Hello.
As a younger man I was educated and worked in institutions where I learned the ways of the elite 'warrior business' class: energetic, competitive, morally neutral and motivated to secure resources to succeed.
As an insecure teenager unsure of my lovability and value I was perfectly suited to this mindset; I clicked right in. It was a dream of optimism and possibility, although at core nihilistic and lonely.
Fifteen years later I faced a series of setbacks that dropped me through the rabbit hole into a much bigger reality, thanks not to psychedelics but to the weird and wonderful people I met while researching my book on optimism (plus a six month writing sojourn in India). Returning from that world I soon discovered that the way I was approaching life was destined for failure (for me) and ultimately unsustainable.
Let me be clear - I loved and still do love much about this way of being, and the friends I have who live that way. As well as focusing on success through striving and competition it was also about stretching oneself, doing extraordinary things and generally having a good time: carpe diem.
But this way of being wasn’t comfortable for parts of me that were more open, intuitive and creative. For those parts it was a painful adaptation. And while the beliefs of competitive capitalism synched smoothly with my rebellion against chaotic liberalism, they also encompassed a strain of Darwinist elitism that I barely registered consciously but was happy to buy into. This elitism gave me free rein to feel special, different and better. Which broadly speaking made me a pain in the arse.
As I’ve grown up in the face of reality and its knocks I’ve had to change completely: at first regressing from scared arrogant idiot back into wobbly vulnerable teenager, then finally growing back into my own skin as a (more or less) mature adult. The process was akin to being reduced to ashes before growing an entirely new body - although in practical terms it happened gradually and in stages rather than all at once.
The labyrinthine nature of this progression (closer then further away) has been expressed many times in art to depict the journey of the pilgrim, which is what this path of being yourself is, when you get down to it.
A pilgrimage always starts somewhere - usually with adversity and failure, some kind of f*** up that wakes you from your dream walk - and until you’ve hit your limits you really don’t have the incentive for it. Why would you?
As my own journey progressed I had to learn to operate in an entirely new way that functions in the modern world but which also fits my personality - natural, instinctive, creative, helpful, attuned, both lazy and never at rest; a hunter gatherer - the personality and energy structure of the majority of humans.
I've also been working to help others with this transition, and it strikes me that most of them - even if very successful - are operating according to a mental framework that doesn’t really suit them; most people still operate according to the warrior culture template. The dividend of this mode accrues to only to a very few, yet almost everyone is subject to its assumptions.
In other words, it suits next to no one.
In a world ordered by the logic of commerce many of my clients make a decent hash of adapting - self-marketing, endless resilience and continual reinvention as they ‘play to win’ - but these are sensitive, gifted human beings burning their single flame of life in the unknowable darkness of eternity, and it costs them something essential.
I know this because I do it myself. I bend myself out of shape to send a sales email or to articulate ‘who I am’ (ridiculous concept), identify my target audience (impossible) or list my credentials (non-existent), when actually all I really want is to be present, available and helpful.
But at least I know the direction of travel: Trying less, loving more, learning to work with others, leaning back on the vast resource of inner space to do the heavy lifting while my ego slowly relaxes.
It's a tricky balance to get right; there is no steady state or formula. Sometimes I call it "walking the wire" because it expresses the electricity and vertigo of the experience as well as how easy it is to fall off. It's what leadership is all about: Lacking external references, a leader has to fumble for an inner template of how to live and work. Doing that requires instinct and intuition as well as analysis - which means learning how to feel again.
This may sound cliché, but it is the hardest thing in the world. It involves suffering a return to the body's sensations, the essential incarnating act. Jesus did it, and we all know how that ended. It’s the long road rather than the quick fix, but when you start walking it you know there’s no other way. Now you're no longer a muggles, you're the real deal - an artist rather than a fraud.
Imposter syndrome fades away. You know you're on track.
"Luke, you switched off your targeting computer. What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I'm alright!"
And when you close your eyes, it's right there.
May the force be with you!
www.laurenceshorter.com
ps, if you liked this article you might also enjoy The Ladder of Leverage.