The Frontier of Personal Growth
Before we begin…
Richard Feynman noted that “Religion is a culture of faith. Science is a culture of doubt.”
I’ve found that optimal growth exists between these two extremes of “faith” and “doubt”.*
Too much faith and you become rigid and cannot grow and adapt. Too much doubt and you become overwhelmed in chaos.
Therefore Questions (representing doubt) form the frontier of my growth, and the Answers, when I live into them, get converted into affirmations and core principles (representing faith) to guide daily decision making.
Answers themselves are as ephemeral as our emotions. Indeed our greatest Epiphanies come to us as a strong feeling, a sudden realization like electricity shooting through our being. In order for them to be of value to our daily lives, they need to be defined into affirmations through words and tested and reinforced through actions. That’s how we may form personalized value systems by living our deepest questions.
You will see this “locomotion of doubt and faith” at work in this journal entry from my Taiwan sabbatical where I continuously jump between observations, questions and answers (which I have bolded). In the process, I go deeper and deeper into my psyche to tease out my personal truths.
At the end, I create a mind map (a nonlinear, divergent, analytical tool) to expand my experiences of beauty (defined as things that make me feel more alive), annotate the emerging patterns, and finally synthesize them into concrete affirmations through writing (a linear, convergent, emotional tool).
*This theory of faith and doubt scales well. At the societal level, too much faith results in fascism and too much doubt hinders the building blocks of civilization like government, economics and money.
The Frontier of Personal Growth
I have so much backlog over the last few days. Makes sense because it’s literally been a whole week since I last wrote. A lot has happened. I recorded a few voice memos here and there, but it’s not the same. My heart yearns for writing in the Rilke sense.
Taiwan has delivered everything that I could want. Yet language is still a barrier. For the sake of immersion, I will make the effort of learning it. However would I still feel at home even if I spoke perfect Chinese? I don’t think so because I speak English just fine, yet I still feel unease in American cities. So that is only part of the issue of feeling “at home” somewhere.
What have I learned over the past week? Nature remains my true home. Even as it punishes me for venturing into it, it rewards me for trying. If I spent the rest of my life traveling to beautiful, challenging places, I would be happy.
Highest point of Alishan. The clouds are actually the thick mist that envelopes the high mountains where some of the best tea in the world is harvested.
What about the world of ideas? Ideas come from humans. Yes, but the source of my greatest insights still come from Nature. And as Vipassana has taught me, they can also come from within. So perhaps retreating solo into Nature for prolonged periods may not be such a bad idea. Yet how much is that running away from the world?
The bigger question is how many lives can I live within a lifetime. Perhaps in two weeks if one can dive deep, to suck the marrow out of a lifestyle, that would allow me to live approximately 20 lives per year. This trip has taught me that life is long if you know how to use it. To select a few places to spend 80% of your time that truly speak to you. It’s about exploration, about pushing yourself out there, to find your personal wilderness. Mine happens to be real wilderness, but it’s different for everyone. If you do that, you will be within your sphere of mastery because you will continue to draw strength from this space. This is where the VIA resides.
When I return, I want to construct my Inner Citadel, truly make it concrete from all the lessons that I gained from this trip.
Today I will hold a heart and mind of abundance, where connections are bountiful if I’m open, curious, generous, and genuine. I will allow things to unfold organically. If I embody those values then I will be fine in the human world.
The thoughts of the future with its infinite possibilities still flood in from time to time. Lying in ambush to invade my mind. Expectations, projections, phantoms, whether real or not doesn’t matter because they leave a lasting impression on my mind. Judgment. Nature does not judge. Perhaps that’s why I feel so comfortable there. I’m afraid of judgment, still now even after all the work that I have done. This is indeed a lifelong process. It goes so deep. Being on social media certainly does not help.
At what point do I return inwards? Where I funnel my energy? What brings me true joy? Do I wish to be admired by the masses or only those who truly care? What do they care about? What do I wish to embody? Before I leave, I want to figure this out. Because when I arrive back in the US, I know there are many things that I must tend to. I will be pulled into things, new city, new people, new ideas. Excitement and noise are all part of the territory of discovery.
At what point does expression trump curiosity, when it crosses the line into egocentrism? When we stop listening and become engrossed in our own views and thoughts? When sharing becomes one-sided? When it no longer benefits the other and the greater whole? When it ceases to be generous and becomes selfish? When the feeling of scarcity of time and attention creeps in, displacing patience and goodwill? These are the triggers that I must watch out for, for it’s all too easy to become self-absorbed and go down the path of dissatisfaction, insecurity and scarcity. Ultimately to desire a certain outcome is to be stressed and unhappy. Yet if all desire is absent, how can we make progress?
Once again today is an opportunity for me to live into my questions. Every day presents these opportunities. I guess it’s a good thing then that I actually don’t like talking too much especially about myself, preferring instead to observe, ask, listen and learn. It’s just a matter of leaning into that.
Mind Map to Guiding Values
I first mind mapped what I found beautiful (borrowing John o'Donohue’s definition: beauty is the presence of which we feel more alive) to determine what resonated with me on this trip. The red portions are annotations that tease out the meta insights and connections. Then I synthesized these insights into affirmations and guiding values on the left.
The black lines are places and events in linear chronological order whereas the red annotations capture feelings, concepts, and nonlinear connections. This is the same technique used in Empowering Mind Maps. I thought it was fitting that this was the last page of my notebook insert as a retrospective on the entire adventure.
Here’s what I wrote to solidify these reflections:
“From this map, I can tell that I’m most at home alone in the forest. I seek adventure, but also to reach places that few people go. It gives me freedom and deeper connection with the greater whole, a spiritual experience.
The exposure to the elements reminds me of the reality of change, from the bitter cold to the warm sunlight to the shifting light and shadows to the twilight afterglow and uneven ground beneath my feet. It is in nature that I come face to face with randomness and discovery, which I’m beginning to appreciate in cities now. For it is from randomness that we may harvest an abundance of fire moments.
The things I found most beautiful from the human world have the energetic colors of love and simplicity. I now know that connections of relative brevity can yield rich depth, if they are open, kind, curious. Fondness only grows over multiple meetings in different settings. That’s how travelers can become good friends so quickly. These are beautiful things that I want to cultivate when I return home.”
And these, my friends, are the Affirmations what I’m living and transforming into Values now that I’m back home.
Make the most of your mind maps
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