Harry Potter: The Philosophy and Psychology of Horcruxes

Harry Potter: The Philosophy and Psychology of Horcruxes

The first horcrux was Tom Riddle’s Diary: The horcrux was created when Moaning Myrtle was killed, but why was she killed?

Tom Riddle was entering through the entrance in the girl’s bathroom, that leads to the basement deep below the castle known as the chamber of secrets, when Myrtle saw him and suggested he use his bathroom. It doesn’t say that she screamed or that she even threatened any consequence, but for some reason it was still enough to Tom to merit killing her. Why?

Maybe  we have overreacted at least once in our life and then thought about it and wondered why it made us so angry. When something “sets us off,” or triggers us, what is going on inside us to make that happen?

We have two self-concepts, the way we want to see ourselves, and the way we think other people see us. Likely there are parts of us that we are embarrassed for other people to see, maybe every time we try to be assertive it comes across as aggressive, and we end up looking bad. This causes us to hide our assertiveness from other people, and since hidden away we don’t end up using and developing it, we would probably rather hide it from ourselves to avoid rubbing it in our own face the part of us that we are scared to use even when we know we should. It makes sense how to hide things about ourselves from other people, but how do we hide something from ourselves?

We eclipse what we don’t want to see with what we do want to see. We tell ourselves that it’s not that we don’t know how to effectively be assertive, it’s just that we are very patient and flexible. We tell ourselves that causing waves is not worth it, and we cement those ideas in with the maxim, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” Undeveloped shunned assertiveness is not the only thing hiding in the shadows of our heart and mind, there are a number of things so undeveloped, and that have been so mal nourished and contorted to push out of the light of our consciousness, that they are all a big tangled mess.

Most people strictly avoid searching out what lays beneath the fairytale castle, but there is power to be found there—power that can be used for good or for evil. I think we all know it is worth exploring, but we are embarrassed, and so when we finally do get up the courage to try to make sense of the tangled mess in the deepest darkest corners of our heart and mind, if anyone sees us laughs at us, we have the choice to let that laugh be more reason to hide what we don’t understand about ourselves, find something to laugh back at them for, or just stay focused on bringing light to the dark spots inside of us. Tom riddle choose the second option, and when Myrtle pointed the finger at him for being in the girl’s bathroom, we attacked her.

When someone attacks our identity which holds our sense of self-worth, we can either look into their claim for what portion of it could be constructive criticism and change, or undermine their claim by attempting to prove that their claims are inferior to ours, by attacking their identity, and/or inflating our own. This is why one of the most common argument tactics is Ad hominin, which puts diverts the focus from the claim to the person making the claim. Ad hominin it seems sometimes has become the only approach to not only argument but conversation, to the point where rarely does anyone’s option change from debate, because we all side so strongly with one person or the other before the debate begins, that no logic or meaning brought up in the debate will sway our opinion. This being the case most of the time, it is no wonder that we work so hard to protect our identity, and no wonder that we will brutally attack someone else’s identity in a heartbeat to protect our own. It is as if we live in a world of egos, instead of actual people, places and things.  

Though what Tom Riddle found in the chamber of secrets wasn’t bad, because he did something bad when he was seen going there, it tainted what he found, and what came from it. He had to find some way to justify his attack on Myrtle, who claim was valid to ask why he was there in the girl’s bathroom. There is no logical or meaningful way to justify what he did, and so he inflated his ego to substantiate his own claim—he either had to make the claim that he was fundamentally more important than she was, or admit he was wrong. What he picked, and what rationale he used to justify his claim that he was fundamentally better or more important than her, was that see was only half-witch, and to emotionally charge his claim to give it more weight, he coined or adapted the label “mud blood.”

The attempt to cover one lie or bad thing ends up generating many more lies or bad things. Tom Riddle Substantiated his claim that Myrtle’s life was less important than his because she was a “mud blood,” and then had to attempt to substantiate his claim that “mud bloods” were bad by attempting to prove than they were fundamentally less competent, and the only definite way to prove competence is the timeless idea that “might makes right.” That’s what all rationalization of bad behavior leads to, fighting and muscle flexing.

