Curiosity is little more than another name for Hope. ~Augustus William Hare
'Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.' – Aristotle
“Why the hell am I here?” – Everyone
We all share a curiosity for wanting to understand how this thing called life works.
Why are we HERE on this planet? What is our PURPOSE? Why do bad things happen to us? How can we make good things happen to us? We are constantly searching for answers and we feel if we find those answers we will have more control, more power over our life. We can figure out how to experience more pleasure and less pain. We can figure out how to survive, and more importantly, how to thrive. If we have “the answers” we will be respected, loved, (hopefully by a person and not just a pet) and successful.
Unconsciously, on a biological instinctual level, we want to be successful because the more successful we are, the more valuable we appear to be. The more valuable we appear to be in the eyes of other people, the better our chance of survival.
Our curiosity, our wonder, our search for meaning, for explanation, for ways to improve our life, have existed since the dawn of man.
The first humans that walked the earth in the years before the discovery of science, some 3,000 years ago wanted explanations and some sort of control over life, so they made up mythological Gods to explain why things happened. They didn’t have Google, they didn’t have the internet, they didn’t have weather forecast stations. The first humans spent their time battling the elements, animals, and themselves.
But even way back then, they searched for meaning and understanding.
They made up superstitions to give them purpose, action to take.
Summer time drought? Plants aren’t growing in the fields? Make a sacrifice to the Gods. Do a rain dance. Every culture and civilization had some sort of spiritual belief…a variety of fabled stories, warnings, lessons.
Call them stories of religion, of mythology, of ‘fairy tales’ – no matter what you call them, they gave people comfort, gave them explanations (based on stories not science), and gave them purpose. Nobility enjoyed the finer things of life. Everyone else struggled and worked their butts off. The people without privilege traded stories of hope, assuring each other that, in the end, the humble impoverished life they led, would be rewarded after death. Or perhaps they would be re-incarnated again and again – giving them a chance to have a better life. These stories are how people endured nature when it was daunting, harrowing.
We seem to have come a-long way since those days…or have we?
We’re still telling stories, but some of the stories are disguised as science and just as imaginary and fictional as they were at the beginning of civilization.
Throughout history we’ve all shared the desire to strive for genuine happiness and a significant life. A life that has meaning.
The definition to what genuine happiness and significance is has been asked and answered and proved long, long ago…but the more time passes, the more those definitions become distorted by people with their own agenda – by people who strive to control, strive for power for themselves and no-one else.
We don’t understand the true meaning of happiness and significance because we are bombarded with confusing, conflicting messages. Because we are sent on a wild goose chase by people claiming to be helpful, but in reality, they are hurtful. Because we are too busy escaping by binging on Netflix, popping Xanax, eating Vegan hot dogs on gluten free buns, running in the Iron Man this weekend and doing a national Cross Fit competition next weekend. We are too busy being distracted by MSNBC, FOX NEWs, New York Times, Time Magazine, People magazine, or whatever news app brings us the latest breaking news: Bruce Jenner Picks A Hair Weave!
When you cut through all the noise, however, the question is; what is genuine happiness and how do we experience a significant life?
Significance comes from personal courage and confidence to pursue individual dreams. Significance comes from honorable character, an optimistic attitude, and using creative enterprise instead of common excuses…
The Superior few believed only they were entitled to power, to regulate, to rule, and to the finer things in life. And then along came the dream of America – that we are all capable of significance. That every man can.
America was built on determination, individual dreams, character, confidence, courage, grit, creative enterprise, and optimism. Americans’ were united in their fight for individual freedom. However, not all of them were eager to be free.
There were still some people that were too afraid to be independent, they were not courageous enough to fight for their dreams, they lived in a comfort zone under a superior ruler and didn’t want to jeopardize their status. They already enjoyed a ‘good life’ and didn’t want to ruin it.
Slowly but surely, we’ve been distracted, confused, conditioned, and corrupted.
Our world today is filled with comforts and conveniences; it is a world of constant change and conflicting messages. The unimaginable freedom that courageous people fought for, and still fight for, is slowly eroding thanks to exploiters, cowards, and the unaware.
Our basic human instinct of striving for individual purpose, freedom, battling nature, meeting challenges with creativity and moxie, has been gradually corrupted by a culture exploiting our six basic instinctual fears. Exploiters use simple but effective marketing methods designed to corrode our courage, our confidence, our character and diminish our significance and independence.
America seems to have come full circle, and once again, we are focused on superiority rather than significance We’ve allowed our attention to wander and we’ve been sidetracked by Exploiters using status and superior salvation schemes: the compassion distraction, the disease deception, the victim affliction, the education exaggeration, expert delusions and science illusions.
Exploiters are chipping at our backbones and replacing them with wishbones; selling salvation in order to distract, divide, and dis-empower us.
When people are on their death beds, they don’t look back on their life and say, “What did WE do?” – they look back on life and reflect: “What did I do? What did I accomplish? Was I the best I could be? Did I add value to the world? Was MY life significant?”
And though we have made leaps and bounds – it feels like we’re once again handing over our personal power and instead of relying on our instincts, on our own experiences, on examples of what worked in history (Independence! Apple Pie!) and what didn’t (Hitler! New Coke!) , we tend to put our trust in the latest EXPERT who wrote a magazine article, is a health guru, talk show host, reality star, religious leader, professor, psychological expert, or politician. We’re eager to trade logic, reason and experience, in things we know to be true, in order to believe promises of an EASIER, faster way to success and a stress-free path to influence and higher status.
But why do we put so much power in other people and not in our own worth?
A brief look back at history will explain how power and influence have shifted and changed from a very small, royal, powerful group to anyone who has vision, courage, confidence, wisdom, and tenacity.
We’ve evolved from telling stories of mythological Gods who resemble action heroes (Zeus! Thor!), to religions featuring ‘ordinary’ men (Jesus, Mohammed), to science (Aristotle! Galileo!).
Science is rapidly becoming the new spirituality. Yet, with all the ‘advances’ since 3,000 years ago (we have come a-long way baby!), people are still quite unhappy and outwardly powerless.
