Why the “How” Matters
The things I’ve been learning lately. It’s like my brain is exploding with the sheer expansion in awareness I’m experiencing. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m someone who notices problems. A lot. I always have been from the time I was young. My family would tell me “stop being so negative” when I noticed the dysfunction in the systems around me, but now I see how it can be an incredibly useful tool when applied correctly. Life itself operates based on its systems. And if a system becomes dysfunctional, so too does the organism it’s an integral part of. If we could diagnose structural and systemic dysfunction at the roots, we would really begin to see change unfold on this planet - one system at a time. And it starts with becoming aware of our own individual operating systems, the kind of unveiling one could spend lifetimes only just beginning to understand. But working to create soul-level coherence through this kind of applied knowledge is worth the effort, in my strong opinion.
To look closely at systems that aren’t working is often diffusely rejected in society because of how closely we as humans identify with them in the first place. Take for example, the way we cling to an intimate relationship that we’ve outgrown or a job we hate because it’s familiar, even if painful. These are examples of everyday dysfunctional systems we participate in that work at an almost involuntary level when set in motion because they reinforce a conditioned sense of safety and predictability in us. It’s the way we’re designed. We as humans require repeatability for self-regulation, but we’re often unaware of how these impersonal, objective systems operate under the surface of perceived reality to generate personal, subjective experience in the first place.
There’s a common idea shared in spiritual communities that one does not need to understand the “how” when it comes to connecting with the creative process of a greater intelligence, just to focus on shifting self-concept, but that’s where I challenge the status quo. Strongly. “How”, to me, is just as important as the other 5 W’s when seeking to understand the nature of reality and the self. Without it, we risk playing a magically vague guessing game that can feel enlightening for some time before growing wearisome, and even irresponsible, in terms of living a practical human life. Self-concept work is often based on shaping internally held beliefs and values, but those beliefs and values must then become consciously crafted principles and actions to create any lasting change in one’s habitual systems. Continual education and effort is therefore required to make meaningful progress in one’s overall holistic experience.
Humans like easy answers to hard questions. And in many ways, the ability to intuitively simplify complex phenomena into distilled explanations while keeping core truths intact is an exceptional intelligence of its own. But detailed understanding of “how” is where we become capable of creative precision. Maintaining spiritual awareness while throwing intellectual understanding to the wind creates an interesting kind of experience, but it can also make one vulnerable to ignorance. Ignorance of knowledge that could be incredibly beneficial to one’s growth if applied appropriately. The human as a species is still in the very early stages of its cognitive evolution, learning to transcend binary thinking and its unconsciously held identifications with “this” or “that” over true clarity. But I’m highly interested in the bridge where these separately held understandings converge.
Becoming literate in systems intelligence and applying that to my experiential and intuitive understanding of reality is where my focus leads me next on my path, for that reason.
