The Solitary Art of Self-Creation

By: Erik Rittenberry

Art: Cameron Gray

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“Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist.
To make living itself an art, that is the goal.”

― Henry Miller

“The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born when we die — although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die before they are born.”

 — Erich Fromm

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Behind the self-help cliches and feel-good answers, are you satisfied with who you are and what you’ve attained in life? Can you look yourself in the mirror in the early hours of dawn and honestly answer that question?

Have you carved out a life true to who you are beyond the job, the title, the possessions, and society's tedious obligations? Have you ever accomplished anything on your own terms to be truly proud of? 

Have you achieved some aspect of personal excellence through the cultivation of your own creative powers? Or are you simply living out your life as a walking mimicry, relying on customs, fashions, false appearances, and the opinions of others to nourish your sense of self-worth?

These are serious questions that must be met with the utmost sincerity. Because in truth, in the final hours of life, very few people can reflect on their lives and be proud of what they’ve done.

The most prominent deathbed regret for many people is that they wish they had the courage to live a life true to themselves, not the life others expected of them. We lived cowardly and apathetic, afraid to try, afraid to fail, afraid to take full responsibility for our own existence.

Rather than using our own unique strengths and passions in forging our own lives, many of us come to realize late in life that we’ve squandered the treasures within. We gave the reins to our lives over to others and lived like a heedless marionette on the cultural stage. 

Repressing the unconscious reality within ourselves, many of us simply don the social mask of appeasement and frantically pursue the dominant yet hollow values of our modern society, whether it is wealth, fame, status, influence, or some fashionable ideology.

However, as Sigmund Freud saw all too clearly: “It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”

These are people who live ordinary lives. They work hard to become accepted and are considered good citizens, good patriots, and obedient contributors to the “greater good.” They’ve carried out their given role and have been properly absorbed into the mass. A cog in the social machine. 

Of course, there’s generally nothing wrong with this way of life. But I think at some point along the way it hits us that we are capable of living a far more vibrant, authentic life than the one we’ve succumbed to. 

There’s something more in us. Something more in you. And you know it. 

Many of us in the modern world imprison ourselves with petty dramas and ceaseless activity in an attempt to avoid coming face to face with the person who lies behind the social mask. We tend to just go along and pander to all the superficial trends and solicitations that the world offers. 

Of course, this all comes at the detrimental cost of our creative powers, and, ultimately, our self-identity.

As John Gardner reminded us in his must-read book, Self-Renewal:

“We can keep ourselves so busy, fill our lives with so many diversions, stuff our heads with so much knowledge, involve ourselves with so many people and cover so much ground that we never have time to probe the fearful and wonderful world within… By middle life most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves.”

The external world, the culture we are born into, more often than not dictates who we become as an individual. This isn’t groundbreaking wisdom. Certain kinds of behavior are forced upon us by our social setting, especially in our professional endeavors. We are products of our environment and must at times act accordingly. The social mask is required to function in society.

But the true fucking tragedy is that as the years march through us, we tend to lose our true selves completely to the persona we’ve created. The mask of acceptability. We become entirely consumed by that tiresome costume of our social role at the cost of our true individual nature. 

Social psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm hit the nail on the head when he observed:

“Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individualists, that they have arrived at their opinions as the result of their own thinking — and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as those of the majority.”

Is it any wonder that so many people in the modern world are riddled with despair and depression? Why so many have become superficial and alienated? Is it any wonder that mental health concerns are a fast-growing concern year after year? 

It was the great Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, who once reminded us that “the most common form of despair is not being who you are.” 

Echoing the sentiments of Kierkegaard, psychologist Liz Greene, noted that “through blind acceptance of collective opinions, we cripple ourselves and our own potential for meaningful growth and change, and we rarely understand how closely such debilitation is linked with depression, physical illness, neurosis, and death.”

So many of us in the modern world live a hurried, lukewarm existence and are content with minor comforts and minimal pain. Our identities are wrapped around who we are in the economic sphere and what we possess. These cultural values and beliefs are instilled in us from an early age and we rarely take the time to reevaluate. 

We become sucked into a repetitious cycle that we mistake as “life.” 

We eat, drink, work, sleep, reproduce, and drag through our dull days in front of screens with little desire to carve out something extraordinary from our brief time here on earth. This is all too common in today’s world. 

Only a small minority of people have the guts to create a life on their own terms and to become who they are. Very few of us give voice to our unique talents and yearnings as human beings. We instead settle beneath the comfy blanket of expectations. 

Not you, dear reader. 

