No universal map

There are quite fundamental obstacles on the path to individuation. To arrive somewhere, you would first need to know your starting point. If you do not know which way to go, you are much more likely to go the wrong way. How are you supposed to know which way to go to find yourself if you do not know where you are? To make things even worse, your mind has developed mechanisms to fight against this very process. What luck would the average person have of finding that place inside their mind if it was locked away in the very thing that is trying to trick and confuse them away from such efforts? All the while you don’t even know where you are in relation to it in the first place. You might run out of time on this planet before you get there. Most people do. Most people never find it. I think this is the source of great unhappiness in the world. The struggle that everyone faces to varying degrees, whether they consciously know it or not. It is a void that cannot be filled with external comforts.

There have been countless faith systems over the course of human history, that were meant to aid in this very thing. I think that at their very core, they have all tried to do exactly the same thing. They have tried to create an Universal method for a person to self-actualize, to Individuate. There are two main issues with most of them. Firstly, just because a method worked for one (type of) person, it doesn’t mean that it will work for others. Just because one person managed to pinpoint themselves inside their own mind and drew a map of it, it doesn’t mean that the map is of any use for others. On the contrary, it would be just as easy — if not easier — to confuse and make things harder for the practitioner by misguiding, taking them further away from what they seek. Secondly, even with the most popular and longest-standing practices, the issue is that all the advice is vague at best, completely misleading at worst. The core message is often there, and it’s blatantly obvious once you have managed to understand the point of it all. The problem here is that a person would need to first understand the concept and process of self-actualization to be able to decipher the guide to self-actualization in the first place. This quite completely negates the point of the practice itself. It only becomes useful to the already “enlightened” person. Christianity — I think — is an excellent example of this. Jesus managed to Individuate, he found his true Self. He and his followers tried to extract the core message, so that anyone could follow in his footsteps and become eternally happy. To some extent, I do think they managed to do exactly that. The Bible is a good example of that, and the popularity of the religion does indicate that there are some fundamental truths in it that resonate with people on a deep level. However, at the same time, most of the message does not translate over very well. This is indicated by the fact that there are about as many interpretations of the Bible as there people to read it.

Becoming the cartographer of your own mind

The world today is full of religions, spiritual practices, self-help books, gurus, scientific models, systems and methods that try to help people towards happiness or to reach a “divine” state of constant bliss. While I do strongly believe that many — if not all — of these practices have some profound truths to them, many of them are excluding some aspects of our psyche in favor of promoting others. Many of them preach about few select values that one should uphold and practice. The “one true” path to accessing some sort of higher consciousness. While I do believe that many of these methods have worked for people to achieve exactly that, I also believe that they won’t work for most. Why is this? Why do some praise specific practices while others damn the same practice as being empty, fake or faulty? Is it simply unwillingness from the practitioner to fully commit? Is it lack of ability? Of course it could be either, both or a multitude of other reasons, but I have always felt that there is something much more fundamental at the core of this.

To summarise, everyone’s mind is somewhat unique and so, everyone needs an unique map. To get around this, we would need to have a method of mapping our minds that applies to everyone. Methods simple enough that anyone can understand. So that anyone can create that map of their own mind for themselves or with the help of someone else.

If one method is to work for everyone. If the practice of focusing on a specific aspect of your life is to work for anyone, then we would have to assume that everyone is the same. That everyone views the world the same way. That everyone has the same strengths and weaknesses. That everyone is mentally, experientially and fundamentally the same. Of course we all know that this is not true even a little bit. While we all are humans and we all have many similarities, we also have great diversity and variety amongst us. Differences that connect us, but also divide us. You can probably think of a person or even a group of people in your everyday life that you cannot see eye-to-eye with. There is probably nothing fundamentally wrong with you or them, but for whatever reason you two cannot agree on seemingly simple things. Why do you think this is, if not very deep differences between people? If at this point you think that there is something wrong with that person or group, that they are evil, bad or simply crazy. That they are thinking or doing things that you would never. Good. We can use this for your benefit later.

Where is the starting point?

Through my study of neuropsychology, personality psychology and philosophy among other subjects, I’ve come to realize that this is quite natural. People are born inherently different. Seemingly randomly. Even children of the same family will often have vastly different views on the family dynamics and on life. Psychologists, and philosophers before them, have tried — for who knows how long — to figure out whether we are all born the same or whether there are in-born differences that make up our personalities. In other words: Whether personality is formed from a collection of experiences also called the Tabula Rasa or “blank slate” theory or whether our personalities are defined at conception or birth, on a genetic level.

