So bandwidth availability is lower, and bandwidth demands are higher. What happens then—when we don’t have enough bandwidth? Or, worse, when we feel like we never have enough bandwidth? Well, different people and different circumstances lead to different responses. And we can see them ALL around us right now.
One way people respond is with avoidance—by simply ignoring the major things that are going on. When I hear people complain that they don’t understand how people can be so clueless, or that people must have lost their minds, what *I* hear, is that people are bandwidth exhausted. And they’re unknowingly trying to save bandwidth by pretending that there is nothing wrong, tuning out the noise. Or by actively finding a way to check out. Any kind of “binging” can provide a way to check out—food, alcohol, video games, TV shows…. Again, people are unknowingly trying to take a break from reality by pausing their bandwidth demands, although it’s seldom effective. Unfortunately, some of those ways of checking out can feel like a pause, but actually drain more bandwidth. Both avoidance and checking out fall into the “flight” part of the flight or fight response to extreme stress.
There are also “fight” responses. For example, some people try to fight the uncertainty by controlling everything. Because when we can control the things around us—like rigidly deciding what’s right or wrong—then it doesn’t take so much bandwidth to make choices. Think about it, how much easier is it to pick between two colors than twenty? The problem is that we don’t know what the “right” choices are right now; there is too much uncertainty, too much gray area, so many different “right” ways depending on circumstances. So people who are trying to force all-or-nothing thinking on themselves and others just appear self-righteous and intolerant, when actually the perfectionism and micro-managing are coming from the same experience of bandwidth exhaustion.
The other “fight” response is what you would expect—anger. The brain perceives the threat, and the instinct is to fight back—to refuse to comply, to insist nothing is wrong, to demand that things just go back to “normal.” It may look like people are being selfish or arrogant, but, again, anger and denial are responses to a combination of threat and not enough bandwidth.
All three of these responses—avoidance, control, anger—they all come along with another phenomenon that destroys bandwidth—being judgmental. Both through self-judgement and judgement of others. The thing about judging is that it’s a double-hit on bandwidth. It steals bandwidth from those who feel judged AND to those who do the judging. Xxx when your wiser self knows that things aren’t go black and white. Socrates said that anger is like drinking poison to try to kill someone else. Same with bandwidth—judging takes up YOUR bandwidth too.
The thing is, it doesn’t actually HELP your bandwidth to respond in any of these ways—checking out, insisting that you’re right, taking it out on others, or being judgmental. These feel like a break from bandwidth exhaustion, but the overall impact is often to drain it further, or create circumstances that increase the demands. The question is, what DOES help?
One way people respond is with avoidance—by simply ignoring the major things that are going on. When I hear people complain that they don’t understand how people can be so clueless, or that people must have lost their minds, what *I* hear, is that people are bandwidth exhausted. And they’re unknowingly trying to save bandwidth by pretending that there is nothing wrong, tuning out the noise. Or by actively finding a way to check out. Any kind of “binging” can provide a way to check out—food, alcohol, video games, TV shows…. Again, people are unknowingly trying to take a break from reality by pausing their bandwidth demands, although it’s seldom effective. Unfortunately, some of those ways of checking out can feel like a pause, but actually drain more bandwidth. Both avoidance and checking out fall into the “flight” part of the flight or fight response to extreme stress.
There are also “fight” responses. For example, some people try to fight the uncertainty by controlling everything. Because when we can control the things around us—like rigidly deciding what’s right or wrong—then it doesn’t take so much bandwidth to make choices. Think about it, how much easier is it to pick between two colors than twenty? The problem is that we don’t know what the “right” choices are right now; there is too much uncertainty, too much gray area, so many different “right” ways depending on circumstances. So people who are trying to force all-or-nothing thinking on themselves and others just appear self-righteous and intolerant, when actually the perfectionism and micro-managing are coming from the same experience of bandwidth exhaustion.
The other “fight” response is what you would expect—anger. The brain perceives the threat, and the instinct is to fight back—to refuse to comply, to insist nothing is wrong, to demand that things just go back to “normal.” It may look like people are being selfish or arrogant, but, again, anger and denial are responses to a combination of threat and not enough bandwidth.
All three of these responses—avoidance, control, anger—they all come along with another phenomenon that destroys bandwidth—being judgmental. Both through self-judgement and judgement of others. The thing about judging is that it’s a double-hit on bandwidth. It steals bandwidth from those who feel judged AND to those who do the judging. Xxx when your wiser self knows that things aren’t go black and white. Socrates said that anger is like drinking poison to try to kill someone else. Same with bandwidth—judging takes up YOUR bandwidth too.
The thing is, it doesn’t actually HELP your bandwidth to respond in any of these ways—checking out, insisting that you’re right, taking it out on others, or being judgmental. These feel like a break from bandwidth exhaustion, but the overall impact is often to drain it further, or create circumstances that increase the demands. The question is, what DOES help?