How To Improve Relationships
Mike
handling life. These three factors answer the questions: How should I talk
to people? How can I give new ideas to people? How can I find what people
are thinking about? How can I handle my work better?
These three factors in Scientology are called the ARC triangle. The
abbreviation ARC (pronounced A-R-C rather than arc) is one of the most
useful terms yet devised.
The ARC triangle is called a triangle because it has three related points.
The first of these points is affinity. The second of these points is
reality. The third of these points and the most important is communication.
These three factors are related. By affinity we mean emotional response. We
mean the feeling of affection or lack of it, of emotion or misemotion
(irrational or inappropriate emotion) connected with life. By reality we
mean the solid objects, the real things of life. By communication we mean an
interchange of ideas between two terminals (persons who can receive, relay
or send a communication).Without affinity there is no reality or
communication. Without reality there is no affinity or communication.
Without communication there is neither affinity nor reality.
Application of the ARC triangle in the day-to-day circumstances one
encounters in life requires an understanding of each of the triangle's
components and their interrelationship.
The first corner of the triangle is affinity.
The basic definition of affinity is the consideration of distance, whether
good or bad. The most basic function of complete affinity would be the
ability to occupy the same space as something else.
The word affinity is here used to mean love, liking or any other emotional
attitude. Affinity is conceived in Scientology to be something of many
facets. Affinity is a variable quality. Affinity is here used as a word with
the context "degree of liking."
Man would not be man without affinity. Every animal has affinity to some
degree, but man is capable of feeling an especially large amount. Long
before he organized into cities, he had organized into tribes and clans.
Before the tribes and clans there were undoubtedly packs. Man's instinctive
need for affinity with his fellow human beings has long been recognized, and
his domestication of other animals shows that this affinity extends also to
other species. One could have guessed that the race which first developed
affinity to its highest degree would become the dominant race on any planet
and this has been borne out.
A child is full of affinity. Not only does he have affinity for his father,
mother, brothers and sisters and his playmates but for his dogs, his cats
and stray dogs that happen to come around. But affinity goes even beyond
this. You can have a feeling of affinity for objects: "I love the way the
grain stands out in that wood." There is a feeling of oneness with the
earth, blue skies, rain, millponds, cartwheels and bullfrogs which is
affinity.
Affinity is never identification (becoming one with another in feeling or
interest) nor does it go quite so far as empathy (the power or state of
imagining oneself to be another person and even share his ideas or
feelings). You remain very much yourself when you have affinity for
something but you also feel the essence of the thing for which you have
affinity. You remain yourself and yet you draw closer to the object for
which you have affinity. It is not a binding quality. There are no strings
attached when affinity is given. To the receiver it carries no duties and no
responsibilities. It is pure, easy and natural and flows out from the
individual as easily as sunlight flows from the sun.
Affinity begets affinity. A person who is filled with the quality will
automatically find people anywhere near him also beginning to be filled with
affinity. It is a calming, warming, heartening influence on all who are
capable of receiving and giving it.
One can readily observe the level of affinity between individuals or groups.
For instance, two men talking with each other either are in affinity with
each other or they aren't. If they are not, they will argue. If they are in
affinity with each other, two other things have to be there: they have to
have agreed upon a reality and they have to be able to communicate that
reality to each other.
This brings us to the next corner: reality.
Reality could be defined as "that which appears to be." Reality is
fundamentally agreement. What we agree to be real is real. Reality,
physical-universe reality, is sensed through various channels; we see
something with our eyes, we hear something with our ears, we smell something
with our nose, we touch something with our hands, and we decide, then, that
there is something. But the only way we know it is through our senses and
those senses are artificial channels. We are not in direct contact with the
physical universe. We are in contact through our sense channels with it.
Those sense channels can be blunted. For instance, a man loses his eyesight,
and as far as he is concerned there is no light or shape or color or depth
perception to the physical universe. It still has a reality to him, but it
is not the same reality as another person's. In other words, he is unable to
conceive a physical universe completely without sight. One can't conceive
these things without senses. So the physical universe is seen through these
senses.
Two men can take a look at a table and agree it is a table. It is made out
of wood, it is brown. The men agree to that. Of course, one understands that
when he says "brown" and the other hears "brown," brown actually to the
first man may be purple but he has agreed that it is brown because all his
life people have been pointing to this color vibration and saying "brown."
It might really be red to the second man, but he recognizes it as brown. So
both men are in agreement although they might be seeing something different.
But they agree this is brown, this is wood, this is a table. Now a third
fellow walks in the door, comes up and takes a look at this thing and says,
"Huh! An elephant!"
One man says, "It's a table, see? Elephants are . . . "
"No, it's an elephant," replies the third man.
So the other two men say the third one is crazy. He doesn't agree with them.
Do they attempt further to communicate with him? No. He doesn't agree with
them. He has not agreed upon this reality. Are they in affinity with him?
No. They say, "This guy is crazy." They don't like him. They don't want to
be around him.
