Permission To Do Nothing

Last week, for the first time, I commented under the Instagram publication of a French psychoanalyst I follow who posted (I translate):

"Contemporary society sells a promise of improvement through action.

But psychologically, much suffering comes from an excess of doing.

So often, it is enough to stop."

This was published out of context, without explanation, nuance, examples nor illustrations as to where this might actually be true. I politely flagged that it'd be interesting to get the context of this thought which was otherwise a generalisation that could easily be debunked. In response, she flipped, and not mildly. I was so surprised and taken back by her reaction to my comment and her tone that I proceeded to call it out – bluntly this time.

Isn't the internet full of petty disagreements between strangers having a go at each other?

I guess we've all had this experience at least once. But this exact one lingered with me and spurred a lot of reflections and diverse conversations. Therefore as a case study, I decided to dissect my end of this episode and some takeaways that came out of it.

From my perspective, this woman is making the choice to introduce herself publicly as a professional, her presence is clearly framed as such on her social media account which she uses to 'broadcast' content about psychoanalysis. She hardly ever adds text under her publications which are mostly minimalist; a sentence between quotation marks written on a white background, and that's it. We don't know if the quotes are hers or from other sources. Sometimes she posts a photo of an artwork where she rarely gives credit to the artist. The direct consequence of this way of operating is that her thousands of followers tend to like her content but rarely engage with it.

When I asked myself why I was so annoyed with what happened, a few things came up. The first is that what she wrote was indeed an uncontextualised generalisation (even though she argued that she used the word often and not always) which, to me, is inaccurate in many situations. Reading it, I could immediately think of more counter examples than examples of what she was affirming. Which is also why I asked her to illustrate her point: I was genuinely interested, from a professional perspective, to better understand where she was coming from. And this because overall, I had been enjoying reading what she had to say from time to time.

Second, judging from the amount of followers, she is being read by people who for the most part, aren't professionals and who are likely visiting her account for easy to understand psychoanalytic concepts and ideas that won't be discussed above and beyond what's on display. Words will be taken at face value and sometimes applied without any critical thinking, for which there is no room anyway. So if the partaken information is only partially true and is dependent on a context which itself is missing, it goes unnoticed. Multiply this phenomenon by the amount of people in this industry who do the same thing, and that's how…

"Contemporary society is being sold a promise of improvement through psychology on social media… Which so often is untrue" – my quote.

Third and as a matter of principle, if someone occupies a space on social media as a professional psychoanalyst, the bare minimum is to behave like one. To lash out at a follower's first (ever) comment who has been viewing and liking the content for some time isn't exactly what qualifies as leading by example nor embodying what's preached. In logotherapy, this is actually something that is critical; we owe it to our patients to hold ourselves to a certain standard of behaviour and attitude. So here I have to admit that I had expectations and it didn't go well.

Fourth, why can't anything or anyone be challenged anymore? As I was kindly reminded by a friend; by my comment, I indeed challenged this woman's statement. But truthfully, I can't find any problem with that. On the contrary, I find it problematic that the act of challenging someone has become such a reprehensible issue, even when done respectfully. If you doubt this, think for a moment of Charlie Kirk. Wasn't he a good example of someone who challenged people's ideas politely whilst a lot of them preferred insulting him instead of engaging in a thoughtful conversation and an intelligent debate? Have psychoanalysts too become so fragile and sanctimonious that we need to refrain from counter-expressing ourselves when they supposedly share their wisdom and tell us what's what? We are truly living in an era where the metaphor of the emperor's new clothes has become a day to day reality.

