I have always been the kind of person who is just a small observation away from descending into a mini-existential crisis. Perhaps not entirely in the negative sense, as emotions like awe and wonder dominate these thoughts more than despair and nihilism. Nevertheless, for a moment, I simply feel paralysed as a reaction to my inability to explain what is going on in this world and how it is all possible.
Such thoughts should visit you with extreme moderation, given their mostly useless nature. Whether one lives in a simulation or not does not change the punishment of wrong-doing or inaction, doesn't take away the emotional toll that accompanies it, or fix any real problems they might be facing. All it can do for you is bring a worldly perspective to your attention: the "big picture". Thinking about life on an extremely macro scale makes you serious and relaxed at the same time, a weird combination of "Oh! I am not living as the universe intends me to!" and "Screw this shit." The thought of being a bound to societal influence, monotone schedules, the "going where the current takes me" attitude really straightens my outlook on what I must do and not do in life. In his essay "Life is Short", Paul Graham talks also about life being too short for "bullshit" but also how one is tricked to perpetually do such things anyways. Having just the one life to live and being susceptible, or worse, forced to live a unfulfilling life is a depressing notion.
This is the reason I became very interested in finding the meaning of life, and I tried to find answers to questions like "What does life expect from me?" and "How does one live a well-rounded life?" Now, I must confess that I have a bad tendency to be attracted to the cool-looking answer, even better if it is structured and uses some impressive-sounding words. So when I stumbled across Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and that to at the tip of the pyramid, I was smitten.
"Self-actualisation" is defined by Maslow himself as: What Is Self-Actualization? Meaning, Theory + Examples — “What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization” (Maslow, 1943). Such eloquence and simplicity are most welcome, but finding what man can be will prove to be a difficult on its own. Nevertheless, this definition provided me with great satisfaction since it works perfectly with my thoughts on life and its brief and treacherous nature. Why be anything less than what you can be? It feels more like a responsibility to do so, to reach one's full potential while life allows them.
Thus, I had decided that I must strive towards Self-Actualisation, whatever that would come to mean for me. But how does one get there? Our expedition has only begun…
Imagine yourself in your ideal state. You have actualised yourself. Perhaps, you have mastered a certain set of skills you always aspired to have, had a lasting impact in a certain field, and/or achieved peak bodily strength and function. Now let us try to reverse engineer what it will take to reach your ideal self. Before you... you will need to put in hours and years of work, maintain strong discipline and dedication. Your ideal form demands nothing less. Effort, practice, evaluation. Over years.
Well, no shit. But before that, how will this drive be fuelled? How will one make sure that they are primed—in terms of attitude and ability—to do the necessary work consistently? This is where the next (or previous) milestone comes in: Self-mastery.
To put it concisely, the point of self-mastery is to minimise the chance of you getting in the way of yourself. It encompasses everything from controlling your impulses to even motor skills. For example, if your work involves any kind of writing--something you will most likely do on the computer at some point--mastering typing seems necessary because the gains are too good to ignore. The reason I include typing under the umbrella of self-mastery is that it is a means-to-an-end skill. Unless you are a competitive typist, court stenographer or similar, typing is not a valuable skill on its own (impressing someone doesn't count). Being skilled with a musical instrument, on the contrary, is its end game, as the skill defines the output, the performance. The value of typing skills, for most, lies as a means to saving time, getting ideas down quickly, and keeping up with your train of thought, among other benefits. But not in the quality of the ideas or output itself. All of this is to convey that many means-to-an-end skills will always be worthwhile for most people given their versatility. So it is worth it to invest in such skills so that your weaknesses don't hold back your strengths.
Self-mastery includes topics such as discipline, self-sabotage, and concentration among others. I am sure that these are familiar to you, but one of the biggest problems I have faced, and maybe you have as well, is the tendency to simply forget (many times, intentionally) about my self-development commitments, despite knowing what is best for me. More specifically, I understand the potential—if not probable—benefits of adopting a certain system, mental model, exercise etc, but I simply do not act on it, whether it be due to aversion to change, laziness or other "justifications".
Consequentially, it would seem appropriate, if not crucial, to first understand why we behave the way we do, and what underlying factors lead to problems along the journey of self-mastery. To determine that exactly, it makes sense to further descend to the lowest rung of the ladder, the base of the pyramid: Self-awareness.
The way I would describe self-awareness is knowing yourself properly to create personalised, effective methods to achieve self-mastery. We have already established that our undiscovered and unresolved personal tendencies pose a significant, if not the biggest threat to self-mastery. For example, how can I create sustainable habits if I cannot figure out why my efforts are usually in vain? These tendencies may stem from a plethora of different factors: genes, upbringing, social environment, experiences and/or the aforementioned "justifications". And it has always been necessary for me to dive deep to uncover the triggers and influences. Every behaviour has a source. This is also the reason that I have refrained from mentioning any specific methodologies or systems throughout the essay. I know that everyone has preferences and behaviours that originate from a combination of "sources" (as listed above) that are unique to them.
If and when I am able to pinpoint the deep triggers and influences that create roadblocks in my journey, nudging and shifting my mindset to a healthier and more productive version becomes a lot easier. So it logically follows that investing time into finding insights about yourself is necessary for self-mastery.
I am certain that self-awareness is a journey that will last me my entire lifetime, and that it will accompany self-mastery and -actualisation in parallel. There will be certain elements in life that will longer in the self-awareness/mastery/actualisation stages than others, but this was never a linear approach to begin with. "Life is just one damned thing after another", as eloquently described by Elbert Hubbard. So the hope or pursuit for predictability is simply a mirage in the distance. Thus, I plan to be flexible, open to change, and eventually actualise myself.