andrew-tha

[andrew-tha]

What is Level 6 (after "transcendence") in that emotional development/maturity theory? 5 seems completely arbitrary, as each of those emotional development levels are incapable of grasping the level next, (except stage/level 4 which seems to be "aware" that there there is more growth to be had).Given the way the theory is structured there should be levels beyond 5, as using 5 to arbitrarily encompass "all future stages beyond what I, the theorist creating this theory can comprehend." is flawed.

I do not know.

A logical extrapolation from what we observe in the transitions between Stages 1 to 5 presently reveals nothing useful, due to how complexity and subtlety increases from one stage to the next. We can look at the stages from the perspective of an oscillating pendulum. Stage 1 is on one extreme of the pendulum swing, while Stage 2 is on the other. Stage 3 is back towards Stage 1, but less severe. Stage 4 is back towards Stage 2, with even less severity. Stage 5 swings back ever so slightly to balance at a gentle center-ish position wherein oscillations will be so slight that it is difficult to differentiate which “side” the pendulum is on. If there is a Stage 6 and beyond, those stages will have to take this pendulum example further. Where else can the pendulum go? We can look at the stages from the behaviors they depict. Stage 1 is Life and Death sacrificial protectionist. Stage 2 is Testing my Limits rebellion and self-esteem. Stage 3 is Duty and Obligation sacrificial responsibility. Stage 4 is Independence and Complete Awareness of Limitations resulting in confidence. Stage 5 is further expansion of awareness and understanding, a return to challenging and exceeding one’s now-well-defined limits, and perhaps even redefining the nature and meaning of Life and Death. I’ll explain the latter in a bit. Is there a stage beyond this? Maybe. Don’t have any data to support it yet, though, hence the lack of an inclusion of any Stage 6+. One among many visual representations I see in my head when thinking about emotional development is a circular gauge. Imagine a gauge scale for measuring the weight of produce from a grocery store. A needle points up at the number 0 when nothing is on the scale. The needle spins clockwise around the gauge when weight is added to the scale. Put enough weight on the scale, the needle will make one complete revolution and “return” to 0. Much the same way, based on available data emotional development through these stages does not manifest a visual linearity, but rather goes in a circle, eventually “returning” to the beginning but in a condition that is completely different from the beginning. I claim this because in my observation, in the few examples of Stage 5 in media an interesting thing often occurs. When a character reaches Stage 5 or exhibits Stage 5 qualities, they are often in or forced into a Life or Death situation. Perhaps Stage 5 can be most clearly depicted in such situations. In such situations, there is a qualitative difference between that and a Stage 1 character in a similar situation. For a Stage 5 character, the situation is not about the persistence of the self, but about something beyond themself, perhaps even something or someone entirely unrelated to them. Awareness that extends beyond one’s own limits. A fully realized empathy that encompasses far beyond oneself. Attempting to exceed one’s limits (through challenging a Life or Death situation) for reasons beyond or unrelated to self-preservation, self-worth, or persistence of one’s in-group. In popular media, when we see Stage 5 we often see a “return” to the Life and Death situation of Stage 1 with subtle yet significant qualitative differences.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger’s atheist character in the 1999 movie “End of Days”  impales himself to destroy the Devil’s child. When George Clooney’s character in the 2013 movie “Gravity” chooses to let go as well as give Sandra Bullock’s character exactly what she needed emotionally to push through both her external and internal crises. When Oogway from “Kung Fu Panda” leaves the material world after having giving both Sifu and Po exactly what they need to grow emotionally. When... aah it’s difficult to find examples, cuz it feels that there’s just so few of them. Even the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s thing is a stretch; I’d need to revisit the movie to make sure. Suffice to say, simply sacrificing yourself to save the world/human race from extinction is not necessarily what a Stage 5 Life and Death thing entails. That is to say, just because a character sacrifices themself in an effort to preserve the human race does not mean it automatically qualifies as a Stage 5 type of thing. Even the human race could depending on the circumstances qualify as an “in-group”. 

Acknowledging and developing boundaries is an integral part of emotional development. They are fully developed by Stage 4. Stage 5, then, is a step that allows us to challenge those boundaries, to move beyond limitations such as Life and Death. This is not to suggest literal immortality, but rather re-imaginings of what Life and Death mean. 

Some of the kinds of boundaries that emerge are things like wealth, nationality, ethnicity, skin color, and sex. These sorts of things often draw lines in the sand, set limitations, break and remake us. They bring us together as well as divide. They can occupy and dominate the center of our thoughts and feelings. They can bring Life and deliver Death, in both literal and metaphorical forms. To challenge these boundaries, to see and reach beyond them, after you have learned your limits through Stage 4, is Stage 5 Transcendence. Weakening the opacity of these walls to render them porous enough to see and bleed through. Transcending that which are normally hard limits, such as Life and Death.

Emotional Development is about growth and maintenance, not reaching an end goal. Life inherently brings trauma, and trauma always threatens falling stages or inspires growth. Reaching Stage 5 does not mean it’s over. It then becomes a challenge of maintenance and of acting in the world in a way that transcends your own limits and helps others to grow emotionally. Recall that helping others grow necessitates vulnerability on your part, and vulnerability invites trauma. Stage 5 is not an end in so far as It is a result of the traumas you have grown from, and life will always have traumas.

If Stage 5 as an end point seems arbitrary, it’s only because it’s what the currently available data supports. Whether there are stages beyond 5 depends on what data we discover. 

[andrew-tha]

The Death Penalty and Indefinite Incarceration: A Stage 1 & 3 Dialectic

I’d like to start by first thanking my friend, who I will call Gs, who is always there to listen to my rambles and bounce ideas.

If you find references to emotional stages confusing, please read the Summary of Emotional Development first.

Allow me to begin with my most controversial and easy-to-quite-out-of-context claim, and then steadily unravel how I came to such a claim:

“The Death Penalty is an ultimate admission of weakness”.

In my country of the United States, there persists a debate between continuing the practice of the death penalty for extremely high crimes, such as mass homicides, and its complete elimination in favor of indefinite incarceration or “life in prison”. There are a couple arguments favoring indefinite incarceration that I find strong: a) help reduce the number of deaths of wrongfully convicted individuals, and b) is ultimately cheaper than the death penalty due to the costs associated with death penalty appeals. In contrast, there is really only one argument I consider strong in favor of the death penalty beyond what I am about to describe later in this essay, which is the following: “There are some people in this world, such as a person who murdered a loved one, we just want to be dead”. The important word to keep in mind here is the word “want” as straightforward desires are difficult to argue against, as opposed to “needs” which are often much easier to argue against, for example:

“I need candy”

“No, you don’t; it doesn’t give you any nutrition.”

