You’ll Never Find Yourself — You Must Create Yourself

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If you're interested in philosophy, self-improvement, and online business, you can join my Discord to chat with me directly and connect with people who share your interests
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I’m turning 29 this week, and the hardest lesson I’ve learned in my third decade is that no amount of consumption will ever help me discover myself.

A few years ago, my generation rallied behind a radical new cry against materialism: “Buy experiences, not things.”

The result?

A shift from a culture of ownership to a culture of digital feudalism, in which we rent, borrow, and subscribe to meet our essential needs — forever — through exploitative entities like BlackRock and AirBnB
A rootlessness that permeates an entire generation as people live their lives “connected” online, but disconnected from the people and places that surround them
A toxic hustle culture that has bloomed to help people chase the glamorous, jet-setting lifestyles promoted by successful social media influencers

What started as a resistance to consumerism became its greatest hiding place. Now, digital nomads roam and ravage the cultures of tourist hotspots like Bali, Croatia, Portugal, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam — all without truly seeing or connecting with the places and their inhabitants.

Food For Thought

“Hence men travel far and wide, wandering along foreign shores and making trial by land and sea of their restlessness, which always hates what is around it. . . . They make one journey after another and change spectacle for spectacle. As Lucretius says, ‘Thus each man ever flees himself.’ But to what end, if he does not escape himself? He pursues and dogs himself as his own most tedious companion. And so we must realize that our difficulty is not the fault of the places, but of ourselves.” — Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind

What You Don’t Create, You Will Destroy

So, if spending our savings on random bullshit and shallow consumer experiences won’t save us, what will?

I think the answer is simple, but not easy: we must create.

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” — Genesis 1:27, New International Version

“The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.” — The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 15, Verse 7

“The soul of man is a portion of the divine from above, and the secret of the Holy Ancient One.” — The Zohar, Ra’aya Meheimna (II 4b)

One of the oldest ideas in the collective mythos of humanity is that we are formed in the likeness of a divine “Creator” intelligence.

Some people take this to mean God has one finger for each Commandment, and that he uses them to stroke an epic beard while he plans the fate of humanity. But I think that’s a bit off the mark.

I think it means that we are Creators too.

Our nature drives us to take initiative over our own stories and to use our creative minds to add something to the Universe.

Our Art
Our Work
Our Lessons
Our Stories

However, as noted in The Bhagavad Gita, our culture conditions us to stifle our creativity and self-expression in favor of hyper-specialization as if we were insects in a hive or cogs in a machine.

Through a divine lens, we exist to create.

Through our modern capitalist lens, we exist to consume.

This is why common modern rhetoric opposes creative pursuits and the study of liberal arts like philosophy, advocating instead only “useful” subjects, like STEM and trades; if you specialize, you can make lots of money with a cushy tech or trade job, then spend that money liberally on your preferred poison of stuff or experiences.

Besides, Melon Husk and Tronald Dump need people to design their fancy cars and unclog their toilets, so there’s no time to waste on writing, art, or music.

But, here’s the thing:

If we don’t use our creative energy to explore and expand ourselves, it twists into a Shadow and destroys us. The symptoms manifest as aggression, anxiety, depression, irritability, low self-esteem, and shame.

As we suppress our creativity and individuality in an effort to follow the status quo, our Shadow grows, and it can turn us into people we barely recognize.

We can try to run from it:

By buying fancy junk and pricey experiences to distract us, and working ourselves to death to pay for them
By traveling the world when we don’t even know what we’re searching for
By abusing substances and having hot sex with strangers to numb the pain of self-suppression

But we can’t escape our Shadow, because it’s part of us. Anywhere we go, we carry our tormentor with us: our creative mind, fighting to be released from its cage.

The only solution is to unlock the door and give our creative mind a job it’s worthy of: pursuing passions that fill our souls with light.

When we allow our creativity to flourish, we grow.

In other words: we create ourselves.

Namaste.

Question Of The Week

If you could spend your time creating anything you wanted, what would it be? Are you doing that? Why or why not?

Announcements

The Creator Lab is a new community inside my Discord where creators can build their network, increase their skills, grow their audience, and monetize their passions. This community is currently free, but will go paid this summer. However, everyone who joins now will keep their free membership after the official launch.
Creator Strategy Chat: I'm hosting a free, live Creator Strategy Chat in the Discord on Saturday, March 25 at 11:00 AM EST.
Book Club: This month I'm reading On the Shortness of Life by Seneca (ancient Roman Statesman and practicing stoic) and The Book Of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi (greatest samurai of all time). Next month, I'll be reading The Republic by Plato. You can join the discussion about these books on Patreon for $1
The Soul Forge Podcast: The latest episode of The Soul Forge features James Murray, a talented musician and modern bard. We talked about music, creativity, business, government, health and wellness, and more. Listen on your favorite podcast platforms here or watch on YouTube here.

3 Ways I Can Help You

If you want to master your mind, manifest your power, and create your ideal self, there are three ways I can help you do that:

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Hey, I'm Chris

stop trying to find yourself 🔎