[Nat]

Matthieu Caldwell, Metaphysician:

"In Gil Scott Heron's song "Not Needed", Heron croons about the dreary existence of irrelevance. Through music he captures a universal feeling that is perhaps the source of existential angst. Modern cognitive psychology lends credence to what heart has known for ages. The essence of cognition is constructing a narrative in which the ego is placed at the center. In our minds we each star in our own personal dramas. This is why theatre, literature, movies, operas, etc have such an appeal to the human psyche because they mirror the very mechanism which constructs each person's subjective reality. Awareness of this phenomena can help one understand the source of their despair and illuminate paths that can help lead them out of the dark and menacing labyrinth that is their life story.

In American culture the most people's personal dramas focus on the work place. America is a land that idolizes money and thus working becomes our primary method of worship. It is analogous to the ascetic's suffering. Every morning when the average American sits down at this desk to begin another day at work he is like a monk who kneels down at the alter hungry and ready to please his Lord. At work the drama unfolds in harrowing epics in which Sergeant Romeo attempts to woo Major Juliet so that he may get the sweet jewels of loves exhalation via a promotion. God forbid, if one fails to woo their beloved Juliet, only despair rules the heart that fails to attain true love. While this language may seem melodramatic for some, its sentiment is quite fitting for many people whose lives are centered on the workplace. An important caveat to make is that each person's drama is unique. Some people live their lives with the scale of emotion and drama found in a Shakespearean drama whereas some people are content living the life of a carefree character in a SITCOM. Regardless of the weight of importance each person feels they are still fundamentally shaped by a need to feel relevant.


Many people find the need to feel relevant to everyone they meet. The proverbial people pleaser is not just content with being the hero of their own drama but they also need to universalize their heroism. They need to feel loved by everyone or else their life is a complete and miserable failure. American culture does an excellent job at exploiting this fundamental insecurity. At the root of advertising is the sinister voice that says "unless you purchase this product, people will not like you as much". No one attempts to sell a product any other way when it comes down to it.


So how do I fulfil my desire to feel relevant? Most of the world's religions argue that helping others is the ultimate relevancy. "Do unto others as you would have done onto you" is the golden rule the Christ imbues to his followers. Perhaps a deeper solution is given by Hinduism/Buddhism and that is to deny the very source of the drama. Thus the drama, consciousness itself is constructed off of an illusion (samsara) and the only way to escape is to deny the self until it dissolves into the unity of the world. This vision may seem too lofty and abstract but it really gets to the source of why we have dramas in the first place. The evolutionary psychologist would coyly reply that a drama created as a cognitive methods is most productive to survival. A scientific answer does nothing to relieve the primordial pain of meaningless that confronts every human being at one point of the other.


The best way to balance the drama of our lives is to have the heart of a child and the mind of a monk. The Bhagavad Gita says that “He who recognizes inaction in action and action in inaction is wise among men”. A child constructs fantasies with voracity, plays games with passion, loves unconditionally and always wants to have fun. A monk knows that the superficial appearance and game of the “real world” is a facade and mediates on what is real. To fuse these two aspects like Yin and Yang is to explore life with the passion and joy of a child while knowing in the mind with the sage of a Forest Dweller that “the real world” is a veil. This idea somewhat echoes Nietzche’s conception of the Overman who finds his will to power and exult his creativity over the conformity and constant moral guilt of the world. Like a child one should construct their own reality with the passion in their heart and love like the whole world was there mother who they depended upon for sustenance. Like a monk one should take the suffering a sick world seriously but with wisdom know the root cause of the cosmic drama."