Parents get mad when their kids say, “It wasn’t me. It happened by itself,” pointing to a broken vase or a mud-stained suit. Grown-ups try to teach children responsibility, knowing that you can’t thrive in the adult world without it.
Through others’ efforts, we learn not just to own our actions but to control everything around us, avoiding “shards” and “dirt.”
In the end, the “I” remains. The “It” disappears.
Sadly, with time, you realize that betting everything on the “I” has limits. Yes, you’ve achieved much. You’ve mastered a craft. But on life’s big questions, the “I” has no answers:
Why does Y spark curiosity, not X?
Why is the real treasure where “I” refuses to look?
Why do breakthroughs, insights, and dreams come?
Why does common sense, someone else’s, stop satisfying me?
Why do some people form a bond of trust?
Why do changes stall, then leap forward?
Why do we act with passion, unable to explain?
One learns through pain, another through grace, that beyond the narrow Ego lies a greater force within. Call it Self, Atman, Dao—whatever you like. But IT gives you everything.
Society’s goal is to make a child safe for itself, to tame him. The group’s survival trumps the individual. The upside? He’s welcomed into the world. The downside? He forgets who he really is.
So an adult’s task is to reconnect with Self. In the language of fairy tales, to find the forgotten spring of Living Water. In the language of psychology, to build the Ego-Self axis.
At its core, you must bring your duality back to its original unity.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
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