Growth
Lately i've been pondering the question of what growth really is. It is something that gets said alot, but what does it mean? I believe that growth is real, and i believe that to some degree, it is the same for every person. What i don't believe however, is that growth is merely sympathy, discipline, a feeling of superiority or well-being.
I think that the body and mind together has a tendency to trick the consciousness. When you feel good, you feel like you've made it. You feel like all the progress you have undertaken paid off, and that the way you view the world, is in fact correct. You feel like you are beyond history. Maybe the people around you who are feeling bad, is simply because they dont see the world the way you do, and that since they are wrong in their ways, they deserve to feel worse than you. It all seems so simple. I think of this as ego-tripping. Things haven't really changed all that much objectively, yet somehow the great feeling that arises in us tricks us into beliving that we are the masters of our own fate, and that the great feeling that you feel, and the energy that you radiate, is proof enough of this.
Life is ridicilously complex, and without rigorous thinking and humility i think the vast depth of what happens around oneself goes largely unnoticed. But the thing is, we don't really have to be aware. Life is easier if everything is heuristics. If it works out, it works out, regardless of depth. We humans don't really like to think too hard about things. We have instincts, and a culture to outsource our problems to. It is when things don't work out for you however, that one is plunged into the complexity of life. One is forced to realize that things are bad, and then one is forced to realize that the prescribed solutions, don't really work for you. Then one has to come to terms with the fact that the surface ideals of life might not be for you, and that the solutions prescribed to someone down under are in fact very surface oriented. Then you question your sanity. And then finally, the world opens up for you to understand. Only when you are knocked from grace and its delusions, can you see the world for what it is. It's a painful and perspective-altering journey. At any point, if i had the choice to return to blissful ignorance, i might have taken it. I was forced against my will to see the world the way i view it now.
So what is true growth, then? For me, at this stage, i'm not convinced that i'm truly growing yet. I am stringing together how the world works, one thread at a time, but I am not able to utilise this percieved knowledge yet. The systems in place, in the dynamics between people and on a societal level are very strong, even though their exact workings remain unnoticed by most. For me, i think that growth is aligning oneself with the world around you. Somehow succeeding in embedding myself in a system, and gain an advantage there. Personally it's what i've struggled with, so growth for me is doing what i've never been able to do.
The question is how do i do it? What steps has to be taken for me to reach a point where the world no longer feels like a minefield?