“Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” (Alice in Wonderland)
The great puzzle of life is the pursuit of meaning and understanding.
I feel that I’m constantly searching for rhyme or reason as to our existence, to how the universe works and where we fit in the whole charade.
I can imagine that many of you feel the same.
I think it’s the natural human condition to feel this way sometimes.
We are fortunate enough to have the intelligence to be able to question what is our reality, however we are not lucky enough to have the capacity to understand the inherent meaning of it all.
Life is wonderful, or it’s not, how you feel about it is determined by the lens through which you choose to view the world.
Much like how Alice escaped down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, I feel as though in the last few years, I’ve been climbing down the rabbit hole that is self-awareness and self-discovery. Attempting to assign meaning and understanding of the things that happen in this crazy chaotic world.
Not to mention the things that I decide to do and the things that I decide not to.
Reading, writing and listening to some of the worlds greatest thinkers, and consuming information from a wide range of sources has shown me that pretty much everyone is winging it, the answers to the biggest questions are all conceptual and the more we learn, the more we realise we don’t know anything…. the Dunning-Kruger effect is strong with this one.
This quote by Mark Manson sums it up pretty well;
“Self-awareness is like great sex: everyone thinks they have a ton of it, but in reality, no one knows what the fuck they’re doing”
Hands up if you’re self-aware enough to know you’re not as self-aware as you think you are…
What can you do to become more self-aware? I’m definitely not the authority on this topic, I’m not sure if anyone is. We are all incredibly biased and caught up in our own perceptions of this world.
Regardless, here is some unsolicited advice about things you can do to improve your awareness.
Journal
Daily, weekly, monthly, it doesn’t matter. Find some time to put pen to paper. You can never write faster than you can think. Each day I write 1 page of consciousness. No agenda, I just fill the page with an idea or a stream of thoughts. Today I hit #350 in a row, and this has helped how I feel and think more than almost anything else.
Seek Disconfirming Information
You’re a biased motherf***er, we all are. Ask how you might be wrong. If you’re lucky enough to have mature, trustworthy people around you, ask them what your biases may be and how they think that you can improve.
Listen and Observe
We all have patterns, behaviours and habits that we don’t realise we do autonomously. Listen to yourself, and those you trust to give yourself some feedback and to try to understand what is happening.
Feel
Give yourself space and time to feel how you need to feel. Embrace uncomfortable feelings like jealousy and frustration. Soak it up when you’re feeling ecstatic and joyous. Good or bad, how we feel can open the door to what we really think and believe.
Take yourself less seriously
Life is short, meaningless (you must create your own) and in the grand scheme of things, unimportant. Take a breath, have some fun, make mistakes and enjoy the hell out of the ride.
Life is a rabbit hole.
A journey that is increasingly complicated, strange, difficult, chaotic and complex, that seemingly becomes more difficult the further we travel. It ends when we do. All we can do is embrace the chaos, make meaning when we can, and enjoy every second of this wonderful journey.
You’re doing a great job.
Lachie
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“The purpose of music is to elevate the spirit and inspire.
Not to help push some product down your throat. It puts you in tune with your own existence. Sometimes you really don’t know how you feel, but really good music can define how you feel…someone who’s telling me where he’s been that I haven’t and what it’s like there…somebody whose life I can feel
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// Bob Dylan //”
