I think it’s very easy for someone at Level IV of Dabrowski’s model to assume he has already re-integrated (probably since the third factor is out and functioning by that point), but that mistake is quickly realized when one truly reaches Level V. I confess that I had thought I had reached this point about 4 years ago, but last year – my “dark year” – taught me otherwise. What I had mistaken for level V was actually level IV, as I was still not at peace with my values, despite taking charge of them.

The difference is one of friction – friction between one’s individual values and society’s, specifically. Mastery of innate first-factor trends seems easier to attain, perhaps because much of the body serves the mind without question. Society, however, refuses to budge to accommodate most individual values, and the resulting unsupportive environment often sets the backdrop for internal crises to manifest and project themselves upon the external world.

I realized that my problem was not failure to follow through on my values, but acknowledgment of society’s control over them. Self-sufficiency is one of those values, you see, yet I had chosen a path that required the aid of others, projecting an internal friction upon the outside world and refusing to acknowledge that, though initiated externally, my conflict had found internal reflections.

And then, last December, I did the proper thing to do anyway: I picked up the pieces, stopped saying “they have no right to do this”, replacing it with “they have no ability to do this”. Society prevented me from taking certain paths and coerced me onto others, but I simply chose a path that allowed accomplishment of my vision and a chance to attain my ideal, yet could neither be blocked nor herded onto.

Specifically, for the last two years, I was tied to a path that demanded I give up my free mind, yet at the same time demanded that I exert it. I simply refused to give it up and the contradiction that opposition would invoke prevented any opposition from forming in the first place.

I realized that I did not have to combat their gray indifference, merely to sidestep it, freeing me of their influence for good and setting me at peace at last. And what a peace it is! It isn’t the feeling of knowing that someone will take care of you, or that you have others to fall back on, but the knowledge that no one will take care of you, yet no one was ever required to: because society has no collective mind and no collective vision to counter your individual one.

To clarify: society exhibits collective behavior, which is why I tend to personify it, but it does not exhibit a collective mind. There is no vision underlying it, no pursuit of anything greater. Original, consistent thought is the province of healthy individuals only. There is so much momentum behind the status quo, but one need not climb a mountain if a path exists around it.

I can seek out novelty while they are tied to a status quo. I can be passionate while they are doomed to indifference. I can define my own meaning, while their meaning is defined for them. I can think outside of the box while they ARE the box.

All of these things made me think that pitting my own ability to enact change against theirs to resist it was the right way to go – but that way is doomed to failure; it would be like trying to move that mountain with my bare hands. My constant failure to do so in turn made me doubtful, led to insecurity in my own values, made it seem like a struggle.

The crucial insight that broke that pattern was that there need be no conflict between the values of the individual and those of society. On my new path, I simply expressed my vision in words too eloquent to be ignored and let other individuals make their own choice to join me or not. Those who did became my companions; those who did not simply became irrelevant to me. They aren’t antagonists or roadblocks, as I had viewed them until last year; they just have no role to play in the success or failure of my endeavors. There is no conflict, just those who care enough to play a part in shaping the realization of my vision and those who do not.

In short, there is no internal conflict and there is no external conflict. It’s actually not just something I noticed in myself – several people I had known said that my bearing became more content, less tormented over the past year. Someone even said I “gained the look of a leader”, whatever that means.

That is what Secondary Integration is: not just the courage to live by your own values, but the refusal to acknowledge a claim by or conflict with society’s values.

It’s empowering. And not the sort of thing you’d mistake once it happened.