Social Ease And Connection, Part 12: Discontent
Self-actualized people all speak in personal ‘incorrect’ ways, spontaneously, without memorized sets of stories, texts and explanations. They don’t stick to only a few limited scripts. They encourage you to convey your own experiences uniquely, and welcome you to give voice to your own heart, feelings and thoughts. It’s a joy to hear two such people describe their discoveries of life in inspired personal ways.
Masters of self-knowledge foster accepting, encouraging, lit-up learning environments. Those who focus on their inner life often come up with profound insights. They talk in different ways using different words, yet they understand each other. They feel the wonder of utterances without getting stuck on words.
You’re lucky to find a group in which all members are equally cared for and respected. No one deserves more respect than anyone else. Each person leads her or his own life. One master, life, is present in each member of the group, 8 billion in all. Each person has access to and lives by the built-in wisdom of life.
Your actions express your state of being. The conduct of a group shows the collective total of the states of being of its members. Discontent leads to destructive behavior. Behavior that originates in contentment is more likely to be constructive.
Alfred Adler said that every human being’s innermost striving is “to move from a felt minus to a felt plus, a striving for perfection, and a striving for God-likeness.” Human beings will do anything to try to fulfill that innermost striving. Adler, who died in 1937, did not spell out the origin of that striving and how exactly to fulfill it.
Now, much more knowledge on this subject is available. We have access to almost unlimited facts and information. From my personal journey and those of others, I can tell you. The striving Adler talked about is also known as wanting to feel whole, complete, content or in peace. It’s the burn to feel internally connected to life. That is your most powerful innermost driving force. You’ll chase it everywhere in the world, but you’ll not find it outside of you. Feeling whole, perfection and God-likeness are personal internal encounters.
In searching for God-likeness externally, you may become an autocrat or despot who assumes human laws and rules don’t apply to you, and do immoral, corrupt or unlawful acts. Unsatisfied striving explains why power corrupts, and why it can lead to the kinds of serious social consequences in cultures, religions and nations that news media focus on. That’s how strong a drive it is.
When a discontent populace deposes a tyrant, many expect social justice, equality and democracy to automatically take its place. That’s a pipe dream. It hardly ever happens. Why? Discontent people don’t come together in harmony. They are more likely to riot because they know what they DON’T want but they don’t know what they DO want.
Why do people remain discontent after the dictator is gone? The answer is that no nation, culture or religion systematically shows people how to access feeling whole within their own being. They may have words about it but don’t provide a method for getting you to that feeling. Without contentment and rulers to control them, disaffected people create the chaos, violence and brutality to express their discontent.
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