Alkarion's EXISTENZPHILOSOPHIE

Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death. This idea of necessary partialization is enormously useful in thinking about mental illness, socialization and maturation, art, everything. Later, Becker puts it more plainly: 

When we say neurosis represents the truth of life we again mean that life is an overwhelming problem for an animal free of instinct. The individual has to protect himself against the world, and he can do this only as any other animal would: by narrowing down the world, shutting off experience, developing an obliviousness both to the terrors of the world and to his own anxieties… We cannot repeat too often the great lesson of Freudian psychology: that repression is normal self-protection and creative self-restriction —in a real sense, man’s natural substitute for instinct. Rank has a perfect, key term for this natural human talent: he calls it “partialization” and very rightly sees that life is impossible without it.

That is, we use repression and partialization —the former a truncation of the self, the latter a truncation of the world— to achieve a stable, bearable relationship with overwhelming reality. We cut the universe down to an ergonomic size, stuff it in our carry-on with our business papers; we shrink ourselves, cram ourselves in there too; it is manageable for the duration of the flight, at least, although we might fear that a change in cabin pressure will cause us to burst, to spill our secret selves, to open up to the unmediated mysterium tremendum et fascinates.

If it were possible to modify your consciousness, would you rather (1) receive supplemental human instincts, instincts to guide you in social, professional, cultural situations through which you presently muddle self-consciously, laboriously; or (2) have your lifelong, unconscious efforts at partialization undone, largely or completely, such that you were restored to the childhood state of constant wonder, awe, and fear?