Andrew Atkin:
To explain my view I first have to explain how pain works. When pain is truly too much it reaches the trauma point, and from there it is not felt - it is repressed. The pain becomes internalised and structures our present day reality, even when the original infliction is removed.
For the pain to be repressed we must become disassociated from it. Let me give a practical example.
The other day I saw a documentary on gaming where a young man was extremely successful as a top professional gamer. He expressed that he had a terrible childhood and that he coped with his awful family life by escaping into gaming, which naturally was how he became successful. So he created an alternative world for himself out of computer games to run away from his childhood. Now, take away the nasty childhood and the compulsion to play video games was still there, because even though the original painful context was gone the internalised pain was not. He continued to be affected by his [repressed] pain as though he was still feeling it - that is the nature of repression. The result was that he ran away from a reality that his mind felt was still there. His video game "addiction" was still active.
The dynamics in this case are obvious. What is less obvious is the dynamics rooted in pain from infancy, and childhoods that are seriously deprived but in subtle ways - the more common reality for the more common man. The truth is all of us--probably bar none--have dissociated from internalised pain in varying ways, to greater and lesser degrees. The more pain we have internalised the more we live in our own dissociated worlds.
Obviously not everyone who is successful is driven entirely by unconscious pain. But to varying degrees we all are. I think the give-away that someone is escaping heavily into "success" is that single bloody-mindedness or even obsessiveness with their relationship to their work. For many, the word ambition can equate to escapism. I don't mean to take anything away from people who are highly productive, but I think it's important to see the obsessive function for what it is, and to understand that behind what we see as success (or think is success) is often a tragic deeper truth. Indeed, as we know millionaires who 'have it all' can suffer from deep depression, be hooked on drugs and commit suicide etc just like anyone else.
I wanted to bring this to attention because I think we need to take a second look at the meaning of success and how we measure it. Because people with a lot of power tend to win a perceived qualification in our society giving them the unspoken right to preach to others. Fair enough when they're talking about the commercial world, but when they start to authoritatively explain to others "the meaning of life" they may be right out of their league. Sometimes the most commercially successful people are also the most unconscious of their [severely] dissociated state, and the impact that it creates in forcing them into a stressful and empty life.
We should consider this before we humble ourselves to successful obsessives. Those who are heavily split from themselves will always be limited in their ability to function as good leaders or role models for the rest of us - no matter their material achievements. They will preach balance while being incapable of knowing what the balance should even be.
