Do You Want To Be a Bridgerton?
I’m saying it, Bridgerton was sick and I know you liked it too. If not, who are you man? Weirdo.
In this piece I’m not going to write about the series itself but carriages. Carriages? Yes, carriages, more specifically, my, your, everyone’s journey on a carriage.
Put your puffy sleeve dresses and tail coats on and join me on my carriage.
The carriage journey
The mechanism:
You see I believe that there is a destination in life but I think that it is impossible to know what the destination is. I also believe that there is a mechanism that can move us forward on that path to that destination and it is possible to consciously adopt that mechanism. The process of moving towards that destination is the reason we humans exist, crucial for the meaning of our individual lives (whatever that meaning might be) and the survival of humanity over time. We will never arrive at that destination, not in our own lives or the existence of humanity as a whole.
In brief the reason you and I exist is to use that mechanism and at the same time using the mechanism is what gives meaning to our lives. Meaning is an incentive for humans to keep using the mechanism and for humanity to keep staying around.
This mechanism can best be described as a journey in a carriage. The philosophy for your life is to follow this mechanism as good and rigorously as you can. By doing that you will serve yourself and humanity in the best way over the long term. Your vision for your life becomes serving humanity in the best way you can.
Elements of the mechanism:
The different elements of the journey can be translated into elements of your life:
the journey towards the destination = the meaning
a path or road = truth
off roads left and right = suffering, bad things
horses = missions
left line to drive the horse = intuition
right line to drive the horse = reason
the driver = you (your characteristics, biases, awareness, knowledge, etc. everything that makes you you)
the carriage = human needs
movement: the action of moving forward on the journey = reason you exist
obstacles: everything that might make you stop, crash, turn left or right = intangible and tangible external factors that impact your life in some way
Now I want to show you how this mechanism represents your personal journey. It is your journey and not someone else’s, you will be the driver of the carriage not a passenger in the back. Theoretically you could jump on any one else’s carriage at any time as long as you find one and they let you on but that is not desirable. I will tell you why later.
First let me show you a snapshot of the carriage on the road:
The different elements and dynamics of the journey explained:
Left line, right line: on a carriage pulling the right line directs the horses to the right and pulling the left line directs the horses to the left. In this way you decide which direction the carriage goes.
In real life, these lines represent intuition and reason. Everything related to humans is on a spectrum between 100% intuition and 100% reason. Most of the things that we do, experience or create also tend more towards the left or the right. By considering which system (left or right) is more activated in different scenarios we can put everything on the spectrum.
Some examples of what’s on the left and what’s on the right:
On the left half: Emotions, passion, the effects of alcohol, female traits, art, socializing, social sciences
On the right half: Reason, masculine traits, time alone, the effects of coffee, natural sciences, physical activities
Note that these things are not directly related to each other in any way just because they are on the same side. For instance, alcohol and female traits being on the left doesn’t make women alcoholics. Alright.
These are the most obvious ones from the top of my head but you could put a lot more things on the spectrum. I believe these things pull you to the right and left continuously. Too much of the right is bad and too much of the left is bad as well. When you consider the right and left line in our carriage journey you understand why too much pulling on the left is bad and why too much pulling on the right is bad. You go off road. You need to stay in the centre most of the time.
Now there are things that help you stabilise the middle a bit more. In fact that’s the driver. Regarding the left and right the driver needs to be aware of what the left and right represent, make sure one doesn’t outweigh the other. If it does happen, the driver needs to correct that before its too late. Experiencing and/or learning about the left and right is the only way to be able to recognize the situation and correct course through a balancing act.
The driver also has another role namely, make sure everything is in order with the carriage throughout the entire journey.
The carriage represents everything a person needs. The kind of needs I’m referring too are for example the ones within the Maslow pyramid of needs. In my opinion, these change from person to person (at least the intensity) and can be modified and adjusted over time by each of us. Meeting these needs is key.
You need to make sure that the intensity of your needs is met and as shock or crash resistant as possible. The problem is that if these needs are not met or you don’t know how or where to find the things that are needed to meet them, it will impact you directly.
Not meeting your needs corresponds to your carriage being damaged in some form or another. Imagine one wheel is broken, this means your carriage just drags behind your horses in a weird way. That’s not good and sooner or later the rest of the carriage will be damaged by this weird way of driving. It might also require for you to counter steer by pulling on each side of the lines more often or harder than usually and it might take you off the road more often then needed. There’s a bunch of different scenarios that could happen but one thing is for sure: if your carriage is not built for being pulled by strong horses at high speed, resistant to obstacles that could appear, or resistant to small bumps or off road drives from time to time, you will have a difficult time progressing on your journey. At the basis of it all is a well built and maintained carriage.
The driver also has a role that has only to do with him-/herself. He needs to continuously learn about obstacles, carriages, horses, roads and driving skills. In the drivers world that basically represents everything there is.
In real life this represents continuous learning about everything too, with the difference that our world is way bigger than the drivers world. A multidisciplinary approach to learning in the world you live in is key. You need to learn continuously and learn for the sake of learning, by taking in new information about the world you live in. This learning is a search for the truth.
The road of truth: this is essentially the search for the truth that automatically emerges once you realise you need to learn for the sake of learning.
Obstacles: triggers of biases, social dynamics, false information, liars, people with bad intentions, stupidity, dishonesty, systems, mechanisms etc
Obstacles force you to stop, or turn. The job of the driver is to identify these obstacles and learn how to react to them in case they show up. Some of them are controllable since they are understood and can be anticipated such as those I described above. Others can not since they are not understood. In that case the best possible reaction based on the best possible judgement from the driver needs to be used. Non understood obstacles are things that you can not explain or make sense of or do anything about. Usually, science is busy trying to understand and explain these kind of obstacles.
