Discovery Life expands when we transcend the reactionary Impulses BY: Troy Murphy | September 2016
The search for the meaning is never complete. There’s no exact point we can declare that now knowledge is complete—enlightenment. The process of enlightening constantly increases awareness, each added nugget of understanding deepens and enriches. With increasing awareness—and acceptance—the chaotic appearance of complexity fades. Although events are the natural products of discoverable causes, the entirety of causes masterly eludes us. We find peace by accepting our limited role in the unfolding complexities; new discoveries inspire awe, while the unknowns spark curiosity. We sacrifice the natural unfolding of mysteries when we demand meaning—meaning that isn’t currently available. We compromise reality to mollify anxiety of the unknown.
We should seek knowledge. The process of discovery opens new doors, softens judgments, and invites compassion. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “Growth in wisdom can be exactly measured by a decrease in bitterness.” Unveiling influencing forces behind mind and behavior, softens their personal impact, while widening empathetic understanding. We seek solutions rather than waste time with fruitless retaliations.
This process of discovery, gaining insight, decreasing bitterness, is never complete—there is always more. Our biology, social learning, and individual experiences construct our view of self. The changing view-of-self continually alters interpretations. This is the heart of complexity, multiple fluid parts acting and reacting in dynamic existence. We are not powerless or all powerful. Environments trigger unpredictable reactions but the self can also, at times, transcend environmental triggers. We can exercise some control over what we do, say and think, and with this empowerment, we become an active participant in our own evolution.
Life expands when we transcend the reactionary life devoted to the pursuit of comfy emotions. By accepting complexities—both known and unknown—they lose some of their disrupting powers. We still feel sorrow, grief, anger and guilt when confronted with ordinary struggles but instead of obsessive ruminations, magical escapes, or fruitless retaliations, we constructively move forward into the future.
Enjoy the process of discovery; through a widening perspective the world appears a little different, peace settles on our mind as we participate in and curiously observe the unfolding drama of existence.
