A Message to My Fellow Citizens of Stockholm

The other day I saw a reference to the 'Stockholm Syndrome,' a somewhat archaic term used in psychology and the media which describes a seemingly contradictory phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness. I first became aware of this back in 1974 when the young heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, spent two months in captivity, and then actively took part in a bank robbery they were choreographing. This lead to her arrest and subsequent trial, with part of her legal defense strategy (which ultimately proved unsuccessful) being the argument that she had been at the affect of this syndrome and was therefore not responsible for her actions. 

It set me wondering about how our minds so often function as the arbiters of our choices and behaviors in ways that, to put it ever so mildly, don't particularly serve us in a constructive manner. When we see ourselves as victims of our circumstances, life gets messy rather quickly, and most of us opt for acting out in one way or another in a misguided effort to set things straight. Doesn't it feel sometimes that our minds have taken our common sense, our clarity, our very curiosity hostage? And then, don't we often simply let that be - unquestioned, basking in the glow of our infatuation with our mental energy? The siren call of certainty can bring us into a trance state at the blink of an eye and before we know it our mental conditioning is running the show. So, I'm wondering, what part does curiosity play in the human spiritual experience?

Here's what my teacher Spotted Eagle has to say about it:

"What we can see about human animal nature is that, beyond physical survival, the mind needs to feel safe, valued, and powerful enough to resist domination. Until we overcome existential fear, we cannot move into self-actualization where our spiritual gifts can be fully employed to create what brings us essence. If the only tools you have are fear-based, then you will tend to perceive every problem as a control issue and your thinking will follow one of two tracks: either you will feel that there is nothing you can do to solve your problems and sink into despair. Or you will think there is something you must do to avoid what you fear and then start pushing energy. In either case, access to the creative principle of curiosity and its energies will be closed to you.

We must cultivate the humility to admit that we do not know the truth of any now until it emerges for us in that now. We cannot be in the now when we are burdened with either the hubris or the self‐deprecation of our decisions about reality. When we employ our curiosity, the first thing we must do is surrender control. We undecide what was once decided. We open ourselves to learning what may be emerging in the now that is outside the scope of our previous experience and perceptions.
Curiosity comes to us from two Latin roots, curiosus meaning “inquisitive” and cura meaning “careful.” What we possess when we are curious is the ability to inquire, and to do so with care and consideration. We learn, and then we let go of what we think we know so that we can remain open, undecided, and allowing our curiosity to continue leading our way. We are open to one very simple truth: that the Universe is vast, and what we think we know about it is actually a limitation for us both personally and creatively."

What happens, we might wonder, if we turn away from the opportunity to remain open? Again, from Spotted Eagle:

"Over the course of a lifetime of preventing what he fears, hiding from what threatens him, or chasing his excitement wave, the individual’s ability to create essence grinds gradually to a standstill. The will to create becomes exhausted, and the mind can see no way forward because what it has used as creative fuel— the emotional reaction—has drained the individual of his will to keep pushing energy. The mind can see clearly that there is no more will to create, and its fear of the uncertain future then becomes magnified. Because the fearful mind that has exhausted its will can see no way forward, it will then come to believe in the futility of its efforts, and this is when we begin to despair."

And, as counter-intuitive as that may sound, this can be good news because, for most of us, it's not until we are on our knees - often up to our necks in our stuff and despair - that it occurs to us to try something else...to reconnect with our curiosity and the willingness to undecide.