Versus

“I want candy”

“Oh, OK.”

In that same way, the want for someone’s death is somewhat difficult to argue against directly, as it isn’t easy to argue that someone does not in fact want something. So the common course of action is to come up with other kinds of arguments that do not tackle the base want, but instead try to persuade on some other foundation, such as moral/ethical (reduce deaths of wrongfully convicted individuals) and financial (indefinite incarceration is cheaper).

In the following, I will make an argument on a new foundation: Emotional. I will lay out the circumstances in which the death penalty is expectable or appropriate, and then explain why it is not appropriate for the society we live in today. I will delve into emotional stage explanations of why we want someone’s death versus why we want someone to be put into prison for incredibly long period of times. At some points I will tie in stories from cartoons, anime, and other pop culture as examples and elaborations.

First, a definition. I understand the Death Penalty to be: “state-sanctioned killing”. By “state”, I mean any governing body with a sufficient monopoly on violence and the authority to mete out such punishments, ethically or not. I’m primarily thinking of the United States, as well as extreme examples such as any cookie-cutter dictatorship or police state. If your local Homeowner’s Association were powerful enough, I suppose they could count as a “state”, too. By “sanctioned”, I mean something that is carried out by the approval of one or more persons within the state that is not necessarily the individual(s) directly carrying out the execution, and is premeditated, meaning something not committed in the heat of the moment but rather with thoughtful deliberation. And finally, “killing” means the death of a person by the hands of another in a lawful way, though not necessarily in an ethical or moral way.

Because a central controversy around the death penalty is whether it is the right or wrong thing to do, I began my thinking on the subject with trying to find a circumstance in which killing, with or without the state, is the ‘right’ thing to do. What I initially found were degrees of killing on a spectrum from “OK” to “Not OK”. Further, the circumstance on the far most “OK” end of that spectrum was Self-defense.

When someone is killed due to self-defense, and we are certain that it was self-defense, not only is the killer not convicted of a crime but our hearts likely go out more to the killer than the victim. This is understandable, because the killer in this circumstance is the one who was initially threatened to such an extreme extent that they genuinely feared for their life. We can pepper in some Emotional Stage theory stuff here by thinking about this fear and threat to life and its relation to Stage 1: Co-dependence. In Stage 1, all important matters are matters of Life and Death. So when your life is being threatened, you are being pushed into a Stage 1 situation. Like a mouse cornered by a cat, you either fight for your life and the lives of your loved ones or die, so it is understandable for you to react in such a way that may end the life of your attacker. In this circumstance, you have a need to kill, because failing to do so likely means the end of your own life or the lives of those around you.

We can see this line of thinking in recent controversial police-involved fatal shootings in the US and their ensuing investigations, where a central pillar of their defenses was often that the police officers genuinely feared for their lives. I won’t go into my personal opinion on these subjects, as I like to go by a case-to-case basis (there being, sadly, too many cases) and their circumstances are not supremely significant to the subject at hand beyond what I noted now.

Point is, self-defense is a circumstance in which killing is A-OK. In concluding such, I then delved further into self-defense scenarios, and found there can be significant differences between self-defense scenarios on the spectrum of “OK” to “Not OK”.

On the extreme end of “OK”, we might have a young child who is being attacked by a couple adults, and, perhaps by dropping a brick on their heads or causing them to slip on some marbles on the stairs, kills his attackers. In such a scenario, we rush to the care and comfort of the child, sorrowfully fearing what sort of effect such a traumatizing experience might have on the child. On the other end towards “Not OK”, we might have a professional boxer in a bar attacked by a drunk patron, ending in the death of the patron by the boxer’s hands. There, culpability is much greyer, and deeper investigation is required to determine whether the boxer acted irresponsibly. Either way, the boxer’s reputation among the boxing community may be damaged.

What is the difference here? The difference is Power. The less power you have, the less responsible you are for any given situation. The more power you have, the more. Because the boxer is an adult, because he is trained, because he is strong, he has more options available to him, a greater variety and effectiveness of ways to diffuse the situation. The stronger you are, the less you need to kill. With that said, let us return to my initial claim: “The Death Penalty is an ultimate admission of weakness”.

The Weak need to kill, because by virtue of being weak they have few to no options. The first lesson you learn in most any martial art is: “Priority #1 – Run Away”. The Strong, despite being more capable of killing, don’t need to kill, because by virtue of being strong they have many more options. Strength is not merely physical power but also intelligence, knowledge, resources, influence, cunning, and more. To kill is to admit that you’ve been pushed so deeply into a corner, stripped of so many of your options, made so vulnerable, and rendered so powerless that you have no other recourse but to utilize a Stage 1: Co-dependent reaction. Stage 1: Co-dependence is the stage of feelings of powerlessness and, consequently, violent overreaction and defensiveness.

It was at this point that I realized I was wrong about one of my assumptions: The “OK”/”Not OK” spectrum is mislabeled. It is not about what is OK and not OK. There is no killing that is OK. There is no killing that is just fine or acceptable. All killing produces negative emotional effects, whether it be by creating victims, traumatizing the killer, or generating an atmosphere of fear and hatred, i.e. Evil, Darkness and the Real. The actual label should be: “Forgiveness”. Killing is more or less forgivable depending on the circumstances. A child killing an adult in self-defense? Most forgivable. An adult drowning a preschool class in the cold blood of puppies and kittens? Most unforgivable. The “Forgiveness Spectrum” may supplement the explanation(s) for why folks suffer from survivor’s guilt even when other peoples’ deaths were outside of their control – they do not struggle with whether the deaths were OK or not, but with whether they can forgive themselves for being the ones to survive. Perhaps then the go-to consideration to keep in mind when talking to someone about survivor’s guilt would be to frame it in terms of forgiveness regardless of whether any wrongdoing was committed.

So when a state sanctions a killing, that state is admitting that the person they are killing is so imminently threatening that they have no power to do anything but kill the person. It is at this point that I’d like to say that in general it is not only OK but important for people to be able to allow themselves to be vulnerable. And the same holds for a state, because a state is just a more formally organized group of people. So if there is indeed a circumstance in which there exists a person within a state’s jurisdiction that is so imminently and uncontrollably threatening to the lives of people, then if the state is able to publicly admit its own weakness as justification for the death penalty, then I would not fault the state for carrying such a thing out.

