The 'Software' of Your Personality: The Meaning and Purpose of Life

By Dr Ted Todd

Non fiction book examines human lives and actions, meaning and purpose. It offers easily understood concepts on all of them and on much more. We are all so called 'programmed' from our birth and after.That is ok unless it is putting breaks on what we can achieve,think and feel. The book offers in easy language, practical tools to improve

• Language: English
• Publisher: BLUESTONE PUBLISHING
• Release date: Oct 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9780994591937

Book preview

AN OVER, (UNDER, OR SIDEWAYS?) VIEW OF THE HUMAN CONDITION

by Russell Frank Atkinson

Considering the really important questions of life – what is it all about? Was it created by some extra-cosmic being? What is the purpose of life? And my particular ones especially – How best to live it? Who am I really?

Whatever questions that you may feel important to add to this list they all have one thing in common whether singly or all together - there is no consensus of opinion, for there is no way to irrevocably prove the various answers.

It could also be argued that it is no business of ours and our attention had best be taken up by humbly appreciating the wonders and mystery of life instead of attempting to satisfy our curiosity with speculations. In any case, most of us prefer to ignore these big issues, spending our lives in the pursuit of pleasure and satisfactions until some rude shocks, illness, trauma, or old age cause us to wonder if our life has been wasted. If a life has been spent only chasing the many forms of pleasure it has indeed been a waste of time. Many turn later in life to seek verities when the gilt has worn off the plastic lily, but by then the body and mind are too compromised to make the most of either. Some rare ones, set out early in life to do just the opposite, denying themselves pleasure and comforts in pursuit of verities, but may find that this too has been a waste of time of another order, though they may have lived a less troubled and troublesome life. Many others try to find a compromise between the two extremes and so may live compromised lives in a sort of twilight zone.

But this does not mean that no one alive or who has lived in the past did not know the answers to the big questions. Those who have became the founders of religions or philosophical and scientific systems of belief, all have one thing in common - they need a priory acceptance of some basic principles. This acceptance without confirmation from within one’s personal experience is called faith. It is one of the most important factors in life. Faith is required in some measure in all scientific disciplines and all belief systems, even if it is only a faith in the possibility of ultimate success. Faith in the vast possibilities of our own innate potentials is probably the most important of all.

As to all those big life-issues, life itself shows us that pursuing answers is likely to bog us down in a morass of concepts or entangle us in a briar patch of one sort or another. It is also possible that the intellectual pursuit of answers to the big questions is powered by personal dissatisfactions, confusions, problems and conflicts. Children don’t bother. They are too busy being alive. Nor do mature happy adults bother much with fretting at answers. Maybe the answers to most of the big questions will emerge from your innate being as an aspect of your best potentials!

Getting a leg-up

Here is a new-ish idea for you to think about. What we call mind is a subtle sort of stuff, and matter is mind-stuff in a courser vibration. When you get the idea, the images you see in your mind-stuff are not subjective realities, but are appreciated as objective things to the real subjective principle that is you yourself. That makes dealing with them so much easier. Here is an exercise that might make the idea of a mind-stuff clearer for you. Close your eyes and imagine a cat. You are seeing it in your ‘mind’s eye’ as we say. Now, tell me, what are you looking at? You might reply, ‘A cat!’ but this is not really correct, for what you are actually observing is your mind-stuff taking the form of a cat by the power of your will. Not only that, but you can do what you like with it, giving the cat horns, making it as big as a house or as small as a mouse, or deleting it altogether. The particular type of cat you imagine depends upon subconscious impressions. Everything you think is an image in mind-stuff, heavily tinted with subconscious impressions. So are dreams. There is much to be learnt from dreams though not by attempts to decipher them, for what is a dream but an experience in, of and through, mind-stuff; you the cast, producer and director. Everyone and all objects in a dream are comprised of your own consciousness; therefore, you are everything in your dream. In dream you are making images in the same way as you do while awake. Imagination is making images, as you do when you dream.

