The voices in your head.

[gozpel]

I don't mean voices as when someone is talking to you in your head, that wouldn't be too great.

No, more about your decision-making in life. I have a vision of my 3 voices: Good, Bad and Logic. My brain speaks to me all the time and the only controller I have is Logic.

Now I feel that Good is on my right shoulder and Bad on the left, Logic is in the middle most likely already in my head.

So a discussion starts:

Bad: Ah look, that cornerstore can be robbed now!
Good: Not a good idea, mate. You can get hurt or even hurt someone you don't know.
Bad: It's worth the risk, heaps of money in there right now.
Good: It's not worth it to take money which doesn't belong to you and maybe injure or even kill someone for a handful of dollars!
Bad: But we're out of cash right now and we need more!
Good: It's still a very bad idea, it can even kill us.
Bad: It won't kill us, we do it fast.
Good: They have cameras.

Logic: Break it up, kids. We're NOT doing this! It's illegal!

Bad: Why not?
Good: Yeah, tell him (pointing at Bad)

Logic: Ok, first to rob the place can make us end up in jail for at least 5 years, and IF you kill or even hurt another person, we could end up in prison for life. For what? A
handful of dollars? You better back down, Bad!!!

Bad: Erh, sorta see your point....
Good: Haha, told ya!

This was just theatre, but my life really works like this, with Good and Bad on my shoulders whispering stuff and Logic has to sort it out. And so far so good, I never been in prison, I never did anything that could hurt another person physically. Still, in my younger days I didn't listen enough to these decision-makers and almost got in trouble with petty things.

It's just a way to show how I work out problems, I use it every day and almost every hour. What is Good and what is Bad, and finally Logic decides.

I hope it's not a disorder?

How do you sort out your decisions, daily life issues are small, but can still make a difference. Bigger issues needs Logic.

 

[gozpel]

I might have to expand it just a little bit.

It's not daily life as go on routine with jobs, kids and everything, then you're on auto.

But some days doesn't work out as you thought it would...flat tire, alarm clock not going off, car not even starting!

How do YOU work this through, except the panic?

I do this, listen to the choices

Bad: Take a sickie, you need to relax!
Good: No way, they need me over there, they can't cover me!
Logic: Settle down boys, I get there when I get there and I just work back for an hour.

I think by 32 views, at least someone would understand what I'm saying.

 

[Borachio]

I understand what you're saying. I would think we all do.

Having nice cosy debates with yourself is well and good. And as long as I can see that's what's happening there's no problem.

It's when one side (almost always the bad?) gets the upper hand, there can be a real problem. And I mean totally the upper hand. Like when getting so enraged the red mist descends. Or like getting carried away by the crowd, or peer pressure, etc.

If logic always carries the day for you, that's tremendous (I think). It doesn't always for me.

As for the voices schizophrenics hear, are they any different? Aren't they just more (a lot more) of the same?

 

[gozpel]

Thank you Borachio for that answer.

You're right when it comes to peer-or group-pressure,then we will talk another ballgame.

But that wasn't my intent, it's about you only in daily life. If this is daily life for you, then I can understand. Choices are limited and the voices are silenced.

And you're right, Bad has a way of itself to cause trouble. Maybe human nature as a beast? Kill or be killed?

But somewhere during the line we invented Good, which prohibits most of Bad's doing and leave us with Logic to sort it all out.

Logic carried me for 3 centuries now and I'm good. I still listen to bad and good and sometimes overrule logic, when it's harmless. But 98% of the time I listen to to the Judge, aka Logic.

 

[Borachio]

Hmm. I'm not sure your tripartite delineation (Good, Bad and Logic) is correct though.

What about the id, ego and superego? These correspond very roughly to bad, logic and good, don't they?

But not quite. For example being passionate (=angry?) about something might belong with the id, but not necessarily the bad.

While the ego doesn't at all correspond to logic except in so far as we're conscious of it.

And the superego, if it's your moral sense, must correspond nicely to your good.

 

[gozpel]

It's just my interpretation of it all, I'm not educated or anything in these matters.

Good is just sitting there on my right shoulder, telling me I'm a good boy.
Bad is on the left shoulder, tempting me. Wanting me to bad stuff.
Logic all in all is probably who I am, as I listen to that more.

I should listen to Good more then, I'm not very much into feelings, I'm pretty cold. I'm not giving you any stories about bad childhood, but there are a few of them.

"What about the id, ego and superego?" I never heard of those definitions, but they are just names and I think my 3 guys have done a terrific work on me. If superego is Logic which I would think is correct, then ID and Ego is unknown to me. Bad and Good is good enough for me, but the way you describe them, it seems like they go deeper than my descriptions. Which worries me, I have 3 ppl already talking in my head, I don't need anymore.

 

[Borachio]

Education is a fine thing. So is looking at things from different angles.

