Do people have ideas or ideas have people?
We humans have always been confused with existence and our life in general, but thanks to an avalanche of information, never has humanity been this confused.
Life has become insanely complicated and we know not why. We seem to have so much and yet we feel so hollow inside.
In the haze, we wander around struggling to make sense of our lives, maintain sanity and stability.
We look outwards to the exterior of what we can see, touch, smell, hear and taste for answers. We care not or dare not look within where lie answers.
Some of us focus on family, others on relationships, some on wealth and others on power and influence, etc. etc. Our unease compelling us to constantly search.
The search for an idea about the meaning of our lives inevitably leads us to various ideologies (a system of ideas and beliefs). Because we do not know, we have to believe and belief is always blind.
Whatever the 'ism, be it political, religious, etc, like a lost and drowning individual who sees no other recourse, we cling to that ideology.
To give meaning and substance to our existence we passionately devote ourselves, even immersing ourselves, completely into those ideologies only to be consumed by those ideas.
Desperation forces us to make bad, inappropriate or even ridiculous choices. But it is the wise individual who awakens and periodically questions the ideology we so passionately live, fight for, even kill and die for.
Our ego fools and blinds us into believing that it is we, who have ideas whereas the converse is true. The ideas have us.
I occasionally take step back and ask myself, what is it that I do not know? What is it that I believe in and why?
It's always a good idea to muster the audacity to awaken.
"For one can fall victim to possession if one does not understand why one is possessed.
One should ask oneself for once: Why has this idea taken possession of me . What does that mean in regard to myself?
A modest doubt like this can save us from falling head first into the idea and vanishing for ever."
~ Carl Gustav Jung
"The original quote was "In Mother Russia, people don't have ideas, ideas have people." (Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 8: Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche)
~ Gurvinder Singh
November 2020
