Seeking Sister Problems

Humans are obligatory problem solvers. They cannot help it. If they didn’t have problems of their own, they would invent them.

We humans love problems! Dealing with problems is essential to our health and well-being. Our brains are designed to anticipate them, think about them, worry about them, and eventually solve them. Our brains do this all the time, very well, and sometimes too well.

Even tho tendencies we may have are natural, evil can come of them when they are allowed to roam too far, or wander outside of the bounds the Lord has set. Problem-solving is one such tendency. It is so ingrained in our being that when things are going generally well, and no problems seem to be presenting themselves to us, we will, of necessity, create our own problems.

If they chose to, most people could objectively look at their lives and see how frequently the problems they had were of their own engineering, and their suffering self-inflicted. Yes, it is true that time and chance happens to everyone, and yet, it is also true that our lives are largely of our own making.

While these two ideas may seem to be at odds with one another, they are both true. It is true because: what happens to us is only half of our life. The other half is how we respond to the things that happen. This weightier half is made up of what we think and do about the things that happen to us, and those around us. It is our response to both the past and present, and also our response to the future.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. – Shakespeare (Hamlet; Act 2, Scene 2)

We interact with the past thru our our mental and emotional analysis of our memories. We interact with the future thru our mental simulations of possible events. We imagine the things we might say or do, and we play these things out on the stage of our mind. The data we have collected, and analyzed, from the past is fed into these simulations of the future. We interact with the present thru our choices, which are determined by the outcomes of the simulations of our future. After running these simulations, we do a mental calculation. We weigh the pros and cons, consider the benefits and costs, the difficulty and feasibility. In other words, we plan, and then we choose the action based on our plan, however hasty or shortsighted it may be.

molehills “Problems” have everything to do with our perception of them. As I mentioned above, we even have the power, in our minds, to transform non-problems into problems, or small issues into big issues. The proverb speaks of turning mole-hills into mountains.

For example, it is normal to have disagreements with those around us. It is even normal to argue about those disagreements, but it takes special effort to turn agreements into something to argue about.

Here is an example of what I mean. In episode 10 (of the second season of SSW), Brandy comes back to visit the McGees. Brandy is spending the day with Paige, chatting and helping with the household chores. In this scene the two women are folding laundry together, and we quickly see that things are not going very well. I don’t know how much of this scene is the result of “editorial sculpting”; regardless, this exchange is illustrative.

Brandy: “Do we fold the same?”
Paige: “That’s what I was looking at. I was like, yeah, she actually folds like I do.”
Brandy: “Nice.”
Paige: “That’s pretty cool.”
Brandy: “So, are you particular about, like, say I would have, (she begins to demonstrate folding a towel another way) because there is another way, and so…”
Paige: “No, I would have fixed it. I wouldn’t have said anything; I would have just fixed it.”
Brandy: “You would have fixed it?”
Paige: “Mm-Hmm.”
Brandy: “Ok, so there is a particular way of doing things?”
Paige: “Yeah. There’s a right way and a wrong way.”
Brandy: “Any other, like, pet peeves or particulars? Like, if it was my day to do dishes – would you come in behind me and see if the dishwasher was loaded right?”
Paige: (Nods, Yes)
Brandy: “Yeah? I used to be very particular, but now I’m just so grateful if someone helps. I’ve gotten to where I’m just like, just put it in the closet and shut the door.”
Paige: “No. Towels, they have to be put in a certain way because they will fall over. So, you have to fold them a certain way.”
Brandy: “So, how would that work, you know, with me coming in? If I come in, like, how would that work?”
Paige: “You’ll just have to learn to do it my way.”

Towels

If you can grasp the reality, that our lives are largely what we make of them, and yet you continue to feel like you can’t stop worrying, can’t stop creating problems for yourself, can’t stop creating problems for others, cant stop sabotaging yourself and your relationships; then perhaps there’s something wrong with your understanding of the human brain and our search for happiness and satisfaction.

We aren’t made to experience “happiness” in the way normally think of it: carefree, pain free, completely fulfilled, excited, and free of any suffering. Rather, we were made to survive, and survival, in a very human sense, means to create. The strange thing is that suffering (that is, the mental component of suffering), and creating are connected. A large part of suffering involves a mental process called rumination.

Rumination is when we focus all our attention on the ways we are suffering, on its possible causes, and on our failures (and the failures of others) that have led us to our suffering. These thoughts are repeated over and over (thus the name, rumination) without resolution. We allow ourselves to rehash and dwell upon the causes and consequences of our suffering, rather than dwelling on its solutions.

Instead of devising the next step for our life, we ruminate on the last one. Rather than imagining new opportunities, we assume nothing better is possible. Rather than taking control of our life, we embrace an attitude of powerlessness. We become helpless, and our suffering becomes meaningless because we are at the whim of how the world makes us feel, but we were meant for better things. We were created to create. We were made to act, and not to be acted upon (See 2Nephi 2:14-16).

