"Don't follow leaders," sang Bob Dylan. Wise words. Don't lead followers either. People who push themselves to become leaders tend to have big egos, inflated sense of self-importance, a need for adulation and approval. This can have Freudian causes – compensating for an unhappy childhood – or genetic causes ("papa was too"). Putin, Trump and Johnson all spring to mind.
Religious cults are typically led by the same sort of person, requiring faithful acolytes. Religions, political systems and corporations should screen for people with the 'dark triad' of personality traits (psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism) to ensure that such people will never lead. However, this type is adept at masking the true nature of their character.
Followers, on the other hand, tend to look for simple answers to adopt, an ideology or religion that they can plug into and, having found it, many will remain with it, unquestioningly. In psychological terms, followers are on the lower rungs of the ladder of authority. The dynamics of this thirst to find a leader is beautifully portrayed in this scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian:
ARTHUR: Hail Messiah!
BRIAN: I'm not the Messiah!
ARTHUR: I say you are, Lord, and I should know. I've followed a few.
FOLLOWERS: Hail Messiah!
BRIAN: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand?! Honestly!
GIRL: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
BRIAN: What?! Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
FOLLOWERS: He is! He is the Messiah!
BRIAN: Now, fuck off!
[silence]
ARTHUR: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?
So – neither wishing to be a leader, nor a follower, which path is the right one?
Open, honest seeking. Seek, but at your own pace. The quest for truth should accelerate with age. Your twenties and thirties are not the time for your ego to retreat whilst engaging on such a quest for esoteric knowledge and supernatural phenomena; this is the time to put food on the table, earn money and get on with it. But once the children have left home and some degree of comfort has been achieved – seek.
"Embrace widely, hold lightly," to quote John Ramirez. Reject ideas you once held should they no longer hold true; continually fine-tune your metaphysical worldview, discuss it, modify it, parse it on the basis of intuition. Work on it; over the years it becomes more accurate, and more useful.
I am informed by intuition; much of what I have written in this Lenten series of posts is the result of inspiration; ideas entering my stream of consciousness, bidden, aligned, extraneous teaching.
Aiming ultimately for a better understanding of life, for greater contentment, for fulfilment of our human potential – these goals are best achieved individually rather than collectively under the watchful gaze of a self-appointed leader (or worse – one who claims to have been appointed by God). The metaphysical world has no need for leaders. Teachers, by all means, learn from them but accept them not as leaders.
Lent 2023, Day 38
Go with the flow, or swim against the tide
Lent 2022: Day 38
When I was a child, I understood as a child
Lent 2021: Day 38
Will we ever understand what's inside the atom?
Lent 2020: Day 38
Religion, Society and the Individual
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