Now let's say two individuals are arguing, and one says, "That table is made
out of wood," and the other says, "No, it is not. It's made out of metal
which is painted to look like wood." They start arguing about this; they are
trying to reach a point of agreement and they can't reach this point of
agreement. Another fellow comes up and takes a look at the table and says,
"As a matter of fact, the legs are painted to look like wood, but the top is
wood and it is brown and it is a table." The first two men then reach an
agreement. They feel an affinity. All of a sudden they feel friendly and
they feel friendly toward the third man. He solved the problem. The two
individuals have reached an agreement and go into communication.
For an individual, reality can only consist of his interpretation of the
sensory perceptions he receives. The comparative unreliability of this data
is clearly shown by the varying reports always received in the description
of, say, an automobile accident. People who have studied this phenomenon
report that there is an amazing degree of difference in the description
given of the same scene by different observers. In other words, the reality
of this situation differed in details for each of the observers. As a matter
of fact, there is a wide area of agreement, extremely wide, the common
agreement of mankind. This is the earth. We are men. The automobiles are
automobiles. They are propelled by the explosion of certain chemicals. The
air is the air. The sun is in the sky. There is usually an agreement that a
wreck happened. Beyond this basic area of agreement there are differing
interpretations of reality.
For all practical purposes, reality consists of your perception of it, and
your perception of reality consists, to a large extent, of what you can
communicate with other people.
The third and most important corner of the ARC triangle is communication. In
human relationships this is more important than the other two corners of the
triangle in understanding the composition of human relations in this
universe. Communication is the solvent for all things. It dissolves all
things.
How do people go into communication with each other?
In order for there to be communication, there must be agreement and
affinity. In order for there to be affinity, there must be agreement on
reality and communication. In order for there to be reality and agreement,
there must be affinity and communication - one, two, three. If you knock
affinity out, communication and reality go. If you knock reality out,
communication and affinity will go. If you knock communication out, they
will all go.
There are several ways to block a communication line (the route along which
a communication travels from one person to another). One is to cut it,
another one is to make it so painful that the person receiving it will cut
it, and another one is to put so much on it that it jams. Those are three
very important things to know about a communication line. Also, that
communication must be good communication: the necessary data sent in the
necessary direction and received.
All that communication will be about, by the way, is reality and affinity
concerning the physical universe. Discussions will be whether there is or is
not affinity, or whether there is or is not agreement and where the
agreement is particularly disagreed with on the physical universe.
Affinity can be built up in a number of ways. You can talk to people and
build up an affinity with them. But remember this is communication, not just
talk. There are many, many ways to communicate. Two people can sit and look
at each other and be in communication. One of the ways to go into
communication is by tactile, the sense of touch. You can pet a cat, and the
cat all of a sudden starts to purr; you are in communication with the cat.
You can reach out and shake a person's hand and you are in communication
with him because tactile has taken place. The old-school boys with the
tooth-and-claw idea that "everybody hates everybody really, and everybody is
on the defensive and that is why we have to force everybody into being
social animals" said that the reason men shake hands is to show there is no
weapon in the hand. No, it is a communication. In France, Italy, Spain and
so forth they throw their arms around each other; there is lots of contact
and that contact is communication.
If a person is badly out of communication and you reach out and pat him on
the shoulder and he dodges slightly (he considers all things painful) even
though he doesn't go on, you will find he is also out of communication
vocally. You try to say something to him. "You know, I think that's a pretty
good project, Project 342A, and I think we ought to go along with it." He
will sit there and look at you and nod, and then he will go down and
complete Project 36.
You say, "Project 36 has just been thrown out. We weren't going to go
through with that at all," but he hardly knows you are talking to him. He
dodges everything you say. Or he may talk to you so hard and so long you don
't get a chance to tell him you want to do Project 342A. That is dodging
you, too. In other words, he is out of communication with you. Therefore his
affinity is low and he won't agree with you either. But if you can get him
into agreement, communication will pick up and affinity will pick up.
This is about the most important data run across in the field of
interpersonal relations.
You can take any group of men working on a project and take one look at the
foreman and the men and tell whether or not these people are in
communication with one another. If they aren't, they are not working as a
coordinated team. They are not in communication, perhaps, because they are
not agreed on what they are doing.
All you have to do is take the group, put them together and say, "What are
you guys doing?" You don't ask the foreman, you ask the whole group and the
foreman, "What are you guys doing?"
One fellow says, "I'm earning forty dollars a week. That's what I'm doing."
Another one says, "Well, I'm glad to get out of the house every day. The old
woman's pretty annoying." Another one says, ""As a matter of fact, I
occasionally get to drive the truck over there and I like to drive the
truck, and I'll put up with the rest of this stuff. I drive the truck, and I
've got to work anyhow." Another man might say, if he were being honest, "I'
m staying on this job because I hate this dog that you've got here as a
foreman. If I can devote my life to making him miserable, boy, that makes me
happy."
All the time you thought that those men thought they were grading a road.
Not one of them thought they were grading a road. You thought they were
building a road. Not one of them was building a road; not one of them was
even grading.
