Society & Politics

What Makes You Feel Whole?

What Makes You Feel Whole?

I want to ask you a question, but it has a rather circuitous route (welcome to my mind; and I apologize in advance...)

And it Begins with Algorithms

YouTube is the most-used social media site across the globe. I use it every day.
Google purchased YouTube. I use Google Chrome as my main browser (and others, for private browsing.) Now Google has an even deeper portal into who we are. I am not happy about it - the interconnectedness of all online activity. As the saying goes, 'If you don't know the product being sold... it's you.' I would caution you to always be aware and mindful of that. Very few things are truly free.

Totem, as used in the film Inception
Totem, as used in the film 'Inception'

Despite this, I do create accounts, I do often browse logged in, and I do sometimes see the value - no, let's say, the benefit - of algorithms. 'Relevant ads' are one thing (and yes, the intermittently mind-bendable sucker that I am, I did make a purchase recently, because of an ad - they finally found one of my weak spots - movies - and a spinning totem replica from 'Inception.' I paid too much, and I thought it was broken at first because it definitely took some serious practice to get it spinning into infinity, but now - ta da! I have mastered the skill; yay for functioning brains, and it's a beautifully-designed, challenging, piece of movie memorabilia, and I do absolutely love it, so thank you, Director Christopher Nolan, and thank you algorithms - and soak it up, 'cause this may be one of the only times you hear that from me.) Algorithms definitely know how to entice us, and are becoming more and more sophisticated at refining what they serve up to us, to keep us hypnotized in their ether. YouTube is the best of the best at this. Sometimes it fails to find the needle in the haystack of what is my mood; other times, it dishes up one tasty morsel after another, and I actually marvel at it.

One day I received a DM from a friend and he sent me a link to a song that he liked. It is an old song; decades old. I didn't like it back then. It's from my generation, not his (though he's into classic rock, and many types of retro music, so it was actually more his thing than mine.) But another friend, whom I've known for more than twenty years, three days prior to that, sent me an invite to his YouTube channel, in which one of the videos was of himself, as an at-the-time 20something inspiring actor and model, in that very same song video (it was a karaoke version he was paid to do.) My reaction: WTF? Is Guy #1 a bot? A hacker? Trying to social engineer me? No. No way. These guys are legit. They both passed the sniff test. Except that I am a cynic and skeptic, so my default is to question. But this... it's coincidence, straight up serendipity; but the connection was unnerving, to say the least.

What Makes You Feel Whole?

So, I go on Youtube to find the video, of Guy #2, to send to Guy #1, to tell him of this funny and bizarre coincidence of both sending me the same exact, very old, song, but YouTube has its own plans for me (in case I don't have any), and I am thwarted from finishing my search because of... cat videos. It knows I like cat videos (honestly, how can one not?) Whatever else I'm doing, a random cat video here and there are like great little palette cleansers. And today's most intriguing one looks to be a cat who loves money. One hundred dollar bills, to be exact. Four legs and fur, no matter, this cat knows. So now I am sidetracked (as they want me to be), and smiling away at this thick-furred, happy kitty, purring away, practically snorting cash (eventually he lies down in his bed of money, just as we all do one day.) He's reeeally into the scent. Maybe he's onto something. Nothing smells like money. Why is that? Is it deliberate, by governments, or is it just a unique byproduct of their secretive and multi-layered production process? Anyway.

After the cat video, what appears? A video of interview clips with actors, about money, fame, and happiness. Okay, now they've done it. In for a penny, in for a pound. I now barely remember what I came to find.

Uh... What?

I know. I'm a bit nuts. Just a little. (Didn't you ever like Connect the Dots, when you were a kid? I did.) So what this is about...

It's about technology. It's about serendipitous connections. It's about money and the pursuit of it. And it's about what ultimately makes us feel whole.

The fame/happiness topic got me thinking about the true drivers of what really makes us feel whole. I'd like to hear from you, but I'll answer now for me. (There's no facts here, just musings.)

But I think it's about two things:

Self-actualization is the realization of one's potential, and the development of one's abilities and appreciation for life.

This concept is at the top of the Maslow hierarchy of needs. (Although some charts add also, transcendence.)

Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

1. Self-Actualization Through Understanding of Yourself, and the World

Is about having a deep understanding of the world (as much as is reasonably possible without driving oneself completely nuts and feeling overwhelmed that there is always more to know.) I'm interested in how things fit together. What is the framework which connects seemingly disparate ideas, or events? 'Why' is something I think about often. Even when I'm out for a walk, dancing on the line between city and nature, I look around and question many things. (It's hard to shut my brain off.) It could be a question about the natural environment, or it could be a tool or product designed by (wo)man.

But I guess more than the physical world, it is people, and society (and especially sea changes) that make me question. And so I read, and listen, and talk, and write, and after so many years of doing this, I've come to the conclusion that all that was not just idle talk, or a waste of time (in part with specific people who were in my life only temporarily); it was such a driver in me because understanding makes me feel whole. I like sharing ideas, and coming to a better understanding of the world. That feeling that is created (for both, I think) when two people share and combine ideas, as well as an understanding of each other, can be very, very satisfying.

I want to know things. Not all things. Some things I can be ignorant about (I suck at science, for instance. I don't know why they never much went in, scientific principles.) But the individual... yes. Society... yes. I can put myself in someone else's shoes. I can understand. I know this world of the mind, and motivations. It pings, it stimulates, and occasionally it inspires. It can sometimes even give me hope (such as that maybe humanity's not doomed?)