I am anxious about something regarding my argument, and so I feel the need to clarify: when I talk about the state and that which is imminently threatening, I am not talking about that which is threatening to the persistence of the state itself, but rather about the lives of actual people, i.e. citizens. A state, i.e. the specific organization of a group of people with authority and power over citizens, can persist in defiance of the actual desires and needs of the majority of its citizens, and the operators and executors of state power may and often do act against the health and prosperity of their citizens if it means the furtherance of the state’s persistence. In fact, if I were to give an extremely brief and unsatisfying history of societal development, then I might say that during the earliest times of subsistence hunting and farming, it was about the persistence of the village until the next day. Then when cities formed, it was about the persistence of the ruling elite into the next generation, which leads us into feudalism, e.g. nobles and royalty. When mercantilism and eventually capitalism developed, it was about the growth and persistence of sheer wealth into infinity. During these times the Nation-state was conceived of, which banded large groups of people together in a way that was more effective at creating and persisting power and wealth than feudalism was. Part of the nation-state development process was, “Ya know, if we try to take care of people’s wants and needs a little bit, we can more effectively utilize them for the extension and persistence of state power, like for example we can make and maintain a standing army”. Aaaand that’s where we are today, where the nation-state tries to more or less take care of some of their citizens’ needs, but mostly to the extent that it enables the state to persist (though the present era of globalization is blurring the lines between nation-states, so it’s getting all funky and more complicated).

I presently believe that the next emotionally evolved form of governance in the modern day is a state that is OK with the end of its persistence. This is not communism whatsoever; communism is a society absent the state (though communism’s definition for state likely differs significantly from my much simpler one). What I mean instead is an organization of people in power that is OK with having their power end and replaced by others according to the needs and desires of the citizenry. Basically, a state that is not desperate to persist in its current form, but instead willing to weaken and subside if it means better meeting the needs of its people.

I got the idea for this from my favorite manga series ever, One Piece, during the Alabasta arc. The arc has been out for at least a decade, so spoilers: the king of the country of Alabasta discovers the source of the true threat that has been manipulating events around the country to bring it closer and closer to open civil war. Unfortunately, he learns of this just as the rebel army of manipulated citizenry are charging towards the capital city’s gates. The king’s generals ask him if their army should meet the rebels on the battlefield before they take the royal palace. Instead, the king orders the entire army to empty from the capital and charge west, towards the source of the true threat. “But sir”, they worry, “we will lose the capital!” In response the king proclaims, “This country is not its capital. This country is its people!” The king was personally OK with the collapse of his own state if it meant the protection of his people. To me, that is a Stage 4: Independence or Stage 5: Transcendence mode of thinking. Definitely not Stage 3: Group-dependence, who would struggle between the preservation of the state and their need to try their best to meet people’s needs. To be fair, I do not think this necessarily means that a Stage 4 or 5 government will always necessarily choose “needs of people” over “preservation of the state”, because the two may not be diametrically opposed, but rather interwoven within the other. What Stages 4 and 5 do enable, however, is decisive action in the face of damning pressure.

Tangent aside, how does Indefinite Incarceration compare to the Death Penalty as they relate to emotional stages? In stage 1: Co-dependence, death is the ultimate punishment, so folks and states struggling with Stage 1 tend to favor the death penalty. In stage 3: Group-dependence, being exiled from the group is the ultimate punishment, and one form of exile is imprisonment. So Indefinite Incarceration is an ultimate punishment for folks and states primarily function in a Stage 3 emotionality.

Thus it is a Stage 3 society that favors “life in prison” as its primary ultimate punishment and a Stage 1 society that favors the death penalty as its primary ultimate punishment. A society that was operating at a greater stage can be pulled down by traumatic events and in this way be made to change what punishments it favors. This is effectively the end goal of extremism and terrorism today – to bring societies down emotional levels in order to render them more vulnerable and thus more easily manipulated. It’s also easy to see what emotional level extremism and terrorism operates from, regardless of political leaning. Suffice to say, whenever I engage in a discussion on politics with another person, I try to understand the emotional stage a rationalistic argument is being made from as much as I try to understand any given argument itself. Recall that all arguments and rationalizations stem from and are limited by the emotional stage in which that argument is made from, so if the emotional foundation of an argument you are making coincides with one of an argument someone else is making, you two are more likely to be able to agree and find common ground perhaps regardless of the actual content of the arguments. This is likely more consistent at higher stages and less consistent in lower ones, due to lower stages having a greater tendency to view and assert things in terms of black and white.

“What about Stage 2? What does state-sanctioned punishment from Stage 2 look like?” 

The answer to this question I got from the fictional novel World War Z. In one of the sections, it describes one survivor’s group’s struggle with maintaining order, especially among the people who were formally white-collar investment bankers and jet-setting socialites who now had to learn how to repair toilets. Feeling that such jobs despite their importance were beneath their former lives, they threw tantrums and were uncooperative. These folks suffered from Stage 2: Counter-dependence, i.e. an overinflated sense of self-worth leading to rebellious behavior. Unfortunately, the group’s postwar society did not have the resources to imprison these folks – idle labor that needs to be fed and clothed is a supreme waste within the circumstance of a total war with zombies – but they could not justify killing these adult children for such petty behavior, nor could they simply leave them alone. Eventually, they came up with some old-school punishment which, while making them uncomfortable with how uncivilized and archaic it was, seemed to work: The stocks. A few days of public humiliation appeared to sufficiently temper the majority of Stage 2 complainants, especially when, in the backdrop of the zombie world war, Life and Death of the whole of humanity was on the line.

I bring this up to lead back into the significance of Power in this conversation and how power relates to vulnerability and punishment. Because the state had significantly reduced power in World War Z, they had to resort to Stage 2 methods for punishing their citizens. This is not a good thing, but it is understandable. The weaker you are, the fewer options you have available to you. 

Now regarding the death penalty in modern day America: Should we practice it, and why or why not? My answer is No, we should not because we are not so vulnerable. The moment we capture someone and put them within our control is the moment we lose our justification for killing that person. Killing in the heat of the moment is more forgivable than killing after they’ve been put into custody. We are too far from weak to be going around applying the death penalty, even for the most heinous crimes. Only when either a captive presents an imminent and irrevocable threat to human life despite being in custody or if the power of the state is so depressingly reduced such as in an apocalyptic scenario can we sincerely claim we are vulnerable enough to justify an execution.

For a brief moment let’s talk about the nature of “Threat”, and its relation to killing and stages of emotional development theory. When talking about “threat” in terms of stages of emotional development theory, the feeling of threat is as important as the actual presence of threat, because it is the feeling or emotional perception/conviction of threat as opposed to the logical determination/conclusion of threat that drives our reactions. However, with regard to killing and the death penalty, I would argue that evaluating the feeling of threat is insufficient to determine our willingness as a state to forgive; the actual presence of threat must be evaluated as well. For one, maturing as individuals necessitates tempering our emotions with knowledge and vice versa; it is important to balance our feelings with what we can know and learn. For two, feelings are not necessarily based on reality and often skew or twist the actual nature of events. A person stressed out over possibly being laid off soon may misinterpret his friend telling him about the family vacation to Disneyworld they went on recently as mocking his decreasing ability to provide for his family.