When you become aware, you will realize that there is a constant stream of images playing in your mind, in much the same way that projected images play upon a movie screen. As you experienced in the ‘cat’ experiment what you were actually seeing was your image of a cat made out of your mind-stuff, impelled by your will, and experienced in the final analysis by a witnessing consciousness. Contemplation of these facts helps one to be aware of the source of thoughts, as well as their nature and to be in control of the content of the mind. Experimenting with these ideas reveals how attached we are to the inherited images in our mind and how deep impressions in the subconscious mind determine our actions and outlook. A group of such deeply held items manifests as an attitude, and when fixed, a prejudice, program or conditioning. There can be no freedom to manifest our best potentials while ever such images dominate our consciousness but when such freedom is obtained, images can be manipulated, used or disposed of according to our will and/or the need of the moment just like you did with your mental cat. Such ideas can be a great help in achieving a harmonious balance of emotional, intellectual, spiritual and active aspects of our nature.

So whatever you choose to believe or not believe, the fact is that you have a life to live and that you can give it great meaning by spending the time freeing your mind from useless clutter that is getting in the way of you being at your very best – joyful, creative, balanced and free of chains.

Many people seek to achieve these ideals and fall into another sort of brier patch – pop psychology and self-help gurus who might live in the same confusion as you might do, but write books about it. Or New Age teachers who promise all sorts of wonders for the cost of a weekend workshop. They all have one thing in common – they all require faith to some degree as acceptance of basic premises. In this book the only basic premises are very obvious ones that require no beliefs but a simple observation of facts. This brings us to consider what the factors might be that hinder us. If they can be unearthed and eliminated or at least reduced, one can then be free to develop one’s unique creative abilities and so manifest the best potentials. That’s the main idea.

The major factors

Some programming or conditioning is not only inevitable but essential. (This is what the major push of Ted’s book is about). We are programmed (or conditioned) to adopt methods of driving a car according to rules. The various and different conventions of manners and speech are aimed at making relationship easier and so on. Most of them are useful and worth keeping but without thinking we are apt to change actions and intonations of speech and manners according to the company we are in, conditioned by an equally automatic process of conditioning – the need to seem to belong and to be one of a group. Society dictates the former, psychology the later. Those programs we adhere to imposed by society as manners, laws and by-laws can be a practical necessity, but those acting through our shared psychology can be downright disastrous.

*

There is a difference between what is meant here by programs and conditioning. As pointed out previously, the idea of programs is taken mostly from computer software speak, and as in a computer, one program can cover a range of possibilities. In my context a ‘program’ spans a range of many possible attitudes and actions whereas the term ‘conditioning’ has perhaps a more limited range - or it may be in relation to specific issues. The good news is that although we are and have to be conditioned and programmed, but we do not have to be entirely manipulated by programs or be conditioned by our conditioning! You are greater than they. Potentially at least. As an individual you love, hate, get angry and frustrated, know sorrow, feel and think; all that is part of the personal you. Yet there is also a, may I say ‘impersonal’, fundamental you that once un-earthed can use what is useful and delete what is not. To be trite, this impersonal you is the real you, not the one that is conditioned and programmed and twisted way out of potential shape. You are not just those feeling –thinking states. You can do what you like with them. The realization of the truth of this is immediately freeing; it is the passport to a creative and original life.

To remain conditioned by our conditioning and run by our programs is to live a dreary mechanical sort of existence. A bird born and bred in a cage is so programmed that it stays there even with the door open wide. In the same way, the restricted and therefore inadequate response to the issues and challenges of life create errors of judgment and thus erroneous actions which lead to dissent, conflicts, suffering and strife of all kinds.

We have no problem with the errors conditioned by the nature of the senses such as the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west while the truth is that it does neither. It is a fact that the earth seems flat though bumpy but the truth is it is round; that the moon waxes and wanes, comes and goes, though we know that it doesn’t. It is a fact that the earth seems stationary and fixed but the truth is that it is whizzing through space and spinning like a top. Knowing the nature of the delusions as such, we live with them unconcerned. In the same way it is possible to live with and use programs and conditioning in a practical sense where needed or to override them if redundant. That is real freedom. There will always be limitation of one sort or another by the very nature of life so complete freedom is impossible. These facts suggest that freedom is the expression of our natural potentials which arise without manipulation or according to our personal notions, when the limitations imposed by false programs and conditioning is removed. Ideally, it is not change according to a preconceived pattern.

