Letting myself go

Over the past few years I have become fascinated by our idea of a self, the narrative that we create about ourselves, a homunculus sitting somewhere behind our eyes that we feel steers our lives.

But this narrative is made up. In fact we don’t exist as a separate self, we are a collection of millions of tiny organisms, doing what they do without our active control, without real boundaries between ourselves and “other”, just a part of the fabric of life doing life without any active input from our little selves, despite the fact that our frontal lobes retrofit agency to decisions that our biology has made quite happily on its own.

I have become increasingly convinced that we don’t have free will. That what we are and what we do is a result of inconceivably complex chains of events and influences that we have no control over. So this “self” suffers. It suffers from feeling out of control and fearful of the world out there causing it to feel alone and anxious much of the time.

Through reading endless books about Advaita and Buddhist thinking I have ended up trying to let go of this idea of self. Trying to let go of stories about what I should or shouldn’t be doing, trying to let go of feelings of worthiness or otherwise, trying to let go of the sense of a little me that has to defend itself against the world “out there”. All the time fully aware that there is no little me trying at all, it is all just happening…

The result, so far, appears to be closer to the other sense of “letting myself go” namely losing the plot and losing all sense of purpose.

But that sense of purpose is cultural, it is another story. Rest is Resistance convincingly pushes back against these cultural narratives about usefulness and purpose, which are stories perpetrated to keep us in our place and nose to the grindstone in support of the success of others.

So I am waiting to see. Waiting to see if I “achieve enlightenment” or disappear up my own proverbial backside…

4 thoughts on “Letting myself go”

  1. I think you are caught up in the ‘loop of self’, Euan, which is so easy to fall into. “You” cannot let “yourself” go. “You” have no free will to let yourself go or not let yourself go. If your sense of having a self disappears, that was not “your” choice, your decision. It will be the action of the complicity of trillions of cells that constitute what you imagine to be “you”.

    And it’s worse than that. As you state, there is no “you” to let go of, and no “self” to be let go of. “You” are just a construct of that feverish brain desperately trying to make sense of everything. There is no “enlightenment”. There is only the presence or absence of the illusion of self. And there’s nothing “you” can do about it. https://howtosavetheworld.ca/2024/04/02/always-wanting-more/

    Cheers,

    Dave

    Like

    Reply

  2. I had to smile with this post. I think I’m coming to a similar conclusion and then kicking myself for so many wasted years thinking of “shoulds”. What I should be doing; what I should have done; what I should do.

    Now, while my days are (not) wasted with long stretches of time ahead of me, I have moments when that thinking is still there. At least I can recognise it, and then pause it and let it flow on to another thought.

    Rather than reading philosophy or Buddhist texts, I’ve gone another route. I’ve been reading the classics and literature for some years and I feel they’ve changed me to a similar conclusion.

    Nothing has changed.

    It’s just happening and we choose how to react to it. I think the latest book I read about this same topic was Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf. In that book, a middle aged man decides to commit suicide at 50 because he’s lost hope with “others” who don’t understand. He thinks he’s above them. Then he gets introduced to a woman in a bar who teaches him to let loose. He relaxes, he begins to enjoy himself. He doesn’t take himself and others too seriously. He begins to understand that everyone is in the same boat and doing the best they can knowing they’ll go to the same end.

    Similarly, John Edward Williams book called Stoner had the same message except it was about an English literature professor who wanted to uphold his love for his work and his students but “outside” influences like World War 1 and University professorial bickering and politics destroyed his reputation and career but he stood firm and never let anything get to him. Then he died. We close the book only to realise, “Life happens”. It’s how we choose to react to it that’s important. We can waste time and effort running, chasing, wanting or we can just enjoy each moment to our end. In whatever form it takes.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment