This lack of engagement in an emotional existence, which may have arisen from the lack of facial expression of feeling, was experienced by both James and others with Mobius. With this there was also a terror that emotions might run out of control. It seems that we need to express powerful feelings in order to calibrate them. James suggested that,
"I have a fear of being out of control with emotions, feelings something that I can't manage. I have also found it very difficult to communicate feelings throughout my life, though I think I am getting better at it now. I don't really know how I communicate happiness or sadness. That's a very hard question. Some people cry when they're sad. I don't think I cry. I am afraid of such feelings. I try and shut them off."
I asked if since he had never been able to reinforce his feelings by their expression in his face, and possibly in his body, he thought those feelings might be less experienced. He agreed, "I think you're right. These feelings are there but they are probably reduced. I've often thought of myself as a spectator rather than a participant."
Another person with Mobius had suffered severe panic attacks with sufficient episodic loss of control that she had been hospitalized and sedated-her feelings of frustration and pain once welled up were uncontrolled. In contrast a young boy with Mobius I met was described by his parents as so placid they hardly ever knew what he was thinking. His never got excited, even at Christmas.
Their lack of facial expression and their mask-like faces lead to a stigmatisation which obviously colours their early social development. However the syndrome leads to other less expected consequences. I spoke with several people with Mobius about their experiences. One man, James, was in his fifties. In his family he was not singled out and his facial problem was hardly mentioned. This was a wonderful beginning, though it is less clear if it prepared him for the inevitable problem of school and even university. He described how he was a loner, even at Cambridge, where he studied theology. He divided people into two groups, those that did not want to have anything to do with him and those who did. He described feelings of low self worth, of isolation, even in company, and of loneliness. Worse perhaps, he seemed to have lost sight of the fact that many of these feelings were related to his facial problems, thinking instead that was just the way he was, and that he was a failure. The Mobius appeared so obvious, and yet he had repressed it in considering his feelings and self-esteem. "I have a notion which has stayed with me over much of my life-that it is possible to live in your head, entirely in my head. Whether that came out of my facial problem I don't know."
This reduced embodiment had isolated him from the world and also led him away from the physical origin of the problem. He also described the problems of never hacing experiences happiness, or sadness, or anger, through facial expression. This reduced embodiment seemed to have several consequences. There was a dissociation from feelings: 'feelings', he described had a more thinking aspect which were then turned into feelings almost intellectually. When he met his wife, 'I think initially I was thinking I was in love with her rather than feeling it: it was some time later when I realized that I really felt in love.' This dissociation re-emerged later:
"I do think I get trapped in my mind or my head. I sort of think happy or think sad, not really saying or recognizing, actually feeling happy or feeling sad. Perhaps I have had a difficulty in recognizing that which I'm putting a name to is not a thought at all but it is a feeling, maybe I have to intellectualize mood. I have to say this thought is a happy thought and therefore I am happy. Of course since I have never been able to move the face, I've never associated movement of the face with feeling an emotion. If I have expressed any emotion I must have spoken it, or I might have put my arm around someone of course."
Johnathan Cole, About Face Acquired blindness allows some reflection on the consequence of losing the sight of oneself and of others. The loss was not exclusively facial, though the subject's experiece did reveal the primacy of facial experience in selfhood and affective communication. There is, however, a condition which may be considered exclusively facial. In Mobius syndrome subjects are born without the ability to move any of the muscles of facial expression, or to move their eyes laterally.
The syndrome was first described by Paul Mobius, a nineteenth-century German neurologist. Diane Williams, an American nurse who has the syndrome, wrote of her problems, 'I am unable to raise my eyebrows, close my eyes tightly, move my eyes to the side, smile or move my lips...my face has a mask-like appearance.' People with Mobius then have no movement of the eyes, and a narrow open mouth. In addition they have an associated problem with sideways movement of the eyes, so that in order to gaze at something, or someone, they have to move the whole head
As I am taking a Psychology and Sociology class this semester, you'll find a lot of abstract thoughts and ideas for quite some time. I'm supposed to be able to WRITE on these ideas for my class in a clear and concise manner, but in many ways, my brain doesn't think that way especially when it comes to the topic I must first write about. "How do you think about free will? Does it apply to you at all? If so, does it apply to the way you feel (emotionally), the way you think, the way you act?" Well, this proposes a problem for me. I have never seriously given thought about free will before. I guess I believe in it. I mean, I think that people make all of their own choices in this life. But since I also believe in the powers of Satan and God, I suppose that all of these decisions are influenced by these ever-powerful beings. So in a sense, we do make choices but they're a small part of a larger spiritual war that goes on every day. Although I have the right to choose one way or another, there are things influencing me to choose that way.
In additon to this, we were supposed to read an introduction to a piece by William James. Gordon Allport writes the introduction and quotes James as saying the following:
"I think yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's secod Essais and see no reason why his definition of free will - "the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts" - need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume...that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will."
So if free will goes along with this definition, then simply believing or thinking one way for an extended period of time is an act of free will. We can choose how long we think on a certain topic. We can control our path of thought, therefore free will does exist. Similarly, we can choose to follow God for an extended period of time, or we can choose to stray away for an extended period of time. Either way, it is our choice.
Let your salvation come quickly, O God; come quickly to my help, O Lord. Let those who go after my soul have shame and trouble; let those who have evil designs against me be turned back and made foolish. Let those who say Aha, aha! be turned back as a reward of their shame. Let all those who are looking for you be glad and have joy in you; let the lovers of your salvation ever say, May God be great. But I am poor and in need; come to me quickly, O God; you are my help and my saviour; let there be no waiting, O Lord.
So I have finally gotten this website more or less up and running. Okay, well not really finally. Today was the first day I really sat down and worked on it. I spent a lot of the day searching for a suitable template design. I finally settled on this which I got from blogskins.com. You might want to chech that out. They've got lots of great ones there. If you see me change my design every now and then, you can guess that I got most, if not all of the code from that site. Very helpful indeed for beginning webloggers. I'm still working out a few bugs in this design and I'm hoping to talk to Tod again to fix it. And if I can convince my mom to allow me to bring her digital camera up here, I might just get some videos and pictures uploaded on this little site 'o' mine.
In other news, Craig and I just recently returned from an awesome and inspiring trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin. We checked out the Great Lakes Believer's Convention over there and I must say it really fires me up for God. Jesus works in so many awesome ways in my life and to see Him working in other people's lives too excites me all the more. Craig and I are hoping to find a good Word of Faith church in the Grand Rapids area and we're probably going to start a bible study with my roommate, Jessie, and Keith. All in all, it should be a great year.