The Devil in my Mind: Moriarty and Master Manipulators

I just finished watching the BBC Sherlock shows again and have been entertained with pondering such things as putting the various versions of Sherlock in a room together, Cumberbatch and Downey, or adding characters like Stargate Atlantis' Dr. McKay or Bones' Dr. Brennan into the mix. Also, how well would Sherlock and Spock relate or would the one drive the other nuts? There was, however, in the final episode, an interlude that struck a different chord.

I had already noticed a parallel between Moriarty and Sherlock, but realized a huge difference, at least in the BBC interpretation, in their egos. Sherlock may have a seemingly absurd level of confidence, but he doesn't care for public attention or opinion. His only concern is that he have a true challenge to his mental powers. He could easily have gone into some sort of science, but I suspect he found it as dry a long-term all-encompassing focus as I did... (Yes, I'm well aware he is a fictional character, but all characters are simply case studies of real humanity.) Instead, on some level, he recognized that the true puzzle is in people. While I am content to watch and interact and piece together details and patterns of people in general, he did that so quickly and automatically that there was no challenge or long-term interest. Kind of like how playing Sudoku over and over eventually trains your brain into the patterns so that it is no longer an actual exercise and therefore becomes a bit boring. Sherlock found his outlet and exercise 'on the side of the angels' by coming in at the end of a play, a crime, and using the scenery and props, the set dressing, costumes, lighting, and details the average person only vaguely notices to piece together the story of the the preceding acts.

Moriarty, on the other hand, is a far different mix of genius and ego. Where Sherlock really only needed the younger sibling/best friend stand-in of John Watson, Moriarty needed the challenge plus the whole world and Sherlock to see him as he saw himself - the best, smartest, supra-ordinary being in existence. He tested himself against Sherlock and found a fairly even match. (Thankfully he didn't try to pull a stupid Joker and claim in was Sherlock's fault he existed - the dumbest excuse for bad behavior I've ever heard!) Instead, his ego ruled out and he decided he was better than Sherlock and was going to 'prove' it to everyone.

And herein lies the issue of interest for this post. Moriarty runs a campaign that the viewer can follow and that Sherlock figures out, but he orchestrates it such that (he thinks) he's left Sherlock with no escape but to fall to his manipulations. The way he does this? By messing with truth, reality, doubt, distrust, jealousy, confusion, and human emotion in general. He uses a mass of truth to obscure a basic, but huge lie. He plants doubt in people who know they aren't as smart and uses the jealousy of others who don't want to have to admit they aren't as smart to build a web of confusion. He uses the sources that everyone chooses to accept as truth to spread these twistings and knows that most don't bother stopping and thinking things out for themselves. And in his own mind, it just proves to him that he really is so far above the 'ants', the 'common', 'ordinary' people he plays with. He knows that if he lines things up just so, people will conveniently choose to act as he wants them to and be too vacant to recognize it's even happening. He even plays it so that Sherlock himself is faced with wondering if Moriarty's lies are truth.

[I know I'm mixing tenses, but considering that the characters are archetypes and also that I'm a bit out of it, you'll just have to live with it.]

If you didn't follow my 'ants' reference, that is the term Loki uses in The Avengers. (Favorite movie, remember? Whole post about it!) Loki, Moriarty, Haman in One Night With the King (about Esther) who uses political machinations against the best, twists accepted protocol rules and intimated public perceptions and judgments to convince the king that a whole population, the Jews, should be exterminated... Where have we heard that story-line before??? A bit reversed, but it's the same thing Hitler did to convince a nation they had the moral right and superiority to do the same.

So why am I, a good Mormon girl, so attuned to the manipulations of the devil characters? If you know me, you know why. If you've paid attention, you could guess why. If you're new here, you'll hear the coming sentence for the first time with the rest of the readers. Once I realized there was something wrong at home, I came to think of my dad's voice as the voice of the devil. I began to recognize that the thought patterns, the manipulations, the constant mind-twisting were all the same tools, the same words the devil would/did use against me to undermine me and my confidence in self, my belief that I had a right to exist, and ultimately an effort to undercut my person-hood, my sanity even.

First I started realizing that the beliefs I had learned at home didn't mesh with what I learned at church. Then I traced back where those beliefs came to be (as a defenseless child) and recognized they were placed and regularly reinforced by the should-be-protector. It literally took years not to hear my dad's way of thinking and judging against everything I did after I cut contact with home, but I did it and as I've been digging out his 'retarded-ness' (as I like to call it), I have become highly aware of the patterns and application of the same in story villains and even normal-people interactions.

