I walked myself through a thought experiment today.
One of my greatest fears is set thinking and ingrained responses.
Now, at thirty-four, the threat is greater than ever.
I think our brains are designed to spend the first twenty to thirty years learning.
We listen, we watch, we taste. We adventure. We test ourselves. We test others.
But the experiences we enjoy are a double-edged sword: while each new experience broadens our perspective and challenges our assumptions, most of our experiences aren’t new ones – they are the routines that make up our lives. They are the things we enjoy most, the work we do every day, and the people we love. They form the rules and guidelines that govern our lives; they train ourselves into a pattern of behavior.
Not just in the larger concepts of job and lifestyle, but in the small. Do we smile when we make eye-contact? Do we respond to pity with anger? Do we judge certain people more harshly than others?
It becomes easier to be what we are – human, father, worker, coke-head – and not who we are.
There’s nothing inherently wrong that. Ignorance is bliss, and so too are the comforts of the familiar.
Personally – I’m just not ready to be that comfortable. I want to keep my rituals, but I’m not done testing myself.