Allow me to wind down with what originally got me invested in this whole topic. What really got me thinking about the subject of the death penalty was the animated movie Superman vs. the Elites. I won’t spoil the important parts of the movie, so what you need to know about it is that in the beginning there is this one supervillain that Superman has to capture again and again because the supervillain keeps on escaping. Problem is, every time he escapes he kills many people, so people start getting upset about Superman following the rule of law and only merely capturing him. In reaction to that, a new superhero group calling themselves “The Elites” comes out and does what Superman can’t bring himself to do, and doing so stages a battleground of competing philosophies about justice and the appropriateness of killing. Superman really struggles with this, and so I tried to think of a mode of thinking that would enable him to parse out his thoughts on a case-by-case basis involving villains. Batman struggles with the same thing when it comes to the Joker, and the temptation to kill versus the commitment to no killing persists as an eternal struggle for these two heroes.

With what I have argued above, I could make the argument with Superman that he could kill the supervillain and forgive himself for doing so while also not turning towards the Dark Side. He can do this by sincerely admitting his weakness of being unable to contain the supervillain, and then taking action to change and improve his capability. It was made self-evident by his repeated escapes and mass murders that neither the state nor Superman could contain the imminent threat to human life that the supervillain exerted. They lacked the power. Being able to admit that would make the act of killing more forgivable. It will still hurt Superman, and the state, and everybody involved, and forgiveness would still be a difficult trial, because killing always has negative emotional effects regardless of its circumstances, but it would enable Superman to exceed his moral/ethical conundrum without falling into the Stage 2 arrogance-trap of the movie’s main antagonists “The Elites” while also protecting people. Batman could likewise do the same with regard to Joker.

The primary personal barrier to all of this is the willingness and presence of mind to perceive and admit one’s limits. Even if this all makes sense in his head, Batman may still not go for this, as he is supremely a Stage 3: Group-dependent kind of person who almost always overextends himself beyond his emotional limits and punishes himself with self-exile. His overwhelming sense of duty and obligation to the city of Gotham consequent to him feeling responsible for the death of his parents is what fuels the tortured soul we have come to know and love. Batman has been stuck in stage 3 for a very long time, and very well may die there. Depending on the iteration, while Batman has demonstrated his willingness to admit his weaknesses, he has in equal part demonstrated his unwillingness to forgive himself, hence his tendency towards self-exile.

In Conclusion

The death penalty is an admission of weakness, because the appropriateness of killing someone is a function of power. The more powerful you are, the more options you have, the less you can justify killing, i.e. ���With great power comes great responsibility”. Killing does not exist on an “OK vs Not-OK” spectrum, but rather a “Forgiveness Spectrum”, because killing always damages emotionally and requires forgiveness to heal. We cannot justify the death penalty in modern day America because we have far too much power. Only in exceptional circumstances, such as an apocalyptic scenario or the existence of a captive individual whose imminent threat to human life cannot be contained, could we find ourselves vulnerable enough to warrant judicial killing.

[andrew-tha]

Stupid question about nipples

Halloa folks, First I wanna thank you for checking this Tumblr every once in awhile and sighing at the lack of updates before resolving to check again in a few weeks. I am working on an essay about the death penalty/indefinite incarceration and stages 1 & 3. Trying to figure out the best structure and flow for it. I've also found my old unpublished 5 stages of Justice essay; suffice to say it needs a lot of revision and expansion. In the meantime, an aggressively stupid question occurred to me which I asked to my sister. She couldn't give me an answer, so I'm wondering if any of you might be able to. Would you rather live in the world we live in currently, or in a world where it is also largely taboo for men to expose their nipples in public?

[andrew-tha]

Hi Andrew. Do you think certain personality types are more prone to stick to certain emotional stages? People in the NF category tend to focus on their own feelings yet while trying hard to understand other people, which sounds like stage 2 or 4. On the other hand, the SJ category focuses on what is conventional, keep the status-quo and value loyalty and protecting their group, which sounds like stage 1 or 3. Pavel Podolyak has an article about each group's position in society on his blogspot.

I think personality categories are more like snapshots of a person’s emotional stage wherever they might be. That is to say, it is less the case that personality limits or dictates emotional stage tendencies, but rather that emotional development and trauma dictate the kinds of personalities that develop. However, I do not have the confidence to claim that this is a one-way street; it may be the case that personality emerges independent from emotional development, e.g. in the case of one toddler exhibiting extremely curious behavior vs. another exhibiting extreme shyness despite both being raised relatively similarly. 

So it may very well be the case that personality types independent of emotional growth may lend folks towards easier or more difficult times with developing into certain stages. If I examine my own experiences, personality, and development, the line between personality type and emotional growth is incredibly fuzzy. Was I excessively logical as a kid because that was my personality type? Or did that behavior emerge due to my personal experiences that caused me to push all my feelings down and lock it? Did an emergent personality type make it easier for me to push my feelings down? I don’t know!

I do know that ever since I came to understand why I had became the way I had become a few years ago, my emotions had become unlocked and now flow much more freely than they did for much of my life. Has my personality type changed as a result? Did my personality type lead me to become deeply entrenched in stage 2, and then when I unlocked my feelings did my experiences cause me to change my personality type? Or do I still occupy the same personality type, but with more nuance and temperance from my greater access to emotion?

I at present personally believe that asserting personality type groups and then expounding on their places in society is putting the cart before the horse. I do not presently believe that personalities are inherent, but rather emerge as a consequence of countless things knowable and unknowable. Our personalities are formed, tempered, worn, and refined. They can and do change overtime, in slight or dramatic ways. However, I do ascribe to the notion of affinities, i.e. there are some things we are drawn to and discover significant talent or comfort in. Whether such affinities are immutable parts of our soul or the result of the earliest developmental experiences during and post-womb is something that falls beneath the “consequence of countless things unknowable” umbrella.

For now, I would suggest that it is folks in Stages 1 and 3 that display SJ category personalty behavior, rather than folks with SJ personalities developing into stages 1 and 3. Imagine that common history of a kid from a stable nuclear family becoming rebellious in their teen and young adult years drinking and partying and then when all fun and terror is said and done they settle down and warn their own kid of the dangers of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This is a classic Stage 1-2-3 development, and in each major period of this person’s life you might conclude that the individual occupies different personality types. 

