Your Better Self

Preceding an answer there are three types of thought-

1. Superficial 

2. Shallow

3. Deep

Each type has various sub levels that are not detailed here.

By instinct we find superficial answers, because we can’t waste time wondering whether it was truly a tiger or a deer that rustled in the leaves before we escape. To find a cause, a reason, a solution, immediately is thus an instinctive way for us to find superficial answers.

In our natural selves - the self we have after it has reacted to our environment and circumstances - we give ourselves shallow answers because it seems natural to us that what we know is all that can be known or understood— in our natural self we are arrogant. 

In our evolved, regenerated, supernatural selves, our answers are deep because it is the result of hard work, study, and earned knowledge, after understanding consequences, outcomes, and implications at varying degrees. It is most often also the grace of God that produces this deep thought which illuminates understanding, though many seek to refute that possibility.

Similarly questions too can be of three types

1. Meaningless - where the answer makes zero difference to anything. 

2. Meaningful - where the answer causes us to check our assumptions, learn, and the  answer makes us clearer, firmer, and  more convinced on the way ahead. 

3. Transformative - where the answer causes us to evolve and possess new meanings and ways of being. It liberates us.

Thus, both the type of question and the type of answers are important.

Sadly, the most transformative question can receive a superficial answer, but a meaningless question will always remain simply that. No answer which does not re-format the question can alter the state of meaninglessness.

The reason we have three types is that we have three selves (natures)that we can choose from. Two exist in us by default, and the third is potentially available.

The three natures, or selves, are (a) Instinctive (b) Natural (c) Evolved - or supernatural.

We breathe by instinct, but as we grow we think of breathing as an effortless, natural activity, that does not need our attention - thus each of us have different, natural styles of breathing.

But we can learn to breathe and control our breathing which is a conscious, learned, or evolved way of breathing. Only a few invest time and effort to do this.

So, we can learn and evolve in one portion of our self - like breathing- but remain in our natural self without evolving in other portions.

Thus, there are so many who learn, grow, and are supernatural in sports or arts, medicine, and other fields, but remain trapped in their instinctive selves when it comes to lust, or power, or greed.

Too many never access their supernatural self in anything but oscillate between their natural and instinctive selves. Always finding ways and means to spend time and make it less boring, finding ways of expending least effort but gain maximum fun.

This pretentious, empty self is the most natural state for our species. We experience it early in our infancy, as we adopt coping behaviours to ensure that our instinctive self can get it's own way, even as those in authority around us coerce, force, and try to stop us from having our own way. In effect we learn to be one thing in public and another in private. This is the most natural way for humankind.

People who know nothing are generally the first to respond and answer. Their responses will almost always be superficial. Yet as the old saying goes - even a dead clock tells the time correctly twice a day - sadly enough their answer satisfies their inner being enough, for them not to realise how idiotic and silly they are. Thus, they continue in their superficial, swift, impatient, ways.

Similarly, people who are habituated to give deep, meaningful answers also tend to be wrong, or silly, or superficial, occasionally.

As a species we strive for perfection but find that perfection eludes us. This lack of perfection stops us from becoming our worst or best self perfectly. It  stops us from being absolutely and entirely silly. At the same time loss of perfection disables us also from consistently and constantly being deep and meaningful.

There is an 80:20 ratio where eighty percent of the time we are what actually defines us, and twenty percent of the time we are not. 

Thus, we all make mistakes, we are all thoughtless, we are all unkind, OR we are all loving, we are all patient, we are all kind and gentle. We need to see what characterises a person eighty percent of the time, not what she or he does occasionally.

We all get angry, that is natural. We all lose our composure, it is natural. We all get tired, absolutely natural. Yet is our natural self 80% of who we are, OR is our supernatural self 80% of who we are. This is the differentiator.

Our natural self is our effortless self, the self which expresses itself in response to what it has observed, learned and experienced. Our supernatural self is our consciously chosen, effort filled self that is a result of hard work put in to perceive, experience, and respond differently from how we naturally were accustomed to.

In our spoken vocabulary, our natural self always “Has to “or Have to” do things. Our evolved, free, supernatural self “wants to” or “needs to” do things because that is what the evolved self, chose for itself and is not compelled as the natural self is.

So, the choice is always ours. We can remain our natural un-evolved self. Or we can put in the work and act in ways that seem unnatural to us at first, till it becomes so much part of our nature that it becomes like second nature to us and find our evolved supernatural selves.

The choice is yours – begin, as a first step, with the goal of ensuring your questions are not meaningless, and that your answers are not superficial.

At all costs you can be sure – you will love your evolved self far, far, more and that it will serve your individual purposes in a manner that is exponentially different.

Oddly it is the effort needed that prevents and causes us to remain attached to our lesser self. Whereas once we’ve invested the effort, our superior self serves us far better and far longer effortlessly.

God bless.