Personality theory as a compass

Personality types can be dated back as far as the ancient Greeks, in the works of Hippocrates and his theory of the four temperaments, though similar theories might date back to Mesopotamia and who knows, maybe even further. Philosophers and psychologists have long and hard tried to find concrete commonalities or metrics between people, to categories and differentiate people based on their personalities, anything to help better understand themselves, others and the diversity in personality. On the scale of the whole species. These differences or “personality traits” in the modern day are more commonly taught through various personality typing systems, each trying to decode and uncover different aspects and components of what makes us, us.

Some personality systems categories personalities into four different types based on a modern definition of temperaments. Astrology describes personality through astronomical signs, where a persons time of birth, or Earth’s position in relation to other celestial objects would define parts of their personality. Enneagram divides personality into nine main types to describe a spectrum of different personalities and then further into sub-types or ”wings”, totaling eighteen types. The Big Five describes personality using five trait dimensions or dichotomies and the relation of those traits with the rest of the population using statistical analysis. In other words, Big Five works with bell curves and has been shown to have statistical significance, which seems to correlate with factors in personality.

Carl Jung’s theory of personality

Carl Jung’s model, introduced in his book Psychological Types published in 1921, first divides personality into two main types, based on the persons attitude towards their internal-world and the external-world, coining the terms “Introvert” and “Extrovert”. Jung then goes to introduce two axis or modes of mental processes as Rational (commonly known as Judging) and Irrational (commonly known as Perceiving). He then further defines dichotomies of those both axis as the four fundamental cognitive functions — or modes of thought — as we know them today as Thinking, Feeling, Sensing and Intuiting.

The combinations of the attitudes and a preferred cognitive function produces eight “pure” or generalised types, based on the dominant cognitive function. e.g. Introverted Thinking type, Extroverted Sensing type and so fourth. He further explains that each type has a secondary cognitive function preference that is assisting the dominant, dividing his personality type model into further sub-types. Myers-Briggs introduced sixteen types based on four dichotomies loosely based on Jung’s cognitive functions. These personality archetypes are greatly helpful as tools to understand our own illusions about the reality, but they are just that. Archetypes. Nobody fits into one perfectly, but the overarching themes are still there to help guide understanding. Interpretations of Jung’s model are still conflicting to this day, and we will discuss some of that later on.

Modern scientific outlook

Modern psychologists seem to more or less agree that it’s not genetics or environment alone, but rather both are involved in shaping our personalities. Large chunk of who we are is due to the influence of our environment. This includes culture, personal experiences, traumas and teachings that family and friends imprint on us. Another large chunk is genetic, a preposition we are born with. This makes sense from an evolutionary or survival of the species perspective as well. It’s nature’s way of diversifying, so that at least some of us will thrive in whatever environment we end up in, while still having all the available genetic parts — as a collective, as a group — to keep adapting as times and environments change.

While there is currently no irrefutable evidence of genetic or learned personality types as we know them, by any one systems definition. I would say that the simple fact that so many of these systems describing personality seem to be resonating with such a massive crowd of people, there must be something there. This doesn’t mean that any system is completely accurate or comprehensive. However, they have something that we intuitively know to be true.

Personality in everyday life

Inherent differences in personality would explain much of why we can have such conflicting views from one another and why we can naturally understand some groups of people more than others. How we seemingly magically just get along and understand some people. Have you ever met someone you just got along with? Someone you just resonate with? As if you had known each other for much longer? What if that familiarity is real? What if they are — by their genetic makeup — close to someone you know very well. Maybe even yourself. If it is indeed true that there are different personality types, it also means — by default — that these types would have different in-born and learned biases or “lenses” that they view life through. These lenses would greatly shape how each of us views the world. What we focus on. What we are naturally good at. What is hard for us. What aspects of ourselves we bring to the forefront of consciousness and what we repress down to unconsciousness. All of this of course, greatly influences who we eventually grow up to be.

Let’s take a look at two simplistic examples:

For one type of person, their natural tendency is to focus on working with others. Building up the people around them through the use of apt social skills; specializing in feelings and empathy. They are helping humanity thrive by building communities that help people to connect with each other.

For another type of person, focusing on working mostly on themselves is what comes naturally. Developing skills in logical thought, abstract theories and models. They are helping humanity thrive by producing better tools or further developing fields like technology, psychology and physics.

Chances are that you know someone who fits into one of these descriptions, or maybe you relate to one of them yourself. Both of these paths are completely valid. As a species, we wouldn’t have made it to where we are now without both; and many more other types of people. That said, these two approaches to life are fundamentally opposed, in many ways. Both of these people are bringing specific aspects, or parts of their minds to the foreground, honing specific mental processes or cognitive functions. However, in doing that, they are suppressing the opposite. More on this, the opposites later. For one of the people in the examples, part of the answer to self-actualization lies in focusing less on helping others and putting more energy towards building up their own identity, critical thinking skills and self-confidence. For the other, part of the answer lies in focusing more with their feelings, the feelings of others and connecting with people around them.