That being said, since I do not know how soon in one’s life personality emerges and what personality even is at its most fundamental particle level, it is difficult for me to not see this as a Chicken vs Egg question. For now, I am on the side of emotional development dictating personality types, with significant reservations.

[andrew-tha]

What are the resources/theories that you drew on to write this? Interested in reading more background information.

I learned it from a psychologist. The psychologist drew from if I recall correctly at least 7 or 8 currently existing theories on emotional stagesand emotional development, e.g. Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, as well as a data set compiled over approx. 40 years by a statistician on a large number of countries. Connecting these together reveales several things: that Stages 4 and 5 exist (most stage theories only go as high as 3), and that these stages can be applied from the micro level (individuals) to the macro level (countries/regions). As I best recall, it’s as though each of these theories all got some aspect of emotional development accurately, but ended up being too limited in scope or focusing too much on age. Look up Developmental Stage Theory on wikipedia to see some of the existing theories utilized in this theory. Unfortunately, it’s been so long that I’ve forgotten which one’s were referenced specifically, except for Erikson’s. I’ll try and see if I can’t find anywhere I might have written it down.This theory is like a compilation that ties together several competing theories and fills in the gaps between them. In doing so, it can extend further to assert and demonstrate the existence of stages 4 and 5. Most significantly, it can tell us how to move from one stage to next, an aspect missing from the other emotional stage theories.

[andrew-tha]

It's been a few months since the last time you posted. Has anything noteworthy happened with the development of the books/theory?

Unfortunately, I do not know. I stopped posting because through a series of complicated events I had lost contact with the author. I hope it is going well, but I personally feel entirely detached from the formal development of the work, which makes me sorrowful. 

[andrew-tha]

What ever happened to this blog? I've been checking in for the last year, and I've always loved reading what you had to say. A lot of it helped me through a lot of rough times. I've been wondering what happened, though. Is everything alright? I know it's not an emotional development question. I'm just concerned. I really do like it. Thanks

Halloa! Everything is alright. I dropped this blog like a lead balloon due to uncertainty on my part. While giving the least amount of details as possible, I no longer have contact with the author of the emotional development theory. Consequently, I have felt sorrow and doubt in myself, for I have felt that I lack sufficient authority by which to continue touting personal hypotheses and observations from this theory. I always ran my ideas by the author before publishing here, so until now I have felt detached.Fortunately I feel that sense of doubt diminishing as of late. And it was over the weekend I had realized that I had actually received a couple messages from folks like yourself - sorry for not noticing sooner. I am not sure what to do with regard to this blog; I don’t have any immediate topics in mind to write about.If folks like yourself can ask for my perspective on the application of this theory to some topic, then that would help me get going. 

Oh! Maybe I’ll formally write up about the death penalty vs. life in prison and how emotional development applies. Does that sound interesting to anybody?

Thank you for sending your message.

[andrew-tha]

Empathy Fully Realized

If you haven’t had the chance yet, go read the latest chapter of Mob Psycho 100.

I’ll write a short essay on it probably within a few days.

[andrew-tha]

Femininity and Masculinity

This is something I’ve been wanting to write for some time. What I am about to assert is not necessarily concluded from the emotional development theory; rather, it is my own deliberation derived from said theory.

I believe that Femininity and Masculinity should be divorced from sex and gender, and instead related to specific emotional stages.

Feminine: Stages 1, 3, and 5.

Masculine: Stages 2 and 4.

I hypothesize that a long, long time ago, humans mistook Masculine behavior with having to do with being a man, and Feminine behavior having to do with being a woman. Why? Inherent average differences in physical ability. Back when being stronger and faster necessarily meant an increase in your ability to provide for yourself and others.

Assumption: On average, male humans develop stronger muscles than female humans. A randomly picked individual female may be stronger than a randomly picked individual male, but pick 1,000,000 females and 1,000,000 males, and the averaged strength of the males will be greater than the averaged strength of the females.

Why? Not sure. But it ended up happening anyways. Now how does differences in physical strength intersect with the emotional stages?

Well, to go from stage 1 to stage 2, one needs to pursue one’s limits, and in so doing discover one’s value and capability as an individual. One needs to be provided an arena within which one can challenge, fight, compete, win and lose. Hunting is one such arena. Attacking/defending against a rival group another.

In the absence of equalizing technology, like guns and computers, physical strength is key. Stronger means more food, easier. It means more safety. The strong are necessarily pushed into the arena of hunting and war. And it is in being in such an arena that one can begin to develop their sense of self worth, their ego, their arrogance.

And that is Stage 2 Masculinity. Asserting oneself, Arrogance, Taking on Challenges, Fighting, Competing - these are some of the aspects of Masculinity. Both women and men can do all of these things, but back when physical capability mattered more than anything, males were on average pushed more heavily and frequently into the arena within which they could develop these aspects. In so doing, males were afforded more opportunities and resources to reach Stage 2 than females.

As time passed, physical capability became less significant, but the correlation between Masculinity and males persisted. You don’t need a strong body to be a banker, but the norm had become that males are pushed into arenas within which they learn to assert themselves. So virtually every arena within which one could discover one’s limits and develop one’s ego ended up dominated by males, because that became the association: male -> arena = Masculine.

Stage 1 Femininity: Protectiveness, Excessive fear of the unknown, Love absent boundaries, a Need to be taken care of, Lack of control,

Stage 2 Masculinity: Assertiveness, Arrogance, Competitiveness, Love contingent on success, a Need to be valued, Excessive control,

Stage 3 Femininity: Responsibility, Dutiful, Compromising, Cooperative, Love based on stability, A Need to support and be supported,

Stage 4 Masculinity: Independence, Clarity, Confidence, Love that is too complex to contain here, Knowing what one wants,

Stage 5 Femininity: Empathy, Understanding, … still ridiculously difficult to expound on this.

Keep in mind the Pendulum visualization of this. If Stage 1 Femininity is on one extreme of a pendulum end, then Stage 2 Masculinity is on the other end. Then Stage 3 Femininity is swung back to the Feminine side, but not as extremely, and Stage 4 Masculinity is swung back to the Masculine side, but much more mildly. Then finally the pendulum swings back over to the feminine side, but just barely, so that you might as well as consider yourself in the middle when at Stage 5 Femininity.

Now the above traits are certainly not an exhaustive list, but look at them and think of people in your life and in fiction, male and female. I am willing to bet that there is not a single male nor female that isn’t a single one or more of those things. There is not a single sex nor gender incapable of reaching any of those heights.

All males, all females, all inbetween, can and should grow through alternating stages of Femininity and Masculinity.

