Moments 6: Flaws and Faults

 It seems, one of the hardest things to face in any coupling dynamic, is one's own flaws. When I first contemplated this, the word that came was "faults" in place of "flaws." Reading it that way—"One of the hardest things to face in any coupling dynamic is one's own faults"—I soon realized was incorrect, and in fact the reason why we do not seem to be able to face our flaws is because we are too stuck on our faults and fault-finding. And with "any coupling dynamic" I mean anything from dealing with one's occasional acquaintance, to encounters with a car mechanic, physician, best-friend, siblings, or spousal relationships. It may even be extended to a coupling dynamic with one's pet, nature, or even God or our source of being!

Many social scientists and thinkers, in fact, the whole gamut of modern western thought, is often obsessed and lead by this fault-seeking and finding mindset. So much so that we have specialists in various fault-seeking and finding fields, and we pay them handsomely as they increase their speciality in each field.

Then as you look at the media, today's budding heads no longer resemble humans but the bull-fights among beasts. And of course our politicians and scientists are justified, because they have each had decades of education in their field of fault-finding and problem solving, to such extend that before the whole world on national television, they will go to any length in destroying each other's careers and livelihoods. Then even nations could do the same as they go to war. It should come as no surprise. It seems there is no price high enough for this problem solving and fault-finding machine we call the mind, or rather we should call it, this problem solving and fault-finding machine that is the mechanical mind-brain of modernism.

So then, why have we lost touch with understanding and appreciating our flaws, and instead become accustomed to beating ourselves and each other to death over our faults? Putting it that way is somewhat extreme of course, and generally symbolic, but even in the extreme it holds true.

Perhaps when it was revealed to Moses, “Thou shalt not kill,” it was speaking to that mind, and when the Lord of Love, Jesus of Nazareth, said, “Love your enemy,” or “Love your neighbor (or others) as yourself,” I’m sure it started with the mind as our first allied neighbor and/or enemy, and perhaps both neighbor-friend-enemy at different times or more or less of each. There’s one key: In loving one’s neighbor or another I can not fault the other nor could I fault myself, but does that solve the riddle of fault-finding, pointing, blaming?

First on deciphering what this key-concept of loving another as oneself, and how its opposite is faulting others, pointing, blaming, or a form of ‘othering’—meaning it is about another not ‘me’—in which we inevitably alienate both ourselves and others. But before that, how would our overall attitude change if we could transition from fault-finding to appreciating our flaws? And perhaps then even our ‘faults’ are more easily seen and identified, (whereas normally under pressure we’re more inclined deny them) especially psychologically.

...to be continued.      

—Houman Z. Emami 🙏🏻

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