Chapter 4: What’s a monkeytrap?

*

The idea of control

controls the controllers;

we are not in control

of the power of control.

~ James Hillman

This book, like my last*, is about control in general, and monkeytraps in particular.

So what’s a monkeytrap? 

Wikipedia defines monkey trap as

A cage containing a banana with a hole

large enough for a monkey’s hand to fit

in, but not large enough for a monkey’s

fist (clutching a banana) to come out;

anecdotally used to catch monkeys that

lack the intellect to let go of the banana

and run away.

That’s a literal monkey trap. 

This book is about the psychological version.

A psychological monkeytrap is any situation that temps us to hold on when we should let go — to control what either cannot or should not be controlled.

The world is filled with monkeytraps.

As is the emotional life of every human being.

And the emotional life of an adult child, as we’ll see, often feels like one damn monkeytrap after another.

*Monkeytraps: Why Everybody Tries to Control Everything and How We Can Stop (New York: Lioncrest, 2015).