An interesting case study could be the characterizations of characters in Steven Universe. Note: some characters will show up multiple times in the following chart. That is due to the fact that these characters happen to have events and experiences that are presently pulling them back/pushing them forward, so different parts of them are being expressed through different stages at different times.

Stage 1 Femininity: War-time Pearl, Pre- and post-Malachite Lapis Lazuli, Ronaldo, Peridot, early show Steven, early show Connie,

Stage 2 Masculinity: Lars, Amethyst, pre-The Test Steven, warrior Connie, post-Yellow Diamond Peridot, post-Malachite Lapis Lazuli, Jasper, Marty, Island Adventure Sadie, Jamie,

Stage 3 Femininity: Pearl, Lonely Greg, post-The Test Steven, Full Disclosure Steven, Steven’s Birthday Connie, Sadie, Peedee,

Stage 4 Masculinity: Garnet, Young Greg/Normal Greg,

Stage 5 Femininity: Rose Quartz,

Independent of their outward appearances, the SU characters range across the full spread of Femininity and Masculinity. We may relate physical appearances to either femininity or masculinity due to a long entrenched correlation between physical capability and specific emotional stages.

When you look for a Masculine character, don’t look for appearances. Look for their needs, their goals, their methods, their actions and reactions to different stimuli.

As an exercise, try to find characters whose outward appearances defy their inward femininity/masculinity.

For example:

Consider the character Terry Jeffords played by muscle-bound actor Terry Crews on the show Brooklyn 99. Outwardly he is the clear association of male physical power, but behavior-wise he is an exact representation of Stage 3 Femininity. Responsible, Dutiful to a fault, concerned for the well being of his fellow officers, open to his emotions but takes on far too many burdens, emphasizes cooperation and compromise.

Compared to character Rosa Diaz played by actress Stephanie Beatriz. Assertive, Competitive, Intimidating, shut off to her emotions, uncompromising, laissez faire, lone wolf.

Terry is your Feminine character and Rosa is your Masculine character.

Or check out the Stage 2 Masculine Korra and the Stage 3 Feminine Tenzin from Legend of Korra.

Masculine Wendy Corduroy and Feminine Soos from Gravity Falls.

Masculine Star Butterfly and Feminine Marco Diaz from Star Butterfly vs. the Forces of Evil.

Every now and then I see on the internet conversation about the need or desire for Masculine gems. I say, look no further. You’ve got them in Amethyst (though Amethyst has been growing as of late), Jasper, Malachite Lapis, and Garnet.

In conclusion, for reasons highly speculative on my part, at some point in time being male became associated with being masculine. However, masculinity and femininity have entirely to do with your emotional development rather than your sex or gender. Everyone should experience and grow through alternating stages of Femininity and Masculinity. No one is ever inherently feminine or masculine.

It’s not a physical trait; it’s an experience.

[andrew-tha]

Letting go doesn’t mean we don’t care. Letting go doesn’t mean we shut down. Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave. It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment. It means we stop trying to do the impossible—controlling that which we cannot—and instead, focus on what is possible—which usually means taking care of ourselves. And we do this in gentleness, kindness, and love, as much as possible.

Melody Beattie (via yoga9vipassana)

Sounds like stage 4: independence

(via andrew-tha)

It does.

Though the last sentence is edging towards stage 5 territory.

[andrew-tha]

I was raised by stage 1 parents, and as they've gotten therapy and started to grow, I've been starting to grow too (by proxy, in a way). I'm trying to find a therapist myself to work through things. A few months ago, I did have a tumultuous time, and I think it fits in with the transition to stage 2, though it does feel like I'm flipping back and forth (I'm in my mid-20s). I want to be patient, but I also want to keep growing! How can I continue to move forward?

Without knowing a great deal of the specifics of your experiences and feelings, it is difficult for me to provide any comprehensive advice. At best, I can only offer very general advice, which will be very vague at times.

To go from Stage 1 to 2 is to Gain an understanding of the significance of oneself through the pursuit of one’s limitations. Which basically translates to trying your best to see how far you can go, and learning about yourself by doing so.

So, continue to pursue your limits. Try things that you may have felt too sheepish to try before. Take dance lessons, learn how to skateboard, join an improv group, learn how to code - whatever you feel you could do but were too fearful or feeling insignificant enough to try.

I recently became aware of two “Stages” - not necessarily related to the stage theory - of life. Life is not limited to these 2 stages - rather, think of them like a pair of complementary platforms atop which many of Life’s plays are performed atop of.

The First stage is the stage of Discovery, Practice, and Persistence. This is where you learn about your talents, acquire abilities, and develop skills. Practicing speaking in front of a mirror, your daily jogging, every hour of that fighting game you play, that’s all part of this.

The Second stage is the stage of Demonstration and Vindication. It’s where you take what you learned from the First stage and display them and receive validation for all of the pain you’ve endured.

Without the first stage, you will be unprepared for the second stage. Without the second stage, all of your time in the first stage will be left wasted.

In effect, try your best with these two stages. Practice and develop something you want to develop, and find places where you can display what you’ve learned. Receive praise and criticism freely, and utilize the mixed emotions from both to motivate you to further develop them. Pursue your limits, see how far you can go.

Put in another way, Just Do It

[andrew-tha]

You mentioned that it is possible for people to revolve around multiple stages at once. Do you think it's possible to exhibit specific stages of emotional development around specific people? Or different environments?

Halloa!

Sorry for the delay.

To answer your question, yes absolutely, it is very much expected to exhibit specific stages of emotional development depending on who you’re interacting with or the circumstances of your environment.

To explain this, I developed something I call the “Grass Field Metaphor”, though I believe it’s the case that this isn’t a new concept. It’s just my way of understanding and explaining it.

Imagine you have a field of grass that is sectioned off in to many squares. Each square has a label. One of them could be, “Relationship with my father”, and another could be, “Speaking in Public”. The taller the grass grown in a section, the more emotionally developed you are regarding that label.

So you could be very well developed in many sections of your life. You could be developed in taking care of your body, in paying your bills, in thinking about other people. But when it comes to your father, you can’t help but react negatively. Any mention of your father might trigger the unresolved negative emotions you have built up over him. That undeveloped section of grass would be one of your Sore Spots.

We might see this frequently in our lives and interactions with people. People who are capable, thoughtful, and responsible succumbing to blind rages or frightful hesitance when certain subjects or conditions are brought up. Unresolved, these sore spots can consume us if the stimuli is too great. Hence why it is important to try one’s best to approach and confront all aspects of one’s life.

Think of war veterans whose traumas reemerge from certain stimuli, like fireworks or excessive yelling and cries. Their harsh experiences have caused the sections of grass related to those experiences to wither and weaken.

