Reflection
Written by Hash Rifai
At a certain point in life, we must question beliefs we have long held and understand why we hold them. This is essential if we are to gain sovereignty over ourselves. In our early years, most of our beliefs are inherited, passed on to us by parents, caregivers, schools, religion, and culture. In most cases we accept them because we have not yet developed the means to question them. If left unexamined, these beliefs can govern our lives.
History and culture are filled with figures who have stripped themselves of their identity in order to discover who they truly were. The Prodigal Son finds himself only after losing himself to excess. Many follow a similar path, submitting themselves to hedonism to avoid self-reflection. They fear what might surface in the silence. Eventually, however, indulgence can no longer sustain the illusion. The body fails and the mind rebels, forcing a confrontation with what has been avoided. Others reject indulgence. Prince Siddhartha Gautama, later known as Buddha, was born into wealth and status, but he found no peace in privilege. He abandoned his life and turned to extreme asceticism, fasting and meditating for years in search of liberation from an identity he did not choose.
The concept of stripping oneself of their identity to find out who they really are is especially necessary today. We live in an age of excess consumerism and constant information. We are relentlessly told what to buy, how to live, and who to become. Knowledge is power, but too much of it is paralysing. Today, much of the information we receive is contradictory. Instead of progress, we remain rooted to the spot, not knowing how to proceed. We continue to seek more information in the hopes of finally finding the right answer. Viktor Frankl addresses this tension in Man’s Search for Meaning, a book I recommend as essential reading. Frankl observed that modern people often suffer not from a lack of pleasure or knowledge, but from a lack of meaning. Meaning, he argues, cannot be handed to us; it must be discovered through reflection. Many of our questions resolve only when the unconscious is made conscious. A difficult but necessary process.
To discover who you are, distractions must be reduced and life simplified. Stripped back to the essentials. This can be achieved by living a period in solitude. I speak from experience. In the early months of the pandemic, circumstance required me to move out of my comfortable family home and into a small, sparsely furnished flat. My life was reduced to the basics. I also withdrew from social media. The days were quiet, spent walking, writing and thinking. Over the course of the following months, I began to intensely examine inherited beliefs: religious, moral and personal. Some justified themselves; others didn’t. With no distractions, I found clarity and rebuilt my beliefs.
Journaling was central to this process. To understand yourself, you have to understand how you think. To understand how you think, you have to write down your thoughts, and read them. Thoughts, left to simmer, tend towards confusion: a tangled ball of string. Writing gently pulls at one loose thread, straightening it and allowing clarity to emerge.
Equally important was learning to observe thought. Not every thought deserves careful consideration. Many are irrational, some habitual, others deceptive. If we do not observe thoughts objectively, we become governed by their impulse. Meditation, without the mysticism, remains the most effective way I know of noticing thoughts, allowing them to be examined rather than obeyed.
You only begin to discover who you are by examining why you are. It’s a necessary exercise because it’s the difference between directing your life or drifting through it.