It’s not exactly the nature of repression that we disagree on. Rather, it’s the manner in which we understand the concept of restraint.
When I say restraint, I mean restraint from what is wrong.
I do not simply mean restraint from action. I mean restraint from what is wrong.
We have an inner sense of what is right and what is wrong. More accurately, we have an inner sense of what is wrong. Right is merely whatever is not sensed as wrong. Wrong is primary, right is secondary. Or so it appears.
Restraint, for me, means restraint from what is wrong.
Thus, restraint can never be a negative, it can only ever be a positive.
What people call “excessive restraint” I consider to be a failure to restrain oneself.
Rather than being “excessive restraint” it is “excessive drive to do something in order to avoid doing something else”. This is a subtle point.
Drives increase activity. They increase the speed of motion. They make you more concentrated. When one is on overdrive, when one is too motivated, there is always a feeling of considerable tension. This is especially true when the flow of such energy is obstructed. Then it causes us pain.
The situation is the same when we “restrain ourselves too much”. We feel too tense, indicating that there is a lot of motion within ourselves that cannot freely flow.
Thus, I resonate, that what is normally considered to be “excessive restraint” is in actuality “excessive motivation”.
And people who are “excessively motivated” are clearly not restraining themselves.
It’s important to understand that “excessive restraint” means increase in motivation. What happens is that a drive is added on top of the existing drive. Moreover, the action that is introduced is sensed as being wrong, but the individual nonetheless proceeds to execute it.
To refrain from one action in order to surrender to another is not “excessive restraint” but lack of restraint.
Restraint from action always implies switch to another action. There is no stillness. You cannot not act. You can only change how you act.
The sense of wrong is simply a sense that you have to pay attention to something other than what you’re currently paying attention to.
Thus, what I mean by restraint is restraint from what you’re currently doing in order to do what has to be done.
But this “what has to be done” is determined via pressure. It is not determined by some external authority, some instruction, some holy book or some other abstraction. Whatever exerts the most pressure must be dealt with immediately. Thus, a build up of pressure inside one’s head is a sign that one is not doing what one should be doing. (People nowadays do not think like that. They think that high pressure is fine so as long it allows one to achieve their end. I call such people “hyper-rational”. Note that stronger people are capable of dealing with greater levels of pressure without experiencing any kind of stress. That’s a different story.)
To conclude this post, let’s take a look at a simple example to understand what really happens when one “restrains oneself too much”.
Suppose you are engaged in action A. Now, at some point, you sense that there is something wrong about doing this action A. This is a sign of pressure exerted by some other action that demands your immediate attention. You can choose to stick to action A and ignore this other action, but this will lead to a build up of pressure inside your head, which will be uncomfortable. But you can also choose to switch your attention to this other action B and thus drop the pressure. Now, when you do this, what you do is you refrain from action A in order to give attention to action B. Most importantly, you are restraining from what is wrong: from engaging in action A when you should no longer be engaged in it. Now, you will be engaged in this action B. And at some point, perhaps, you will, once again, sense something wrong. This time, it will be action B knocking on your door, demanding your attention. So what do you do? Again, the right choice would be to switch attention from action B to action A.
This is what’s going on in a nutshell. Restraint here simply means sticking to a drive that exerts the most pressure. Repression means sticking to any drive other than the one that exerts the most pressure. We can call the two drives the fundamental drive, the one that exerts the most pressure and that focuses/concentrates, and the superficial drive, the one that exerts less pressure and that distracts/decentrates. Repression occurs when superficial drive is tacked upon fundamental drive and then maintained in this position for long enough to be noticed. Repression is automatic, it’s what occurs naturally, it requires no effort. In order to dissolve it, meditation must be used. Meditation dissipates these superficial drives and in doing so strengthens the connection to the fundamental drive.
People who are “too strict” are simply people who want to engage in one and the same activity for too long. This naturally leads to build up of pressure, to excessive motivation, as many other drives try to rebel against such a decision by demanding immediate attention but without ever receiving it.
“Excessive restraint” simply means that the return from action B to action A is taking too long, if at all.
There is a natural rhythm and this natural rhythm must be respected. This is what restraint, in the way I use the term, means.
One more thing:
Self can now be defined as a quantity of drives (or energy flows) that comprise it.
True self can be defined as a proper coordination of drives (or energy flows.)
False self can be defined as a lack of coordination between drives (or energy flows.)