Your existence is the problem. Here’s the solution…

Your existence is the problem.  Here’s the solution…

As of this writing I personally know many of the people reading this.  As time marches on and my audience continues to grow that will likely change.

One thing I can pretty well say for sure, however, is that, whether I know you personally or not, there is at least one thing that is true about you, and it’s an important one.

That truth is that you exist.

Insightful, no?  Blows everything wide open, doesn’t it?

Maybe more than you realize.

Let me explain.

You’re also a human with human self-awareness and, if you follow that, some level of awareness of that self-awareness which you can observe as you begin to examine your self-awareness.

This is a problem.  In fact, I think it’s the central problem of being human.

Other objects and beings exist as well.  We call those that come closest to our level of awareness “animals”, and most people would consider us humans to be a subset of that group.

But, I (we) don’t tend to think of their existence as a problem like I do with ours.

They are merely aware.  A select few seem to come closer to the human gold standard of self awareness: https://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/10-animals-with-self-awareness.html

But in general they don’t have the same existential issue.

Our human self awareness, and awareness of self awareness, reveals an acute displeasure in existing, which I call “existential friction”.  Other animals don’t seem to experience this.  We can never be sure, but we intuit this is true.

So, as I said, our existence is a problem.

But there is a solution.

The solution is to grow at least twice, and to never stop.

Other animals (and plants for that matter), grow once.  This is what unifies what I call the Realm of Life (the second level of my 5-level metaphysical model).

Plants grow once, and tend to do it continually.

Animals grow once, and then we call them mature.

Humans grow once, but that’s just the first step to a life well-lived.  We are then presented with the problem of continuing that growth in a different realm, which I call the Realm of Purpose.

The entire social, political, and economic nut we collectively seek to crack is how best to cultivate an environment for the human species which solves enough problems to stimulate our second growth, but not so many as to discourage it before it even starts.  Our prescription for effectively splitting this difference represents our best theory of optimizing the conditions necessary to kindle the solution to the problem of existence.

We call this solution the “human spirit”.

Think about it.  That’s ultimately what we’re all after, isn’t it?  A world with enough security and comfort to effectively facilitate that first growth, but enough challenges and obstacles to stimulate the second growth for all people in all places.

This is why politics, economics, religion, and sociology is so fraught.  None of us know exactly how to do that, but we DO know that the human spirit is the most important and fulfilling response to the problem of human existence, and that it paradoxically requires an imperfectable world in every generation.

We all know this intuitively, but when we don’t think it through rationally we sublimate it, which means many of our actions are in response to unconscious tension and displeasure.

Human existence is the problem.  The human spirit is the solution.  Imperfectability is simultaneously our greatest frustration AND our only source of opportunity for the second growth we seek.

Let that sink in and  see what changes for you.