Beliefs of whatever sort are the most limiting form of conditioning and are the most difficult to let go. They are rarely the outcome of our own enquiries or revelations but almost always imposed by others; society in general, religious indoctrination, parents and teachers. There they sit, (beliefs) largely uninvestigated and accepted as right and proper. What we call conditioning might be relatively harmless but nevertheless should be carefully watched, noted, and our use of them modified according to whether they are really useful at the present time. Belief systems are of another order and like a net are intertwined to capture the unwary. Ingenuously constructed by your own life situation, they are the product of religious academics, philosophers or even scientists.

How can a person become free of all these redundant layers? To show a possible way is the intention of this book by Ted, and though there may be many ways they must all start with seeing and acknowledging the existence of all the redundant beliefs, notions, programs and conditioning we have accumulated over the years. The author’s wide experience, training and personal confrontations with his own ghosts make him eminently qualified to show the way.

R. F Atkinson

NSW, Australia

HOW WE SHALL PROCEED

My aims in this chapter are to explore a subject that will have a large influence in the discussions, suggestions and arguments that make up this book. Coupled to ‘purpose and meaning’ always, is the issue of good communicating. Is it? Yes, once you dig in and see how communicating with others and your very own self is all there is to deliver better life meaning and purpose. How human beings communicate their aims and goals, and how they constantly think and feel is also a somewhat metaphoric affair.

In this work, I am going into all this and more, to clarify and even (humbly) offer practical ways of making better lives. Improvements in your life, in the areas of careers, personal relationships, and for the individual’s peace of mind for a more meaningful life. ¹

The preceding undertaking is made cautiously; I tend to be realistic. I don’t have a magic wand.

And dear people, I admit, writing about how to live better is often easier than doing so. Yet it most certainly is possible to do better and have fun improving one’s life. I know that, for that is my own experience of my life. It is after much living, experiencing, and a great deal of studies in wide areas of philosophy, psychology, the sciences and social sciences of humanity, that I attempt to synthesize some of the many schools of thought offered. Some of my own ideas come from, and are blended with the thoughts and wisdom of many great thinkers (why be too humble about it?).

I differentiate myself from the millions of others who wrote this sort of thing by saying, even promising, that the philosophy and psychology of successful and practical living that I shall offer, will be jargon and pretension free as far as that is possible. And, that what I suggest in practical ways can be put into practice by anyone willing to focus in these directions. Nor should it take you 50 years (or even one year) to reach some improvement, for I believe smaller steps are virtually instantly attainable.

I spell it out again: My end aim/goal is to improve lives.

This can’t be done in just one area of life endeavour; you can’t be a great parent, but lousy at work, or build a huge career, but be alienated from your children and partner etc. Oh yes, all right, you can, but at a great cost to your and their lives. In my book, all the major strands of human living and action have to work together.

I am not offering:

‘Enlightenment’ (in its usual meaning), emotional or intellectual get rich quicks, spiritual practices, instant satisfaction, health cures etc. However, I think that what I do offer may even help with some of the above - if that’s what you truly want. I may as well also admit here that I do not believe in Santa, the tooth fairy, reincarnation, a personal god of any sort, or out dated tales from over 2000 -5000 years ago. I do however believe in a kind of ‘self actualization’ a term popularized by psychologist A. Maslow, and that it can happen here on earth now, asap. I trust humanism, science, the brain/mind, and the good earth. And doing it all, getting more of it all, while we are alive and kicking, having fun and drama too. For me that’s enough. Through the ages there has been much searching by humans for what amounts to miracles, out of this world rewards, inner peace, outer success and so on. A great deal of those searchers were bright human beings who acted in utter error, considered outdated data, or belief systems such as religions, and yet, they were people of their day and often had great insights into life.

As for me I am trying to be satisfied with what can be had rather than in promises of after life, out of body and after death experiences and many other wonderful fictions.

