Creating a Second Self - True Transformation
Everybody wants to change, but obviously, change is not easy, or else everybody would be doing it and we would all be doing everything we could to help ourselves and humanity!
The following is a quote that I found when listening to a clip from www.academyofideas.com on a lecture about Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe:
“Everyone holds his future in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it’s the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.”
The lecture went on to talk about how creating who we want to be internally is not a matter of “uncovering” something from within but in actually creating it which I think is a point of contention in this modern age where many people feel inferior and see success as something that people are “born with” instead of creating.
It seems that nothing could be further from the truth. And this is very empowering! Why? Because it means that we can create and manifest our own destiny instead of simply accepting that our lot in life is determined by how we are born, the mental faculties we have, the environment we grow up in (however destitute it may be) and other factors that are beyond our control.
The lecture continues with Von Goethe explaining how we should create a short term experiment involving 1) writing down or even drawing how we want to see ourself in vivid detail and 2) acting as if we are that person for a short time, maybe a week or more.
Also, do not tell anyone that you are doing this so that you are not seen as an “actor” but instead step into the persona that you wish to attain. There are even cues that you can use including popping a tic-tac (yes the mint) whenever you feel that you are not being the person you want to be, to remind you of your goals whenever you fall out of “character” which is to say the person you want to be.
The goal is change, and change is never easy because it is uncomfortable. Most people resist change naturally because it is seen as what could be a threat, even to their very survival. If the caveman ventures into new territory, there may be unknown predators waiting for him, or other traps set by unscrupulous humans. It is much easier (and less rewarding) to sit in the cave and wait until all danger has passed!
This is not the way of the achiever, this is the way of the slave. And in this modern culture it is easy to see that many people are taking advantage of the fact that you or I are not taking risks. We see this in the many systems of control that convince us to give either our time or money or both away to people that we have never even met because society says we must do it.
The slave in the field will scold the other slave when they start doing something deviant:
”Hey, don’t do that, you’re going to get us all in trouble!”
And thus slaves, as cleverly as it is, keep other slaves in line, not out of hatred but actually out of manipulated love, for they do not want to see their fellow slave whipped.
But they also, inertly and deeply, do not want to see the other slave escape. Because escape would mean that escape is not only possible but it has been done before. And this forces a mental schism where the original slave has to make excuses why one slave has escaped yet he has not.
So if you act like somebody that is already free then expect others to treat you as someone that is free: with disdain, jealousy....even hatred. Because you have done what many others have convinced themselves is impossible.
And it all starts with acting and thinking like someone that is truly free which involves creating a second self to take over where the first person, your formal self, existed.