Complexity in simplicity

Truth is simple. Truth is natural. Truth just is. Living with truth should be like breathing, completely automatic and easy. Yet we only hear the greats achieving a true understanding of truth. We know of the gurus and prophets of old whose teachings are now the basis of our many religions.

They all talk of very simple things like compassion, harmony and love. These might seem like pointless platitudes, but we indeed are born with these already built in. So why does it often take a person a lifetime of learning to understand these concepts, only for them to start repeating the very same, seemingly unhelpful, words and phrases? What changes? If truth was simple and natural for us, surely we would gain enlightenment from simply hearing these things. Why is this not the case?

How to human?

Why are we incapable of “seeing” the meaning in these teachings? Why is to so difficult? In nature, we know that every living thing is born with the blueprint for living a complete and harmonious life. All animals know by default how to be them. Let me elaborate: Every living thing knows instinctively what they should do. A duck knows how to swim. A beaver knows how to build a dam. A bird knows that it needs to fly. Just as many animals know to become attached to their caregivers. These are all something they know instinctively. No university degree required.

These blueprints are what Carl Jung called the “Archetypes”. They are psychological patterns that we all humans share. They are genetic instructions passed onto us by our ancestors, powered by instincts and communicated to us via feelings. When one gets to experience these patterns in their lives fully, they grow into a happy and fulfilled person. We all want our mothers love. We all want to connect with other people. We all want to relate to others. We all want to become our own person. We all want to be accepted as who we are. We all want to express ourselves. These are some of the things we all share and are born with.

Humaning is hard

We humans are incredibly complex and sophisticated in terms of reasoning and abstract thinking — the traits we use to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom — yet we seem to be the ones most struggling to figure out how to live our lives in fulfilling and meaningful ways. In todays world, being your own person, individuating is often seen as selfish as excuses to act out. We are taught to follow the pattern that society has laid out for us. And that if we deviate from it, we better be doing something great or that we are straight out “wrong”, that there must be something wrong with us.

We all know archetypes, whether we know the term or not. They are the easiest to spot when one does not get to experience them properly. For example, we all know that if someone had hardship in their family early in life or if something was missing, they probably ended up with mental issues, whether this requires medical attention or not is irrelevant. We know of mommy and daddy issues as these are probably colloquially the most known manifestations of disruptions of people experiencing archetypes. To put simply, it means that the person did not get to experience the mother or father archetype in a manner that a human being needs to. Unless these shortfalls are compensated properly, they will leave wounds that never heal. Most likely everyone you know has them. In our society, they are categorized as “issues” only if they cause significant problems or impairments in the persons life. Which often leads to these issues not coming up until later in life. Heard of midlife crisis? Depression? Spiritual awakening? All stemming from the same thing. Mental and emotional wounds that were not addressed and compensated for until they burst fourth from the unconscious. Weirdly, we rarely seem to stop and think that perhaps it is the society that has something wrong with it in this regard.

Society with its norms, laws and regulations is mandatory for us to have a peaceful life and for us to flourish as a species, but it does add complexity to what would otherwise be a natural and instinctual process of individuation. Sadly in modern times, we have veered further and further from our instincts as humans in favor of our technological and societal advancements. I do not think that we need to choose between them. Both are required and inherently “good”. However, I do think we need to address our instinctual side more consciously if we are to continue to flourish.

Nature finds a way

We need to be more aware of ourselves as the legacy of our ancestors and what that means in the modern world. We cannot simply suppress these parts of ourselves and think we are above our archetypes simply because we can understand the psychological process and come up with a fancy name for it. We cannot simply medicate away or artificially compensate for issues that we so desperately want to believe do not exist. That does not work, as mental health statistics show. We have seen where this has been leading to. In this age of technology, as a species we are in a more miserable of a state — physically, psychologically and spiritually — than we have been in a very long time.

Thankfully nature has a way of balancing things out eventually. Every action has an opposite and equal re-action. Newton’s third law holds true here just as well as it does in theoretical physics. We can see this reaction already taking place in the western society. Spirituality and mental health have become more of a focus in recent years as people are waking up to these issues. We tend to naturally seek out that which we unconsciously, instinctively know to be good. I hope that we will eventually learn how live in balance, rather than swing wildly between the opposites.

- J.M.J. Rapids