When You Finally Realise That No-one Else Has A Clue
We’re All Just Making It Up As We Go Along
I’m going to let you in on a little secret that takes many people years to learn. Some go an entire lifetime on the planet and never figure it out.
Here goes…ready?
No-one knows the meaning of life. Put it a different way, no-one can tell you what your purpose is.
Yikes!
I know that sounds bleak. It certainly did to me when I first began to grapple with it. Here’s a countering idea to balance out the stark reality.
Life is full of hope and beauty. It is a series of choices — you pick and choose as you along. You can choose to see beauty or decide to focus on misery.
Better?
It might seem at first that the thought in the first statement is counter to the second, but it isn’t. They are complementary ideas.
There is not a single living person who can tell you unequivocally why life exists or what your role is within it. But your experience of life will always fill you with as much beauty and hope as you create capacity for. Whether you are aware of it or not, you are constantly choosing your next experiences for better or worse.
To me, this is freeing.
“Truth Shall Set You Free”
Truth can be jarring when you first hear it, but it always brings with it a liberation in your mind — and eventually in your reality, if you allow it.
I used to believe in certain ideas about life from self-professed experts (an aside: all experts are self-professed). The definition of a professional or professor is someone who professes or claims knowledge of something.
Read: Everyone is faking this life thing and hoping to make it (you should too).
A body of professionals or professors is just a grouping of people professing knowledge to each other and agreeing with each other’s claims.
If another group came around and debunked all their knowledge, well, it’s back to square one. The profession is re-built around new, superior professed knowledge.
Some examples through history: Nazism, Sexism, Chattel slavery, Colonialism.
Racism exists today because a lot of people accept the false idea of different races of humans. There is only one human race — the idea of race-based discrimination is recently being radically challenged across the globe. It may still be some time in the making but some day in the not too distant future, this false belief will be supplanted with a higher one.
It isn’t difficult to imagine capitalism, democracy and modern religion going the same way in time.
Faking It Is The Only Way To Gain Knowledge
The more you learn the less you know.
Knowledge is a continuum that starts and ends with ignorance.
At the start, you do not realise the level of your ignorance and by the end, you are more aware of how little you do in-fact know.
An eye-opening theory explains the contradiction you often find in those who know the least being the loudest and most vocal.
When I was a primary school, the Dunning-Kruger Effect was explained with simple language to enable even a child’s comprehension, “Empty barrels make the most noise”.
The wise are less eager to profess themselves experts in anything. For the very reason that they are further along on in the acquisition of knowledge.
There are two important insights to get from this:
- You should start to practise what you think you know. Because chances are good that you do not know as much about anything as you think you might.
- You should look with a sideways squint at anyone who confidently claims to know anything thoroughly. On the flip side, listen more closely to those who admit that they haven’t got it all figured out.
Connecting The Dots
Alright, let’s get to the fun part (aka what to do with this knowledge).
What happens when you meet all your heroes and realise they are not living gods?
They are just like you. No higher on the evolutionary ladder. No compelling insights into the mystery of the human condition. Just plain old people.
Freedom happens!
You throw off the shackles that have kept you stuck on the starting line. You get on with the job of living a life that you can take pride and pleasure in.
The Unsearchable Randomness of Life
Some will call this phenomenon a higher power, divine providence or luck. I like to call it the unsearchable randomness of life.
The unsearchable randomness of life does not take breaks, it keeps going non-stop and it can strike you too at the shortest notice.
It does not discriminate and will as readily shine it’s light on you as the guy ahead of you in a grocery line.
Sure, some have found a way to form a symbiosis with the world’s randomness that works for them. Do not be mistaken in thinking that this method will work for everyone and/or that it will work all the time.
But you can find your own way which works for you.
Exiting Your Echo Chamber
Wherever you find yourself in the majority, you will find reinforcements for your beliefs.
There is safety and comfort in professing your knowledge and having it parroted back to you by the masses.
But life is lived to its fullest at the boundaries of your comfort zone. It takes a bit of discomfort and danger to forge your own path.
You will not find freedom or truth in marking time or walking in the shadow of others.
Why would you even want to?
A conventional path will get you conventional results. The path of exceptionalism is never replicable, otherwise it would be called something different.
There are no guarantees of success in taking the road less travelled. Neither will living a paint-by-numbers life get you the fulfilment and actualised existence that you crave.
The choice is always yours to play it safe or shoot for greatness.