Inhibitions

Lose them...

Inhibitions are spirits.

"Inhibitions" what a loaded word...

Conscience might also be an inhibition. Should we abandon conscience?

Thanks Neo for indulging me,

Conscience can sometimes be fear and insecurity in disguise.

Why carry an inhibition if it is only to be suppressed?

I would call the word inhibitions a combination of at least two words.

inhibit and ambitions.

Why have and ambition only to inhibit it?

It that not a waste of energy?

We should lose our inhibited ambitions and find ambitions that we can exhibit...

Are ambitions a given, something we adopt or are inclined to?

What is the "nature" of the beast?

Do we have ambitions because they are simply there or is there a nature that we are either in control of or not in control of or only partially in control of part of the time. Are there two natures diverged or two natures converged.

Are ambitions learned and then inhibited? Are they a natural physical part of our psyche or something that is learned or imposed environmentally. Evil ambitions, good ambitions, inhibited...

We need some inhibitions, don't we. I mean we don't want to vocalize every thought in our heads. That's what happens with Tourette syndrome vicitims, and look at the problems it causes them. Of course there was the movie with Rob Schneider--I forget the name--where he takes a woman with Tourette syndrome to a baseball game. She starts cussing like crazy and the other fans start aping her like she's a cheer leader. But usually streams of cussing is out of context and inappropriate.

Also without inhibitions we might do all sorts of embarrassing things like going naked or having sex in public, things usually frowned upon.

I am not really disagreeing with you in principle. I just do not have faith in words alone to describe what is going on inside with the mind.

Why do some people when they for example, get intoxicated or really angry, jealous etc... have "bad" inhibitions where some others are docile?

If some don't have "bad" inhibitions why should others?

How do inhibitions fit into the way the mind really works? Are inhibitions part of the heart or the reasoning part? Are they deeply seated or part of the shallow subconscious? Can they be changed or altered in perspective by the mind's outlook?

I don't understand what you mean by "bad" inhibitions. The way I see it inhibitions are filters or defenses. The angry drunk or diarrhea mouth drunk has had his inhibitions temporarily removed and that pool of anger rises to the surface. If you don't have a pool of unresolved anger there is nothing to rise. The inhibitions keep us from saying or acting out inappropriately in public, but they can also keep us from fulfillment too. It's all very complex isn't it?

Yes, it is complex but I like your way of looking at it...

"Bad" inhibitions can run very deep, I wonder if they are caused by highly conscious misconceptions?

If someone will seriously entertain the possibility of something inappropriate in the privacy of their own mind then they are creating an inhibition.

Mel Gibson is a perfect example (though I mean no offence to him or anyone concerned.).

Did his remarks about "Jews" come from him simply being intoxicated or were they inappropriate thoughts that he had seriously allowed his mind to entertain as "right" at some point?

We are in control of what we consciously acknowledge internally as what is right and wrong aren't we?

(BTW, Mel Gibson was not the inspiration for this thread.) I loved him in Hamlet...

Anyone who has spent day after day after day with toddlers knows that a few inhibitions are very useful baggage for eventual adulthood.

Maybe those are ambitions?

Can a toddler really have inhibitions? Are they that perceptually motivated? I think of that as a time of innocence.

Toddlers have few useful inhibitions. They will drop their diapers and roll in the prickly pear; stack firewood on antique tables and fingerpain with feces or mashed potatoes.

Innocence can be very messy.

Some never grow out of it...

I happen to be a potter--at least I was until I went broke doing it, but I hope to be a potter once again in the future. That infants like to play with their feces brought up something I read in a short psychiatric dictionary. It said that playing with clay and/or accumulating large sums of money are stand-ins for playing with feces. I suppose that feces are the child's first creation, and a mother's too strong reaction of disgust, negativity, and prohibition leaves the child bewildered and deprived, and in some cases he may make up for it later in life.

It's easy to make a connection with clay and feces as some clays are very earthy-smelling, especially the well-aged ones, and overly wet clay does feel like feces--I was also a zoo keeper for years--and the connection of feces with collection large sums of money that one will never be able to spend in ten lifetimes seems reasonable to accept--what can one do with the surplys money but shove it back whence it originally came--but I wonder if my mother hadn't prematurely pulled me or Donald Trump away from our incipient creations whether I would have cared to be a potter or Donald Trump would have cared to be an overly rich capitalist.

I think most inhibitions are placed in early childhood when we are very suggestible; some are useful and some preclude leading a fulfilling life. A child brought up in a fanatically, fundamentalist Christian home may have a hard time enjoying sex, but, on the other hand, we're brought up learning to restrain our language in public, and that's helps us socialize--except in the case of Tourette syndrome that I mentioned earlier.

In the case of Mel Gibson, I think we need to give the guy a break. He's a celebrity, and his life, public and private, is under a microscope. Nobody, except for maybe Jimmy Carter, can live under that kind of scrunity. And who are we to judge? Alcohol breaks down inhibitions temporarily, and the more we drink the more they are broken down. Feelings, recent and anachronistic are brought to the surface and our inhibitions fail to filter them out. People loved him or hated him for the movie "The Passion of Christ." They think either he's a saint or a devil. He's neither. He's a human being with all our strengths and weaknesses. I didn't see the movie because I, for one, am not a Christian, and for two, I think the relevance of the Passion was taken too literally and should be presented metaphorically; that's its true importance. But then again I'm not a Christian, and this isn't a religious thread.