All growth is change, and all change is painful. And often there is too much pain for people to bear. So people, consciously or subconsciously, stop changing in an effort to protect themselves from pain. While that stops pain in the short term, it inevitably results in pain in the long term.

Consider any country or government that refuses to acknowledge war crimes. The primary motivations for much of that refusal, at the emotional level, is the effort to avoid pain.

To deal with and confront pain, one of the most important emotions is Sorrow, which is Sadness for the unfortunate circumstances of oneself and others. The Pixar movie Inside Out depicts the importance of Sorrow and how it’s utilized very well.

[andrew-tha]

Well argued.

You can see the transitions between Stages 1, 2, and 3.

In Stage 1, you have no sense of self, no boundaries, no control. I.e. Servant Pearl.

In stage 2, you pursue identity, discovery, superiority. I.e. Egotistical Pearl.

In stage 3, you burden responsibility, order, and community. I.e. Emotionally stable Pearl.

Rose helped Pearl rise from Stage 1 to 2, and Rose’s trust and love for Pearl helped Pearl move up to Stage 3, but only partially. This partial Stage 3 is what we see in the beginning of the show, when Pearl did not suffer from any attacks against her sense of self worth.

Pearl still carried with her unresolved negative emotions about her origins and self value. When Rose was around, Pearl could feel her self worth be fulfilled by Rose’s acceptance. With Rose gone, Pearl had to subsist on the memories of Rose to keep her identity going.

But events throughout Steven Universe revealed Pearl’s hidden, unresolved insecurities. Pearl had yet to fully grieve Rose’s departure. Steven helped restart that grieving process in the episode “Rose’s Scabbard”.

So slowly, one by one, Pearl had to confront her deep insecurities, from discovering where true strength comes from, to coming to terms that Rose kept secrets from her, to accepting the consequences of abusing fusion and its resultant power, to finally shedding the chains of her origin and cementing her new identity on her accomplishments and honest effort.

Hopefully this will open up Pearl to taking strides in to Stage 4.

But the rabbit hole of the human soul is ever so deep and frightening. Digging deep enough, there’s no telling what you may find.

Alright sit your butts down, ladies, gentlemen, and all other configurations of being. I’m about to tell you why this latest episode of Steven Universe turned Pearl from probably my least favorite character in the show to one of my favorite characters of anything.

So now that we know that Pearls are mass produced on Homeworld, we know that Pearls are also seen as nothing more than servants. And this fact has made me go from hating Pearl to loving her,

We don’t know how long Pearl was on homeworld, I assume a few thousand years. And she was in this demographic that was seen as inferior. And you know how that happens in the real world. She was looked down on. She wasn’t allowed to excel at anything. She was nothing more than a tool and if she DARES to be anything more than that, she’s a defective threat. This was her LIFE. 

And then she comes to earth, and serves under Rose Quartz. A woman who lets her be more than “just a pearl”. She learns sword fighting. She learns spear fighting. She learns all these things and does all these things that she previously wasn’t allowed to back on homeworld. And for once, she actually feels like she’s worth something. Like she’s proving to all those people who called her “just a pearl” that she’s MORE than a pearl.

And then it all goes to her head. 

She wins the war. She’s proven herself. And now she’s so high on self esteem, something she usually doesn’t have, that she becomes the very person who looked down on her.

She becomes the person who look down on others. 

“You’re a human. You’re a novelty. At best.”

“Humans just lead insignificant lives until their ultimate demise.” 

She’s so used to being looked down on that she absolutely MUST be on top. And thats why she learns so many things and does everything she can to better herself. So she can continue being “more than a pearl.”

And whenever she’s proven wrong, whenever she’s beaten, or threatened, thats when her defenses kick in. That feeling of being “just a pearl” starts flowing, and she’s so desperate to be “more than a pearl” that she gets mean. Rude. Condescending. 

Thats why she hated Greg so much at first. He was taking the one person who believed in her and hogging her all to himself. He was being more to Rose than Pearl was. And she was feeling like “just a pearl” again. So she does whatever she can to fix that. 

She instead comes off as an egotistical bitch.

Then Steven happens. He’s sure of something. He just KNOWS he saw something in the warps. But Pearl knows better. He was seeing things. And than he suddenly says those magic words.

“You’re wrong.”

Whats this?! Pearl thinks. This LITTLE BOY think he knows more than ME?! This is UNNACCEPTABLE.

And she does it again. She refuses to be looked down upon so much that she starts looking down on others herself, and she ABSOLUTELY needs to be right. She desperately tries to prove to Steven that she is “more than a pearl”.

Again. She come off as an egotistical bitch.

Then. Sardonyx. She finally fuses Sardonyx. And thats the breaking point for Pearl. Pearl may have done everything she can to prove she’s “more than a pearl”, but while fusing Sardonyx, she feels something else.

She feel POWERFUL.

She has POWER.

She has a thing that NO OTHER PEARL HAS.

And she gets SO addicted to that power that made her feel superior to ANYTHING, that she wants more. She wants to feel that again. She doesn’t want to feel like “just a pearl” ever again. And she thinks Sardonyx can do that.

And then. She’s caught. Garnet is mad. The one person she doesn’t look down to is outright pissed. And Pearl KNOWS it’s because she FUCKED UP. And now she feel like “just a pearl” more than she has in thousands of years. And when she finally admits it, that she’s “just a pearl”, Garnet shuts her down. Shows her that she’s more than that. She’s her own person.

And now.

Now we have the best part.

Peridot.

Peridot comes in and outright says it.

You’re “just a pearl”

And this sets her off. She’s on the defensive again, and now she’s determined to prove herself again.

But this time it’s different. 

I’m not “More than a pearl”

I’m not “just a pearl”

I am A PEARL.

SO LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT A PEARL CAN DO.

…but she lost the fight. Peridot gets her way, proved to the others that she’s “just a pearl”

And best of all, it doesn’t matter. Steven and the other still came to HER, thinking no less of her. 

And now I think she’s realized that it just doesn’t matter. 

She’s not “just a pearl”

She’s not “more than a pearl”

She’s not “a pearl.”

She’s Pearl. 

And thats all that matters.

[andrew-tha]

Hi! After finding ur post in the mob psycho tag, I was wondering if you could attempt to categorize Mob as a character. Not having a great understanding of ur Stages, I've been thinking a lot abt his stage and haven't been able to quite find one? A lot of his behavior is really paradoxical but that makes him as a character and despite the amount of thought I've put into him I can't solidly place him anywhere. Could u maybe try to categorize him?

Of course! Let’s start from the beginning.

And for anyone tuning in, if you don’t want spoilers, read the manga first!

