Pillars for a New Path
Exploring Your Path's Past and Future
"Human beings are a mystery. If you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time." - Fyodor Dostoevsky
If you're looking for "the answer," it's not here. As these topics won't have "an answer" the same way that the meaning of life, who am I, and why is there something instead of nothing don't have "an answer," instead I hope that they will provide an entry point for further exploration. At no point am I trying to persuade you of my way of thinking, especially since I'm still very much working my own way through these ideas and could never do them justice even if I wrote 500 essays. Nor is this religious dogma but rather a deepening of awareness, understanding, and openness to some of the more interesting and consequential mysteries of existence and identity.
In these first three explorations, I'll unpack my understanding of what I've found to be the core psychological and interpersonal themes that have directed and will continue to influence a person’s path through life, whether they’re aware of them or not. Those three themes are: acceptance vs authenticity, identity, and change. I'll quickly add that there are other ways of viewing and interpreting life, such as the existential "givens of existence" - death, freedom, isolation, and meaning - for personal life, systemic views for understanding social and political forces impacting our lives that require social justice reforms, and love and truth as core building blocks for value creation. I will touch on those in future posts as important frameworks for approaching life.
These three pillars of one's path might sound basic or obvious, and you're right, they are. But just like the givens of existence, there's really no getting around them. Even people who claim not to "think too deeply" about such questions nevertheless still deal with them, whether consciously or unconsciously. No one's path in life hasn't been directly impacted by all three. The purpose of explicitly highlighting them is to bring them into conscious awareness so that those psychological forces aren't directing your life without your input. Not that control is the point, either. For example, in understanding the impact that acceptance vs authenticity has had and will have on your life, I hope to show how it's a decision you first made without knowing it. Even as an adult you will still feel the desire to cater to social expectations, socially defined roles (which includes oppressive systems beyond the power of any single individual), and making loved ones happy. You can't get around that. But you can become more aware of this dynamic so that you can understand yourself, your relationships, and your decisions better in order to make changes that create a life that authentically reflects who you are. Some changes might be minor, some might be significant. But they will be yours to make.