This crew may be unhappy and inefficient, but you get them together and you
say, "Well, you know, some day a lot of cars will go over this road. Maybe
they'll wreck themselves occasionally and so forth, but a lot of cars will
go over this road. You boys are building a road. It's a pretty hard job, but
somebody's got to do it. A lot of people will thank you boys for having
built this road. I know you don't care anything about that, but that's
really what we are doing around here. Now, I'd like a few suggestions from
you people about how we could build this road a little bit better." All of a
sudden the whole crew is building a road. Affinity, reality and
communication go right up.
Every point on the ARC triangle is dependent on the other two, and every two
are dependent on one. One can't cut down one without cutting down the other
two, and one can't rehabilitate one without rehabilitating the other two. On
the positive side, one can rehabilitate any point on the triangle by
rehabilitating any other point on it.
The interrelationship of the triangle becomes apparent at once when one
asks, "Have you ever tried to talk to an angry man?" Without a high degree
of liking and without some basis of agreement there is no communication.
Without communication and some basis of emotional response there can be no
reality. Without some basis for agreement and communication there can be no
affinity. Thus we call these three things a triangle. Unless we have two
corners of a triangle, there cannot be a third corner. Desiring any corner
of the triangle, one must include the other two.
The triangle is not an equilateral triangle. Affinity and reality are very
much less important than communication. It might be said that the triangle
begins with communication, which brings into existence affinity and reality.
Since each of these three aspects of existence is dependent on the other
two, anything which affects one of these will also similarly affect the
others. It is very difficult to suffer a reversal of affinity without also
suffering a blockage of communication and a consequent deterioration of
reality.
Consider a lovers' quarrel: One of the pair offers affinity in a certain way
to the other. This affinity is either reversed or not acknowledged. The
first lover feels insulted and begins to break off communication. The second
lover, not understanding this break-off, also feels insulted and makes the
break in communication even wider. The area of agreement between the two
inevitably diminishes and the reality of their relationship begins to go
down. Since they no longer agree on reality, there is less possibility of
affinity between them and the downward spiral goes on.
There are three ways of reversing this spiral. One is through raising of the
necessity level of the individual. Another is by the intervention of some
outside agency which will force the two lovers to agree or communicate. The
third is by Scientology processing.
Scientology processing is a precise, thoroughly codified activity with exact
procedures. It is a very unique form of personal counseling which helps an
individual look at his own existence and improves his ability to confront
what he is and where he is.
Unless one of these three ways of reversing the spiral is utilized,
eventually all of the reality of the relationship which had grown up between
this pair of lovers would vanish and both of the people would be damaged in
their total reality, their total ability to communicate, their total
capacity for affinity.
Fortunately the spiral works both ways. Anything which will raise the level
of affinity will also increase the ability to communicate and add to the
perception of reality.
Falling in love is a good example of the raising of the ability to
communicate and of a heightened sense of reality occasioned by a sudden
increase in affinity. If it has happened to you, you will remember the
wonderful smell of the air, the feeling of affection for the good solid
ground, the way in which the stars seemed to shine brighter and the sudden
new ability in expressing yourself.
If you have ever been alone, and in a dwindling spiral, only to have the
telephone ring and the voice of a friend come across, you will have
experienced the halting of a downward spiral through a lift in
communication. This is particularly true if the friend happens to be a
person with whom you converse easily and who seems to understand the
communication which you try to give him. After such an experience, you are
probably aware of a great deal more interest in the things around you
(reality) and the increase of the feelings of affinity within you.
A troopship was slowly approaching the Golden Gate Bridge filled with troops
who had been overseas for several months. As the ship slowly approached the
bridge, all on board grew very quiet until at last no one was talking at
all. Suddenly, as though by prearranged signal, just as the bow of the ship
cleared the bridge, the men standing there broke into a tremendous cheer
which carried on down the length of the ship as she went under the bridge.
Suddenly everyone was talking to everyone excitedly. Men who scarcely knew
each other were pounding each other on the back as though they were
brothers. America regained some of its reality for these men and
communication and affinity suddenly went up. Fast! Affinity, reality and
communication are part of everyday life - from a child going to school,
through familial relations to governing a nation. And ignorance of their
existence and application is equally as widespread; otherwise, one would not
be continually swamped with the daily news of turmoil, strife and suffering
due simply to lack of understanding.
However, knowledge of these components will only carry one so far. They must
be applied. But how is that done?
A principal application of ARC is to increase affinity, reality and
communication, and thus understanding, between oneself and another. How does
one talk to somebody else?
The way to do this is to establish reality by finding something with which
you and the other person agree.
Then you attempt to maintain as high an affinity level as possible by
knowing there is something you can like about him.
All three corners of the ARC triangle will have been established and you are
then able to talk to him. Understanding will be possible because the three
components of life - affinity, reality and communication - are present.
For more information, visit:
http://www.scientologyhandbook.org/sh3_4.htm
Recommended literature:
Scientology: Fundamentals Of Thought
http://www.think-for-yourself.com