The Zen of Conflict

The Zen of Conflict — the essential disappointment comes from the pain of realizing that it is impossible have the same perspective as another.

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The Angst — the essential disappointment, comes from the pain of realizing that it is impossible have the same perspective as another.

Dropping Drama’s Appeal — The Zen of Conflict

We left off last week hav­ing looked at “what hap­pens next,” once romance fades. I said that this hap­pens 100% of the time.

I guess you could say that the “roman­tic notion” is what gets blown out of the water. And that notion is that, if some­one loves me, they will see things my way, and agree with me, and do things my way. 

Because, after all, “I have final­ly found ‘prince(ss) charming’!”

While this is not a very radical idea, the cause of relational drama is that, despite finding a partner, you’re still going to die.

It’s pret­ty clear that anx­i­ety starts when we rec­og­nize the inevitabil­i­ty of our own death. Most peo­ple are reluc­tant to dis­cuss their death, and even flinch a bit over the death of peo­ple close to them. 

In phi­los­o­phy, the exis­ten­tial­ists describe this anx­i­ety as Angst —
the fear of non-being.

Romance is the notion that a rela­tion­ship with “an-oth­er” will some­how immu­nize me from death. If I am with the ‘right’ per­son, I will live hap­pi­ly ever after. My fears will dis­solve, my needs will be met, and I will be for­ev­er bliss­ful. And because of the hor­mone rush of lust, for a time, our chem­istry is shift­ed to a state of bliss.

Betrayal feelings arise as the bliss wears off.

Romance allows us to step out of the day-to-day real­i­ty of our mor­tal­i­ty. Con­flict, then, might be seen as the end of the diver­sion through la-la land. 

It’s what hap­pens to Dorothy in The Wiz­ard of Oz. Off she goes to Munchkins-land, where every­thing is mythopoe­ic — where heroes search for hearts and brains and courage, and good tri­umphs over evil. And then, she wakes up in Kansas, and (despite the ruby slip­pers) it was (maybe) all a dream.

If you sub­sti­tute a wed­ding ring for ruby slip­pers, con­flict is leav­ing Oz and return­ing to Kansas.

There is an addic­tive qual­i­ty to romance (which actu­al­ly does release opi­ate-like drugs into our brains) — the “flush” of romance is like a drug high. Easy to see why peo­ple crave it.

Conflict simply brings us back into the here and now.

In Zen, we work toward sim­ple pres­ence with what­ev­er “is.” As such, a sense of con­flict in view (and we agree here that all con­flict is, at its base, a dis­agree­ment as to per­spec­tive?) presents us with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to either fight, or get curious.

The Angst — the essen­tial dis­ap­point­ment, comes from the pain of real­iz­ing that it is impos­si­ble have the same per­spec­tive as anoth­er. You real­ly, real­ly have to get this one. It’s not that you haven’t found, or are not in rela­tion­ship with, the right per­son. It’s that we, by def­i­n­i­tion see every­thing differently.

A sim­ple exper­i­ment — stand next to some­one and look at something.

Your ten­den­cy will be to think, “We are look­ing at the same thing.” The­o­ret­i­cal­ly, the object you are look­ing at exists in some pure, unde­fined state. How­ev­er, it’s impos­si­ble to prove this because as soon as we begin defin­ing (think­ing about) the object, we con­vince our­selves that the way we see it, is the way it actu­al­ly is.

And the per­son next to you is doing the same thing. I can absolute­ly guar­an­tee their def­i­n­i­tion is not the same as yours.

This is because of an elementary principle—perspective is everything.

Every­one brings their his­to­ry to bear on every­thing “seen.” And none of us have the same history. 

Anoth­er exper­i­ment. Go to an art gallery. Sit near a piece of mod­ern art — say Picas­so, or Dali. Lis­ten, as peo­ple expe­ri­ence the piece of art. Some will love it, some will hate it. Some will “get it,” some won’t.

And remem­ber, those you judge to have “got­ten it” will sim­ply be describ­ing it in a way that is close to your way. 

It’s like the elec­tions in Cana­da and the U.S. The can­di­dates have opin­ions on top­ics (the econ­o­my, indus­try, bailouts, etc.) If you take a step back, all you can say is, “Their opin­ions are different.” 

But as we listen, our filters and experience kick in. 

I’m a left-winger, and so favour, in Cana­da the Lib­er­als (actu­al­ly I favour the NDP, but vote strate­gi­cal­ly.) In the States, I would be a Demo­c­rat. So, I tend to “buy” what the can­di­dates say, as they match up with my pre-con­ceived notions, and demo­nize the opposition.

Conflict happens when I bump up against my
pre-conceived notions of “how things are.”

As romance fades, I am left with the real­iza­tion that my part­ner is not me, and comes from a total­ly dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. (S)he thinks dif­fer­ent­ly, eval­u­ates dif­fer­ent­ly, and has an entire­ly dif­fer­ent set of val­ues. This is just the way it is.

Then, the Angst returns. “This time I thought I found the per­son that would res­cue me from my alone­ness and alien­ation. For a time, it seemed that this was the case. Now, I real­ize (s)he is not going to save me, and is also ‘wrong.’ ” (i.e. thinks dif­fer­ent­ly than me.) “I’ve failed, been betrayed, again.”

Well, nope.

Conflict is the realization of a difference of perspective.

You can spend your time try­ing to force your part­ner into “see­ing things my way,” or you can get curious.

Dar and I have been togeth­er since 1983, and as I look back, there has only been one time when we decid­ed that we need­ed to agree. We had a talk about the foun­da­tion of our relationship. 

We decid­ed to dis­cuss our “line in the sand …” the ‘make or break’ issue for us. Many cou­ples we know have tons of such lines, and they tend to be picky and stu­pid. One client end­ed her mar­riage because she got home and her hus­band for­got to wipe out the kitchen sink. She assured me that this was proof of his total­ly dis­re­gard for her and her needs.

Dar and I decid­ed upon “Com­plete hon­esty” as our “make or break” line. Sim­ple. Effi­cient. Easy to put into prac­tice as it fits with every­thing we say and do.

Beyond this one ‘line,’ none of our oth­er con­flicts have ever required that we total­ly agree. We have bumped our noses against the nor­mal range of issues, and have dis­cov­ered that we can work with each oth­er’s per­spec­tives. We are not clones of each oth­er, and for­tu­nate­ly, we have been able to con­tin­u­al­ly get over our­selves when we want to demand that the oth­er per­son “com­ply.”

We do this by being curi­ous, as opposed to look­ing for “who’s right.”

More on curi­ous­ly next article.

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