Immediate Questions:

More than anything, it is important to actually find out a few things about yourself in a practical way, before you act on anything hands-on:

1. What do you think you really want?

2. Do you have what is needed to achieve that?

3. Is what you want a truly good i.e. positive thing? And is it realistic and Reality. ²

4. Are you open enough to learn and experience new ways of being?

Most people answer quickly and often glibly. At workshops I have run for many years, I posed such questions and I mostly heard people saying that they want more money. That’s ok, and can be useful. I also heard the desire for all sorts of other things. Some more serious, some less. The voices were often notably embarrassed, or glib, and small giggles accompanied many. I firmly believe that most people have trouble knowing what they really, really want. And even more shyness about putting that out on the table. Then again what people think they want is not always necessarily what they really need, or even truly want. I mean that nearly everyone wants more money - say…Yes that would perhaps help, but is it really the money they want? Or you think you want peace of mind. Yes, but what exactly is that for you? Or you need love, or youth or…

To achieve anything some change is needed

In my experience, working in psychological areas, I have come upon the curious fact of people being afraid to change, because they were actually worried about what it would mean in their lives.

A famous Zen story tells us about a young man who visited a young, but by reputation a very wise Zen practitioner. The wise man looked up and said hello, and went on chopping wood. Shortly he was finished chopping and picked up a pail of water carrying it inside his humble house. The visitor was disappointed at the sight of such an ordinary life, for the visitor believed that he was here to see how a very wise man’s life looked. He said nothing and left.

50 years later, he was passing by the same Zen house and he had heard that the same enlightened man lived there. Curious, he stopped at the gate. There was the same Zen practitioner of 50 years ago, older, frail, but still recognisable, carrying water and chopping wood just as he had 50 years ago. The curious visitor could not resist asking why an enlightened man still had to do all this work.

The old man clear eyed, shrugged and smiled: before enlightenment chop wood and carry water, after enlightenment chop wood and carry water!

Zen and all similar schools frustrate me as much as they instruct me, they do have a great deal of wisdom. The truth of the above tale in the end is simple: Life is life, there are things you will need to do no matter what happens or in what way. Don’t let that get in the way of doing better in at least some areas of your living.

If our human and individual purpose is known and is positive, then true meaning is (likely) attached to it. Let’s look at what purpose is and how it might work by investigating what drives and facilitates your purpose(s) or/and, what works against it. You might ponder and consider whether and what your purpose is, or if you have one or perhaps several, by which you live. Also, whether your purpose(s) drive most, or any, or none of your actions? (Now there’s an odd thought yes?)

We will consider and outline consciousness and contents and hook it up with various possible change frames, by using metaphor and analogy. One such will be today’s amazing technology, the PC computer hardware-software metaphor! The not so humble and amazing pc/apple can be used as a representation or comparison for human thinking, feeling, actions, and behaviours. The pc and other metaphors and analogies will help to conceptualize you as yourself, complete with what or who is currently pulling the strings.

Then, we shall tackle the more than one – indeed the many selves idea - as another method of exploring yourself. Our lives can be altered and improved in easy and practical ways. There are means and schemes for that even if many are so silly that…I won’t mention them. The analogies/metaphors I will offer shall speak of self-exploration leading to awareness and change you can do by yourself or with others. Those chapters will be followed by some ideas on your personal creativity.

*

I declare that I am an atheist, though that is emphatically not what this work is about. I make this clear because exploring and discussing the intended issues would be on very very different grounds if some sort of God formulation, faith or belief system was involved. I accept no such things. However, I do accept that nature is awesome. Still, whether you hold on to pure science, maths, or to a god and religion as your way of life –whatever - that will not lessen what you might gain here, if you are open to thoughtful ideas. Whatever human lives are about, we, each of us can have clearer direction and better choice making. Such direction and power is however only within each of us, according to my thinking, and not anywhere else, nor given by grace or anyone else.

*

I will draw on a wide range of disciplines that interplay, as I intend making this work available to anyone. Often, I will short-cut explanations and reduce elements to the essentials to keep within the (my) boundaries. Too many otherwise excellent and helpful works of similar intention are far too verbose and complex. Thus at times, you will find me entering an area of thought and then saying ‘we need not go any further in this direction’. That does not mean you should not go there, it is simply not needed for my exploration.

