The quest for meaning in life usually begins in adolescence and ends when youth leaves. Why look for something that does not exist - the person argues. He just lives, works, raises children, builds a house and plants trees, sometimes not seeing any special meaning behind all this. He does it simply because it is necessary. And not everyone thinks about who he is, where he is and what is his place in this world.
To lose yourself. Mechanical life
Among the many philosophical trends, there is one, almost forgotten, asserting that the whole human life is a dream. For all its seeming absurdity, this idea is not devoid of rational grain.
Indeed, a person performs many of his actions without thinking about their meaning, just on autopilot. Often, he cannot remember what he was doing a couple of days ago, because all his affairs were ordinary and so familiar that he performed them automatically, without realizing.
Many people, exhausted by work and daily routine, compare themselves to robots, machines, and they are not far from the truth. Performing the same actions over and over again, they do not realize their deep meaning. Moreover, their consciousness is not active at such moments: they are not aware of themselves, do not see the distant consequences of their actions, do not set themselves global goals.
Such a life is really akin to a dream. And some people manage to exist in this state for years! An ordinary person, remembering the past, sees only a few vivid episodes - these are the few moments when his consciousness was awake, present “here and now”. The rest of the episodes fall out of memory, because they were not lived and fully realized, as if in a dream.
For a person who has existed in this way year after year, it is quite natural to lose himself, i.e. live without being aware of their desires, aspirations and goals. Such a person studies, starts a family, works because “it is necessary”. He does not allow himself the time and labor to stop and answer the question: who "needs"? And does he personally need it?
Awakening. Find yourself
But at some point, a person may realize that the precious time of life is leaving, and he is still present in it, like a guest, like a passer-by, whose footprints will be washed away by the rain and covered with snow. And after a couple of generations no one will remember its existence.
The so-called moment of awakening occurs. A person comes to the conclusion that for a full life it is necessary to spend it consciously, and this awareness begins with himself.
Gradually, he studies himself, the peculiarities of his psyche, begins to track his own emotions, learns to feel his own body, and then to manage mental and physical processes already consciously.
Such a person is already ready to formulate his own desires and learn to distinguish them from those that were imposed on him from the outside: society, parents, environment, etc.
The next step of a person who understands who he is, what he is and what he wants, is the conscious construction of his own life, the achievement of his personal goals by performing consistent conscious actions that will lead to the expected result. It is about such a person that we can say that he has found himself.