I would not want others to experience the trauma of having to fight against childhood programming just to learn to trust your own senses. I do not, have never had, the inclination to rail against God for the 'unfairness' of it. There are many trials, some from Him and some from 'retarded' humanity and why shouldn't I have to face that reality like everyone else does? I do think, however, that one very positive element of having survived and fairly overcome the father/family I was born to is that I am probably more aware than most people and this brings a level of defense against others who would try to manipulate.

So why I am writing on something of a darker subject than usual? My last conversation with my youngest sister before dad banned me from talking to her (just before I realized there was no point in further associations, and banned because of these points made in that conversation) the two points I was anxious to impress upon her mind were 1) that she should build a strong connection to God. That had, after all, been what had helped me through all of it. 2) That she has a right to decide what she thinks - she doesn't have to think something just because someone else tells her to. Her mind is her own and it doesn't make her wrong to think or feel differently. I was quite anxious to pass that one on since I had wished, for years, that someone had told me that same thing. Dad, on the other hand, was quite upset about it since it undermined his authority. It had been so useful against me, after all. She doesn't know it, due to how everything's played out, but I have prayed often for her. She was quite young when he married a woman after his own heart (NOT a compliment!) and she was raised with a very distorted version of the truth. I know she doesn't understand, and probably won't be able to for quite some time. I hope, sometime in the future, that will change and maybe then the sister relationship I've craved (consider how many of her age I've connected with on twitter - very much an unfulfilled older-sister issue evident) can actually come to be.

I would enjoin those same two points on you, my readers. Being connected to a pure and higher being gives a clearer gauge by which to measure and judge truth. It is a true protection. Also, while it sounds like the words of a skeptic, consider that not everything you hear or are told is being represented accurately. This could be malicious, or it could simply be skewed by someone's bias. Either way, learn to consider what you don't know. This does not need to lead to self-doubt, but rather, as Sherlock says - jumping to conclusions without sufficient data obscures the truth (paraphrasing). Sometimes just recognizing that things are probably not all they appear to be allows you to take in more information objectively and make a wiser decision.

The funny thing is, Moriarty's final digs at Sherlock were completely bogus. He taunted Sherlock to prove he wasn't 'ordinary', that he wasn't 'boring'. Like those who have chosen the darker path, he wanted the evidence that it didn't make him less than the good guy by bringing the good guy to the dark as well. Only he had already convinced himself he was better in his own denial and so, taunting from hell, as it were, he claimed that Sherlock was only 'as good as him' if he joined him. So do those like Moriarty. They claim they are above by pulling strings, when truly they stand below. We don't have to give them that power. They may pull strings and make life as miserable as they can manage in their efforts to control, but what we choose to think, what we choose to do, is our choice, not theirs. Please, don't ever forget that.

Smeagol vs Gollum; Merlin vs Morgana

You know those projects that you just stare at because the thought of starting them is so overwhelming? Well, I had this thought that if I put in the next Lord of the Rings movie (Two Towers - my favorite!), I might find it an easier prospect. [Transferring the mosaic laid out on cardboard to a board with the cement glue... It's my first one, so I'm nervous I'll mess it up with how small I made the pieces... Memo for next time - use bigger pieces...] I started the first disc and ate my dinner after realizing I'd get too confused if I tried to expand the size/gaps in between the pieces and found myself pondering a completely different topic and ignoring the mosaic. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's another one of those multiple sources and thoughts converging into one. I took notes of my thoughts in my phone, didn't bother to watch the second disc yet (I wouldn't want to be distracted during the humor of Legolas and Gimli, after all!) and came to the computer where family history distracted me again. But here I am now, phone at the ready and a web of ideas to lay out for you.

The thoughts started as a combining of random sources bringing to mind the role of agency - how our choices determine our destinies inasmuch as the paths we take determine our ultimate destinations. The more wisdom and care we apply when making our choices will do much to indicate where we end up. With that in the background, I found myself considering Gollum in a different way. I'd always been a bit disturbed (still am, truth be told) by Sam's blatant antagonism of Gollum and how dear, sweet, wise Sam couldn't see that Frodo's anxiousness that Gollum could be redeemed was really his own concern that he would/was falling to the evil ring's power. This pity is even more brought forward as we watch the split-personality of Smeagol begin to fight off the wicked drivings of Gollum. But then I recalled something that I don't think is well known. Most are aware, I believe, that split-personalities tends to indicate past trauma in the individual's life, but being an uncommon situation, I think many don't realize that the person consciously seeks the splitting as a way to cope. It's a choice. (At least for the initial split. I haven't thought to ask beyond that...)