Prior to meeting Reigan, Mob is Stage 1 wholeheartedly. Despite being a teenager, Mob is in Stage 1 rather than Stage 2, for a very clear reason: the Trauma that he suffered when the bullies threatening his younger brother made Mob lose consciousness. Link to chapter

This made Mob dramatically fearful of his psychic power, so in an effort to prevent anyone from being hurt again he shut down his emotions. By being neutral all the time, he can’t be riled up, and so he spares people, especially his brother, from the potential calamity of his power, at the cost of his “self”. Mob was living with the constant pressure of Life and Death, which would prevent him from adequately developing his own unique interests and personality.

Then along comes Reigan, who tells him “Not to kill his self”, that Mob’s power is still useful if used correctly and approached seriously. That, ultimately, Mob is “fine”. He is OK. That there is nothing wrong with Mob, so long as Mob continues to not deny his “self” and utilize his talents in a healthy manner. Link to chapter

Through Reigan, Mob found an outlet to use and come to understand his power, his unique talent. Reigan once told Mob that psychic ability is indeed a special power, but it does not make Mob or any other esper more special nor important than anybody else. Link to chapter

Mob found someone he could talk to about something other people wouldn’t understand. In doing so, Mob did not shut down completely, keeping him open towards growth. Contrast this with Serizawa who was made completely dependent on the umbrella and his boss to stay safe and alive. Link to chapter

Another trauma that Mob suffered was when his crush Tsubomi rejected the “specialness” of his psychic power. This turned out to be a good thing for Mob, because it provided Mob the opportunity to seriously consider where a person’s “Charm” comes from. Though not explicitly stated***, the sense of “Charm” I get from Mob Psycho 100 is that charm is earned through effort, self-discovery, openness, and a willingness to engage new things. The trauma from Tsubomi and the guidance from Reigan led Mob to decide to join the Body Improvement club. Contrast this with Hanazawa who grew up never facing any challenge to his power. Deprived of the opportunity to discover his limits, Hanazawa became convinced of his superiority, leading him down the path towards arrogance and shallowness. Link to chapter

***turns out Reigan does explicitly define charm: Link to Chapter

If Mob had never developed his fear of his power due to hurting his brother and had never had someone like Tsubomi to show him the limits of his power, then Mob could have ended up like Hanazawa.

So when Mob decided to join the Body Improvement Club, he began his path towards Stage 2. To discover who he is, what he can do, what he can accomplish. He began to want to defeat his past self, the self that is not charming, the self that isn’t good at anything, the self that has no self-esteem. Competition is an inherent part of Stage 2. Mob began to want to compete against himself.

So what’s the deal with the 100% thing? That, I would argue, is Mob’s suppressed emotions reaching their limit. Due to his past trauma, Mob restrains his emotions in an effort to maintain control. But Mob is not emotionless; he suppresses his emotions. And when they get too much, they flood out. We see Mob express a different emotion each time he hits 100%. Anger. Sadness. Gratitude. Courage. Over time, Mob is improving. His access to different kinds of emotions is broadening.

Mob becomes so strong, that he becomes capable of rebelling against his Master Reigan. Reigan screws up a bit here by not realizing Mob’s significant growth. Having Mob avoid people and focus on learning about the limits of his psychic power while earning (some) money was good advice for Mob when Mob was still trying to completely shut down his emotions. It gave Mob a buffer zone, an incubation period, that allowed Mob the time and space to approach growth on his own terms while still doing something productive. But now that that growth has proceeded, Mob no longer needs that type of protection anymore. And Reigan was too slow to the punch in recognizing that. Reigan had become complacent and inattentive. Link to Chapter

Another good thing about Mob’s job under Reigan was that it kept Mob in constant contact with people. It is through interactions with other people that we can learn much about ourselves, for the success and suffering of others can become reflections in to our own selves. Avoiding interaction prevents you access to comparative context, affording you less and less motivation for introspection. In this chapter we see the fruits of Mob’s tutelage under Reigan and the efforts Mob himself has made in coming to terms with his psychic power, as well as Reigan’s mature ability to tune in to Mob’s psyche and adapt his behavior to resolve conflicts.

This is getting a bit long. I will conclude by saying that Mob has accomplished much in the field of Stage 2, so much to the point that he is now beginning to tackle matters of a Stage 3 quality, namely protecting people against CLAW. Mob still has much to explore in Stage 2, though, and there are undoubtedly many traumas ahead of him that will threaten to drag him down or inspire him to rise higher.

Here’s hoping for much more Mob in the future.

[andrew-tha]

Clear examples of the complexities of Stage 4

Halloa! Sorry I don’t post more often. I do have things I want to write and post, but I always distract myself with something else. I’m back in school now, which paradoxically should get me to write more often cuz I’ll be forced to write stuff anyways for classes. Like how you might slack off on doing your laundry, but then you need to clean your suit for a job interview, and while doing that you end up doing all your laundry anyways.

Anyways, it’s often difficult to depict Stage 4 in its various complexities. Stage 4 characters rarely emerge in story-telling, likely due to the fact that in isolation they generate little to no conflict. We’ve already got Garnet from Steven Universe as a clear Stage 4 candidate, but there are a couple others as well, both written by the same author:

Saitama from One Punch Man

Reigen Arataka from Mob Psycho 100

Reigan is particularly interesting, because a shallow glance at his character would depict him as a swindler. Which he technically is, at least in the sense that he lies as a means of earning an income. Yet dive deeper in to his character and you will see much of the complexities of Stage 4, of what it looks like to be Emotionally Independent. Which doesn’t mean he isn’t without his flaws, without short-sightedness. But in terms of managing and resolving conflicts, there are none better than him.

Btw, if you have an idea as to the relative stage of a character that I don’t currently have listed, please tell me, so I can investigate and potentially add them to the list. Bear in mind that characters in fiction are more likely to not fit in to a stage, because how well a character fits is dependent on how capable the creator is of understanding human behavior and emotion.

For example, the majority of the human characters in the Transformer’s 4 movie do not fit in to any stage, because they are completely devoid of any genuine human emotion.

[andrew-tha]

Hi there! Is there any book where I can find this theory more in depth?

No, as it is not yet published. This theory is a very very very short hand summary of the basic points of a soon to be published pair of books. It was split in to a pair of books due to how long it has become.I have not spoken with the author for some time now, so I do not know how progress is atm. I will ask.

[andrew-tha]

Congratulations. I'm very proud of you.

got a job yesterday morning

spending tonight writing a cover letter for another job (in an area I’m interested in) that I could do in the evenings

dear hustle: I’m not sure where you’ve been for the past 2 years (WHEN I COULD REALLY HAVE USED YOU AHEM), but it’s nice to see you now regardless