In my early twenties I began to be plagued with questions like:
Why are we here?
What is my life’s purpose?
Is there a god?
Is there an intelligence at work in the universe and can I connect with it?
Why would I even ask such questions in the first place? What is it about our human mind that propels us to ask THESE kinds of questions? What is it about humans, beyond the impetus for survival, that cause us to do and think certain things?
Infantilization and Attachment
If we were to be born and just grow, like a tree, breathe the air and BE we would be content. But we don’t. For some reason we choose to ask questions to which there are no answers. Then we make up stories about things that can never be proven to answer our own questions. This creates a feedback loop of nonsense.
Let’s go back to ourselves as infants and children. We live in a world of imagination and dependency on our adult caregivers. We play make-believe and live in our play world where we are the authors of our lives and whatever we make up is true. We have imaginary friends. We create elaborate fantasies. There is a monster in the closet or under the bed and we need someone to rescue us.
Our adult caregivers protect us, hopefully. Hopefully, our dependency needs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_need) are met. If our caregivers are mean to us or abuse us or punish us harshly this stays with us. We continue to have dependency needs as adults in the form of emotional support and the same many of the survival needs we had as children that we now provide for ourselves. But sometimes these lines between childhood needs that were not adequately met and our adult needs can get blurred. This leads us to begin a search for something out there to fill a void inside we are not even aware of.
In essence we are still partially that little child searching for that adult to care for us and love us.
_The Storytelling Animal _
In an attempt to make sense of the information coming into the human brain through our organs and senses the mind organizes this in the form of a narrative or stories. If this did not happen we would feel like we were under assault with meaningless data. Our stories organize themselves with a beginning, middle and end with meaning, plot and characters along the way.
Kung Sang African Pygmy Storyteller 1947
Looking up at the adults responsible for our survival turned into looking up at the sky and making up a story about a heavenly parent who created us and put us here to make sense of why we seem to have been placed or abandoned here on this planet. However which way you want to look at it, most of us at some point feel abandoned.
Humans looked to these projections full of awe, gratitude, worship and of course fear. That which gave us life could also take it away.
The Magical Mind
Our magic making, creative minds are never ceasing to create fantastical, beautiful, whimsical and terrible stories of how we possibly came to be on this planet and who is responsible.
I think it’s beautiful. I also think if any of these beliefs help anyone live a better life or feel more fulfilled or complete and they are a better person because of it and make the world a better place then so be it.
Perhaps it would behoove us to temper these beliefs with rationality and put our beliefs to a litmus test:Do these beliefs support my everyday mundane reality?
Do these beliefs make sense?
Can I distinguish between metaphor, myth and have a grounded psychologically, kind and humane posturing toward my fellow human beings?
These are the type of questions that guide my life now. And because I can answer YES to them ~ I am happy as hell.
I’d love to hear your thoughts…
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