So what is the connection? Rumination (a component of mental suffering) and creativity are controlled by the same parts of the brain, and they have an inhibiting effect upon one another. Suffering will result when we stop creating, and visa versa.

Pain is Inevitable, Suffering is Optional

When we focus on creating, our pain is no longer meaningless – it is no longer “suffering for suffering’s sake”. Rather, as pain cannot be altogether avoided, it becomes an expected part of the process – the pain becomes “worth it”. When we focus on creating and doing, we no longer categorize our emotional experiences as: “things that feel good” or “things that don’t”. Instead, we use the vastly superior categories: “things that are worthwhile” and “things that aren’t”.

Use your mind and energies to create, to do, and to improve. It will give your brain something productive to do. These are the things in life that are worthwhile. These are the things that will give our lives actual meaning, and in a deeper and more satisfying way than complaining and worrying about things will ever do. I repeat, our lives are not made meaningful nor satisfying by complaining. Our lives are not made meaningful nor satisfying by worrying. Our lives are not made meaningful nor satisfying by suffering needlessly, nor by needlessly increasing the suffering of those around us.

Our lives are made meaningful and satisfying by the things we do and create.

Increase the talents given to you, rather than hiding them. Read a book, write a book, grow a garden, fix your marriage, plan a trip, learn a foreign language, learn to play an instrument, go back to school, make your children a larger priority in your life, become a regular volunteer for a local charity, change your own motor oil, quit an addiction, start exercising, organize a chess club, get yourself right with God.

The possibilities are quite literally endless. There are so many things you could do. There are so many thing you ought to do, and you know it. God is the creator, and we are made in his image. We were made to create. We were made to improve.

“They Must Have Been Raised in Polygamy”

This is the first of a series of posts that I am calling, “For Gail“. This series will consist of my answers to a range issues brought up in comments (mostly on this post about the McGees, but also on the Dateonomics post by Taylor) and personal correspondence with a blog reader, Gail, back in April of 2019.

Nits make Lice One of the views Gail repeats in her comments is that polygamists must have a sense of satisfaction and happiness that is stunted, malformed, or distorted in some way by their own upbringing in a polygamous family. There is something seriously wrong with them. Thus, they can completely accept the inherent unhappiness and dissatisfaction they experience while interpreting it as its opposite: actual (or full) satisfaction and happiness. Understandably, this makes Gail “sad” and “greatly troubled”. Especially since (at least at the time of her writing) it was, by her own admission, impossible for her to understand things in any other way. She says of my family’s reasons, “I cannot fathom [them] other than its how you were raised to look as marriage”. Here are some longer quotes with more context so that we can better understand the issue at hand. I have included links to the full comments as well, but please note that I will not be addressing every issue in every comment in this post – it is just too much to cover in one sitting (but I will be getting to everything eventually).

Speaking about Christine Brown (from the show, Sister Wives), Gail said:

“But she grew up in a plural family and I think her cultural upbringing formed her ability to find satisfaction and happiness in these circumstances. This intrigues me and yet saddens me at the same time. But I don’t doubt that plural families are intrigued and saddened by my perspectives regarding monogamy too. – Gail, April 4, 2019

on another occasion, Gail went on to say about my own family:

“These inequities in your marriages greatly trouble me, but I think you and your wives just accept them for reasons I cannot fathom other than its how you were raised to look as marriage — as a group endeavor.” – Gail, Apr 6, 2019

I am quite sure that Gail is not the only one out there who has difficulty with this concept, and, to be honest, I can sympathize with her and others who can only understand it thru this lens. It is undeniably true that it is difficult (if not impossible) to comprehend something that you have no experience with. In the case of polygamy, this is all the more true when the only reference point you have is what the media has to say about polygamists, which is almost all grossly imbalanced and sensationalized (but further comments on this will have to be its own post). This is the source of most people’s information, and it is almost exclusively about one group of polygamists: the FLDS.

“Then there was the horrible Warren Jeffs trial that further soured my view.” – Gail, April 4, 2019

The FLDS undoubtedly have many unique problems all their own, and their leaders have done plenty of things to muddy the public’s perception, but this will have to be its own post as well.

For many people, Gail included, the information they have also comes from reality television. While this is actually much much better than the standard media coverage, it is still only glimpses, is distorted in sometimes surprising ways, and doesn’t really paint the full picture.

To all the people in this camp I would say that the chances are very good that you don’t personally know any polygamists (altho you might be surprised). Therefore, to understand them you can only do so by analogy with your own way of thinking and feeling. I would like to point out that there is nothing wrong with this – there is no other way of understanding things!, and I am not just talking about understanding plural marriage here. No, no, my friends, this is true of all our understanding, and of every branch of knowledge.

