It happens all the time, inner growth does. It’s as natural as breathing, and it can be argued that it is as important to our living as breathing is to our survival. Inner growth is, in fact, about living. It’s not exclusively about going anywhere or doing anything or becoming something, although those aspirations are usually an important part of it. Inner growth is about making the most of the ongoing present moment, and that includes taking past and future into account each in different ways. It seems obvious, doesn’t it? We are always here and now, so why worry about it? I’m reminded of a friend who used to rag on me about my philosophical mind-set. In his drunker moments he would slosh beer around and characteristically slur: “Why are you wasting your time on that crap? Life is just what it is! Just live it!”
For some of us, however, this is easier said than done. It seems it shouldn’t be. For many life is usually set with lists of what’s proper/normal/acceptable. We are rarely spared the list of “worthy” goals (whether we fulfill that list or not). Fulfilling this list is supposed to make us happy. Things like money, career, family, good sex and an abundance of the basics for an acceptable standard of material and social living are what any normal person should want. If they want more, there is religion and a few good books, right? In other words, no matter what our origins or individual wants there is always enough to keep us busy from cradle to grave. Some even say that fulfilling any society’s acceptable standards is inner growth. Then our peers are happy, our family is happy, our mates are happy, even our god or goddess is happy. Why shouldn’t we follow the trend? However, some of us may have noticed that the last question is usually posed not as a question, but as a demand. I think that in itself should make anyone suspicious.
It’s one thing to allow for others to have their standards so we may maintain our own, and quite another when those standards are more of an enforced obligation than they present themselves to be. In other words, anyone who is not happy with society’s standards is in some way treated as if that is wrong, and sometimes even punished in no uncertain terms if they push to manifest their convictions, even though nobody is hurt by that. Living your life, on the other hand, as your own being knows you should is living. Anything else is just surviving, and any DNA system does that anyway.
So one thing our impulse toward inner growth does is challenge us to shift from a survival mode (bare bones basic, or dressed up and “civilized”) into something more alive, which implies also something more free. True living is, in fact, true freedom and true freedom is true living. What is so paradoxical about this is that freedom is valued by all species that bear live young in some way. Lock any mammal in a zoo and you will notice their behavior changes. They get depressed, or aggressive and they don’t mate easily. Some die. I read about a study once, comparing animals in zoos with humans in cities, and human beings in general. Lots of similarities there. I would go so far as to say that society itself can be like a kind of great zoo, only there don’t seem to be any visitors. It’s food for thought anyway…
The impulse to inner growth is always a force in our lives. That force never goes away, although it can be suppressed and denied. It happens even if our lives go to pot, because going to pot means cages are rattled and sometimes even collapse. Indeed we can get buried when our cages collapse, and sometimes we suffer for the insanity of those with bigger cages or cages with more ruthless or uncontrollable occupants. Without inner growth, however, life would be so profoundly meaningless, even survival would not be able to sustain it. We are simply not structured for just surviving. We must live and we must grow. The present moment is a treasure house that we must access, own and embody, and if we don’t we survive…maybe. Survival, however, is for cockroaches and bacteria. It is not for people. Yet people are clever and have found ways and means to defy their urge for inner growth.
Why they (we) do so is a far more involved question than may appear on the surface. Cliche answers like “we are scared” or “we are selfish” or “its just human nature” are either insufficient, simplistic or insulting and they never really help. I believe some of us sense that. Some of us cannot outsmart ourselves and “get with the program”. Survival for its own sake, and even with all the trappings of social “normality” is anathema, practically toxic to us. We yearn for a freedom we often cannot even describe for the naysayers and “well-intentioned” skeptics who confront us about it.
Following the beat of our peers is never enough. Revolting against our peers only to seek the same old same old versions of normalcy through radical and maybe ruthless means is not enough. Being in control is not enough. Being accepted and loved is not enough. Being in the lap of luxury is not enough. The problem is that we may not know these things are not enough until we get there, usually after much trial and tribulation. It doesn’t mean all these things are wrong or harmful in themselves, although I would certainly say some are. What they have in common is that they leave us high and dry, as if life is one of those lovers who takes care of their self and then leaves us in the lurch, listening to the durge of their complacent snoring.
By accumulating and accumulating experiences, acquisitions, friends or whatever we can end up thinking there is nothing that can satisfy us or that we are insatiable. I think the issue is far simpler: we are placing the cart before the horse. We are seeking acceptance when we lack self acceptance. We are seeking material prosperity under conditions that force us to deny our inner wealth. We are under the impression that we must sacrifice our selves for our families. We are limited where it counts and forced to invest apart from our interest. We are, in short, diverted to building elaborate houses on flimsy foundations.
It sounds crazy, but if you think about it, the resistance of others and our selves to our inner growth is like a demand that houses are built on sand, like making foundation-building criminal. We even have a word for this accusation against foundation building that can only occur by prioritizing what goes on within us as opposed to what happens outside of us: selfishness. This is a different kind of selfishness than the callous lack of empathy and compassion permeating societies since time immemorial. That kind of selfishness is actually applauded behind the scenes, although frowned upon in public. That kind of selfishness seeks the trappings of survival, no matter how elaborate and dressed up as these may be, with terms like fame, fortune, success and living the dream. It is the other kind of selfishness that is seen as an “eccentric” quirk at best, but can easily be treated like a contagious disease as far as most people are concerned.
Yet, the word “selfish” is a misnomer. Self-ish, is something that mimics selfhood, an impostor of it, a caricature of the real thing. The focus on what goes on within us that some call “selfish” should really be called selfness. After all, we are trying to be real and our own self is as real as we can get. For any rational human being, this should be obviously something worthwhile. Being real means having access to what is really fulfilling and acting in a way that matters. Being unreal is insane, to the point some of us cannot shake the conviction that what most of society considers as normal or at least “part of life”, the good and the bad, is nothing short of insanity. So we seek to grow out of it, and by growing out of it we seek to be free to be who we are. The point is that we cannot grow unless we start from where life is real, here and now at the ground zero of our own being, who we are, how we feel, what we want truly and without excuses and compromises.
And yet it is not really about getting or becoming, and not about a process from a past to a future, but about the real now moment that is constantly renewing itself. We are not just in this moment, we are it, and cultivating its possibilities is where fulfillment starts and where it ultimately ends up. That may sound a bit mystical or otherworldly, but its not. It’s here and now, and this is the great teacher, the ground where we may build our foundation toward living no matter how we choose to do this living. If the foundation is real so are we, and if we are real we don’t have to worry about doing it the “wrong” way.
Inner growth, for me, is about realizing and actualizing our being real. Living for me is about being real. I think this includes everything we may think will make us happy and many things we haven’t even imagined yet. But if we are true to what we sense within, we will imagine them, and know they are our promised treasure.
If we can imagine, we can aspire. If we can aspire, we can realize. We can have the pie and eat it too, because that is what being real is all about. And that is the great challenge for anyone driven toward conscious and self motivated inner growth. It is to recognize that reality is not a matter of democratic vote and majority opinion, but starts right here within, at ground zero, the foundation, the here and now, me and you.
Ever the 1980s, my focus has been on personal growth, spirituality and lately a more grounded and centred transformational path. If you've got an inner yearning for conscious inner transformation and are looking for a bit of company, a different point of view or even validation, then this blog might be for you! Over the coming months, I intend to provide helpful insights and reviews of transformation techniques, drawing on my own experiences and inviting others who's wisdom I value. All that, and a little humour along the way!
