The Great Work

Thoughts on the Path of Living

"The map is not the territory, the word is not the thing it describes." - Alfred Korzybski

Never before has the average person had within reach such an abundance of information nor had such liberty to choose what to believe.

There are many maps that we can follow but we only walk one path.

However as a society we have not learned how to cope with this. We are lacking cultural solutions to navigate the overabundance of options. It is such a new situation that we still struggle to find balance both as individuals and as societies.

Rather than a paradise of opportunity, for many all of these choices represent an overwhelming chaotic hell. To make matters worse the loudest most persistent voices do not have your well-being in mind but rather are driving their own agendas, typically concerned with how they can use you to get what they want.

"Who controls your eyeballs... Controls your brain."

Instead of consciously evaluating choices we come to rely on unexamined heuristics to decide what we accept as true, which although easier it doesn't always select the best option. Essentially most of the choices we make are not from carefully weighing evidence but are made by default, based on our immediate gut feeling.

It is as if we are running through a dark room, of which we have only heard descriptions and navigating by memory.

We accept beliefs from elders, authorities, peers, first impressions or other vague sources - less often from a process of selection, testing, and validation.

Many beliefs are by design unassailable, faith is supposed to be blind, interrogation of these beliefs is sacrilegious - this is the defense of a weak system. It is symptomatic of a system that seeks to dictate and control rather than enlighten and liberate.

Freedom can only come from understanding and understanding can only come from unfettered critical examination.

Here we approach a much larger topic that I will save for later. Cognitive bias and fallacy effects us all, learning to identify and mitigate these effects is one of the greatest practices one can nurture.

"The brain is designed to design realities. If you operate your own brain skillfully, you can learn to design your own realities..." - Tim Leary, How to Operate Your Brain

The Great Work is a term that I have appropriated from occult philosophy. For me it is a systematic engagement with reality, an intentional approach to living by which we strengthen our relationship with reality through study and practice.

It is the individual's responsibility to take control of their own mind, to examine assumptions, to test and modify the processes that we rely upon on a daily basis.

To do this we need to intentionally design, instill, and practice a methodology for studying, testing, validating, and constructing a personal worldview based on comparing multiple options and selecting what works best based on our own experience.

The idea is that each of us is a work in progress, not limited by what we have been but by what we think we are. We are all capable of changing, growing, and learning but most importantly we need to understand ourselves, what motivates us, what will satisfy us. It's not an easy question to address, and the answer will change over time.

Until we start to figure that out, we will be in danger of working against ourselves, wasting our energy in distraction, and chasing dissatisfaction as if it were the goal.

To find our way, we can use the descriptions that other people create but we also have to be careful whose directions we follow. You may not end up where you want you go.

If the path were clear and easy, no one would falter.