I have a strange relationship with psychology—in a broad sense. On the one hand, there's a lot of well-researched, highly intellectual work I simply respect. On the other hand, it can be extremely misleading when it comes to describing life because it touches only the mental aspect of life.
At a basic level of understanding, psychology presents us with the idea that we are literally a walking nervous system, which in itself is quite a dangerous false identification. But, it fits the idea of reality we live in, justifying most man-made nonsense as something perfectly normal.
Nowadays, people are completely detached from the reality of the physical world and natural life processes. They live immersed in thoughts and emotions in an ego-based society where individuals project various nonsense onto each other. Then, they wonder what's wrong with them and learn about psychology, thinking it can fix something. It's ridiculous.
In my previous article, I touched a little on our delusions and raised a simpler variation of the question, "Who am I?" that we can ask ourselves—and shock ourselves with the inability to answer it. The question is: "Who are you when you are alone in a forest where there is no one to prove your existence as an ego or projected persona?" You're just a piece of meat for hungry wolves, I concluded.
Anyway, how can you even answer the question? The honest answer is that you can't as one of the greatest gurus ever lived, Ramana Maharshi, once said: “The question 'Who am I?' is not really meant to get an answer, the question 'Who am I?' is meant to dissolve the questioner.”
There are three common answers to the question. The first is a story we tell about ourselves—both internally and externally. The second, quite similar, answer is to describe our self-image, our ego, that we try to project through our persona(s). Lastly, we can show our body and say, "That's me!" or describe our other identifications.
All these answers are wrong and lead to nowhere. The story is just a story. The image is just an image. The projected persona is just a projection. The body or other identifications are things we have, but since we have them, we can't be them.
In other words, our story, self-image, or projections mean nothing when there are no other people who can prove our existence in this way - in a psychological way. So we're left with a body that we indeed have, and that's something that roots us in physical reality as orgasm in the ecosystem of our planet.
The human body has a greatly developed brain and a mind that played a great role in our survival and allowed us to dominate this planet. But these days, it's no longer about survival. We're already at the top, observing the largest predators of this planet locked in cages in the zoo and teaching them fun tricks for TikTok videos. We're not really struggling for survival anymore but seeking the meaning and significance of our existence, and therefore, we make our lives complicated.
Human beings are creatures who tell stories and search for meaning in their existence because they cannot simply exist. A famous study shows that most people would rather do boring external activities or willingly undergo electroshock therapy than be left alone in a room for about 10 minutes with nothing to do but think. And no wonder. We have been conditioned to focus on the outside world since early childhood.
Our children learn about everything and everyone and not a single thing about themselves. The whole development of the child is a preparation not to live life but to participate in social life that, in modern days, is almost completely a mental construct. It's all about developing a personality and choosing a social role. Also, everyone must follow this path, follow the culture, and belong to this madness. After all this nonsense since childhood, psychology comes on a white horse to adults, trying to describe the whole phenomenon of life only by thoughts and emotions.
These days, we talk a lot about narcissism, just as if it were something unexpected. Is it really? I mean, aren't we the creatures who convinced themselves of their superiority over other beings? Creatures who then reduced the entire world to their size and values, putting themselves at the center? Don't we live in a world based on ego and individuality? Aren't we all deeply narcissistic creatures who then compete over who's more narcissistic?
Of course, psychologically, narcissism relates to stuff like relationships, school, work, or other areas of social life. It's because most people can't even grasp the idea that social life - in a modern sense, is just a tiny and quite irrelevant aspect of life.
Again, don't get me wrong. We have a well-developed brain and a mind. It gives us opportunities that other creatures can't even imagine—literally can't. Our cerebral capabilities are a great blessing, but we gave them too much importance. The whole drama of thoughts and emotions is something we experience - suffer, or enjoy, but it's a tiny part of the whole phenomenon of life.
We have come so far in this show we've created that today's world is all about thoughts, emotions, and imagination—the psychological aspects of life. So, it's not a surprise that psychology is so popular because our whole society is simply a mental construct. And yes, psychology can help us with social life.
The problem is that we try to fix everything through psychology, which makes our mental construct more important and makes us even more detached from reality. Trying to fix our lives through psychology is like trying to calm troubled water by hitting it with a pneumatic hammer. It simply can't work.
Psychology is not a problem—it's fun to learn—but it simply can't be a solution because it touches only a tiny aspect of life. Sure, it can help fix some problems in social life, but it can't touch the essence of life. Ultimately, it only strengthens the current idea of reality, the illusions we're living in, which makes us more stuck in the mental construct and, therefore, more detached from reality.
In this way, the great importance of psychology in modern life comes from the fact that we are increasingly lost in our imagination, in the great spectacle that we have created. It's either a terrible thing or a great drama - great artistry, depending on which way you look at it. Nevertheless, the only way to fix our life, the only way out of the nonsense, lies in not reading another psychology book but simply discovering that the mental construct is only a mental construct we can play with, but we don't have to.
Only from this perspective can we remain sane as beings and simply enjoy another day on this spinning rock without all the mental drama.