What are we willing to do to protect our sense of self?

If we can’t sense ourself, does that mean we don’t exist?

If we feel like we don’t matter does that mean we don’t matter?

Self-esteem is a personification of presence or absence of tiredness, the perceived ease of our circumstance or feeling of momentum. All three of these things, though possibly motivating in a way, are subjective. As much enabling motivation as absence of the sensation of tiredness or assessment of ease possibly could produce, they will also produce the same amount of disabling discouragement when they are not there.

Each time self-esteem fails us, it becomes harder to attain, because we second guess whether what feels like self-esteem is just wishful thinking. It’s not that there is nothing good about self-esteem, just that it is near impossible to separate out the benefit from the harm, and not needed because there are other concrete ways of attaining motivation which are more efficient and more effective.

When confidence spontaneously appears without a logical source, it is likely that it is over-confidence. If your experience is similar to mine, over-confidence has gotten me in a lot of trouble… like two broken legs from riding my dirt bike.

The whole premise of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is that there are distortions in thinking. We sometimes are irrational about our ability, we feel inadequate at a task despite already having done something similar that was more difficult, and ironically, we are sometimes confident in something we have almost no experience with. Yes, we might more often second-guess ourselves than not, but we likely do both be over-confident and under-confident. The way to progress beyond that, is a steady climb towards the concrete, towards objectivity, towards what’s real.

Self-esteem is substituting assessment of value, for a sense of self. This means that whereas we should base our actions on whether or not we assess value, we are tempted to base our actions on whether is produces a sense of self, or self-esteem. I’m probably not the only one who while at a swimming pool wanted to feel that everyone else knew I was there, by doing a cannon ball and trying to make the biggest, loudest splash I could. And though I’m sure most pools in the world have been the host of many spontaneous cannonball competitions, for some reason is still is not an Olympic sport. In fact, quite the opposite, from a height of thirty-three feet, Olympic divers after many spins and twists hardly make a splash. With no accompanying noise or stray of water, it is very possible that their dive will go completely unnoticed by some people. Self esteem is the loud splash, it’s hitting the water knowing everyone will feel or at least hear the wave you make.

Self-esteem is a subjective thing, and if we let it govern our decisions, we won’t be able trust ourselves to actually do the things we find value in because of the value alone. If we feel our decisions can’t be made as a result of our own judgment of value, how can we how to have results in our life that have value?

If really the case is that we don’t do something because we are just tired, or distracted by something else, we have to either admit that is why we didn’t do it, or lie to ourselves that maybe secretly or sub-consciously we didn’t actually want to do it. It seems we would rather think we are controlled by irrational drives through our sub-conscious than feel we are so lazy that we don’t do things we want to do just because we are tired. If we don’t see self-esteem for what it is, something arbitrary, that is nice when it’s there, but not worth chasing, then we will spend our time chasing it instead of what we want it to help us achieve. Ironically, the more we let self-esteem keep us from doing what we want, the less self-esteem we will have.

Actual momentum helps in life, and doing something simple well right before doing something harder helps us have courage or certainty, but it’s just that, and nothing more—we can bounce a basketball a few times before shooting a free-throw, but we shouldn’t never shoot because the ease of bouncing a ball makes us feel more comfortable.

Lasting comfort comes from finding what is concrete and building a real foundation, not from the fabricating the illusion of control, or imagination of approval. Attitude is not a fabricated emotional state we employ trick ourselves into caring enough to do something, it is posture or disposition we make towards what we want to do in spite of opposition.