When I pointed this out to Gail, she, to her credit, concurred.

“I agree that I cannot understand plural marriage well at all because I don’t see it lived day to day by anyone.” – Gail, April 4, 2019

So, limited understanding, due to naivety on the subject (whatever it may be), is not a hurdle to comprehension. It just calls for a little humility. Problems come when those with zero experience, begin telling those who have experienced something what that thing is all about; and furthermore, wont accept their words as valid if they go contrary to their experience-less understandings. Have you ever had this happen to you?

When my wives and I write about these things it is coming from an entirely different perspective than most of our readers. Our knowledge isn’t second, third, or fourth hand at all. We are living polygamy! and, in addition, we personally know and interact with dozens of other polygamist families as well!

Now we come to the really important thing that I wanted to communicate in this post. I want Gail, and other readers in her boat, to realize that we also know perfectly well where they are coming from, because we were there too! This is probably a difficult thing to wrap your mind around, (and understandably so because it is such a foreign concept), and doesn’t fit at all into your preconceived notions about it. Therefore, just to make this explicit, and I realize this may be a mind blowing realization to some, I want to say: In my family, we were all formerly monogamists, and we were all raised in monogamist families. This has very little to do with the way we were raised.

Anyone who is sincerely curious to know about our family can read about our former monogamy and our mainstream LDS upbringing in one of several posts that we have already written (here, here, here, here, here, here, or here – it does little good to rewrite material that has already been organized and published as a post already). So, when you tell us about the virtues of monogamy, you’re preaching to the choir. We love devoted monogamists, and think the world should have more of them!

I just want you to know that we completely understand your point of view. There is likely nothing that you can tell us about living monogamy that we don’t already know (because we were monogamists, like you), but there are things that we can tell you about polygamy (because we are polygamists, unlike you). Please also know that we fully respect and accept the sincerity of your decision to be monogamist. Please grant us the same sincerity.

Next I’m going to share an even more mind bending fact: We aren’t even close to the only ones. I do know many polygamists who were raised in polygamist families, but I actually know more who weren’t. Dozens of them (both husbands and wives), were raised in monogamist families, and were monogamists themselves for a number of years. Case in point, in the Brown family, which Gail mentioned earlier, Kody was raised in a monogamous, mainstream, LDS family. I have actually visited with Kody’s mother (who was also raised monogamous – as was his father). They converted to fundamentalism when Kody was on a mission for the LDS church! Can you imagine? When he came home his family had joined another church (and one that he had been preaching against). You should hear the things she said about LDS singles wards (haha, this will have to be another post).

It is not an uncommon occurrence within polygamist circles, for monogamists, and people who were raised in monogamy, to become part of a plural family, and I don’t think this fact is commonly known or appreciated by “outsiders”. Rather, my strong suspicion is that that the common perception is that people are born into polygamy and then later flee, leave, or escape polygamy. I’m not sure people realize that there is lots of movement the other way as well. Normal, everyday people leave monogamy to become polygamists regularly. The funny thing is that when people “escape monogamy” they usually just call it “divorce” – because no one (or nearly no one) believes that monogamy is something you need to escape. The common belief is that the specific marriage, or the specific family situation, was bad or abusive and worthy of leaving. This is in contrast to those who leave their plural marriages. They don’t simply get divorced; rather, they “escape”! Why is it so difficult to realize that there are some bad or abusive plural families just as there are some bad or abusive monogamist families? It is because polygamy is unusual in our culture, and therefore easily sensational.

Having said all this, how do you account for this movement of people from monogamy and monogamist upbringings with the axiom that polygamists have a warped “ability to find satisfaction and happiness” because they were raised in a polygamist home? No need to answer that question, because you can’t. Without modification, the axiom does not even allow the situation to exist as a possibility. Nevertheless the situation exists, and has continued to manifest and repeat itself for millennia. Keep reading these posts, and you might gain a glimpse into some of the reasons why. But beware! you may have to modify or discard this axiom.

One more thing, for those who might be interested in learning more (sorry for the short notice), on Saturday, August 3rd 2019 (that is today), session number 358 of the Sunstone Symposium will be titled:

Panel Discussion: Mainstream Mormon Women Go Plural

The brief description given on the website is as follows:

“This session features a panel of women who chose to leave mainstream Mormonism to live the polygamous lifestyle. Panelists include the stars of a popular reality show and women from a variety of polygamous sects.

This is your chance to pick their brains on how and why each came to choose plural marriage, how their family and friends have been affected, and what the various benefits and challenges of the polygamous lifestyle are.”

The session will begin at 2:00 pm in room 300-D of the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy, Utah. Charlotte and Melissa will be there, as well as several other women. It should be an interesting time.