The Meaning of Life and Other Vegetables

Hello everyone.

As I mentioned before, I have been spending time lately conversing online with people who feel lost or confused about their life path (mostly around career/study). It typically goes along the lines of “I study / work at X and I hate it / it feels mundane / soul crushing / numbing. I started it because my parents / my peers pressured me / the financial prospect was good / it offers job security… But my real passion is… <something else, not X, not even close>”

So many of them… So similar…

Why does it happen?

Roll back: We all have those “crazy” ideas from time to time. Ideas that come from nowhere / from “inside”, and light us up with excitement, with Joy. But quickly the resident commentator in our head (I talked about it here) intervenes: “No. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not safe. There is no money in it. What will everyone say? Don’t throw your future away. What about all the plans you made? What about all the hard work you’ve put in?”… and so on.

As Dr. James Hollis explains in his books, that is our Ego. The resident bully. The Ego has essentially one goal: Self preservation; continuation of its agenda, which is the building and maintenance of a neat, appealing sense-of-self, including extinguishing anything that might threaten it. The Ego can be a nasty little tyrant. It’s quite insecure, and it has very little imagination. It is not interested in real growth or expansion; only in perceived “growth”, consisting mostly of fortifying its defenses against its own, very deeply seated insecurities.

Sadly for the Ego, it is only a (small?) part of our Self. The Ego lives in our consciousness; however, a big part of our self is subconscious. Elements from our subconscious will, from time to time, float into our consciousness, or even take over temporarily from within the subconscious, to the Ego’s dismay. Those fragments of self are very much a part of us; not any less than the Ego is.

In fairness, the Ego is not to be blamed. It is our earliest protector. When we come into the world, we are extremely helpless. Our life begins with a “falling from grace” trauma – birth. Think of coming out of the perfect, most nurturing home we’ll ever have – the womb – and into an environment that is vastly different and, to a degree, hostile. Then a series of hardships, even traumas, proceeds, interspersing times of relative safety and comfort (as much as one is lucky to have the latter). As infants, toddlers and children, we are infinitely small and weak in comparison with our environment, which includes people, first and foremost our primary carer(s), then family, tribe and society. Additionally, as young children we have a limited range of imagination, and very little context for conceiving alternatives and options. Mostly, we only see what’s in front of us. It’s very hard to “think outside the box” when you only appeared inside the box 5 minutes ago.

Hence, we must adapt to survive, to secure our safety and – hopefully – a level of comfort. We are bombarded with feedback from our environment, which teaches our Ego what it must, and more important – what it must not – do, in order to gain the support that is crucial for our survival and comfort at this stage. In this process the Ego learns what is “right” and what is “wrong”; what is considered good and what is considered bad; what is desirable to / in our environment, and what is not. It learns, and immediately goes to work, implementing what it learned. Through continued feedback, over our entire early life, those patterns get ingrained, and the Ego becomes a ruthless dictator. A captain navigating a ship between icebergs, trying to keep it afloat.

This is a process of Adaptation. The result is a young person, shaped to fit the environment – mostly, the human environment – they happened to be “thrown into” at birth. By the time they reach adulthood, any traits, preferences or aspirations at odds with that environment’s standards are most likely well and truly buried or moderated by the Ego – to keep them safe, and if possible – relatively comfortable

However… By now, this is a young adult (or an older adolescent). They are not as small and helpless as a baby. Yes, the world is still big and very powerful in comparison, but maybe not infinitely powerful anymore…? Additionally, the young person definitely has an increased space to imagine options, to see alternatives – especially in today’s developed countries, with mostly unlimited Internet access. That young person might still need support (physical and mental/emotional), but do they still need ruthless editing? Do they need unhindered adaptation? Probably not.

The big problem is that by now the adaptation is so strong (and mostly, we are unaware of it), that it almost BECOMES our person. No longer a coping strategy, a top layer in service of protecting the core; but something with a life and personality of its own. It doesn’t matter that the threats have changed, that maybe their level is now reduced. It doesn’t matter that the person has grown, both physically and mentally. The adaptation is here to stay, and it’s in charge – for most of us, for the rest of our lives… unless we become aware of it and try to do something about it.

I feel that that’s enough for today – I will continue later, in another post. Stay tuned.

Peace to all.

[Most of the above is not my own ideas; it is borrowed from or inspired by Dr. Hollis’s books… which are in turn inspired by Jung’s teachings, as well as many others that preceded. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants.]

PS
I feel that the lyrics of Alanis Morissette’s Perfect fit here perfectly. I love this version (and Jagged Little Pill (Acoustic) is an amazing album overall).

Sometimes is never quite enough
If you’re flawless, then you’ll win my love
Don’t forget to win first place
Don’t forget to keep that smile on your face

Be a good boy
Try a little harder
You’ve got to measure up
Make me prouder

How long before you screw it up
How many times do I have to tell you to hurry up
With everything I do for you
The least you can do is keep quiet

Be a good girl
You’ve gotta try a little harder
That simply wasn’t good enough
To make us proud

I’ll live through you
I’ll make you what I never was
If you’re the best, then maybe so am I
Compared to him compared to her
I’m doing this for your own damn good
You’ll make up for what I blew
What’s the problem, why are you crying

Be a good boy
Push a little farther now
That wasn’t fast enough
To make us happy
We’ll love you just the way you are
If you’re perfect

Songwriters: Alanis Nadine Morissette / Glen Ballard
Perfect lyrics © Concord Music Publishing LLC, Peermusic Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group