Metaphorically, a baby is
a latent ideal. The potential represented by this latent ideal is of his/her
offer of being. When that offer is made into an environment able and willing to respond to it what is created is a response of love, care and unconditional
support from the people in his/her world. Indeed, babies are so difficult to
ignore, and tap responses from the most hardened and cynical, just because they
represent the latent ideal in all of us.
How does the child learn
to express its latent ideal? I ask the question in this form because a baby is
just doing it. As we become older and more sensitive to our particular
environments we learn how to most safely navigate and participate in them. The
key word in this is “safely”. While a baby isn’t cognitively concerned with
safety relative to its ego (it doesn’t yet have one) this quickly begins to
change as the baby matures. By definition, ego is separate from self. Ego
doesn’t experience unity. At a fundamental level, its core purpose is survival.
It learns to be safe. And, in this learning, the individual’s latent ideal
becomes constrained in its expression; more calculated as it seeks confirmation
and validation of worth.
If one were to think of
an individual's behavior as the expressed and visible answer to an internal question, the core question
being answered changes from the baby’s non-verbal of “I’m OK – can
you deal with me on my terms”? The new question being asked becomes simply “Am I OK”? This not so
subtle shift has enormous implication on the life of the individual and of the
experience they have of life. When I question whether I’m OK my ideals are no
where to be seen.
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