What makes political races so frustrating and so annoying?
The fact that we keep running into ourselves. That we're actually running against ourselves.
Your shadow — the part of yourself you don't like and don't want to admit — is part of your psychological make-up, and ignoring its presence will not get rid of it. As part of your psyche it has to, it will, show up somewhere in your life. So if there are some things you just can't stand to admit about yourself, if you just can't face some of your own stuff, then you're going to see your own stuff on someone else's face.
Guaranteed. The things we don't like about ourselves don't just disappear. They don't give up and go away because we don't want to think about them. They start showing up in other people. They pop up here and pop up there until they get our attention. And anyone we see doing whatever it is we don't like about ourselves will look worse and worse as time goes by.
Kind of explains why we hear so much ranting and raving about the other guys, doesn't it? Why it's so easy to get all hot and bothered about what someone else is doing… why we're so attracted to vicious speculation and hateful rhetoric… why we just can't seem to get off of certain subjects…
It's pretty simple, really: we dwell on what others are doing to keep from having to look at what we've been up to ourselves.
This process is called projection, in psychological terms, and it happens all the time. It starts with denial, and it ends in blame. We take some part of ourselves we don't like — or are ashamed of, or don't want to think about, or can't bring ourselves to deal with — and then we project it out onto another person, where we can see it.
Imagine a movie projector. You would be the projector whirring in that little room at the back, and the other person would be the big screen down in front. You're creating the image, the image is coming from inside of you, but the other person is the only place where you can actually see that image.
You don't look beastly… other people look beastly…
Your policies didn't ruin this country… the other guys' policies ruined this country… We didn't cause the depression and the deficit… They caused the depression and the deficit.
It would be easier to govern if we could turn off our projectors every now and then.
Hell, it would be easier to be human if we could turn off our projectors every now and then.