 

[gozpel]

Thank you for your insights, Borachio.

I will read it in the morning, almost midnight here and I get back to you later on.

Have a good day until then.

 

[Janig]

I appreciate the sentiment gozpel and had a little laugh. Im sure I'll be keen to check back on this later, but for now, much like youve written, Im having a break from good/bad and trying to demonstrate the principles of logic.

However in matters of persuasion, compromise and leadership, sometimes it is important to temporarily defy logic and entertain emotion for the greater good; which I see youve also demonstrated. Bye for now.

 

[timtofly]

Voices in your head, or choices in your head? I think that basically they are the same thing.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I understand what you're saying. I would think we all do.

Having nice cosy debates with yourself is well and good. And as long as I can see that's what's happening there's no problem.

It's when one side (almost always the bad?) gets the upper hand, there can be a real problem. And I mean totally the upper hand. Like when getting so enraged the red mist descends. Or like getting carried away by the crowd, or peer pressure, etc.

If logic always carries the day for you, that's tremendous (I think). It doesn't always for me.

As for the voices schizophrenics hear, are they any different? Aren't they just more (a lot more) of the same?

Here you go! What life is like with Schizophrenia in a nice youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWYwckFrksg


Scary!

 

[Borachio]

Not so scary!

It's not the symptoms so much that are important, imo, as the person's reaction to them.

 

[gozpel]

We are all playing in the same team, to achieve the better goals for us.

I'm not schizophrenic, it was tested years ago. Apparently this is a normal process when brought up as a lonely child in a difficult environment, at least some doctor's told me that 20 years ago, when I really had questions about this. So I'm "normal", in the sense I can actually hear myself debating myself. Every thought I get, I can hear it in a way, it's not pictures and other stuff that makes me decide. It's only these 3 voices, all my voice but with a different "attitude".

I'm settled with it and wouldn't like to have it working differently, it worked for me for 5 decades and I chose rightly in 99% of my choices.

So reading Freud's ideas of the matter will not make me any wiser, as his theories and ideas are pretty complicated and I like a less complicated life. But I do understand what he means and I'm sort of in the ballpark, but I have 1 Supervisor (Logic) and 2 workers (Good and Bad).

As long as I can do what I do daily, without Sigmunds excelled comprehension of the area, I say I stick to my own lesser involved sphere of living.

gozpelism isn't that bad.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'm familar with a rational, morally puritanical voice, a "pragmatic", indulgent, rationalizing voice, and then there's the impulse of instinct, which is often latent, but wholly uncompromising when it speaks up.

 

[gozpel]

I'm familar with a rational, morally puritanical voice, a "pragmatic", indulgent, rationalizing voice, and then there's the impulse of instinct, which is often latent, but wholly uncompromising when it speaks up.

That's only two voices, so you're all Logic! You need to give the other sides a chance to speak up.

Check your voices, you should have one that declares happy stuff. Like, Yeah slurpy! And another one like: I really, really hate that guy, I want to....

Then Logic comes in and sort it out.

You have at least 3 voices, good, bad and logic. Or sad, happy and logic.

 

[gozpel]

Good and bad are the choosers.

Example Good: Coming home from work, going to the store to buy petfood, beer and milk, buy a little bunch of flowers for your wife and then go to the bakery next door and buy an sweet thing.
That night you get laid!

Example Bad: Going to the corner-pub, have 2 beers and then go to the poker-machines, only to spend 20 bucks. You spend 40-60 and starts to freak out, then you walk home with 480 bucks. You get laid that night.

It doesn't work all the time, but often enough to ignore Logic for a spell.

 

[Angst]

As for the voices schizophrenics hear, are they any different? Aren't they just more (a lot more) of the same?

An old friend of mine was schizophrenic. A voice resembling her dad's kept her up at night by yelling at her, so she avoided slumber as much as possible; as soon she laid down, the voice began yelling. (It did at other times, but most when she tried sleeping.)

Is that good, bad or logic?

 

[timtofly]

An old friend of mine was schizophrenic. A voice resembling her dad's kept her up at night by yelling at her, so she avoided slumber as much as possible; as soon she laid down, the voice began yelling. (It did at other times, but most when she tried sleeping.)

Is that good, bad or logic?

That just sounds like her dad?

 

[Borachio]

An old friend of mine was schizophrenic. A voice resembling her dad's kept her up at night by yelling at her, so she avoided slumber as much as possible; as soon she laid down, the voice began yelling. (It did at other times, but most when she tried sleeping.)

Is that good, bad or logic?

But, I had that shouting voice well into my twenties -except it was my Mum's voice, and didn't really bother me at all.

I've certainly never been diagnosed as schizophrenic. I have every reason to think I'm unremarkable in every way. If not less than unremarkable.

 

[Mise]

I really only have one voice...