It turns out however that the driver could theoretically anticipate almost all things that can affect him or her if there is enough knowledge. Learning is key.
The horses represent the missions and the goals that come to you and that you will pursue. Once the carriage and the driver and the driving skills are ready the horses will find you (more about that below). Depending on how good the drivers skills are and how stable, aerodynamic or well built your carriage is you can choose better or worse, faster or slower, well trained or wilder horses. The significance of your missions that you take on depend on how well you take care of your needs, how well you manage to balance left and right and how much you learn for the sake of learning (the search for the truth).
Who was first, the carriage or the horses?
Unless you have carriage you don’t need horses. And if you have a great carriage and you know how to drive it, you will know what horses to look for and you will indeed start looking for them. Once you find a horse that fits your carriage you will recognise it. You might need to get used to it first cause its a new horse that reacts differently to the way you are pulling left and right but once you get used to it, the journey will feel right.
Do you need to steer your own carriage?
Steering your own carriage is not necessary. You could use other peoples carriages to get to your destination. There is a few disadvantages though:
The other people need to let you on.
You need to make sure the other person is not going too far off from your own destination so that you can still make it their.
Why would the other person know better where your destination is then yourself? You don’t even know where your destination is but you have the mechanism to get there.
So it turns out the only reason why you would go on someone else’s carriage for a time is if for whatever reason you carriage is broken or if you want to build one initially.
Building a carriage: Building one is basically getting to know yourself or the world in which you live initially, experiencing, learning things to make sense of everything that’s going on. It’s learning for the sake of learning at the beginning of your life during that time most of us are on someone else’s carriage.
A broken carriage: A broken carriage can come from multiple scenarios.
Scenario 1: You go off-road and smack yourself in some rocks. That basically means you spent too much time on the intuition side or on the reason side, you lost the balance for too long. Depending on how fast your horses were and how sensitive your carriage was, getting off a little bit might be enough to smack or break your carriage. The landscape and weather conditions might also change, which are things you can’t control but that you need to be aware of while driving your carriage. A slippery street because of rain and trees or big rocks right next to the street might require to slow down your drive a little and be more careful to not get off the road.
Scenario 2: Your horses where going too fast on the road, you couldn’t stop them and a wheel got loose. That means you yourself did not take care of your most important needs.
The difference between suffering and difficult work:
The difference here is that getting of the road in uncontrollable way or for too long is the type of suffering that might end badly for you. It can have terrible consequences that might hinder you to get back on your journey in the future. Being a driver is difficult work. You need to keep your horses going in the right direction and not off-road while making sure the carriage is holding together over time.
Where do you find meaning?
Meaning comes from actively progressing on your journey towards your destination, whether through your own carriage or not.
Therefore the best scenario to be in at a single moment in time is to be on the fastest path towards the final destination. The carriage should be aiming towards the destination. The more time you spend aimed in the right direction the more meaning you will find.
The picture below shows the journeys persons A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I have taken over their lifetimes (Start to Finish) towards their destinations without ever reaching them. The yellow parts indicate moments in time these people where on the fastest paths towards their destination. Person E had the most meaningful life.
The lesson of it all:
The lesson of it all is that the reason all of us are here is to go on a journey towards our personal destination. Meaning is found by moving forward on this journey and that’s why humans are wired to keep trying and trying and trying. We all search for the meaning of it all and there is a mechanism that we are using whether we are aware of it or not. My goal was to make you aware of what this mechanism seems to be like from my own experiences.
At the basis of it all is the needs which need to be met. What these needs are and how much an individual needs, changes. The key is to make these needs almost an unconscious thing while at the same time be aware of the fact that they are the most important thing. The person responsible for making sure that’s the case is yourself and nobody else. Besides being responsible for that, you are also responsible for finding the balance between left and right, continuously learn how to better make use of left and right and balance them out. You need to know, by continuously learning, how internal (what makes you you) and external factors (obstacles) could affect your judgement and actions. You are on the search for truth.
If you do that you will come across missions that will self select for you. You will have the feeling that they just appear to you and just make sense but the truth is all the other work before hand is what lead you to finding these missions. The more serious you are about your search for truth, the better you become, the more important the missions you will be on.
Moving forward on the path of truth, dragged forward by your missions will lead you to come closer and closer to your destination without ever getting there. If you do it well, you will find lots of meaning for yourself but most importantly you will have done the best possible things that you could do for humanity as a whole without even noticing it.
Every element being a part of the carriage journey is essential for making it closer to your destination. If one is missing or not done properly you wont make it. So you should start with building the carriage and learn how to drive so that it is worth it getting appropriate horses, but once you got it all and you start your journey they all become equally essential.
Implications:
The implications of this mechanism are multiple:
People use it whether they know it or not. Some have figured out how to use it for the good of everyone else, some are using it but have gone of road, some are stuck in different stages of getting everything ready for the journey and some are on the carriage of other people without knowing what the hell is going on.
Since everyone is using it one can use this model to figure out what the heck the entire world is up to.
One could organize people based on this model to achieve things that are good for humanity as whole without directly telling people what’s right or wrong. These days no one knows what the right thing to do is. Everyone comes up with reasons why certain things are right and others are wrong and their is no way to tell who is right or wrong.
We should ask ourselves whether there even is a right or wrong around most subjects and ways of doing and instead of focusing on arguing why we are right or wrong we should focus on understanding how to design systems and put in place systems that would help people figure out how to most efficiently use the mechanism. By doing doing that we could accomplishing the best possible things for humanity as a whole.