34. The Destructive Contact Rebus

The more demotivation an individual has, the more he depends on and gravitates toward others, but demotivation also means he becomes more asocial, that is to say, more destructive towards others.

His own needs are put first and his focus is on receiving rather than giving. This is how we can identify it as a destructive contact and one that differs from social behavior fuelled by a positive life force.

Moreover, demotivation here is not directed at having full emotional contact with oneself, as would be the case for the manifestly motivated when being social; transmutation has prevented the individual from having open contact with his pain (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, page 277).

Destruction helps the individual to find a way of managing his pain, and thus facilitates his survival. He also makes it possible for himself to receive more life energy and thereby experience optimal development.

However, if the individual does not receive a life energy boost, such development will never be entirely stunted because he has sufficient life energy to address parts of his pain in untransmuted form.

The consequence of detransmutation of the manifest motivated is that most of the pain dissipates, the residue becoming destructively transmuted. The pain has been processed and the individual has matured.

Through the destructively transmuted contact rebus, a destructive interplay within the individual and with others continues, leading to new pain. However, both destructiveness and pain will be less than before because elements of the original pain have become transmuted. It is like creating a firebreak to stop a forest fire – fighting evil with evil, fighting fire with fire.

Demotivation

Demotivation increases the pressure on the contact-making functions of the contact rebus and intensifies them. Since the individual’s contact rebus involves demotivation, it is able to receive a more unambiguous response from the recipient.

If an individual hurts another person and he still wants contact with him and shows interest, this constitutes greater positive affirmation than if the individual had only behaved constructively in his gambit. The destructive variable also makes it easier for the individual to discern whether he has found someone who genuinely wishes him well.

Demotivation in the contact rebus of the latently motivated intensifies its functions and enables the individual to receive life force from the right person and to activate the transfer of this life energy from him.

The latently motivated individual is not modest in his demands, as he is in compellent need of life force. The most important characteristic of his target then is that he can return surplus life energy, or at least not create a deficit.

This is why the latently motivated person will try to interact with everyone he meets in order to achieve this and strives to obtain a powerful and unambiguous response to the destructive variable that makes the contact-seeking functions of his contact rebus more compellent on those who are targeted by it.

Case Study

Lage is on his way to the gym in the center of the city. As he crosses a road, he notices two men on the opposite side who appear to be substance abusers. They stare at him scornfully and aggressively, and he now realizes that it is too late to turn back on the pedestrian crossing as this would provoke them.

As he walks past the junkies, one of them very aggressively demands a cigarette and makes a snide remark about Loge’s clothes. Lager is annoyed and walks past without responding, but the junkie continues to call after him and appears to be getting more aggressive and threatening.

Lager carries on walking with a growing sense of unease. He hears footsteps running up behind him and feels an arm on his shoulder. Lager realizes that the junkie has caught up with him and now he has to politely try to explain that he does not have any cigarettes.

The junkie is content with this answer and leaves. Afterwards, Lager is disturbed and has a feeling that he has been subjected to an attack of sorts.

Discussion

This is a situation in which the two parties have not had previous contact with one another. The substance abuser is a latently motivated individual in need of more life force, and he exhibits a verbally aggressive and reproachful contact rebus, which later also becomes focused on action.

Lager first tries to dismiss the contact rebus but realizes that he must be of a cooperative disposition in order to extricate himself from the situation.

While he feels he has been given an invitation to be equally aggressive and offensive in return, Lager chooses to reciprocate with a constructive contact rebus that provides the substance abuser with more life energy than he has imparted to his target.

The substance abuser’s level of motivation is so low that he takes every opportunity he can to replenish his resources, but his gambit is well concealed and it seems to those he encounters as though he is only looking for trouble. On a deeper level, however, he is seeking life force and positive interest from someone else.