I am not selling anything here other than the above stated: to assist in people to have better lives. I must be a very brave man to offer that, and mean it in a practical way. You and I both know that we want to do well, live well now, not after 40 years of mediating or prayer. Do it ASAP, and if you can’t do it perfectly – and no one can – then still, the process itself will improve and add to your life.

Before I launch into a brief but to-the-point exploration of Purpose and Meaning I feel compelled to explain one more issue.

This is not an instruction book. Or is it? I will be offering some actual practices and ways of doing being. The very consideration of this material will bring about change and possible life improvement. To what degree, if at all, is up to the reader.

THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS?

So, what is the problem?

Why people struggle (unnecessarily) with the purpose of life is a questions as puzzling as the time and energy involved on it is wasted. This is a strong opinion of mine, but please consider what follows.

Everything in the universe appears to have a purpose, except for poor us humans? The word ‘purpose’ has a heavy connotation. For me the sense of ‘purpose’ is something like a commitment, a determination of sorts, a drive, or an intention…a striving, by whatever word. Do our lives have meaning and purpose? I see Joseph Campbell’s answer as simple, elegant and correct:

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer. (Josef Campbell, 1993, italics mine) Now this simple and brief message ought to be the end of this book or chapter! Except for finding out what and who is that …you are the answer…

Still, this way of seeing yourself is hugely healthy and very smart. Now, if life has meaning then it has purpose. Equally, if there is purpose then there is meaning. The two are inseparably the two sides of the one coin. Yet, for thousands of years, people have been pained by the question and have looked for the meaning and purpose of human lives. Campbell supplied it: meaning and purpose are what you make of your life. The process of living itself. Abraham Maslow offered the other salient words I paraphrase: be what you can be, and do it as best as you can.

The issue then is not the question of whether there is purpose and meaning to lives, but recognition of it as a simple enough fact. Yes, there is and it is You, which also brings with it the need for awareness of and constant exploration of your life. I suggest that such a survey need not be hugely complex if one applies questions that can be asked, such as these: What are your givens, features, programs, feelings, thoughts, and abilities? These questions can be easily and simply explored and understood. They are very important questions needing answers as precise as possible.

Striving

Conatus, our essence, which dictates that all of our intentions derive from our concerns with our own selves, leads us, if we truly attempt to fulfill ourselves, to see ourselves from the outside, as it were... (Goldstein 2009).

‘Conatus’ is Latin for effort, endeavour, impulse, inclination, tendency; undertaking; striving (Wikipedia www). It may be said, Spinoza thought that it is the innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself. One of the meanings of the word ‘conatus’ being ‘striving’, suits in explaining my aims.

I believe, and I have learned this from many great thinkers, that the purpose and meaning of humanity and individuals is indeed to ‘strive’ to become the best they can be. Such striving is what brings purpose and meaning to human lives according to Campbell, Spinoza, Metzinger, Plato and Maslow just to mention a few great brains. Plato’s idea was one I have taken to heart but with my particular explanation of it. My understanding and usage of the Platonic ‘perfect forms’ is brief and simple (probably not welcomed by academics, I think), and it is this: Things, people too, are in reality, mere ‘copies’ of what Plato calls the only true ‘reality’ and those are the ‘perfect forms’. That is to say, that everything, people included, may have a form that would be the prefect form of that particular thing. It is not to say that one needs to be perfect, but rather that one ought to strive to become the best possible version of one’s self.

Again therefore, the aim of life, of all things living is to strive for the best possible version of their individual kind.

We are built from genes. They form and deliver us as we have turned out to be… Genes, and in particular the molecules of DNA that constitute the physical genes, are merely the carts that are loaded with information. It is the information that is struggling unconsciously for survival (Atkins 2003) and the ‘information’ is us. It was Richard Dawkins’s book ‘The Selfish Gene’ (2006) that powerfully presented the idea, indeed the fact, that basically everyone, every living thing is a complex bundling of ‘selfish genes’ that just wish to, indeed must, survive! This is accepted as true by most thinkers, but one must note that the genes do this determined ‘striving’ unconsciously.

So there we have it. If you are one of those who always wanted