Who You Gonna Serve?

Today we'll look at a few small (snark for not-so-small) questions we all face in life. What's the best way to spend our time and energy? How do we make such decisions? It's the stuff we've been wrestling with as long as there have been humans. And there's a lot to consider. The ambition of today's episode is not to provide answers to such questions, but to simplify and clarify how we approach them. I hope you find it useful!

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Who You Gonna Serve?

We all have some basic decisions to make in this life we're given in this world. One is whether we will drift, go with the flow, take a reactionary stance to the events we experience and people we encounter, or we can choose to be proactive to maximize our agency. We can decide to attain a particular imagined goal, reach a destination, and take the actions required to make it happen.

There are benefits and costs for each strategy, and wisdom sometimes means using either. Whether we are reactive or proactive, we always hold preferences and values. We move towards pleasure and away from pain. This is baked into our DNA cake. It also means we want something. At the base, we want to fulfill our basic needs. When our physical needs are met, we follow our interests. These shape our motivations. Maybe this would be a good place to contemplate this question. What motivates you?

Once you have an answer or a few in your mind, I have another question for your consideration. Are some answers better than others? If so, why? Let's look at how we might approach such issues. Going with the flow has some advantages. It leads to receptivity, openness, flexibility, and acceptance. It has some disadvantages. Some rather serious disadvantages. One is anxiety.

We humans prefer to know what our futures hold. We don't like chaos because it's dangerous. More profound than that, when we drift, we introduce more chaos to the people around us. They can't easily predict our reactions or even the general path we're traveling in life. Taken to the extreme, this means we can't be counted upon for much of anything. Our trustworthiness and value plummet. What happens when we're deliberate in our actions?

We humans prefer to know what our future holds. We don't like chaos because it's dangerous.

We choose a course and outcome and formulate plans we can follow to realize that imagined future. Sometimes, things work the way we pictured. Often, they don't, but that's because we learned along the way. In this sense, all journeys have potential for benefit. I asked you if some motivations are better than others. Are some imagined futures better than others? Why? What makes some outcomes innately better? What we do or don't do affects the world. How do you discern desirable effects from undesirable ones?

One possible answer is if people approve they like what I do, then it's good. What do you think of that as an idea? What problems might it lead to? Think of the overindulgent parent. One who we consider might employ that strategy, at least when it comes to their children. Does that generally end well? Why not? It’s because kids often aren't aware of what serves their needs beyond immediate gratifications. Guess what? Often, adults aren't much different. That means our proposed popularity metric is flawed. How can we improve it? Let's take a cue from Bob Dylan and listen to his song for a moment.

“You may be an ambassador to England or France. You may like to gamble. You might like to dance. You may be the heavyweight champion of the world. You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls, but you're going to have to serve somebody, yes, indeed. You're going to have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're going to have to serve somebody.”

Bob Dylan dropped a wisdom bomb on us. You got to serve somebody. The questions for us are who, what, and how. In the digitally connected world, nobody is isolated. We're bombarded with ideas of all kinds. Marketing messages try to sell us things. Political notions are designed to make us behave in this way or that. Attacks, support, discoveries, and weird phenomena that threaten our pictures of the world. These notions stick with us. If we don't integrate them, sort them. Judge them by some measure of value.

Life Questions: You have to serve somebody. The questions are who, what, and how.

We are left with an incoherent mishmash, and unfortunately, that's how we all are, at least partially. It takes the strength of Hercules, the wisdom of Solomon, and the endurance of Sisyphus to get it all straight. This is the role of religion and philosophy. They provide systems and models that give us infrastructure. Something to grasp, help us orient ourselves, and build upon. We don't know enough to build them from scratch. We tend to accept that to which we are exposed and feel best to us.

When we do, we essentially choose who, what, and how we serve. That brings us to the final question for this episode. How are you doing with that? A philosophical girder in the eye of the power model is that we are charged with the ability and duty to maximize our agency and our ability to make things happen. If that doesn't fit with a person's view or values. The model has little value or interest for them. If they do, it's a powerful model to help them navigate the questions we've been considering.

The assertion about our agency is based on other ideas. One is that we have free will and we can make decisions to change our beliefs and actions and, thus, our outcomes. Another is that life is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition. Nothing is in stasis. Everything is part of an unfolding process. If we're not expanding, learning, or growing, then we are actively moving in the other direction, ultimately, toward death, which feels appropriate to me because it seems as though that's how life derives meaning.

Everything is part of an unfolding process. If we're not expanding, learning, or growing, then we are actively moving in the other direction.

We are not given eternity, at least not in our current forms. In the philosophy of existentialism, it is suggested the shortness of our time provides the scarcity that makes it valuable. Maybe there's something to that. In any case, this does lead us to another way we can approach our central question. What is the best return for how we spend our time? For many, their answer is they serve themselves. This is a lie.

They may believe it but it's a fool's errand like chasing a rainbow for the pot of gold because there may be material riches available to us when we serve ourselves. Though I would argue not as many as if we would better align ourselves. They come at a dear price. People in those circumstances miss out on their true treasure. It's different in form and style for every person, but in essence, it's the same for all of us. We're all given a unique set of attributes and experiences.

It's how we develop them and use them to serve others that makes every one of us incredibly special and valuable. A literal one-of-a-kind. I suppose we can think of that as serving ourselves. We benefit as we serve others. I don't look at it that way. I think nothing is accidental. We're free but we're also destined. Nothing has much meaning outside of the context of how it affects others and ripples through the world in ways we never get to see or know about.

There is a feedback loop built into the quality of our relationships with other people. Nothing in this world is as valuable and deeply satisfying as true intimacy and deep soul-to-soul connection. Serve yourself and you cut yourself off from the possibility of experiencing the best life has to offer. In Dylan's song, he said, “You can serve the devil or the Lord.” It’s a binary choice. Maybe that's the case. It's one or the other. We're growing or dying. We're serving or taking. It's clear to me on which side our power truly is. Let's go.