[This “Individuality and Absurd Rebellion” series of posts introduces you to ideas you’ll find in Eric Maisel’s most recent book Redesign Your Mind. You can learn more about Redesign Your Mind here.]
Isn’t the pull to individuality going to incline you toward a demanding personality where you feel entitled to interrupt, out-shout, ignore, trample, dismiss, sulk and strive arrogantly for what you want? Individuals know that this narcissism is in them.
The more you proudly invoke your individuality, the more you may find yourself in conflict between modesty and native grandiosity, between goodness and genetic self-interest, between individuality and simple narcissism.
To handle this conflict may require that you encourage a personality upgrade. Who would you like to be ideally? An individual asks that bold question and invites up an answer. Are you already your best you? That’s highly unlikely.
Maybe you repeatedly behave in a cruel way, because you were humiliated as a child and find it viscerally satisfying to destroy others. As the universe does not arbitrate meaning, you have that option available to you. But an individual refuses to indulge himself that way.
Maybe you like to storm about because you thrive on drama. Maybe you’ve gotten into the habit of blaming and hating. Maybe you’ve left the battlefield and gone into hiding. You’ve ended up somewhere—but that mustn’t be the end point.
Maybe out of anxiety you leave things undone and avoid living your life purposes. The universe has no way to reduce your anxiety and, by virtue of its starkness and relentlessness, only increases it. Individuals must create their own calmness.
Maybe your edge isn’t grandiosity or arrogance but meekness and passivity. Then your personality upgrade would look very different from a narcissist’s. Yours might look like a fierce warrior butterfly finally emerging from its cocoon of safety.
Just as we accept the burdens of individuality, self-obligation, self-authorship, absurd rebellion, and goodness, we accept the burden of transforming ourselves into a more ideal version of ourselves, into the best version of ourselves.
We use our freedom to step to one side, to gaze into the full-length mirror hanging there, and to make conscious decisions about who we intend to be. We come into the world already somebody, our personality forms, and then we upgrade it. This is each individual’s journey from personality to personhood. You look at life and you look at yourself and you say, “To honor my individuality and to meet my obligations to myself, I must transform myself into someone much better equipped.”
But even then, you will only be better equipped, not perfectly equipped. You’ll improve your navigation skills as you author your story but you can’t guarantee sailing to the right country or avoiding a shipwreck when you try to land there. Just try your best. What more can be asked of you?
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock
