WE CAN RESIST FEELING LIKE A COG

Some years ago I saw a one-panel cartoon in a magazine, probably the New Yorker or something similar. It was a simple line drawing of a man wearing a suit and tie, sitting behind a desk staring straight ahead. The only item on the desk was a nameplate with one word on it: COG. 

The image of that vacant-eyed man comes up for me whenever I ponder the challenges of living an authentic life of integrity. (Believe it or not, psychotherapists think about things like that, uh, virtually all the time. But I digress.)

Cog: the word has several meanings, the obvious one in this cartoon is not flattering. Although in mechanical terms each cog has an important function in the operation of a machine, in human terms referring to someone as a cog means they are unimportant and invisible - useless even. The larger the company the greater the feeling  among employees that they are merely cogs in a giant wheel. The same is true for us as consumers in a complex economy, or citizens in a democracy that doesn’t really feel like one if you’re struggling to navigate power structures and bureaucracies. There seems to be a handing-over of one’s personhood involved when the cloud of cog-dom descends on a person; feeling unimportant and unseen is a de-humanizing experience. It’s a recipe for low self-image, shame, anxiety and depression, among other things.  

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met anyone who aspires to cog-dom. One just somehow ends up there. And please don’t misunderstand, I’m referring 100 percent to a subjective experience - meaning that cog-ness is all about what a person feels about themselves and how that experience impacts the quality of their life - their being-in-the-world. I suppose I could go on about the human factors that conspire to create this depressing state of being, but I’m much more interested in de-cogging ourselves.  

The effects of sweeping policy decisions on vulnerable people are considered unavoidable collateral damage by decision-makers (the irony is that even the folks who design and implement these policies are, in their own way, cogs). But even though social and cultural forces appear to be invincible and unavoidable they are in fact paper tigers when it comes to their effects on those who have found ways to resist and deflect their power - and flourish in spite of them. What are the weapons that can be employed against experiencing life as a cog?

 Thankfully, there are many practices that immerse us deeper into our own lives wherein lie the seeds of virtue, of contemplation and of wisdom. But we have to be prepared for the encounter with ourselves. We are complex, mysterious creatures, as this little story points out:

An old man ran a curio and antique shop in a large city. One day a tourist stopped in and got to talking with the man about the many things that were stacked in the shop.

 “What would you say is the strangest, the most mysterious thing you have here?” asked the customer

The old man surveyed the hundreds of curios, antiques, stuffed animals, shrunken heads, mounted fish and birds, archeological finds, deer heads - then turned to the tourist and said, “The strangest thing in this shop is unquestionably myself.”*

Wonder and gratitude are the fruits of our individual journey toward a cog-free life. But in the end it’s important to remember that we are relational beings, designed by evolution to live in community. From my point of view it’s helpful, in the face of the wack-a-mole numbers of overwhelming challenges faced by all of us in our world, that each of us has a vocation, a role to play in de-cogging ourselves. 

one of my roles is to work with people to get unstuck  - to overcome the feeling of being a cog. Hopefully then, as their lives flourish, they will influence their family, friendships and community. We are, by nature, interdependent. 

Of course, I hope you know that I say all this very humbly, because I don’t really have to tell you that it’s true - I too sometimes feel like that man at the desk with COG on the nameplate.