What it all boils down to.
I know this is a pompous opening question for a blog post, but…
What is life all about…really?
Why do we go out every day, year in, year out doing what we do? If you gather life is nothing more than a series of coincidences and a bunch of randomness, then you and I disagree. Because I believe in a purpose-filled life and after a lot of thinking/feeling back and forth I’ve started to look at life and everything we fill it with as a method (and ultimate aim) for better understanding ourselves. Let me elaborate.
Whether we’re speaking about education, your work profession or social engagements involving people – it doesn’t matter. The classroom teaches you how to think differently about yourself, e.g. in linear terms and along the lines of cause and effect – subjects like Maths show you 1+1=2. Your job in the finance sector might teach you something about the roll you play in the bigger (economic) system and your value as a market player. And if it weren’t for friends and family who know just how to push our buttons, self-insight would be hard to gain.
The consequence of doing stuff is self-knowledge. The more you “do” of life, the better will you understand yourself and what you’re all about…
So what would happen if rather than letting self-understanding be a mere side product, we placed it at the centre of our attention? If we actively pursued the nature of our Selves?
Raising the appropriate questions in our every day school/work/social/love life would allow us to get to the root of things and ourselves, enabling us to approach life itself in a more conscious and responsible way. Knowing who we are and how we work, first individually and then collectively would allow us to avoid undesired outcomes on every level – from the personal to the global (realizing that the individual players are what make up the bigger whole).
A few years ago Martin Lindstrom, author of “Buyology” performed the largest NeuroMarketing study in history to discover how advertising affects our brains and buying behaviour. Amongst many other things, he found out that emotions are the way in which our brain encodes things of value, e.g. an emotionally engaging brand will win over one that is more rational in its communication. The conclusion was that instant gratification comes with a greater emotional response, hence more successful. What I understood from that finding was that our brain is wired for short-term pleasures. Long-term thinking and behaving (which is very relevant when we get into environment-themed discussions) in the purely biological sense faces severe restrictions.
HOWEVER – and this is where the self-knowledge thang comes in – WE KNOW we’re not only our brains, our body or emotions. We are that and so much more when we turn off Auto-Pilot and switch to Awake Mode.
Adding awareness to how we approach life means operating from a higher self – it’s the same us, but with a better view of what’s really going on. Why bother? Because it’s fundamental to creating (i.e. US creating) better futures as opposed to thinking we are merely victims of our minds/bodies/emotions.
This reminds me of Prof. Tim Jackson’s fantastic “Economic Reality Check” presentation delivered at TED Global 2010. He makes one very interesting point that really struck a chord with me then and fits in well with the theme of this post now. The picture below is what Jackson calls the “Human Soul” – with self(ish) regarding behaviours that stand in opposition to other regarding behaviours (apparently essential to our evolution), as well as traditionally rooted behaviours opposing behaviours driven by a urge for novelty.
We are all of those things.
The problem is that so far the system has been at odds with who we are as people by feeding us one narrow quadrant – we’ve been sold an image about ourselves that tells us we are only selfish and are constantly on the hunt for new (things). Anyone surprised the consumer culture is slowly killing us?
My urge for increased self-knowledge is rooted in that same notion, i.e. that we don’t forget who we really are (and how much more there is to us). And the best thing about all of this – as Jackson so eloquently put it…
“It’s not about changing human nature, it is about opening up…allowing ourselves the freedom to become fully human, recognizing the depth and breadth of the human psyche.”
Enough to give you goosebumps, right?
Finally, as an all-time Spice Girls loyalist I just can’t resist!
