Okay. Thirdly, your shadow may use “Intellectualization” as a way to distance you from what’s affecting your emotions. It’s distancing the two WHOs through logic and facts, by focusing on What to think, rather than on how you are feeling in a given situation. WHO you are and the WHO that started your negativity are separated using Whats and thoughts, because the alignment of the WHOs creates emotions that you don't want to be feeling right then, at that given time. The way this works is as follows: You start to feel something about a subject. You believe these feelings don’t match with WHO you are (but of course, they do) so you lie. If you have enough brain power and wisdom, you won’t just regress like earlier.

 

You actually use that wisdom to create a whole new perspective that takes the emotion out of the situation. After all, Whats will either create, or deny, the opportunities for emotions, and so by creating a new What (A new perspective) you lock out your emotions — using thoughts as a form of distraction, and a tool for emotional avoidance (Chapter 5: A Reliably Unpredictable You). With intellectualization, you can use your intelligence as a What to lock out the WHO that you don't want to meet with. You may literally be too smart for your own good, and make an emotional subject all about facts, with no feelings. WHOs are made for feelings, and Whats are designed for logic. So, What assessments and thoughts you have, can be used to overshadow and lock out your emotional WHOs. This can lead you to bury your emotions and how you truly feel and are underneath a massive pile of opinion or fact-based gibberish.

That being said, your beliefs aren’t you. They’re yours. In such, you can change them without necessarily changing yourself. That is what your shadow intends to do with intellectualization. In my experience, so long as you actually have enough intelligence and wisdom to think rationally, intellectualization is actually rather fine, so long as you don't forget to feel about that subject eventually, and sooner rather than later. Still, I am not a psychologist, and there could be many things that I am missing in that regard. No matter what though, one big problem occurs when your “intelligent” new view is actually inaccurate, or ignorant, and is chosen to be so out as a course to falsify things in a way that protects your WHO from whatever is impacting you. If it’s based on lies, then we have a problem. This means that intellectualization is very risky because there are things in this world that you aren’t even aware, that you don’t know (Neisser)

Imagine an innocent child.

 

Weird request? I know. Just do it.

 

Good.

 

Now imagine what kinds of questions this child would ask in their everyday life. Let’s say that they’re 4 years old. Would a 4 year-old ask what the definition of sex is? 

 

Uhhh...

 

No?

 

Please tell me that your answer is a no.

 

Why? Because they shouldn't even know that sex exists. In such, they don’t realize that they’re missing information, like a definition. They literally don’t know, that they don’t know (Neisser). Who looks for a definition of a word that they didn’t even know existed? No matter your age, there will always be things in this world that you don’t realize you’re ignorant of, and so choosing to distance yourself by turning an emotional situation into a purely logical one can be devastating to you, and those around you, because while you believe that you know what you’re doing, perhaps you have, literally, no idea at all. Even worse, it’s an absolute loss either way. Either your ignorance leads to a disaster in the future because of faulty logic, or the disaster you’re avoiding in the present leads to ignorance, because you’re still left unaware of how you truly feel emotionally, and as such, you will always be at least a little ignorant, of WHO you truly are.

THIS, this, right here, is the main cause of our selfish world today. With the dawn of science, and all of the forgotten humanities, emotion has been tossed out of the window and then replaced, with pure logic. Many people believe that this is a good thing, but it leads to everything being based purely on written fact, and it has everyone repressing their emotions because they feel that emotions shouldn't be over-used when it comes to decisions (and so much more). Look around. We have "sigma males" who should care for no one, and the grind-set that forgets about love and focuses on the money. Women are focused on their ability to have higher paying jobs, whether that job will make them happy or not, or whether the process is kind to others or not. Both sexes want to be allowed into higher positions of power, whether they live fulfilling lives already or not. Men? Women? They are all acting impatient, ungrateful, and disloyal. Over 50% of all marriages in the USA end in divorce (Wilkinson & Finkbeiner). THAT'S ALMOST AS BAD AS A COIN TOSS. Love and loyalty shouldn't be a matter of chance. It's a promise to be kept, no matter how hard it is to keep it, and if you promised it to the wrong person, that's because you didn't spend enough time getting to know WHO they really are, and you should have been more careful. People are all getting obese, self-entitled, and impatient because of the one thing that they'll never admit.

Their life is miserable, and they have no idea why, because even as they listen to everyone else's advice, their completely logical advice is wrong because it is logical, no matter how crazy that may sound. In a world based on What you have logically and only with pure logic, in a world where everyone prioritizes fact over emotion, everyone is bound to suffer emotionally. Still, they can't admit that they are wrong, or that they have no idea what they are doing. After all, intelligence is about knowing What to think, remember? A person who prides themselves on intelligence feels a natural need to seem like they know what they're doing.

How can your emotions not suffer, if they've been starved and locked in a dark room for years? Even worse, since this is a tool for your shadow, these rules apply more heavily to negative emotions. When people have been told that logic matters more than emotion, those who listen to the mantra can no longer recognize their own shame or self-hatred, because they can't identify their negative emotions in a fine-tuned way at all. This is why everyone is so opinionated and hypocritical; Their emotions are there, but they're drowned out. Imagine it like our society blaring a very loud "logical audiobook" in every corner of the country, so loud that you can barely hear anything else, and that they're doing it to drown out the "emotional music" in the background that's making everyone want to cry. Every negative emotion has become a part of our community's shadow, because it has been covered up by the thick veil that is logic, and "sound reasoning".

