Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Maxed Out Living - Chapter 1
Maxed Out Living - Chapter 1
Maxed Out Living - Chapter 1
Part 1
Most people die without ever having lived. They mimic, they fulfill roles, they
work hard, pay bills, raise a family, leave an inheritance, but get to the end
of their lives without ever satisfactorily dealing with the question of purpose,
which takes many different forms for different individuals, e.g. Who am I?
What am I? Why am I here? What does my life mean? Is this all there is to
life? They die as ignorant about the reason for their existence as they were
the day they entered the world.
They play roles written out for them by some unseen scripter, being only as
loud or as soft as the part dictates, doing only as much or as little as the
norms dictate and becoming no more than they are allowed to be by the
unseen directors of the show, who dutifully enforce the strictest adherence
to the script for the ‘good of all’. They believe they are living ‘the good life’
by yielding their individuality and becoming alike as they gather in groups,
acceding to limiting creeds and giving up any right to themselves or their
‘souls’, surrendering even their right to choose or adjust their beliefs to a
council or board.
In their well-ordered and structured life, they fail to find themselves, and
consequently, consume their days in an existence devoid of any sense of
purpose. They live as hypocrites, they die hypocrites, in the purest sense of
the word: play-actors, who have lived in falsehood; pretending to believe or
feel what they do not; living, breathing contradictions; one thing by
definition and another in conduct; role players who do not have the
conviction of bone-deep belief to back up their profession.
It is then that they realize that the ‘respect’ they enjoyed, the ‘adoration’ the
reveled in was all an act for their act, valueless in and of itself; meaningless
and vacuous.
Thus, so many people that could have done great things in the world have
been crippled by hypocrisy, rendered ineffectual, neutered into conformity.
They settle instead for mediocrity in conformity in exchange for popularity
and the affirmation of the world.
There are even weightier reasons for conformity. The most basic and
influential of these is security. Basically, ‘advancement’ in the world, as
defined by the world, i.e. access to greater and greater quantities of what
should be pool resources, and the amassing of a great collection of the best
of the world’s trinkets and toys, comes most readily to those who ‘play by
the rules’. That usually translates to those who are willing to cede their right
to individuality in exchange for these benefits, those with whom conformity
is a small price to pay for comfort.
These individuals get given ’the keys of the kingdom’. They get benefits for
not ‘rocking the boat’ and for keeping others from rocking the boat. They get
entrusted with positions of leadership and are vouchsafed the responsibility
to keep the established structures in good working order: All this in
exchange for their own opinions, thoughts and, sometimes, personhood.
So, a more basic reason why conformity is so ‘in’ is that the non-conformist
cannot, will not, be given the benefit of the economies of scale generated by
a superficial homogeny. The non-conformist will not enjoy the goodwill of
the system or ‘establishment’.
Acting, or ‘going along with’ the crowd seems to make more sense for the
person for whom ‘success’ is important; and another hypocrite is eulogized.
The fact that you are equipped with reason means that you were meant to
think about things and make decisions. Making decisions is part of your
natural function. Making decisions and solving problems shouldn’t make you
sick; unless you are dealing with lots of irreconcilable inputs. In which case,
I venture to assert, your psyche and body will collude to slow you down, and
you will ail.
Should a natural function of living make you sick? I say no. Can external
stressors and bad dietary habits be the only reasons for the increase in the
occurrence of High Blood Pressure, peptic ulcers, diabetes and other
psychosomatic conditions? I think not. I am not a medical professional, but
I believe that the answer to these questions may lie closer to home than
most people think.
The real stress that causes psychosomatic conditions could well be the
internal stress of a system in conflict, rather than the external ‘stressors’
which are meant for our growth and well being. Challenges were meant to
help us grow, not to cause peptic ulcers. My conclusion: Internal systemic
conflict predisposes the human system to illness. This because the conflicted
system loses the capacity to properly administer the use and supply of the
various inputs and focus all of its resources on solving the problems of
being. It strives to meet conflicting demands. It tries to achieve results that
are at variance with the blueprint of which it is aware, or in some cases may
be ignorant of. It sends resources to non-critical areas and leaves critical
areas deficient. It cannot handle its inputs—physical, mental, spiritual—as
well as a healthy, harmonized system does.
A conflicted system trying to live a ‘normal’ life can do more damage to the
entire being, mind and body, than can, for example, the pressure of meeting
an important deadline. The latter may seem more demanding, but fulfilling it
is an application of resources to living as we were meant to apply them. You
were built to solve problems, and you have adrenaline to prove it. Solving
problems should not throw your system off balance. the former is trying to .
It’s like having three conflicting maps and expecting to get to one happy
destination. Impossible.
We live in a world where compromise has been deified. For the sake of the
elusive and misunderstood ideal we call peace, voices have been silenced,
opinions surrendered, individuality sacrificed on the altar of compromise.
Peace is believed to be attainable only in homogeny. And so people are
made to conform to an arbitrary standard for the sake of this peace. After
all, in order for peace to prevail, everyone must think and act alike. They are
taught what to think, what to say, what to do. Their lives are circumscribed.
And whatever they don’t fully believe in of what they can’t accept they are
told to take ‘by faith’. Incongruence ensues and the people are encouraged
to accept it as a part of normal, everyday life. They are told that it’s OK to
navigate with three maps.
Compromise is the god of 21st Century man, and he has billions of devotees
all around the world. The only thing they have in common is that they are
invertebrates. The biggest problem with compromise is the question of the
benchmark. If everyone is to compromise, then what is the standard to
which they are to conform, and who has the right to set that arbitrary
benchmark?
Considering that every person is created equal and unique, and for a
purpose all his or her own, it stands to reason that any arbitrary benchmark
is pre-destined to meet with failure. Christianity, Islam, Mormonism,
religions one and all, present the newborn human being with pre-cast molds,
into which the spirits of men are poured, their individuality suppressed, and
clones are created. Compromise is reached by consensus and enforced by
dogma. The benchmark is set by council and ratified by creed.
Another human being cannot tell you the purpose for which you are here.
Don’t take someone else’s interpretation of the meaning of life as true or
their word about life’s meaning for it. The reason they’re here is not
necessarily the reason you’re here; The ‘why’ of their life may have been
revealed to them. That is their own revelation, and they have no right to
impose it on anyone nor are you under any obligation to adopt it. You are
obliged, though, to seek out and live your own purpose, by virtue of your
exalted, rational nature.
There’s more to you than your function, than the position you occupy in the
hierarchy of the organization in whose employ you are. Stripped of your
honors, your titles, your function, your job, and all the external trinkets and
badges and toys, who are you? What are you?
Answer these questions successfully, truthfully and honestly and you will set
your feet squarely on the path of self-discovery. The joy and relief you will
feel at dropping the act, the liberation you will get from reconciling with and
embracing your self and its purpose, will open doors to a future you could
not have previously thought possible. You will begin to live your life, break
free of hypocrisy and fulfill your destiny.
“… For man to be truly happy, he must be mentally faithful to himself.
Infidelity does not consist in 'belief' or 'unbelief'; it consists of saying you
believe something that you really don't believe."
"When a man has gone so far as to corrupt the personal integrity of his
mind, so that he will publicly profess things he does not actually believe, he
is no better than a common criminal. That type of man will become a pastor
for the sake of money or power; and it all starts with a lie. Can you think of
anything more destructive to good morals than this?" Thomas Paine, The
Age of Reason.