Self Undevelopment

Self Undevelopment

Walk into any book shop and you will see row upon row of self development, self help or self improvement books. They all promise to change, fix or improve your life. It is great business beause there is a never ending list of things people wish to change, fix or improve in pursuit of happiness.

It strikes me that our biggest problem is the inflation and promotion of our limited idea of self. The self to most is the idea of who I am. The spiritually inclined hijack the idea and introduce us to the Higher Self...the bit of us which doesnt harbour desires and only wishes for world peace.

Marketing appeals to our sense of self. Marketing includes Nike, Christianity and Anarchist. We identify with one or other of the ideas presented to us (including this one), and all of them are designed to give us a firmer grip on that illusive concept of self.

I get the real sense that liberation lies beyond the concept of self.

What if the self were just another version of Coca Cola, L'Oreal or Mercedes? 

What if the real route to freedom were the undevelopment of self? 

What if liberation lay inthe desconstruction of who we think we are?

What if the new age crap and the seeking of the true self were just another desirable consumable which would make our iives more bearable?

To me the biggest problem we all face is that we have an idea of how life should look, how we should feel or how people should behave in relation to ourselves or to life in general.

But ask yourself the question, who or what is it that is deciding how life should look? 

I would like to suggest that our idea of how things should be come from something called self. Self can be defined as a person's essential being that distinguishes them from others. 

There is a clue in that definition as to the route of stress. It is our sense that we are distinct from from others that creates the stress we all try to escape. 

If we were to try to stop interfering with life by imprinting our ideas of what is best then we may be one step closer to liberation.

My suggestion is that to escape our stress we try to UNDEVELOP self rather than embark on another self development course.

Just an idea.

With love

Bill