Our societal systems have become nothing more than shadow-enabling monsters. Relationships have been transformed into transactions of vanity boosts, and "followers". Loyalty has taken a back seat to self-interested progress, because "It's better that only one of us suffers than if everyone does. Why should I stay and go down with the ship, too? That's the captain’s job, and there'll only ever be one captain." Because of logic without love, we have lost the arts of wisdom, and we lost our care for our neighbors as well. Our shadows have taken over. Today, between success and their dignity, far too many people will choose to sacrifice their dignity because they don't care if they should feel undignified. Their emotions aren't their priority. How can you realize that you're greedy, if you don't even keep tabs on your own emotions, and your greed, at all?

The excuse is usually the same. They say, "We're not being selfish, we're just being realistic. This is the way of the world. It's Darwinism. It's survival of the fittest. We simply find it better to be realistic, than to be disappointed optimists." They take into account the logical reality of their greed, without taking into account the emotional reality, such as the pain that they will eventually, and inevitably, cause others and themselves. Why should they? After all, in their delusional minds, they believe they don't feel that type of pain anyway. They're too "rational" to stoop to that level, right? And when that pain does strike them, they believe that they've done everything right, logically, and so someone else must be the cause of their negativity because logic is all that matters. Hence the blame game that has taken over our systems, and our country as a whole.

Well... dipshits... Darwinism is about "survival of the fittest". It's about the "need to survive", but it is not, about the WANT, to THRIVE. It speaks of our logical needs, while forgetting all about our emotional wants. It is about being able to survive, while entirely forgetting about what that survival is being used for. What good is it for all of us to survive longer, if everybody's miserable? What good is it to live, if you can't live the life that you want? Again, if you didn't WANT to live a thriving life, then you wouldn't NEED to survive, in order, to live. What kind of excuse, to avoid your negative emotions, is it to say "Well... emotions don't matter that much, do they? Do we really need love anyways?"

Yes! Yes, we do. You can have everything that you think you need, and still never find what you want. Why do you think it is that rich people can still be such insufferable, and still selfish assholes? For starters, it's because, just by having all of the money that you NEED, that doesn't mean that you'll live the life you WANT. We have a whole chapter on this in Chapter 4: What We Can't Love. Read it again if you have to. Please note how this is THE chapter about how love works from within this book, because in the end, if you're looking for a positive meaning to your life, you can love in life, or you can be loved in death, but no matter what, you will, need, love.

What you WANT is the end goal, and you will never reach it if you don't mark it on the map. You cannot change what you WANT, no matter how much you may change the paths that you feel you NEED to get there, and so trying to forget about what it is that you truly feel a desire for just makes all of your actions... empty... and pointless (Again, this is covered in Chapter 4). This does not help you live a fulfilling life, or a satisfactory life, that you can feel proud of living. What good is it to have it all, if you can never admit to yourself that you truly wanted any of it, or at the very least, you don't know what it is that you're supposed to feel grateful for from the mix? What good is it to live atop a pile of gold, if you don't know what the gold is worth? How can you find the ones who love you, if you can't acknowledge what it feels like to love them back, for WHO, they, are? Living in Heaven is worthless if you don't know where you are.

Again, our world has agreed to do this in a united fashion, and the fashion was pretty simple. If WHOs "create emotion", and Whats are "purely logic-based", then, in order to avoid our emotions, the process is simple. We just needed to stop focusing on "WHO else" is on this planet with us, and simply focus on "What else" this planet has for us to take.

"Who wants to deal with emotions?" We said. "Emotions are difficult, and love is hard to do when compared with hatred and selfishness." So?

So everyone decided, let's get more logical,

And the death of actually caring towards your fellow man, soon followed. Of course, no one will openly admit to being an emotionless, self-serving robot, even to themselves, but that doesn't mean that it isn't true. In fact, things like this are exactly why the shadow exists.

I ask you now, has our society taught you ANYTHING like I have taught you, about WHO you are, or the fact that What you have been doing, in terms of relationships, has had nothing to do with WHOM you're with? Why do you think it is that the idea of WHO you are, being measured by What you have, was your default state of mind? Why is it that even you don't know WHO you are? When you are taught that profit matters more than love, you could never have learned that the priority is the people that you make smile, and not the benefits that you take while you do it. Even if you steal things so subtly that you don't even catch yourself, a thief is still a thief. It's not a matter of whether you get caught. It's a matter of how you act, and without WHOs, without emotion, your actions, and your choices, will be faultily made; emotions are what drive all decisions, and therefore, all actions (Re-read Emotional Decisions Excerpt).

Here's another piece of intelligence for you. The reason I decided to write this chapter after the chapter on regression is because regression is actually a BETTER substitute to this. Children are the wisest among us. As such, once you catch yourself intellectualizing and turning things into complex systems of thought, jumping from one idea to the next like some conspiracy theorist to avoid your own shame and feelings of guilt or negativity (Now you can see how people start to believe these wild ideas), you should try to embrace your inner child. Use that child's wisdom as the cure to all of this insanity and "intelligence". You have a bunch of Whats. Now it’s time to focus on How those pieces really fit together. If they don’t, then we have a problem, and you should check in, to see which Whats are untrue and need to be removed. Be childish, my friends, and watch the naïve simplicity solve even the most complex of problems. Simple things simply matter, my friends. Complex things? They’re always built upon the simple things.

We will look into catching connections and understanding what is a justifiable truth in Menu 4: How Can We Be Certain?. I can’t wait to see you all there, but we must remain patient.

Work Cited

“Divorce Statistics and Facts: What Affects Divorce Rates in the U.S.?” Wilkinson & Finkbeiner, 18 June 2024, www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/#:~:text=Almost%2050%20percent%20of%20all,8. Accessed 30 Dec. 2024.

Neisser, Ulric, et al. “Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns.” American Psychologist, vol. 51, no. 2, Feb. 1996, pp. 77–101, doi:10.1037/0003-066x.51.2.77.