Musings on the book by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga.
View on Amazon
(consider a local bookstore)
Framing
The book is a Socratic exchange between a fired-up youth and a more experienced philosopher.
The two adventure through 5 nights of dialogue on the simplicity of life and accessibility of happiness.
“When we try to change [how we see the world and ourselves] we put our great courage to the test. There is the anxiety generated by changing, and the disappointment attendant to not changing. I am sure you have selected the latter.” (pg 30, 34)
Five years ago, I had begun to explore the idea that, in a moment, we can reforge our perspective, actions, thoughts, reactions to the world--What the authors here refer to as “Lifestyle.” Paradigm Making, I called it. I dabbled around the edges of the idea—built a fire, stoked it for some weeks, and more or less resigned to poking at the fire until the embers faded, where I permitted other pressing concerns to push that exploration to my past.
In the years since, I have lived both anchored to the past and grasping for an uncertain future--creating and holding a state of anxiety in the here and now: splashing haphazardly in a soup of fear, doubt, impatience, want of control; bubbling over the urgent flames desire to be anchored, safe, defined, feeling accomplish in a forward momentum.
I’ve had marginal success in feeling accomplished, satisfied in this state--little islands of peace in the boiling pot, you might say. I know I have and can certainly “do better.” I desire to live in greater peace while effectively leveraging my gifts for our common good. Most of this is subjective. After reading the first of five sections (“Nights”) of The Courage to Be Disliked, I can tell that this journey will be self-reflection on how I have framed many of these subjective lenses, perhaps to the point of removing the lens altogether.
Removing the lens: I’m not in a boiling pot.
What does this mean? It feels out of reach, yet familiar.
The First Night
“Present goals?” (9)
The youth has a friend who refuses to go outside, though the youth is convinced that the friend direly wants to engage with the world. After back-and-forth, the philosopher says:
“…So, in Adlerian psychology, we do not think about past ‘causes’, but rather about present ‘goals’.
Present goals?
“Your friend is insecure, so he can’t go out. Think about it the other way around. He doesn’t want to go out, so he’s creating a state of anxiety. “ (9)
The discussion goes on: the friend’s past experience is not causing him to act like a hermit. The choice to live in isolation is just that: knowingly or unwittingly, the friend decided it is better to stay hidden. The uncertainty, the chance of some no-good happening are not worth it. We construct how we see the world and ourselves with an architecture of goals, most are hidden to us--calculations we have made that ideally help us navigate the complexity of life. A question we can ask: do these goals help us, or hold us back?
“We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.” (12)
The past does not define us, but we use the past as a tool to inform the goals we set.
Adler
The excerpt references “Adlerian psychology.”'
Alfred Adler is a notorious psychologist who worked (and pointedly disagreed) with Sigmund Freud. Inspired by Adler’s principles, The Courage to Be Disliked posits that nothing from our past determines our present and future. Rather, we permit our past to determine our lives. Once our mind reaches a certain maturity, we establish goals (Adler held this to be around 10 years old) and we then proceed to live our life according to those goals. This outlook on the world and on ourselves is what the book calls “lifestyle.”
“Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.” (13)
In realizing our liberty and responsibility to fully own our goals, we can then reshape these goals, from the ground up. (Goals here seem to run the gamut of emotions, knee jerk reactions, cultural filters, reactions, ways of judging, ways of seeing hope, fears, doubts, perceived limitations, and all their friends.)
“People Fabricate Anger” (15)
Pages 15-18 open the discussion that people fabricate anger to achieve some goal they have. Anger is a light switch, as seen when you’re on an angry tirade and the phone rings--you answer it and instantly change your demeanor, tone of voice to gentle and friendly. Once you hang up, you switch right back to anger.
I had to step back and think on this one.
When I am frustrated, what is my actual goal?
Why am I letting myself grow frustrated?
What lurking excuses about my condition are holding me back from consistently being peaceful, loving, and kind? Consistently happy?
“Are you okay just as you are?” (24)
The youth is dissatisfied; he wants to be like someone else.
“The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.” (26)
I was born into privilege.
I’m a white male who spent much of his youth in the quiet Cincinnati suburbs or Oklahoma city-country towns. The skin-value oppression faced by the majority of our world had not dawned on me until I left Oklahoma. No hate to the state, but to those invested—it is critical that we open our hearts to the things we do not understand--and we must put ourselves beyond our comfort if we are to evolve.
