March 2019 – The Wall of Knobs

Here’s an article that is an extrapolation of what I wrote about philosophy back in December, an attempt to explain some of the deeper ways in which the mind constructs depression…without telling you. It uses the image of an old power plant control room to talk about the “Wall of Knobs”, the settings of the body-mind that define our experience, and our potential for experience.

As I said in that article, although this can seem a bit academic compared with what on the surface seems more practical—what I address in the Tools of the Month—having a better understanding of how the mind works to build depression is essential to actually both managing, and ultimately deconstructing it. Depression is not simple, despite what the popular presentation of it is, and having an appropriately complex understanding will give the possibility of having a robustly balanced life.

The Wall of Knobs:  A way of understanding how our mind builds our worlds.

In my article “Philosophy and Depression”, I talked about the philosopher Matthew Ratcliffe’s understanding of how depression is a change not in how we relate to specific things, but in the world in which those relationships happen. So here, I’m going to expand on this with an image that points to the way our minds set the parameters of the worlds we experience, being the old “Wall of Knobs” from the control rooms of ancient power plants.

If we think of how these old systems worked, it’s not much different from modern systems, in which there is a configuration of settings that, when set within their ranges and in concert with each other, make the whole elaborate machinery of the power plant work. But if they get out of whack, or if the whole system’s knobs and buttons get set into a new configuration, then the whole plant changes state. Maybe it blows up, maybe it settles into inefficiency, but the whole system registers the changes in settings and expresses those changes in its functioning.

Our minds work like this, which we know because this reality is already reflected in our language. These “states” can be expressed as, “weird mood,” “suddenly joyous,” “unexpected rage,” “open to the world,” “malaise,” “out of it,” and of course, “depression.” They all refer to particular configurations of the different parts of us that make up the whole Wall of Knobs. For the power plant, there’s stuff like water flow, temperature, fuel levels, output pressure, etc., and for us there are, emotional intensity, emotional dominance, physical sensation, energy levels, cognitive functioning, relational openness, etc. Each of these are separate “circuitry,” but they all inevitably function together, in concert, whether this concert is harmonious or cacophonous.

The settings of these various “circuits” can be in a range from off to hyperactive, and each has a sweet range of functioning (called the Window of Tolerance). For instance, the presence of anger can be set from low to high as a general set point (since we’re talking about states rather than “instances” of an experience, we’re addressing consistent settings of the knobs over time); a person can be “generally angry” or “generally mellow” as a description of their general state of being. You could say the same of, say, shame, or lethargy, or wit, or sociality.

But some of these settings change the way in which the other settings work; in a sense, there are primary settings to which secondary settings are slaved, i.e., when the first changes, the second changes, but not necessarily vice versa.

The most important of these in relation to depression is, as Dr. Ratcliffe points out, the setting labeled “existential possibility.” This knob is a big one, and changes much of the control board without us having to fiddle with it. It defines how much we experience life itself as having possibility for, well, life: abundance, connection, creativity, and any future at all. When this turns down, it also pulls down hope, joy, excitement, creative thinking, motivation, and energy. When something affects that Big Knob—perhaps trauma, perhaps a big defeat, perhaps overwhelming pain—we don’t just experience suffering. Rather, our whole world (the aggregated settings on our Wall of Knobs) shifts state; it’s not just a setting that changes, it’s the functioning of the whole power plant (i.e., us) that changes, in this case to the state we call “depression.”

Why does this matter?

So, as academically and philosophically fascinating as this might be (ahem, at least to someone like a therapist…), the practical application is hugely important to someone who just doesn’t want to hurt so much, and maybe wants their Wall of Knobs to conform more to the settings for “Wellbeing”.

The metaphor of this wall implies a number of things:

1) We as individuals did not build this elaborate contraption, but rather, we’re in the control room trying to make it work. Even if we don’t want to. Especially since we were not given a manual, or the one the boss gave had pages missing. We are not at fault for this state of affairs. We are not deserving of shame for the fact of our own suffering. We have a responsibility for what we now have to work with, but the system itself was not our production: we just found ourselves in the control room seat, and were told to make it work. We deserve compassion for this state of affairs.

2) It is a really difficult and complex system to keep set to a certain configuration. We may hope for maximal functioning maximally, but the loops and feedbacks and old pipes sometimes have something like a mind of their own. So, given that, we really, really deserve a break for doing our best, making mistakes, and having to learn as we go.

3) Knowing that our state of being is made up of mutually interacting knob settings, we can let go of the idea that there’s going to be one solution set, one knob that will change everything. We may want exercise or medication or meditation to eradicate our depression, but we are just built way too complexly for that. So, to actually get better control over our state, we have to know that multiple settings are involved, and work to influence as many as we can, to try many different knob turns (exercise and meditation and not isolating and gratitude practice), to get the sense of where our Wall of Knobs needs to be held in order to get the right state.

4) When we are in a state that tells us dismal stuff about the world—depression’s big message is that we and the world at large are worthless—that just because we feel it does not make it true. Knowing this is knowing that the Wall of Knobs determines not only particular settings of experience, but the very parameters through which we experience the world. Having an intellectual map of this, plus some accurate metaphors, helps keep us anchored in our control room seat, allowing us to keep trying to get the darned thing to shift states, and then stay there.

Knowing full well that the popular conception of consciousness in general, and depression in particular, are wildly dumbed down, I think it’s nonetheless vitally important for all of us to have better maps and more sophisticated models of how to run our own power stations. I.e., our lives. If we are working from the wrong manuals—and our cultures give us terrifically bad ones—the specs on a Ford pickup when we’re actually repairing a 747—we will keep being unable to get the knobs into the right configuration, and then worse, will blame ourselves or the world (or both) for it. Which will be understandable, but will keep us stuck and miserable.

So, although this more theoretical focus can seem “impractical,” it is actually fundamental and critical to getting a handle on our Wall of Knobs, and learning how to keep it all set, more or less, to the “State of Goodness”.

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