As Gollum taunts Smeagol about how he will be betrayed, that 'they'll cheat you, hurt you, lie to you' finally ending with 'nobody likes you', I found myself wondering what caused the split. What was the trauma that Smeagol couldn't handle on his own? The third movie makes it clear that he was ostracized because his greed caused him to murder his friend, so to say he'd been horribly wronged doesn't really fit. But then I remembered Loki and Thor and The Avengers. Loki hadn't been wronged and yet, in his mind, his actions were perfectly justified because of how he chose to interpret events. It is also how my family chose to see me as the source of all problems even as I was in relative form a house-elf. So, returning to the 'cheating, hurting, lying', this seems the basis for Gollum's hatred and anger self-justification. Ownership of the ring and citizenship in the Shire were both his right in his mind, so to be banished from the latter because he killed for the former would twist into being cheated. Also, he'd see Bilbo's winning of the ring as a cheat. Smeagol then had a hard life in the course of the consequences of his banishment with the most recent torture at the hands of Sauron's minions seeking the ring. Hence the 'hurt you'. Finally, the one who chooses to turn to anger and hate has no patience of compassion for the frailties of others or circumstances which interfere with stated intentions. He has no inclinations to forgive any perceived slight to himself and so it all becomes 'lies'.

In the stories I know of split personalities, there is usually a weak, protected, identity, and a strong protector identity. This translates to Smeagol as the weak one and Gollum as the protector. The thing is, Gollum as protector is like an abuser/victim relationship where the weak one can't imagine life being possible without what little support, abusive though it may be, the abuser provides. And since Smeagol is by no means an innocent, this gives the Gollum identity more to use in posing for strength over Smeagol. I suppose one could go into a discussion of id, ego, super-ego and say that Smeagol was lacking in the super-ego conscience factor, but I only know a couple split-stories and neither of them follow that pattern. What it does suggest to me, however, is the nature of the bully-coward, happy to hide behind the stronger entity as an easy excuse for their actions. That like the war-criminals seeking to claim that they were only following orders.

The good news is that in Smeagol's turning to Frodo (pre-Faramir), it proves that there is hope for the good to be found even in a long-mired soul. Smeagol had many opportunities to kill Frodo but saved his life more than once. I tried to consider that it could just be he didn't think he could get away with anything with Sam there (as Sam, himself, would see it) but that fails to take into account how Smeagol also showed joy and gave the gift of food and acted on trust when Frodo called to him. The good was there if he would choose to act on it even if things got rough. Sadly, he didn't. The bully has a weak spirit and when circumstances made him hurt, Gollum was quick to return and call it a lie. Rather than accept that more was going on, even when he later had the proof of it, he chose to remain Gollum and full of hate and malice.

It has always troubled me when I come across a character who has been wounded by life and chooses to turn dark for it. I remember a multi-page journal entry after watching The Phantom of the Opera the first time being so upset that a boy abused and set free was not then nurtured into healthy patterns, but left alone to develop in as twisted a manner as his outward form. Quasimodo is proof that the story could have been different. But then, it simply proves the point of Gollum and Smeagol. We choose our attitudes, our responses, our motivations, our destinations. White Collar's Neal Caffrey doesn't need coddled to turn his life as a con-man around, he just needs the Frodo opportunity. Nor does he need to be condemned forever as would the Samwise response. He just needs the chance and to make the choice.

I mentioned in a previous post that I have been watching BBC's Merlin. Morgana (read Morgan leFay) is Merlin's nemesis and the story has to hold to that, but in this version, she starts out as friend and good person. But then she learns she has magic (an automatic death-warrant if King Uther finds out) and in her fear, she turns to hate. She becomes Gollum. At one point Merlin, himself magical, points out to his one confidant that he actually has someone to guide and help him where she, the king's ward, sees herself as having no one. And yet Merlin is the Quasimodo to prove her twisting hatred wrong. While he can't tell her his secret, he does tell her that she can choose to use her powers for good, even being in such danger. But she has no desire to listen for she has chosen how she will see things. She has chosen to look to pride and seek vengeance against a reality she doesn't like rather than considering how to work within a flawed reality for the good of all. And, ultimately, she falls because of it.

Merlin, who is good of heart and in just as much danger as Prince Arthur's servant, is constantly using his forbidden gifts to follow his conscience while repeatedly saving those who would kill him with the very powers for which they would kill him. Many project their own natures on him, accusing him of intending to use his powers/position to gain power and influence for himself, but he is not ruled by pride. He is willing to accept that sometimes things go wrong and sometimes that means the innocent suffers. Rather than lashing out in hatred, he seeks to find the best way through for all involved.

The news is full of such stories that I'm frequently reminding of 2 Timothy 3 (perilous times shall be - good old seminary scripture mastery rhymes!) and D&C 88:91.