What benefit would it have to let our attitude and judgment depend on how tired or hungry we are, or how hot or cold it is? This is the difference between self-esteem, and self-confidence. Self-esteem is greatly influence by temporary or false things, a fake compliment for example can be motivating, but then equally or more discouraging when we find out it was fake or mal-intended. Self-esteem is fine when it is there, but shouldn’t be the goal. Self-confidence on the other hand is confidence in our ability based on honest previous experience, and it is not dependent on weather or circumstance. A pursuit towards self-esteem, will lead us to where we feel weather and circumstance will most likely be in our favor, and not where we see concrete value and logic.

Why should our excitement towards doing a thing have to do with what other people express about it? If we are authentically enjoying something and someone mockingly laughs, why should that change anything?

If someone’s laugh can make the value we see in what we are doing disappear, we are letting the sensation of feeling approval or disapproval overshadow the thing itself.

Any sensation, be it excitement or similar that is not focused on an actual aspect of value or criteria of logic, will distract us and ultimately disappoint us. Positive sensations like excitement and a feeling of self-worth often accompany positive actions, but they are not the means to a life of contentment and composure or finding value and logic in life.

Whether self-esteem seems to carry us or is merely a side-effect of our effort to carry ourselves, it is often present as we cross the first three bridges. However, to cross the last bridge, we must let it go, despite how counterintuitive it may seem. It is natural to want to feel good, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of doing what has value. We are told to do what feels good, but immediate gratification feels only good in the moment, and that is not enough.

Brené Brown, a researcher who has specialized in shame said about connection, "I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship."

I believe there is an energy that is created between people even if they don’t feel, seen, heard, or valued, as long as they are working towards that same goal. There is a reason why there is love and tough-love. Being a third-year medical student for example, I rarely if ever felt seen, heard or valued, but was still able to work as a team, and everyone benefited from the co-operation. Obviously, we should try to help those around us feel appreciated, but when we don’t feel appreciated we shouldn’t let it stop us. It’s much easier if we just accept the duty to always be the one to love first, and then be pleasantly surprised when someone beats us to it.

This brings us back to the idea of attitude being a posture we assume to prepare for the obstacles that will try to prevent us from our pursuit. Self-confidence is the trust in ourselves in our capability to not be distracted by whims and weather, it’s a trust in ourselves to stay focused on value and logic and not ease and comfort. This confidence is built up steadily over time. Our self-esteem comes and goes on a whim, but self-confidence is increased every time it is challenged and we prevail. It is difficult to separate the two because there is some overlap, but the point is to focus on doing what we know we should do and not worry about what we hope we feel.

A big part of self-esteem is the feeling of succeeding. Obviously, we should try our best, but the feeling of succeeding doesn’t mean that we tried our best, it means that we feel we made it over the bar we set for ourselves or over the bar that someone else set for us. For example, in racing motocross, halfway through a season, I was leading a race, and I felt myself settle because I didn’t want to risk the race by going faster and crashing even though I could have pushed myself a lot further. I decided I didn’t care about the season overall, and I moved up a class for the next race. I found myself at the back of the leader pack, and though it pushed me more, I decided the next week to move up another class. There I was struggling to stay out of last place, but it was nice to push myself as far as I could and not worrying about season points or trophies. I got faster in the next few races in the top class than I had the rest of the season combined. Crossing the finish line in last place may not feel like succeeding, but getting back to the truck and hearing how much my lap times had improved, I knew I was succeeding. Self-confidence was the concrete trend of decreasing lap times. Self-esteem would have been contentment not pushing myself and carrying home a first-place trophy every week in a class clearly below my ability.

We should enjoy doing our best, but not settle for merely repeating our past best, we can always reflect and then do at least a little bit better. We can remember what we find, but we can’t know what we are going to find before we do, and we don’t have to, the surprise adds some fun to the adventure of life.

A sense of self is an imaginary friend, and shame is an imaginary enemy, and there is no limit to what imaginary enemies can do to attack. We often forget that our happiest times are when we are caught up in the moment and not thinking about ourselves.

Marcus Aurelius a 1st century king and philosopher said in his book Meditations, “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

What if someone came up and handed you twenty dollars, how would you feel?

