Meanderings.
Nov. 7th, 2002 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerThere's this Anime, Ranma 1/2, which I've always found hilariously funny, and fun, and enjoyable on several levels. But it's actually touched on a deeper meaning of sorts, in a completely inadvertant way.
However, this turned into a large posting, so I'll leave the rest of the article here.
The hero is Ranma Saotome, and by "hero", I don't mean "wonderful, lovable guy", because while he *IS* the good guy in many ways, he's a somewhat ordinary teenager (who, admittedly, is a 'heroic epic' martial artist, and who turns into a shapely young lass when splashed with cold water, only to turn back when splashed with hot) and he has quirks and flaws just like anyone... but, in the end, when the chips are down, he can be counted on to do the right thing.
One of his constant rivals is Ryoga, who isn't as good as Ranma, but who does have the ability to split large boulders with his fists. He had an irrational grudge with Ranma (due to his supernaturally bad sense of direction, he feels Ranma skipped out on a fight that was in the empty lot behind his own house. That it took him four days to FIND the empty lot behind his own house didn't occur to him), which led him to chase Ranma down to the place where Ranma picked up his curse, and met with his own. Ryoga changes to a tiny black pig when splashed with cold water. (For all his clear second-fiddleness, however, I'll note he seems to be the only character in the series with this curse who thinks to carry an umbrella with him where ever he goes.)
Anyway, none of that's relevant, really... the key is, they're constant rivals, and one day they had yet another battle. Ryoga, however, had learned a new trick... the breaking point.
Cologne (ancient crone and amazon, grandmother of Shampoo - no, I don't know why personal care products run in the family names) taught Ryoga the secret breaking point. Everything (except, as we learn after the battle is complete, the human body) has a weak point, where a single touch will shatter it.
Why is this so devastating, then, if it doesn't really work on the human body? Because of how a person is trained to find the breaking point. The student is hung from a rope (Remember, Ryoga (and other folks in the universe) can smash a boulder bare handed, so you can't give him leverage and expect him to learn to shatter with a touch, rather than smash with his fists); a large boulder is hung from another. Then, the two are swung together.
The true power of the breaking point technique is what it does to the student. After being smashed with boulders, over and over, impacts quickly mean nothing to the student. Even Ranma's strongest punches and kicks feel "like a baby's". He eventually wins, because he is, after all, the hero.
Okay, so what *IS* the point of all of this?
Well, many of you folks out there know I have this terrible fear of people or social situations. Now, the easiest way to start conquering a phobia is by systematic desensitization... exposure to the feared object in safe settings at higher and higher levels of contact, until the phobia is sufficiently reduced to be considered cured. (An ex-arachnaphobe might still feel spiders are icky, but won't run screaming from the room if there's a single tiny spider seen ten feet away)
Ah... but what if the fear is "getting hit with a huge boulder"?
It's a reasonable thing to fear, right? And, unlike in Ranma 1/2, getting hit with a huge boulder, over and over, won't leave a person able to withstand huge impacts without damage. You can't really desensitize a person to that fear.
What if a person has a fear of people because small social blunders, and minor setbacks with people can create incredible amounts of mental pain?
Again, you have a reasonable fear. And the standard wisdom for dealing with it is "just get smashed with the boulder, again and again; you'll get used to it."
That's not fair to conventional wisdom, I suppose. In fact, conventional wisdom is more like "But it's *NOT* a huge boulder; in fact, it's rarely much of anything."
But, conventional wisdom doesn't know that sometimes it *IS* a huge (admittedly, mental/emotional) boulder, and that you can't just get used to it.
The key has to be 'de-bouldering' the issue. Rather than ignoring the problems because they're unusual, you need to find a way to deal with the root issue: the pains and resulting fear of problems.
Then, once you no longer are facing being smashed with a huge boulder, *THEN* you can start the standard, conventional cure of exposing yourself to social situations and getting used to them.
But first, you have to admit that you *ARE* getting smashed by a boulder, and figure out how to de-boulderfy your fears.
Damn, but I feel like there's an article or even a book in this idea. "Rule one: Don't let yourself get hit with big rocks."
