I kind of can’t believe the title of Episode 99, but this is the culmination of all the work so far including nearly 100 KEW Episodes and over 30 Interviews. Hopefully this body of work, thus far, has earned me a bit of credibility. Coupled with my PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and over a decade in multiple modalities of therapy, counseling, and coaching, I think I have some room to ‘weigh in’ on some of the big questions.
One of the emergent themes from the Are vs Should Problem investigation, which includes a 50-Episode arc and interviews with 13 unique individuals (links to all here) is the Uniqueness Imperative.
I honestly believe we are supposed to REALIZE our uniqueness. Instead, we are taught to depress our individuality and conform to societal norms, laws, and culture. Don Miguel Ruiz calls this a ‘dream’ of ‘domestication’ where we are essentially trained to conform to our local rules. Our families, churches, schools, and villages encourage us to ‘be like them’ in an effort to teach us how to live.
While this indoctrination is well-intentioned, it has devastating effects on our identities.
And all around you are examples of this devastation. Hunger. War. Anxiety. Suicide. People are struggling.
And, don’t get me wrong, I am not looking for some utopian existence, I believe there will always be a baseline amount of struggle and suffering – in a very Buddhist sense – but this is extreme.
Hopefully we can agree that these examples suggest we are doing something wrong. And this is the problem I aim to address.
And one of the solutions, is to ask the question: “Rather than suppress our individuality and conform to societal norms, what if we encouraged each other to develop our quirks and realize our uniqueness”. How would this look in the world? What would be different? Would things look better or worse?
This Episode is the end of the first part of the KEW experience. In Episode 100, I will introduce the other half of this experiment, and in Episode 101 begin the next phase.
From Episode 101 on, I will be writing a book in real time focusing on the Uniqueness Imperative and the material from Episode 100. I hope you will join me. Please subscribe to my blog here, to the podcast and/or the YouTube channel to make sure you don’t miss out.
And, as always, I encourage you to comment so that we have a true discourse rather than just me talking.
Podcast audio:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/530563/10674576
YouTube video: