The Meaning, Purpose, and Fulfillment of Life
I recently attended day one of “The Landmark Forum.” To say the least, it was drab, primarily because I already knew most of what they taught. They expected more than thirteen hours of straight psychobabble for the entirety of a weekend to try to get me to understand what I already understand. To save you from the horror of this event, I thought I’d boil down what they should be telling you into an essay that shouldn’t take more that a few minutes to read. Here we go.
To begin with, the Forum states that all people lie to themselves. One must be aware of this to get anywhere within themselves. So know this, you lie to yourself. It is impossible not to. It is possible to call yourself on your lies. So all you really have to do is question everything that you say to yourself. It’s not really that easy. I forget sometimes. But if you can do it just maybe 10% of the time, you will find that life makes a lot more sense.
Because we see the world through our own eyes. Reality is subjective. But if you can cut through that subjective reality, I believe a real reality exists beyond it. And if you can see that objective reality, things just fall into place.
Take this example. You’re an 18 year old male. Hormones rage. But whenever you try to get next to a woman, her behavior baffles you. You don’t understand that the way you are seeing her is through the eyes of an 18 year old male. You don’t understand why she flirted with Bob.
But then you open your eyes to your lies and begin to see a broader picture. You look back at 25 and realize that she really loved you. At 30 you see that you don’t hate Bob. A few years later, that her gaze that one night said more than the entirety of the “Bob” affair. Finally, “She flirted with Bob to make me jealous so that I would try harder to be close to me because she wanted to marry me.”
Once you make it so you don’t lie to yourself, the next thing you have to do is watch the words you tell yourself. The Forum talks about this possibility bullshit. If you think about things as a “possibility” then you will start seeing the “possibilities.” This is clearly true. The words one tells themselves, as I put it, “actualize”; that is, they will become a part of you. If “the possibility” of something works for you, use it. But we can use any language that works for us.
This does imply one thing, that you know who you are. If you don’t know the words that will make you tick, then you won’t be able to work your clock. But, if you are truly at a state where you aren’t lying to yourself, then you should know who you are.
The next thing The Forum tries to teach is to be free from fear. Here is my method for that. It is very simple, accept your death. The most liberating thing one can do for themselves is to accept their own mortality. If you accept that you are going to die, then nothing can touch you. Fear of losing your job is “Oh well. Worst that can happen to me is I die.” That is the worst thing that can happen to you and what does it matter if you do die if you don’t fear it. I find that my survival instinct gets in the way of that somewhat. However, I find that I do not fear death but I do fear dying, and that allows for an alleviation of all fears.
One will still probably feel anxiety but it does not matter if one does not want it to. I find that anxiety does occasionally get in my way, but I know that I am letting it and I challenge it every day. I also have the tools to make it all disappear. I just have to have the strength to put myself through something unpleasant. If you have this ability, you can be President of the United States. I’m pretty sure Obama knows this.
Landmark talks a lot about “the past”, how we define ourselves by our past. Yeah. Yes. Sure. But what does that matter if you are telling yourself the truth. If you are doing so, you are always in the present. If you say to yourself “I like her but I remember Jena.” then, if you’re truthful, you should come to the conclusion that “…Jena sucked and I remember how she hurt me, but those scars are part of me now and I have to understand that this girl is not Jena so I should give her a chance with the helpful understanding of what Jena was.” One, I don’t believe, can completely forget their past and shouldn’t. But the ageless advice from the movie “Dead Poets Society” is advice that is integral to an enlightened life. “Carpe Diem.” One is who one is today. If one can accept that, then nothing but the real experience of life is left. And that is fun!
I’m going to end this piece with another Forum thing, change vs. transformation. This is a basic concept. They say, if you “change”, you are just adding new stuff to what you were so you should “transform” into something new. Of course, if you aren’t lying to yourself and you are living in the present, and you are not fearing anything then this entire segmentation becomes irrelevant because you’re just being. You’re as one with the universe and you have any option available yourself that you want. The reason I bring up change and transformation is to delve deeper into some of The Forum’s linguistic “tricks.” I want to cover three terms: should <Apparently I got distracted there. If you want me to finish this, you may ask.>