Not you because you know there’s a light in you that has yet to be born. You know that you are here to cultivate your own uncommon abilities and strive for that brilliant star of excellence. YOU have the will to overcome the creature comforts of a restrained life that achieves nothing of significance.

You, dear reader, are unlike the majority who become well-established disciples of mediocrity. You know the time has come to go all in. 

These words, dear reader, are just a small wake-up call for you to shake from your apathetic ways. Uncivilize a bit. Reevaluate who you are and what you truly want. Wake from the slumber of habit and do something no one has done before. 

Time is running out. 

To commit all of your vital juices to the established ways of doing things is a recipe for immense regret and anguish — a life lived as a demented puppet. 

In the great dice game of our evolutionary existence, you are here. Right now. And it’s extraordinary. What odds? You’re not simply here to become a functionary pawn in the algorithm of a vast economic machine. You’re not here to give yourself away to the highest bidder, to let the world suck the marrow from your bones. 

Hell no.  

You have within you something no other individual has possession of. It’s your job, your only crucial job, to act on that uniqueness and give it a voice. Others might not see it, but you will. And you’re the only person that needs to be impressed by that “something” you harbor. 

Whatever that “something” is in you, your sole aim should be to develop it to its full potential and live according to it. Don’t sell it out like so many. Don’t render it out for auction. Act on it. 

As the great rambunctious poet Charles Bukowski once said: “Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.”

Regardless of your predicament in life, you alone have the power to do something that will leave a mark on the world. You must pursue it at all costs. And it’s in this pursuit that you create a work of art that is your life. 

Don’t give up your energy and attention to shopping malls, TV, media drama, endless scrolling, and mindless entertainment. These things will surely dull your wits and dilute your concentration in the quest of becoming your higher self. This is what everybody does and you’re not here to piss away your life like an “everybody.” 

The brilliant Carl Jung once wrote that “the more you cling to that which all the world desires, the more you are Everyman, who has not yet discovered himself and stumbles through the world like a blind mind leading the blind with somnambulistic certainty into the ditch.”

Any attempt to achieve inner greatness must be done alone. 

It will be demanding at first. Painful. Lonely. Risky. As Fromm once wrote: “Without effort and willingness to experience pain and anxiety, nobody grows, in fact nobody achieves anything worth achieving.”

It’s not an easy road to travel. Nothing worth doing ever is which is why most people settle into the comfortable bed of mediocrity. But you, dear reader, must get on the road less traveled and move forward.

As Nietzsche reminded us: “Any human being who does not wish to be part of the masses need only stop making things easy for himself. Let him follow his conscience, which calls out to him: ‘Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring, all that is not you.’”

You will perhaps lose relationships with friends and family members on this arduous journey to SELF. You will come face to face with cruel truths. You will be forced into solitude at times and to rethink all you’ve been taught. And you will have to cast aside the truly worthless things that you’ve oriented so much of your life around.

The basis for any approach to self-creation is a willingness to die to the false image of yourself — the shedding of illusions so as to come to an ever-increasing awareness of reality. 

Freedom is vital. You must have the courage to disentangle yourself from the chains imposed on you from the outside. This is the most challenging task of all because the chains bring the illusion of security and safety and you’ve grown quite content with these restraints.

But you must break away and take the risk. 

The world says, “NO, you’re perfect just the way you are.” This is a cunning lie. There’s more to you. There’s more to you than what the world expects of you. You must ignore this feel-good lie and say YES to the whispers of that inner flame. 

You must. 

To do otherwise, in the words of philosopher Richard Taylor, “is to live out your life, willy-nilly, doing nothing with yourself except going from one day to the next, absorbed in externals, and then, in that inevitable evening of your life, looking back and seeing nothing in yourself, having done nothing with yourself to be proud of.”

The toughest yet most rewarding thing in all of life is to simply fucking BEGIN. 

In the words of E. O. Wilson: “You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.”

To become the artist of your life is to forever seek the light and resist being marred by the endless mire of this batshit crazy world. It is to be inventive, daring, well-read, and untamed in your quest. Give attention to the hunger of your soul. Explore the full range of your own potentialities and suppressed passions.

Don’t worry about being seen and applauded. Create in the dark away from the commotion of the world so as to one day reap the glorious victory of becoming who you are — the only worthwhile pursuit there ever was. 

I’ll conclude once again with the words of Nietzsche: 

“No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!”

Thank you so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at the following:

Medium: https://medium.com/@erikrittenberry
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erik.rittenberry
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erik_rittenberry/