We have all learned how to 'mask'; how to camouflage our true selves to blend in with the collective. Becoming a part of society, integrating, becoming accepted by our peers, is crucial to the years between adolescence and parenthood.
At this stage in life, it's all about marking our place in the status hierarchy, with the aim of selecting an optimal mate for reproduction. Of course, this intent is carefully masked within society and hidden from the participants themselves (who don't really realise at the time why they are going to this party or that dance).
We try to fit in. We learn what we can and what we cannot say; how sincere we can really be, and how we behave. What words and behaviours are interesting enough to get noticed and liked – and where to draw the line, how not to repel or outrage with what we say and do. Be an outlier, by all means, but not an outsider.
The ego is driven by biological imperatives in youth. This is not the time of life to search for the meaning of life. It is the time to integrate but also to make one's mark, and the ego helps here. Status symbols help here. As a teenager, having one's own income – a Saturday or holiday job – suggests that one is self-reliant and not just poncing off indulgent parents.
In the traditional 'sex-for-security' model, girls will favour young men who can demonstrate resourcefulness, reliability and emotional stability. So if you're not resourceful, unreliable and emotionally unstable, at least you have to pretend to be. It's what society, the collective, expects of you. It's what your biology expects too – survival of the fittest. Adapting to the environment, the social environment here being the collective. Survival of those who fit in best.
So buckle down, put on a brave face and get on with it.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the background, the consciousness is feeling, observing, experiencing, as it has done since earliest childhood. That's where the true Self is residing. The notion of masking your true self while promoting the ego, and your 'shell of foam', is extremely common behavioural trait by people – don't reveal your true self to others, in particular those who have yet to form a judgment. Create an image, pose. impose, impress. Play a role.
The aim is to reach a level of material comfort, settle down, settle in, reproduce, bring up the children – and then what? Once everyone is adequately fed, clothed and housed, educated and, like Kahlil Gibran's arrows that have left the bow, it is time for the ego to withdraw; it has performed its biological duty.
You no longer have to flash that brave face. Now is the time for the true Self to come to the fore, to seek its destiny, to manifest its true potential. Heed the intuition's calling; listen to the inner voice. You no longer need to prove your worth to society in material ways as a productive consumer; it's now time to step off the materialist treadmill. Busting a gut at work to earn extra money to buy things you don't need to impress people? That's teenage stuff, really. Juvenile behaviour. Needed in young-adult years, but a mindset that's a millstone in middle age, holding you back from contentment and joy. Not for me is bucket-list travel, ticking off destinations so I can impress other by reeling off exotic places visited. Not for me shopping around for fine clothes or cars.
What, then?
The search for deeper meaning drives me on. Today, this has never been easier, with the works of scientists, philosophers, theologians, historians and sociologists accessible online. Curiosity is no longer restricted by limited access to libraries and bookshops. Forming an understanding of reality that matches that which your consciousness experience, that's my goal.
The first half of your life can indeed be driven by your biology and ego. But the second half should should have deeper purpose. And for the good of the Collective – and the environment – dial back the materialist impulse.
Lent 2023: Day 24
The Spirituality of Cosmic Life
Lent 2022: Day 23
Matter and materialism
Lent 2021: Day 23
Near-death experiences and the Afterlife
Lent 2020: Day 23
Refutation I
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