(Incidentally, I have a friend, one of the two wisest women I have ever known personally, who has, I believe, reached the top of that pyramid - transcendence. {Many do not reach self-actualization, let alone transcendence.} She may deny it; she is extremely humble - one of the many things I love about her - but, she may softly agree she is on her way, in a long, intensive, multi-year journey to reach it. A man, a husband, committing suicide is one of the worst, most senseless, almost unspeakable, tragedies that is unfortunately not rare enough in our society, but when that man does so because he has a gambling addiction, was a victim of a downturned economy, tried to help out his mother by making a big cross-country move which she later changed her mind and decided she did not want, and he has a series of bouts of bad luck... even then, his life is not worthless. Even then his life has value. Yet he could not see it. How do the living, the loved ones, reconcile that? They go deep, deep inside themselves to dig for reason, to dig for truth, to find answers. And in a process so emotionally humbling, and deconstructing as this, maybe, just maybe, they find something more than they ever thought existed inside a simple body, and vast and complex mind; and if they are very, very fortunate, maybe they find transcendence.)

2. Fulfillment Through Authenticity

"She was right, you know. The locus of my identity is totally exterior to me."

- Penny, The Big Bang Theory

Fulfillment may also come from finding your authentic self. It sounds abstract, and nebulous, yes, but maybe it, perhaps, encompasses all. It's not about achievements, accomplishments, and accolades; there is no dog chasing a mechanical white rabbit around the track. Being authentic is about having some inner sense of consistency, stability, and resolve. There is a 'rightness' but not righteousness to one's actions and behaviour.

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

- Pablo Picasso

It is about finding who you are, what is at the core, what you stand for, what values you hold and abide by, and you are able to be true to those. And yes, they do need to be substantive. They cannot eternally be extrinsic, external. We're living in a time when too many people believe that notoriety, fame, is the way to finally be happy. And that is just not true. The longer they stay fixated on the idea, this idea which is corrupted, the longer it will take to find inner peace. Goals can be about you, but not entirely and unabashedly self-serving. You don't need to put others always ahead of yourself, but you do need to think of others, both specifically in your intimate circle, and abstractly in the world. The goal is to live in such a way that integrates who you are, and your place in the world, while not sacrificing yourself in that process. What good is the internet of the world, if we remain stoically and resolutely disconnected from, and in opposition to, others who also inhabit it?

I believe when we live counter to what is our authentic (and kind, and not-afraid-to-be-vulnerable, yet secure self), it seeps out of us in indirect and unintended ways. And then the excuses, and justifications come out in an attempt to redirect focus away from the self, and from what we are trying to hide. But do you really believe it? Or is the veracity just a symptom, a byproduct, of trying to hold onto something you know is actually quite brittle... fragile? And that brings me back 'round, 360°, to understanding. My goal is to understand myself, and to understand the world, and to integrate the two where both can survive, and hopefully thrive, without complete cataclysm. If we all were able to achieve this, we could feel whole as individuals, but also a part of a much greater whole. Integrated, cohesive, yet still an individual. Supported, and simulatenously supporting.

“Yates used to say it takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your mind, than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield. Courage to think critically, courage to think, courage to love, courage to hope.”

- Philosopher Cornel West

The brilliant modern day philosopher, Cornel West, with a counterargument:

"Ride on the dissonance. Ride on the blue notes. Why start with this obsession with wholeness and if you can’t have it then you’re disappointed, and you have a drink, and melancholia, blah blah blah. My kind of blues begins with catastrophe, begins with the angel of history, and Benjamin’s thesis, you see, it begins with the power of wreckage, one pile on another. That’s the starting point. The blues is personal catastrophe lyrically expressed. How do you generate an elegance of earned self-togetherness, so you have a stick-to-it-ness in the face of the catastrophic, the calamitous, and the horrendous, and the scandalous, and the monstrous?

I think the problem of meaning is very important. Nihilism is a serious challenge. Meaninglessness is a serious challenge. Even making sense of meaninglessness is itself a kind of discipline and achievement. The problem is, of course, you never reach it, you know? It’s not a static, stationary telos or end or aim. It’s a process one never reaches. It’s sisyphean, you know, you’re going up the hill. Looking for better meanings, or better, grander, more enabling meanings. But you never reach it, and in that sense you die without being able to have the whole, in the language of the romantic discourse."

- Cornel West

And... A Little What Not to Do?

Don't seek happiness. Happiness is temporary. Happiness is a temporary emotional response to a specific, desired, outcome... a wish. "If I win I will be happy." [And therefore "If I don't I won't."] 'If thens...' rarely work. It is a standard we cannot attain, because when we attain it, we simply raise it again, raise the bar, or create a whole new standard to chase. This sometimes makes us better, yes. Resetting goals has made humanity achieve many things. But sometimes it just makes us more anxious, more discontented. Our challenge, perhaps, is to ride the dissonance between them.

“It’s clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper; deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages. Deeper even than inflation or recession. In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities. Too many of us now, tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but what one owns. But we’ve discovered that only things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence of purpose. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance. But it is the truth and it is a warning.”

‘The Malaise Speech’, July 15, 1979,

President Jimmy Carter

https://www.c-span.org/video/?153917-1/president-carter-address

Full transcript: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=32596

Your Turn...

So, what do we want? What are you searching for? What are you seeking, and what have you found? To be known? Understood? Worthy? Valued? Enlightened? To have incremental but daily progress? Vast or esoteric knowledge? To have changed, or benefited, the world in some way? To be surrounded by loved ones? Or one loved one to hold you tight, at night? In short ("Too late for that now, Amanda!" I know, I know), what does, or would, make you feel whole?

Footnote:

The Big Bang Theory Reference:

Penny: "Oh, well, I'm an actress." Beverly Hofstadter: "Why?" Penny: "What do you mean why?" Beverly Hofstadter: "Well, there are studies that suggest that many who go into the performing arts suffer from an external locus of identity."

What Makes You Feel Whole?
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