Greetings Readers!
Here is the next volume of our series — Letters to a Young Seeker (Catch up on previous volumes: Don’t Forget to Live, Break Bread with the Dead, Live an Examined Life, Carry the Fire, The Art of Optimism, Think Like a Mortal, Trust Thyself, The Art of Being, and Freedom and Responsibility).
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Dear Fellow Traveler,
Life is paradoxical. In many ways, our seeking (for wisdom, God, and so on) often leads back to ourselves. The project is not necessarily self-improvement; it is one of self-discovery and acceptance. The nineteenth-century psychoanalyst Carl Jung called the notion of becoming who we are the privilege of a lifetime. However, this is no simple task, according to Jung.
A parable about a conversation between a journalist and a monk highlights this point: The journalist asks, “What is wrong with the world?” The Monk responds by asking, “Who are you?”
The journalist answers, “I’m a journalist.” The monk says, “No, that is your profession; who are you?” The journalist responds, “I’m John Smith, from America.” The Monk says quickly, “No, that is your name and where you’re from — who are you?”
The journalist becomes a little confused and answers, “I’m a human being.” The monk pauses and responds calmly, “No, that is your species. The problem with the world is that we don’t know who we are.”
