# How we have inner conflicts

We often believe conflicts are [interpersonal](people-5_conflicts.md) and [negotiations](people-conflicts-negotiation.md) with others, but all human conflicts begin and end in our minds.

In fact, *most* human conflicts are internal. Every [decision](people-decisions.md) we make is a conflict until we've become [certain](understanding-certainty.md) of what we want, but it also expresses when:

- We [feel](mind-feelings.md) something doesn't match our intuition.
- We hear of an experience or idea that's different than we [understand](understanding.md).
- We experience something [unfamiliar](habits.md).
- We [forecast](imagination.md) anything in the future.

If you could examine every conscious and subconscious thought of any person, they're more *in* a conflict than not. The only time people are legitimately *not* in conflict with anything is when they are fully satisfied and completely at rest, but not [asleep](sleep.md).

We're defined *much* more by our inner conflicts than anything in our [environment](reality.md). [Outer conflicts](people-conflicts.md) involve the battle between [desires](purpose.md) and [results](results.md), but inner conflicts are the battle between [desires](purpose.md) and [reality](reality.md), with extra battles over [morality](morality.md) and [meaning](meaning.md) mixed in. They're much more challenging, but also [change](people-changes.md) us much more.

## Unawareness of the conflicts

Because of how we're built, we often see the world around us much more than inside our minds. For that reason, we tend to miss faults in ourselves while seeing most faults in others, and require both [self-awareness](awareness.md) and [good friends](people-friends.md) to point out those issues.

APPLICATION: If we have *any* unease with a statement, we must [understand](understanding.md) why. We might find offense from someone legitimately crossing our [boundaries](people-rules.md), but our [imagination](imagination.md) may be unrestrained about things that aren't [reality](reality.md).

We can internalize [multiple perspectives](image.md) at once, which we are also capable of [believing](understanding-certainty.md) at the same time (cognitive dissonance). Everyone experiences at least some cognitive dissonance in the routine course of their life because we frequently [change](people-changes.md) our [understanding](understanding.md) as we [learn](education.md), but will maintain [habitual](habits.md) past [beliefs](understanding-certainty.md) when we don't make a priority of revisiting them.

When we must consciously choose something, we must [decide](people-decisions.md). But, we can do one of two things to forestall that deciding:

1. If we've made a reliable [habit](habits.md) of denial, we can use dismissal and defense mechanisms to force the idea back into the unconscious again and maintain our cognitive dissonance.
2. If we have enough willpower and [courage](understanding-certainty.md) against our [fears](mind-feelings-fear.md), we can rapidly make a [morally good](morality.md) decision, stand strong on that conviction, and not think about it anymore until we feel ready. Quick moral decisions are the best solution when we're not [emotionally](mind-feelings.md) ready to handle a challenging string of decisions, and gives us [power](power.md) over the [unknown](unknown.md) even when we're still [uncertain](understanding-certainty.md).

We usually don't like confronting inner conflicts because it will often require *many* [changes](people-changes.md) if we must revisit a [habit](habits.md), proportional to how long we've had that habit. Often, accepting a small, one-sentence fact can rearrange our entire perspective of the world and disrupt our [way of life](people-culture.md).

These conflicts represent in [literature](stories.md), and embody 9 relatively separate domains:

1. Man vs. [Nature](reality.md) - specifically, the non-man environment around us
2. Man vs. [Society](groups-small.md) - specifically, people in groups
3. Man vs. [Technology](technology.md) - man-made objects
4. Man vs. [Man](humanity.md) - specifically, one-on-one encounters
5. Man vs. Self - the domain of one's [understanding](understanding.md)
6. Man vs. [Reality](reality.md) - the distinction between understanding and observed nature
7. Man vs. God - the domain of the [unknown](unknown.md)
8. Man vs. No God - the domain where the unknown is both [certain](understanding-certainty.md) and bleak
9. Man vs. Author - a meta-concept where the character addresses their literal [story creator](stories-storytellers.md)

## Pleasure and conflict

Not all inner conflict is endless misery. More inner conflict gives us a more powerful reward when we settle ourselves on a [decision](people-decisions.md), especially if it yields [good consequences](results.md).

Not all conflict is unpleasant, and we tend to [have fun](purpose.md) and [identify](identity.md) ourselves against our environment. We find tremendous [meaning](meaning.md) through how we combine what we [imagine](imagination.md) and [reality](reality.md).

However, we have a tendency to make inner conflicts over [expected](imagination.md) pain far more than expected pleasure.

## The good in conflict

Not all conflict is bad. Many things in the world [appear](image.md) to be paradoxes, and full understanding requires that we maintain every potentially true image at once until we have a more thorough grasp of it.

APPLICATION: To find the truth, we *must* constantly disagree with ourselves. Otherwise, our actions will adapt to becoming [habits](habits.md) and stay there *long* after they're no longer [useful](purpose.md).

Further, the inner battles of our mind determine the external [results](results.md) we create. Without an inner struggle, that struggle will become others' [suffering](people-boundaries.md) (and also make them [responsible](meaning.md) to act on it).

APPLICATION: The notion of an action-free Utopian society is flawed because it disregards humanity's most basic conflicts in their minds. We're never really "finished" with anything because we're constantly finding new things to form, adapt, build, remix, discover, unearth, categorize, finalize, destroy, rebuild, or develop. The conflict is a necessary part of the [story](stories.md) that creates our sense of [meaning](meaning.md) later.

## Inner conflicts from our environment

We are often subjected to inner conflict by others (e.g., [salespeople](marketing.md), [politicians](politics-conservativeliberal.md)), and our typical state is already more conflicted than we appear *without* outside [influence](influence.md).

Most people react to inner conflicts by trying to make a rapid [decision](people-decisions.md) and forcing their [environment](results.md) to change, often driven by [past trauma](hardship-ptsd.md). The only way to live the [good life](goodlife.md) is to slow down and [consider](understanding.md) those mental battles as we are capable of focusing on them, without dragging our environment into it.