Growth is the morphing from being self-centric to eccentric. A child is born, and he knows not himself: his actions are governed by URGES rather than thoughts–the urge to feed, to sleep, the urge to feel protection–physical protection.
A little further down the line, he develops a rudimentary sense of self: and still, all his actions, his wants are blissfully centred on himself. He wants toys, he wants bright clothes, he wants the best stationery at school–he wants everything his neighbour has, only better and more expensive. And he naturally wants all this for nothing in return: he assumes to be appreciated merely for existing, and not for being anything special: for him, his mere existence is special. As it is for his parents, his close relatives: as it SHOULD be for the whole world. Should be, but is not.
So the rest of his life is spent weaning himself away from this concept that the world revolves around him, that other beings are accessories to his existence. This belief is subconscious: it is never voiced, and many people go through a great part of their lives while never even realising it exists.
The first test of leaving self-centredness behind is making friends: true, lasting, loving friends who will sacrifice their own just for the sake of the smile on his face. While almost every child has playmates, very few can without a thought, without a question make the first sacrifice that is just so essential to link hearts. For those who can, they embark on a journey which weathers the self–like a river weathers stone and makes fertile soil–into the PROPER relief.
Growing further up, the very paradigm of self is rebuilt. It is entirely possible for our child (now become a teen or perhaps a young adult) to be pained at his friends’ pain because he imagines them still to be appendages of himself: appendages that are suffering. While this is a very delicately emotional way of taking friends to heart, it is still not the right approach. To have grown and loved truly, one must understand that those one loves are SEPARATE people, and learn to place the feelings of those separate beings at a place higher than one’s own. One has to finally learn to hold others’ places above oneself, and see oneself in a new light: that of an appendage of others, which is diametrically the opposite of seeing others as appendages of oneself.
Why, dear reader, do I say “one has to”? Why do I use the word “finally”? To clarify, I do not think that this stage is the last in the evolution of the self! This is, however, an important milestone. Also, as we shall see, this is a very poetic phase.
This putting-others-over-himself is the prequisite of romance. And romance flourishes in our young man because of another contributing factor too: satisfaction. This is the satisfaction that arises of his having attained that crucial milestone. Satisfaction fuels him to put his love above himself, which in turn provides more satisfaction. This self-feeding chain grows voluptuous, and resonates in him till it consumes all else. Hence, quite apart from the physical and emotional flagrance of youthful romance, this is also a phase of flagrant celebration-of-the-self.
This phase, however, is passing, as our young man finds out. As he grows older, though, it is replaced with something of ripened beauty: his self changes for the penultimate time, and this change brings out his best maturity.
He now has children, and he comes to realise that while he is part of a whole, the only purpose of that whole is simply to exist. In themselves, and, through their descendants–into futurity. He also realises that, though there is nothing dramatic about this purpose of existence, drama is not needed for contentment. So the final, down-to-earth understanding of the self is this: The only purpose of life is life.
It is to BE.
