WHY DON’T YOU LIKE ME? Can’t you see I’m special and friendly and just generally a pretty cool cat?
If you reflected on all the things you really wanted to want to do (second-order desire) but didn’t do, and then tried to figure out why you didn’t end up doing those things, I’d bet you’d find that 94% of the time, it was a fear of what I just heard called “the pain of independence.”
Neuroscientist Gregory Berns found that when we take a stance different from the group’s, we activate the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with the fear of rejection. Professor Berns calls this “the pain of independence.”
The quote was in reference to a problem with brainstorming, but it’s so much more broadly applicable than that.
AJ Jacobs said that “probably 90 percent of our life decisions are powered by the twin engines of inertia and laziness,” but I’d like to suggest that the engine is actually a triplet, with the third engine being fear of independence.
The fear of independence is not the same as the fear of being alone. In fact, I think they are nearly opposite. I think that we often choose to be alone as a kind of defense against the fear of independence. They can’t reject me from my couch.
Inertia, laziness, fear of independence. These are not traits we typically hold in our minds positively. These are impurities to be expunged through force of self-pep-talk.
Watch out, because I’m about to get irreverent on your ass.
I have a theory that one of the reasons mothers love their babies so much is because it hurt so much to push that fucker out. It’s not unlike the feeling of sweet relief after holding in your pee for a long time, but to a much greater degree. Mothers associate the sight of their newborn with the sweet relief. And good thing they do, because otherwise it might be hard to have a level of fondness necessary to keep alive that slimy, noisy wad of flesh and poop.
I think there’s a similar story with the pain of independence. But this post is long enough, and I have a private blog to attend to, so I’ll let you figure it out yourselves.
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1I’m pretty sure this is, in fact, unique to people. I just tried an experiment with my dog. “Khan, I don’t want to be your friend anymore,” and then I walked out of the room. He wasn’t offended. I added, “In fact, I think you smell.” Still nothing.