Fifth, whenever I spot dissonance, incongruency or hypocrisy, something inside me jumps. This woman defended herself as giving free clinical and theoretical elements on her account and that I was free to go get a therapist if I wanted more personalised answers. But here is the thing. For a start, free doesn't mean the audience shouldn't ask questions, make suggestions or constructively criticise without being dissuaded to do so – on the basis of the free principle. Moreover, her content isn't for free and part of it on the platform is behind a paywall for subscribers. It's her way to publicise her services, which she does openly with a direct link from her bio to book a consultation. Nothing wrong with that but the point is that, as it is for most content creators, nothing here is done and offered for the sake of generosity or care to educate others but simply as a means to advertise a business and gain visibility. So my question hence is: why not just own it for what it is? And contrary to what one might think, the purpose isn't a two-way communication, a real exchange between human beings that her job title might lead us to believe. In fact, her social media account is simply and commonly used as a notice board that one might decide to look at (or not), to like/heart (or not), to emote with (or not). In other words, she'll take your positive reaction and reinforcement which will feed the algorithm in her favour, but God forbid you engage beyond this point especially if it's for anything other than clapping and lapping up what she's thrown out there or to book a session. A good reminder that more often than not, there is nothing social about social media. It's commercial and we're both the product and the buyer.

This leads me to my sixth point: there is an attitude and stance regularly encountered and witnessed on social media platforms, by which our presence on 'their account' (as if they owned it) is based on this tacit agreement: we give them our time, we view what they share, we like it, we emoji it, we write something nice and fluffy or we leave.

Isn't that beautifully simple?

If we don't like it, if we disagree, we can just go away. Preferably silently, without disturbing the peace of everyone else as this must remain a good vibe only safe space. Therefore, we are either a candidate for the propagation and expansion of the echo chamber or we're gone. Mind you, she hasn't blocked me, so I guess I can consider myself lucky, I still belong, so long as I keep quiet.

I wondered if she would have responded differently if she had known the comment came from a peer (I was posting from my personal account which is private). That interrogation segues to my seventh point that was raised by my friend who highlighted that, and I agree, nowadays people judge others way too fast. A sentence, a photo, a glance and, consciously or not, they've already made up their mind about who we are. And bonus, it's loaded with projections, preconceptions and assumptions. She, for instance, clearly felt I was some sort of uneducated "Karen", a shit stirrer, border line troller, who was attacking her in an injunctive way. I am laughing just writing this but again, personally, I have had multiple examples, even recently, of being the book judged by its cover. It is what it is but I know first hand that it's not pleasant. If you think about it, social media and networking apps of any kind, social profiling of any sort have made this even worse.

Now what?

Two things in fact. One, I firmly believe that we should hold onto our standards and our demanding nature in alignment with our values. I'll use a French word which unfortunately doesn't have its equivalent in English: Exigence – A high standard or strict requirement that must be met; a level of rigor or demand applied to oneself or others. I used to be hammered for my exigence. Now I protect, proclaim and claim it. Two, and finally: what's actually wrong with the actual statement she posted that triggered this entire article?

For the sake of contradiction, I'll start with a generalisation myself. In our world today, the last thing that seems sensible to recommend to anyone is inaction or passivity. There aren't many things that get better or improve because of it, either individually or collectively. Of course, it's not just what we do that counts. But one way or another, who we are is informed by what we do or don't do. Consistent action rather than empty words will always prevail and that is also what helps sustain a healthy sense of self-esteem as well as trust. It goes without saying that in a perfect world actions and/or inactions would be meaningful, informed, done with awareness, intention and responsibleness. We're not in a perfect world but through our attitude, then behaviour (actions), that's how we can change the world we're in. In logotherapy, the aim is to aid patients to achieve the highest possible activation in life, to lead a person from the state of a homo patiens to that of a homo agens, from patient (passively and patiently suffering) to agent (acting person)^[1]. Whether it is a bias or a stance, I feel like this view serves us, as human beings, a lot more than the alternative.

PS: The original title was going to be: Read, Like or Leave (Silently). I hope you understood the double meaning of the current one.

References

^[1] Applied Logotherapy: Viktor Frankl's Philosophical Psychology – Stephen J. Costello

Main – Michael Cheval