Now imagine that you find out, that on a dare, the person that gave you the twenty dollars was asked to find the stupidest person they could, and give them twenty dollars. How would you feel then?

That free twenty dollars couldn’t hurt your wallet, but depending on the context, could hurt your sense of self. What Marcus Aurelius said, is that the tendency to estimate the worth of things in comparison to our own worth, brings pain; because when compared to our worth, we will feel the thing is not worth us, or that we are not worth it. Rarely would we feel our worth and the other thing or person’s worth are the same, and so anxiety about possibly finding out we are nothing worth the thing or person is scary.

Self-esteem is just the temporary absence, repression or distraction from the feeling of shame. The only thing real about shame is our reaction to it, which is within our control. Not much needs to be understood about it other than we shouldn’t react to things that aren’t real.

Shame, guilt, and fear are learned ideas. They are ideas forced on us in the form of ideals and taboos, which are claims of value or logic that cannot be tested.

For example, various people have told me not to wear white after Labor Day. Also, various people have told me not to put tin foil in the microwave… Of course, I put both to the test. Wearing white was fine, but the tin foil caught fire and possibly did permanent damage to the microwave…

Turns out not wearing white after Labor Day is likely just a silly taboo, and the warning of putting tin foil in the microwave has actual value and logic behind it.

If I say, you should feel bad or be ashamed because… (insert whatever irrational and untestable claim), what do you do with that?

                Something that has actual value, it’s value is augmented when logic is applied to it. Since value is assessed by intuition and felt as emotion, the way to know whether it is a real emotion instead of a fleeting feeling is to apply logic to it—if the logic destroys it, it was just a fleeting feeling. Shame is felt as a feeling, but it can be shown to be as hollow and unreal as it is when logic is applied and it falls flat.

Not all feelings are real communication from our intuition, some are just triggers in our ego, or identity.

It seemed very odd to me, that right after breaking both my legs, people would ask, “did it hurt?” I remember after the question came up several times, I would just answer, “No, it felt great! I was going to get up and break them again, but I couldn’t because I couldn’t stand with two broken legs!” Yes, I was a sarcastic and patronizing fourteen-year-old kid… sometimes. Anyway, I bring this up because I did not realize that many people in similar experiences go into shock and don’t feel pain. Since then I have noticed that emotional pain is similar in the sense that it is very subjective—a whole group of us might be in the same circumstance and some are painfully miserable and others are just fine. Meanwhile, in a different situation, those who were in pain might not be anymore and those that weren’t in pain might now be.

Every time we feel triggered, we should look into what identity we feel is at stake. We need to take advantage of our moments of clear thinking when we notice when a sub-conscious drive is obviously misdirected. Tom Riddle’s rationalization of his bad behavior led to him creating a sub-conscious drive towards continual deprecation of “mud bloods,” causing him to be triggered every time he sees or thinks about them. When we are triggered we reflexively and defensively react instead thoughtfully and meaningful act.

We don’t need an identity, we exist how we exist despite how anyone imagines us. If we really focus on life instead of ruminating on our sense of self, which feels riddled with shame, guilt and fear, every day we will find more value and see more logic than the day before. Every day we will be a little better, and have a little more contentment and composure, until that is what we always feel.

The unexamined life is not living. The concept of “I” is the only thing separating us from the reality of “us.” Don’t let what the ego imagines as intermediaries or means to connection be what stops you from actually connecting. We don’t have to find a reason why we are worth connecting to, we just are, and looking for a logical reason for an intuitive asset blinds us from seeing it. Everyone wants to hold a baby, and a baby doesn’t have any special skill to offer. We were born to love and be love, we just have to get out of our own way so we can.

Love is not something we must try hard to do, love comes naturally, it is trusting that love is enough—that is the hard thing to do.

To read more, check out my website, conflictandconnection.com or buy my book on Amazon, Conflict and Connection: Anatomy of Mind and Emotion http://a.co/iQaQ0VE