Someone in my high school junior history class made a powerpoint presentation including a picture of the Rio Grande with fifty copies of a cropped photo of one of our Mexican-American classmates. I was ignorant of the discrimination that Latino families endure in this culture--asleep to the evil that openly mocked our safe, country Christian values.
I wish I was aware, I wish I would have had the courage to overcome the socially comfortable position of just sitting there--or worse, laughing with the class--to ask the harassed student if he was okay--to let him know that I recognize this behavior to be abnormal, to be racist, to be unacceptable. I wish I would have sat the class down to watch Will Smith’s Netflix series, Amend--especially episode 6. Then we could have a conversation about the 14th amendment, its applications to today’s conversation about immigration, and specifically to the context of that classroom. Proper US History.
Am I okay just as I am?
In being born with much, though I have no generational wealth ($$$) to speak of, I have equipment to make use of—platforms (social influence/access necessarily following from my white, male, English-speaking nature) and the other gifts of education, creativity, connections. We all have equipment of some nature. Our voice, insights, friendships, education—be it in the halls of Oxford or the streets of Chicago or Managua. Your paradigm of mind is equipment and it can be upgraded.
The philosopher suggests I am okay just as I am, but this doesn’t mean I have arrived. I have quite a way to go, a journey unto infinity, perhaps. I must be okay so I have the peace and presence to make good use of my equipment. I have a responsibility to advocate for justice. My faith, social caste, heart, and common sense all point me toward the goal of unification, which demands that I use my equipment in love, to elevate the cause of the poor, marginalized, oppressed.
My heroes speak of reconciliation. It is this coming together, this great hope for our world that calls on each of us to eradicate injustice. In a world reaching for peace, there is no place for separation of others into the cold night.
What are we working for? A world of peace or something less than? Nothing less than is worth my time.
My work is to align the testament of my life, my character and actions, with what I am writing here. I know I have “goals” that get in the way. My hope is to humbly accept the rebuke offered by The Courage to Be Disliked, that I may rip away the things that hold me back from being a more authentic warrior of peace.
Here’s to the journey.
“Unhappiness is something you choose for yourself.” (27)
 |
| Giphy: Cat Biscuits |
I get frustrated, more frequently in recent years.
I would rather be frustrated than act against goals I have set.
The invitation is to soften myself, to be open to seeing how I might better equip myself to navigate life in a less frustrated way. I will have to be vulnerable—step into “fear” and take some kind of risk. The philosopher’s premise is that life can be easy, but the road to reforming my goals –reformatting my operating system—will not be a gentle massage.
“Your Life is Decided Here and Now” (35)
This hit home.
The philosopher had just been discussing with the youth how “people always choose not to change.”
“…Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.” (34)
Naturally, the youth wants more explanation, so the philosopher talks about his friend, who carries an untraveled dream along in his life—always just out of reach. The friend is a hobby-writer who dreams of becoming a novelist but refuses to put in effort and engage with the dream, for a variety of excuses. The real reason is that the friend prefers to keep the possibility of “’I can do it if I try’” (36) open. It is comforting to believe that excuses like family, work, and environment are holding me back--all the while I can avoid the potential of rejection and criticism.
This is personally relevant. I enjoy publishing creative work. I like to share my perspectives and I dream of facilitating engagement beyond a 1-dimensional giving. However, there are many risks I avoid taking. To sum them up, I like feeling safe, in harmony, and of value; at times that means I share nothing, say nothing, do nothing. I have to ask… what good is this for me?
Myriad tensions held:
satisfaction feeling opportunity; abstain, my hand, from venturing beyond--fear, pain, rejection, failure, something precious lost (time, reputation, faith, ability, knowledge that I am “good”)
... the unknown could rain anything down on me.
This small shelter, my fortress.
Where you find my bones, the courage of my heart is measured.
“…the past does not exist.”(38)
“Adler’s teleology tells us, ‘no matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.’ That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life.” (38)
Our life is determined at this exact point—the past does not exist. Teleology considers that our ways of behaving are grounded in future wants, not past causes.
This is our segue into the next Night, to come next week. Our homework is to meditate on these ideas.
A Final Note
This philosophy and psychology is amazingly redemptive. It rests on a principle that I’m equating with grace: regardless of our past, we can be continually redeemed. Nothing can hold us back from our liberation—only ourselves. It is something we each must claim.
So very much love and peace to you,
Gabriel