However, this turned into a large posting, so I'll leave the rest of the article here.
The hero is Ranma Saotome, and by "hero", I don't mean "wonderful, lovable guy", because while he *IS* the good guy in many ways, he's a somewhat ordinary teenager (who, admittedly, is a 'heroic epic' martial artist, and who turns into a shapely young lass when splashed with cold water, only to turn back when splashed with hot) and he has quirks and flaws just like anyone... but, in the end, when the chips are down, he can be counted on to do the right thing.
One of his constant rivals is Ryoga, who isn't as good as Ranma, but who does have the ability to split large boulders with his fists. He had an irrational grudge with Ranma (due to his supernaturally bad sense of direction, he feels Ranma skipped out on a fight that was in the empty lot behind his own house. That it took him four days to FIND the empty lot behind his own house didn't occur to him), which led him to chase Ranma down to the place where Ranma picked up his curse, and met with his own. Ryoga changes to a tiny black pig when splashed with cold water. (For all his clear second-fiddleness, however, I'll note he seems to be the only character in the series with this curse who thinks to carry an umbrella with him where ever he goes.)
Anyway, none of that's relevant, really... the key is, they're constant rivals, and one day they had yet another battle. Ryoga, however, had learned a new trick... the breaking point.
Cologne (ancient crone and amazon, grandmother of Shampoo - no, I don't know why personal care products run in the family names) taught Ryoga the secret breaking point. Everything (except, as we learn after the battle is complete, the human body) has a weak point, where a single touch will shatter it.
Why is this so devastating, then, if it doesn't really work on the human body? Because of how a person is trained to find the breaking point. The student is hung from a rope (Remember, Ryoga (and other folks in the universe) can smash a boulder bare handed, so you can't give him leverage and expect him to learn to shatter with a touch, rather than smash with his fists); a large boulder is hung from another. Then, the two are swung together.
The true power of the breaking point technique is what it does to the student. After being smashed with boulders, over and over, impacts quickly mean nothing to the student. Even Ranma's strongest punches and kicks feel "like a baby's". He eventually wins, because he is, after all, the hero.
Okay, so what *IS* the point of all of this?
Well, many of you folks out there know I have this terrible fear of people or social situations. Now, the easiest way to start conquering a phobia is by systematic desensitization... exposure to the feared object in safe settings at higher and higher levels of contact, until the phobia is sufficiently reduced to be considered cured. (An ex-arachnaphobe might still feel spiders are icky, but won't run screaming from the room if there's a single tiny spider seen ten feet away)
Ah... but what if the fear is "getting hit with a huge boulder"?
It's a reasonable thing to fear, right? And, unlike in Ranma 1/2, getting hit with a huge boulder, over and over, won't leave a person able to withstand huge impacts without damage. You can't really desensitize a person to that fear.
What if a person has a fear of people because small social blunders, and minor setbacks with people can create incredible amounts of mental pain?
Again, you have a reasonable fear. And the standard wisdom for dealing with it is "just get smashed with the boulder, again and again; you'll get used to it."
That's not fair to conventional wisdom, I suppose. In fact, conventional wisdom is more like "But it's *NOT* a huge boulder; in fact, it's rarely much of anything."
But, conventional wisdom doesn't know that sometimes it *IS* a huge (admittedly, mental/emotional) boulder, and that you can't just get used to it.
The key has to be 'de-bouldering' the issue. Rather than ignoring the problems because they're unusual, you need to find a way to deal with the root issue: the pains and resulting fear of problems.
Then, once you no longer are facing being smashed with a huge boulder, *THEN* you can start the standard, conventional cure of exposing yourself to social situations and getting used to them.
But first, you have to admit that you *ARE* getting smashed by a boulder, and figure out how to de-boulderfy your fears.
Damn, but I feel like there's an article or even a book in this idea. "Rule one: Don't let yourself get hit with big rocks."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Alternate rule?
Date: 2002-11-07 11:44 am (UTC)Not sure how much I can help with the rock-crushing, darlin', but I'm here if you need someone to hold your coat and water bottle and stuff ...