When the compass spins

Which to apply to which person? Seems fairly straight forward. And what is the problem if you go the wrong route? Both seem admirable enough approaches to life. The problem here is focusing too much on a narrow set of tools. Because to do so will effectively be suppressing the opposite. This will create imbalances in ones life. These are the types of imbalances that are the source of much of the problems we experience. The types of imbalances that we constantly see in the lives of others and the things that our friends and families might remind us about. Things like: “You need to take a break”, “just get going”, “go outside for a change”, “sit down and think for once” to list a few.

We all know the stereotype of the martyr, the person who sacrifices themselves over and over, never putting work toward themselves. Working tirelessly for others, until they have nothing left. Eventually ending up miserable because they don’t enjoy themselves or their own life. Unable to enjoy the the world that they have worked so hard to build up and be connected with. This is the first person in the examples.

We all also know the stereotype of the nerd or intellectual. The person who works on their own projects. Working tirelessly to build up themselves, sacrificing emotions and relationships. The person who is simply brilliant, but hardly goes out and has a hard time with people. Eventually ending up miserable because they are not connected to the world that they have tried their hardest to be their best for. This is the second person in the examples.

Seems simple and easy, right? On the surface, it might seem so. When it comes to applying advice to yourself, we hit a problem. Why? We cannot see ourselves in relation to reality. We cannot see the spectrum of reality clearly in areas where we are naturally lacking or brilliant at. Stereotypes are nice and easy. Extremes are easy to see from the outside. The problem arises when we try to see what our own extremes are. To us, it’s normal or normal enough. To ourselves, we are not at any extreme. Not from where we are looking.

The need for change

So then, how could you ever hope to resolve the issues of everyone with one method? You cannot. Apply the seemingly right approach to the wrong person and it will fail. Even if you apply the right approach to the matching person and what you get vast majority of the time is straight out rejection and denial. The person needs to be desperate enough to want actual change. Eventually, if things get hard enough, what usually happens is some combination of burnout, mid-life crisis, general unhappiness, numbness, mental breakdown and/or depression. Hopefully as we go further, I will manage to show you how our minds are actively fighting against our attempts at going through a seemingly simple process of seeing reality. Hopefully by the end of it, I will have made you rethink what you thought about self-growth and self-actualization. Especially when it comes to applying advice for yourself or advising people around you.

With so much of our personalities being determined by things seemingly outside of our control, it might seem like we don’t have much of a say in terms of where, how or even who we end up being as individuals. While it is true that genetics and our environment — nature and nurture — are huge factors, this only holds true on the large scale. On an individual level, it breaks down. Why? There has always been outliers. We all know of fictional, but also real life heroes who have “made it”. People who were born with disadvantages, in horrendous conditions and have still grown to become great people. People who have gone through hell and emerged from other side, stronger and with higher level of consciousness than the average person. People who have been through The Hero’s Journey. Those heroes who reached high and greatly impacted the people around them or even the course of human history. Is it just luck of the draw, one might ask? Just karma balancing itself out? The Universe playing itself out? Of course luck or chance is a factor. A great factor in-fact. However, as mystical or cliché this might sound, I truly believe that the primarily deciding factor is not nature, nurture or even luck, but the power of the mind.

We all have a superpower

This all sounds good and inspiring, but also something straight from a fantasy book or a movie. Something far from our daily reality. So, let’s demystify it a bit. Our genes and the environment we grew up in definitely have affected us greatly and played a huge part in shaping us to be who we are today, but they are not the end-all be-all of who we can eventually become. Through effort and persistence, we can change who we are. How, you might ask? Let me ask you something. What do you think is the defining factor that makes humans special? Why are we the ruling species of the planet? Because we are stuck in our ways? No. What is the secret of human success if not adaptability? This is true for humans as a species, but it manifests in us even as individuals, through our unparalleled ability to learn. The ability to not only shape our environments as we see fit, but the ability to adapt ourselves to the environment. This is made possible by the fact that our brains are highly moldable, even on a structural level. It’s a phenomenon named neuroplasticity. It is the brains ability restructure itself. While it is true that a large part of who we are is due to DNA and how we were brought up; we are quite literally capable of changing the very structures and functionalities of our brains if we will it. This is not easy or quick, however. It is time and resource intensive, which is probably why our minds have safeguards in place, to prevent us from molding them on a whim.

If you wish to learn more about shifts in personality and neuroplasticity, you can read more from Dario Nardi’s books.

To summarise, the superpower of the mind or consciousness itself is the ability to mold itself. As long as that is possible, we are able to transform and transcend what seem like impassable obstacles or limitations.

-J.M.J Rapids