Coupling Constant

There is a model of personal development that spans seven levels. I forget all but levels three and seven. At level three, a person has achieved outwardly successful social integration—decisions concerning right and wrong are based entirely upon the behavior of those around them. S/he does not do that which would earn social scorn specifically because it would earn social scorn. S/he does that which is socially acceptable because such behavior earns social acceptance and appreciation.

At level seven, a person learns to differentiate between unrelated events. That is, a person recognizes that the link in a chain of events is that person which experiences the events (that is, the only “chain” connecting the events is the person). As this is the case, the person learns to treat each encounter, and each individual and individual event which that person encounters, as a separate experience. In doing so, the person at the seventh level of personal development is able to understand that experiences are something that the person takes advantage of, not the other way around.

Despite my discussion of the “social system” in earlier entries, I think that this theory has a lot of merit. While one can’t control the “tide of events”, or history, or the social system that produced the current social practices, or your family, one can control how one perceives and what one does when presented with a particular experience. Control is limited-but also very central-to the individual experience.

In actual practice, this usually means withholding anger or judgment. When the receptionist is short-tempered, or the coffee spills, remember that this is one event and need not influence the experience of the next event.

Think of random atoms bumping into each other, and each atom is to an extent in control of the resulting reactions, but must work within the prescribed rules of science. And, luckily, the rules of science (the rules of society) are known to the individual.

Every movie, every book, and every prior event that goes into a person’s memory-implicitly or explicitly, as humans pick up a lot of data without realizing it-teaches the social rules of engagement to the person. That knowledge, once acquired, gives the person the capacity to take control of later experiences. In doing so, and in recognizing the education thus far acquired by one individual is not necessarily representative of the education acquired (that is, accepted, understood, and practiced) by another, one can learn to differentiate between events and persons. The seventh level of development is achieved when a person both has control and accepts that that control is limited. The tension between the relationship of control and its loss is, in many ways, the measure of an individual’s maturity—their level of development.

Art education is essential in advancing this level of development. In acquiring art education (music, literature, film, etc.), an individual learns perspective and possible rules for engagement with events and people. Art education broadens the range of responses available to an individual, and thus the individual’s personal sense of control. The more perspective a person can bring to an experience, the more the possibilities that are open to that individual in understanding and taking advantage (reacting to, learning from) an event or experience with another individual.

Anyways, I like the idea.