To fully understand this post, first read Learning to Do Life Well. My post from 1/9/2017.
It turns out some accomplished philosophers and
psychologists have written about what I was going through in my twenties and
early thirties. First, I had to do the work of living the ancient Greek maxim:
Know Thyself
The ancient Greeks claimed they got it from the even more
ancient Egyptians. Had you asked me during the nearly two decades I was trying
to figure all this stuff out, I would have said it was probably Shakespeare.
As I was learning about myself, I was also engaging in what
Nietzsche called “The Will to Power” and what Jung called “Individuation.” Had
I been exposed to these things before or during these particular struggles, I
might have been far less concerned about why I didn’t seem to fit anywhere and never
being satisfied as a joiner or a follower.
The process of learning who we are is often uncomfortable.
Jung encourages us to confront and acknowledge our darker sides and to neither
be ashamed or afraid of them. Nietzsche admonishes us to revel in the pain of
the struggle. To see it as an opportunity to show the strength of our internal
metal.
All through my mid- and late-twenties I had this recurring
vision in my mind. I’d be working a job I hated for three to six months,
falling farther and farther behind financially the entire time. I’d be working
so hard to conform to what “god,” my church leaders, and society expected of
me. And I’d be growing more and more miserable.
I could see this “other” me inside myself. He was nearly
naked. Long hair, dirty. Aggressive. I had him in a cell of stone and ancient
iron bars. There was a single, bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling that was
always swinging side to side so no one could ever get a good look at his face.
I knew I had him caged, but any moment he was going to trick
me into letting him out again so he could destroy the nice, sanitized, middle
class life I was struggling to create. Complete with the two car garage and the
white picket fence. Even though I didn’t want any of it.
I was terrified of this other me and I knew I had no real
power over him.
Had I been exposed to Nietzsche, Jung, and others, I might
have learned this is normal. Instead of keeping this other me caged, I needed
to learn to compromise with him and figure out how the two of us could live
together in this one body and enjoy it.
It was perfectly fine that I wasn’t cut out to live the
Monday through Friday life of modern Americans. Jung calls it the “average
ideal.” I wasn’t designed to help fulfill the corporation’s vision, or the
pastor’s vision, or anybody else’s vision. I was supposed to be finding and
creating my own unique path. And I wasn’t supposed to be fighting my path,
avoiding my path, or being ashamed of it.
On his debut EP, singer songwriter Joe Pug has a line I
love:
I’d rather be
nobody’s man than somebody’s child
This is how young Joe expressed his struggle of finding his
unique path in life. I think he summed it well.
In trying desperately through my twenties and early thirties
to conform to the jobholder lifestyle of the masses, I was literally harming
myself and my family. It wasn’t who I was or who was designed to become. When I
finally gave myself permission to accept myself as an artist I began the
process of self actuation and my life began to get better. It was a painfully
slow process, but it has made an enormous difference in every area of my life:
mental, physical, emotional, financial, social, and career.
Life as an individual is good.
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