Why we suffer and what to do about it

The patterns that haunt

Do you ever stop to notice the choices you’ve made in your life? Do you ever notice that you’ve dated similar people, or have had friends who, in one way or another, resemble past friendships you’ve had.

maybe you’ve been in a dysfunctional relationship where your past partners have dismissed you — or maybe you’ve dismissed them. And now you find yourself in a similar relationship now.

We repeat these patterns when we are identified completely with our ego, and make choices from our ego.

What I mean by this is we put on a facade when we’re out in the world, and others know us through that facade. But they don’t know us really, they only know the side we are willing to show them, and to show ourselves in their presence.

The character we play

Here’s a metaphor for this: the actor Lin-Manuel Miranda plays the character Alexander Hamilton. What sometimes happens when an actor plays a character is that the actor loses themselves in the role they are playing. Lin-Manuel Miranda is so absorbed in the play he’s performing in that he actually thinks he’s Alexander Hamilton.

When we confuse ourselves for the character we play we find comfort in what’s predictable. In what we know, because there is an underlying hidden, unspoken, fear of the play ending and alongside it the character ceasing to exist. So when the actor Lin-Manuel Miranda confuses himself to be the character Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton causes Lin-Manuel Miranda to live with an underlying sense of fear of the play coming to an end, and him ceasing to exist. That fear drives him into thinking there is something missing—into thinking, “I’m not enough.” It drives us to cling to control — to control situations and even control those around us, because control presumes power, and power presumes significance.

The character we play is sculpted by the values of our mother and father, as well as by the patterns of behavior that served us growing up, and of the culture we were brought up in. The character we play doesn’t want the play to end, and it doesn’t want itself exposed as a character. So, it constantly revives past situations in the form of regret: “things should be different”

And in turn, projects itself into an imagination of a future situation it fears:

“what if this doesn’t work out?”

“what if they reject me?”

The character Alexander Hamilton is so convincing and the play so real that the actor Lin-Manuel Miranda starts to live in the imagined past and in the imagined future, where the character Alexander Hamilton derives his sense of existence.

When we lose ourselves and confuse ourselves for the character we play we live from an intrinsic state of lack, of not enough. Even in the background of experience itself there’s a sense of lack.

And, we know this retrospectively. When we accomplish a goal, or buy a new iPhone, the satisfaction we get is brief and soon after we go back to feeling that familiar baseline sense of lack — that feeling that something’s missing. We go back to craving, desiring, longing for that next object, only to watch it plummet into a bottomless void inside our hearts. The void that deepens itself when we think we’re not enough. The void that no object is large enough to fill.

We externalize and objectify happiness and pursue an endless quest in search for what is intrinsically within us already.

Confusing ourselves for the characters we play prevents us from truly flourishing, from truly getting to know ourselves.

Take for instance the notion of a dysfunctional relationship pattern where one partner confuses receiving attention with love. Perhaps they learned at a young age that the way to get attention in the family was by throwing a tantrum — in other words, any form of attention is better than no attention. And, because attention for kids is like water for plants, they confuse receiving attention with love. Now as adults, every time they want to feel love they create misery and suffering wherever they go.

The reason we repeat dysfunctional patterns and continue to select partners that behave, similar to previous partners, or even to our parents is that we are confusing ourselves for the characters we play. We are deriving our sense of who we are from memory. The character we play wants to continuously revive itself by living in regret of the past and in fear of the future, so it has us cling onto the patterns in others that remind us of the values, and behaviors of the family we had growing up no matter how dysfunctional.

The character we play keeps us from questioning the patterns we create for ourselves in the here and in the now because it seizes our attention, and focuses it in the play it’s performing in — the stream of thoughts of our minds.

The character we play recreates the family dynamics we grew up with even if they are dysfunctional. It’s why people smoke despite knowing the damage it causes to the body. It’s why some women go back to their physically abusive husbands — it’s familiar to the character, even though it’s bad for the actor who has totally lost themselves in the character they are playing.

And, what the character cares about most isn’t necessarily in the best interest of the actor.

Severing the script

The character Alexander Hamilton will do its best to keep the actor Lin-Manuel Miranda from being in the present moment. It’ll constantly complain about something that already happened, or try to avoid something that hasn’t yet happened.

In the present moment, the character Alexander Hamilton has no control, but the actor Lin-Manuel Miranda does. In the present moment Alexander Hamilton can’t trick the actor Lin-Manuel Miranda into thinking he’s Alexander Hamilton. In the present moment Alexander Hamilton is exposed as a character Lin-Manuel Miranda was confusing himself for if he looks closely enough at his direct experience.

The gap that the present moment creates between the remembered past and the imagined future makes the character Alexander Hamilton feel out of control and causes the actor, Lin-manuel Miranda, to avoid being in The Now.

Ironically, being present offers the sense of peace and security that the character we play longs for — it’s a paradox.

We avoid that which we crave. And, that which we crave is where we least want to look, as Joseph Campbell would put it.

The choice of dysfunction

Why do we choose to recreate these dysfunctional patterns that perhaps at one point served us, but now no longer do? Nobody chooses dysfunction, pain, or conflict.

The truth of the matter is that so long as we derive our sense of self from the past, who we imagine ourselves to be, so long as we think we are the character and don’t realize we’re actually the actor playing the character we’ll box ourselves in based on memories of the past and what we imagine the future to be like — which is just the past projected forward.

As long as that illusion is true for us, we won’t have a choice. The character you play, your ego, is in search and destroy mode — it’s searching for what’s familiar and it’s destroying any ounce of presence you have inside because being in the present moment makes the ego uncomfortable.

The character we play propagates itself through incessant thinking of the past and future and it damages you, the actor, in the process. This is insanity.

It always looks as if people have a choice, but it’s an illusion. As long as we think we’re the character in the play, and don’t realize we’re an actor playing a character that has conditioned patterns, those conditioned patterns will run our lives. As long as you think you are your ego, what choice do you have?

None.

The ego-identified state is a dysfunction. A collective dysfunction, and almost everyone suffers from this illness in some form or another.

Compassionate concessions

The moment you realize this, there can be no more resentment. Take your resentment toward your parents, or anyone you might feel resentment toward. How can you resent them? How can you resent someone else’s illness? One they inherited from their parents, and their parents before them. The only appropriate response is compassion, and

compassion is contagious.

As long as we are deriving our sense of being, our self of worth from the character we play. As long as we’re deriving our sense of self from memory, we will suffer. And, we will create suffering for others. No question.

We will bear the burden of fear, conflict, problems, and pain for ourselves and those around us.

Exercise

Sit comfortably in your chair and take two slow, deep breaths. Then in your mind bring your attention to the person you felt resentment toward.

With the person in mind, sit with and repeat to yourself the following phrases:

Just like me, this person is seeking happiness in their lives

Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in their lives

Just like me, this person has known sadness, loneliness, and despair

Just like me, this person is seeking to fill their needs

Just like me, this person is learning about life