 91 And all things shall be in commotion; and surely, men’s hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people.

The news feed on my weather app is full of stories of people choosing to be Gollums and Morganas. But that is not the only choice. It's not often the easiest road, but there is such much more dignity in being the Merlin. And the most dignified part about Merlin is how his choices enable dignity for others as well. Let us all be Merlin.

Resonance

I think I am naturally something of a reflective person and I often consider why I respond as I do to various situations and even how that compares to the reactions of others. I'd wonder why something that had a great impact on me would leave no mark on others while things that had little meaning to me would be so disturbing someone else. I finally came to the conclusion that it comes down to the issue of resonance.

Scientifically speaking, resonance is defined by the World English Dictionary (see dictionary.com) as:

The condition of a body or system when it is subjected to a periodic disturbance of the same frequency as the natural frequency of the body or system. At this frequency the system displays an enhanced oscillation or vibration.

In human terms, we all have a core identity complete with beliefs and motivations central to said identity. I came to realize that the things that resonate with us are the things that touch on some part of what we already hold to.

On a superficial level, consider that the reason I found Jericho, the TV series about a post-apocalyptic America, so intriguing is because it mirrors the fall of the Nephite civilization in the Book of Mormon on certain levels and also reflects parts of my personal expectations of the state of the nation in general prior to the Savior's second coming. Someone who does not anticipate (in the literal definition of expecting something will be rather than necessarily 'hoping' for it to be) the same things will not find the same resonating effect.

Or consider King Uther from the BBC Merlin (strong competition for my new favorite series). When he came to Camelot, he was witness to and champion against the extreme misuses of magic in the kingdom. His reign was built upon correcting a gross imbalance of power. Then, when his wife (this version strays on a number of points from the original Mabinogion, and even later Le'morte d'Arthur) died at childbirth from a backlash of magic, his honest distrust and natural antagonism were magnified into outright hatred and brutality. Rather than being able to recognize that not all those who practiced magic did so to the detriment of others, he could only see those who used it for wickedness and therefore condemned everyone.

I have seen it at work on many levels in my own life. For one example, my natural desire to travel, my innate wanderlust, has been augmented by experiences of the inconstancy of my particular family and certain 'friends' which emphasized in my own mind the value of moving on and leaving the negative behind. New starts and change feel like fresh air to me rather than the hated terror of change that others seem to perceive.

I can hear someone asking, "This is all very interesting, but what value does it give?" Consider the wisdom of the ages (attributed to multiple cultures and individuals) to 'Know Thyself'. The more a person can recognize the truth of who and what and why they are, the more control they have over their actions and lives. A person who has an intrinsic understanding of what makes them tick is far less vulnerable to the machinations and manipulations of others, be they man or 'demon' (for those readers of the Christian variety). It gives the person a much stronger foundation upon which to stand lending towards a greater confidence in self and life. And should an honest survey of self turn up something unpleasant, that person then has the wherewithal to make adjustments and counter the negatives found. It is a process that has helped preserve my sanity coming from an abusive home and one I recommend my readers seriously consider employing in their own lives.

"It's Abstract"

I cannot explain why my brain likes to kick into writing gear as I'm getting ready to go to bed. Were it a two-year-old, it would make sense. However...

Some ten years ago, I spent time working as a summer camp counselor. Another counselor, a ceramics major in college, would often remark on various incomprehensible attempts at artwork saying, "It's abstract." It is this idea of 'abstract' that I have been pondering since second grade and wish to explore here. I can't say whether I'll manage an ultimate conclusion, but continue to read and perhaps you will understand why that is. And maybe you will have insights that can help me pin down the abstract.

As I mentioned, this kinda (I'm a fan of understatement...) started with something I remember my second grade teacher saying. She said that kids tend to think more in images where as they mature and get older, develop more, it shifts to thinking in words. I remember remembering this in Junior High, High School, and more frequently as I have gotten older and I have concluded that I must lie rather outside that pattern. This may not be readily apparent as a lifetime of much reading has created a rich vocabulary to pull from, but the large majority of my thinking that does not relate to interacting with people is done without language. It is, in essence, abstract.

I'm sure that many people use non-lingual processing at times here and there, but as I have tried many times this past year to try explaining what I've been pondering with little success, it seems to be less common than the literal thinking that language creates. (This idea finally helped me understand what the critical theorist, Jacques Lacan, might have been getting at when he claimed that 'Language Speaks Us'. I.e. Our ideas are shaped by the language we have available to process our world and influences our realities more deeply than our natural perceptions. Not fully legit, but I finally get what he was thinking...) Language is naturally structured meaning thoughts in language form automatically have some level of inherent structure. They may have horrible grammar, metaphorically speaking, when they race and jump about, but they have a definable structure none-the-less.

