of a thousand suns

As far as I know, no one likes to feel bad. But everyone has those days, right? Sooner or later, life drags us down into the mud pit. It could be for days, or weeks, or even just for a few minutes.

When I feel bad—sad, angry, anxious—I usually try to get rid of those bad feelings immediately, like Overnight Oats That Are Five Days Old, God Help Me, or work emails about "Employee Reminder to Enter Time." _iykyk

But sometimes I feel bad and I sort of stew in the feeling for a while. It's self-pity. And it feels weird to admit, but it can actually feel good to do that, to be a voluntary victim.

As an aside: there's a truth about voluntary victimhood that I haven't heard anyone else say. To be a victim can be freeing, damn it. Sometimes it feels good to latch onto a bad feeling, sulk in a mental corner, shake my fists at the world, and think, I've got problems, but it's someone else's fault.

But unfortunately, whether I a) try to completely ignore bad feelings or b) roll around in the mud pit like a little piglet, it doesn't always make me feel better. Thankfully there is a third way, but it wasn't obvious to me at first.

Name to contain

The third way begins with identifying and naming the feeling. To identify and name a feeling is to give it a shape, a container. Naming a feeling creates a boundary between me and the feeling. It can still take over my identity, and sometimes it does. The stronger the feeling, the less likely it is that I have the cognitive resources or the self-awareness to name it and contain it.

But when I can contain it, then I have to sit with the feeling. I have to see it for what it is. Doing that creates some more distance between me and the feeling. But it's an appropriate distance.

Repression and denial? Too much distance. In the long run, repression probably works about as well as trying not to think of a white bear. The thoughts come back to me eventually.

My white bear? It's this tightly packed ball of insecurity that I feel when I sense rejection (real or just perceived). Friend is slow to respond to a vulnerable text? Colleague didn't laugh at my joke? Or (the hardest)—a girl doesn't like me back or my date doesn't want to see me again? Suddenly I'm feeling bad, no, worse than bad, like a small ugly gnome that no one likes. I think of every bad thing I've ever said, thought, or done, all at once, and the moral weight of a thousand suns lands on my shoulders. And I think, of course she doesn't want to see me again. I'm a small ugly gnome who probably smells bad and is secretly very bad at poker. (Cognitive distortions are inaccurate in many ways.)

Carrying the moral weight of a thousand suns, I think: I must escape this. So I withdraw, run from it. I become quiet. Distract myself. But no matter how hard I focus at the gym or in the lab, the thoughts and feelings return. It's a white bear for a reason.

Introducing Moweithos

Every white bear needs a name. Name it to contain it.

I named my white bear after the feeling itself—the MOral WEIght of a THOusand Suns (moweithos, pronounced mo-WAY-thos, like an ancient philosophical concept that you can drop in conversations to sound enlightened, like telos and ethos). Goofy? Yes. Consistent with my vibe? Also yes.

In Jungian terms, moweithos is part of my shadow, the elements of my psyche that I repress (or more specifically, the anima—see here for a great, short review of Jungian psychology). In more concrete terms, I think of moweithos as a dense little purple book with worn edges.

For a while, I treated moweithos like something to be destroyed, like a social media scrolling habit. Targeting and squashing weaknesses is a great strategy for outer work, like getting in good shape, or not tapping when a well-fed grappler named Andrew pins you to the mat and his sweat is getting in your eye. But inner work is different from outer work, and that makes dealing with moweithos a unique challenge.

Real emotional maturity doesn't mean running away from my white bear. It's not about conquering it once and for all with one triumphant swing of the blade. It's about doing things that trigger moweithos enough times to finally notice the pattern.

To actually destroy moweithos wouldn't be very human, anyway. We all have flaws, we all have insecurities.

The wise, secure person isn't the one who has eradicated all fears and faults within him. Instead, he's learned how to live with insecurity in a way that doesn't control him or define him.

OK, WHAT IS THIS THING REALLY

I eventually realized that you can also think of moweithos as shame. I suppose the reason why it feels appropriate to label this thing moweithos and not shame is because it feels patently absurd to say I feel shameful. I mean, I have plenty of things to be proud of in my life, so what’s the deal? I guess that's the thing about shame and other emotions. They’re not necessarily rational.

Let's investigate. Shame is peculiar. It's the cousin of guilt, another moral emotion. Psychologists say that guilt is what you feel when you do something bad; shame occurs when you feel insufficient as a person. Guilt seems to be pretty adaptive; when people feel guilty, they often apologize and feel empathic toward the people they hurt. Not surprisingly, our culture tells us there are times to feel guilty. For example, as kids, we are taught to feel guilty if we do something we aren’t supposed to.

Shame, on the other hand, is associated with hostility, aggression, and a brooding focus on the self. And not surprisingly, we don't openly encourage people to feel ashamed. Think about it. It's not unusual to hear a friend say that they feel guilty about something (forgetting an appointment, canceling plans, etc.). But when do you hear someone say they feel shameful? It seems rare.

The fact that society doesn't endorse shamefulness is probably, typically, a good thing. But just because we ignore it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Shame is a human emotion that evolved to help our ancestors become attractive as mates and allies. (It's possible that shame is a bit of an evolutionary mismatch, but I'm not sure how. Maybe another post.)

In any case, shame is real, but we often don’t learn how to deal with it. So it takes time to acknowledge it and grow from it.

So now, let me flip it to you. If you've read this far, I'm guessing something about this has resonated with you. I'm guessing you have some insecurities of your own. Can you name the feeling? Try living with it, like a birthmark, instead of against it. You might be surprised by how you feel.