So what do I mean by saying I tend to think in the abstract? How do I think without a reliance on words? If you have seen the recent BBC version of Sherlock Holmes series, think to the episode where they explain his method for remembering and processing details and information. Sherlock says he builds a memory mansion - castle? palace? house? I forget the classification - and stores the details away in that house in a way that makes sense to him. When he is pondering the mystery at hand, he focuses inward to this mental creation and wanders through the memories till he has puzzled out how it all fits together. The episode even gives a visual representation of him doing so. This is a step approaching the expression of abstract thinking. There is the concept of space, movement, image, and connections between objects of ideas.

Now go look at the last paragraph again. See the part where I stumbled over what the proper classification was? That is evidence of my abstract processing. I think it was not called house because the sense of the designation is large, grand. And it is a living location. But I do not need the words to have the concepts. That means when I try to put what I process or file in abstract into words, I actually have to translate from one 'language' into another. It makes for difficulties in communicating and has been a direct cause of problems as people have assumed my first pass at trying to translate is what I actually meant. But if it is considered a rough draft at translating (which it is) it can be understood why I am often inclined to adjust what I'm saying as I realize the words I had picked did not give the meaning I was aiming for. And in direct communication, there is not time to puzzle everything out over weeks to ensure the closest translation possible. It can be quite frustrating.

If you have been following my other posts, perhaps you can look back and see more evidence of this. In the ones I had pre-written, I had time to focus and simplify and make my thoughts as direct as possible. In the posts that are written as I type, they tend to pull on multiple thoughts weaving about with perhaps not every connection explained in a direct, literal way. It can also be seen in how often I will use multiple words separated by commas to express the essence of an idea. That is because the single word does not completely express the sense of the abstract in my head. I do actually think in language, mainly when I think of talking with someone (such as to you unknown readers), and most of what I have written about are things I have considered and pondered over many years. These have helped with the translation process. It also helps to try to translate, express abstract considerations to others to get a gauge on how close I manage it. Doing so, with feedback, also lets me make my thoughts literally accessible.

It may seem that abstract thinking is too divorced from the actual to be of any real value, that it would rather be a hindrance. As with the translating troubles, there is some truth to that, but it's not as problematic as you may assume. In some ways I believe it made school easier for me. Being an abstract processor, I do have a rather hard time remembering details like lists of names, dates, places (more problematic when I tried being a history major...) and my brain often doesn't file away lists of facts or memorizations (though I can bully it into some short-term filing). Instead, as I sat in classes, did homework, and processed the information, my brain metaphorically converted the information into pieces of a giant machine where everything new learned helped fine-tune the mechanical workings. Once each piece was in the right place, I no longer had to think about it. When I took tests, like the In-Out function machines, the question posed went in one end and the pieces directed it through to the appropriate answer.

Like those science flow charts where it asks if this or that is or isn't present and based on the answer it sends you to the next test until you are finally presented with the outcome. Only, in my head, it feels more like movement and the sense of testing against other sensed but not necessarily worded entities. Like a wood maze where the tests determine whether the ball should drop or not and the ultimate drop defines the answer. Or like high-speed flying through space where the gravities of relative concepts create small shifts in the overall trajectory till you come to an ultimate destination.

A recent recognition of abstract processing came while watching my favorite movie, The Avengers. It can also be seen in any of the Iron Man movies as it was recognizing that the displays in Tony Stark's helmet with multiple gauges and readings would require a certain level of abstract removal to process the needed information. Consider everything he'd have to concentrate on - the mental link to control the flying, the power levels, the suit/body functioning, altitude, location, communication with others, and then throw in some level of tactical attention to fighting off whichever bad guys happen to be attacking at the moment.

Now Iron Man is a fictional character, but consider the other places where a person must actively process multiple shifting variables in order to accomplish a task. I think of pilots with tons of gauges, soccer and hockey athletes, even police officers, firefighters, and active-duty military personnel. You may consider it more of a trained 'instinct', which has some accuracy, but that 'instinct' operates by processing in the abstract. It is quicker. It bypasses the definitives which slow things down.

I can keep trying to express and define the abstract, but it clearly becomes rather ponderous. There are reasons we use symbols to represent ideas. They become simplified enough to use in communication. Ultimately, I am interested in any thoughts you, as the reader, might have regarding this idea in any respect. As I said at the beginning, I have been trying to process this concept for many, many years and still have trouble trying to simply translate the concept. Other ideas are difficult, but are inherently more accessible than the meta-abstract.