As I enter my 20s, I've been having a lot of versions of the same conversation with different friends: "what are we supposed to do with our 20s?"
Even the phrasing of this question always strikes me as a bit strange. It's phrased as though we ought to be looking outside ourselves for an answer, and the difficulty is just within finding the right part of the outside world to ask. To me, it has always felt more intuitive to ask the question, "what do I want to do with my 20s?"
This of course cannot be separated from searching for an answer to the age old question of, "what do I want to do with my life?" since we live on a temporal conveyor belt and experience time linearly. The answer to both of these questions seems necessarily must come from within one's own mind and soul. Sure, the outside world is important in the sense you ought to be aware of its conditions and patterns so that you can make educated guesses about where certain actions or intentions will take you, but the final say must come from within.
I realize that I am somewhat of an extreme person. I have never excelled at moderation in any of my endeavors. My training in philosophy also taught me about the method of exploring an idea known as a Socratic Dialogue. In this method, two people engage in conversation about a specific topic or question, and generally bring opposing — often extreme — perspectives on the answer and make a series of concessions to one another until a consistent middle-ground answer is found. Of course, in the dialogues this middle-ground was often much closer to Socrates' side of things, but it was his student Plato writing them.
My goal with this post will be to borrow that method of presentation by recounting a conversation I had with a dear friend of mine that actually did follow this pattern. I will add more exposition from the point of hindsight, but this will only expand the discussion, not overpower what originally happened.
Setting: Raising Canes (not sponsored)
A: So, now that you've graduated, what are you planning to do?
M: I've been going around applying for a bunch of teaching fellowships, I've signed myself up for bartending school, I'm going to start writing for fun. I think I'm also going to try picking up painting and learn a new language.
A: Dude, that's not a plan. You're just meandering.
M: Maybe I am. That doesn't sound so bad to me. Isn't that what your 20s are for?
A: No, your 20s set the tone for the rest of your life, you should focus on grabbing the best opportunities and pursuing financial security.
M: A bit narrow minded don't you think? Focusing my whole life around financial security.
A: I'm not saying that's the only thing, but it's the first thing you need to worry about before you can do any of the other things you want. You have to get a good standard of living, and if you ever want a family you're going to need to be able to support them with more money than you're planning on making.
M: Hmm… I feel like 'making a living' should always be secondary to 'actually living' no? Sure, in a modern world a lot of things are gatekept by financial restrictions, but life is a whole lot wider and more expansive than what you can buy. Aren't my 20s about trying to figure out what I want out of life and then going out to try and make that my reality?
Ok, this isn't exactly how the conversation went, I adjusted it to get to the point I want to talk about, but the overall conversation did deal with the idea I steered the conversation toward: inside out or outside in?
I, naturally, am representing the "inside out" approach and my friend is representing the "outside in" approach. Let me say now, I don't think one is 'right' in any absolute sense. They both have their place. My sense of it is that it depends on the person and what stage of development they're in. But I find the idea interesting and want to explore both sides and then leave you to make up your mind on which approach aligns more with your current development, life experience, and desired life path.
Outside In
I'll start with the side of the story which I was brought up into, but now disagree with. Growing up in the 2000s, all of us have been subjected to the same ideas and messaging repeatedly. Your success = your finances, lacking a plan is bad, having a plan is good, going outside traditional life paths is bad and following a well-regarded life path is good. All of these share a common theme, they take a condition outside your being and turn it into a normative evaluation of you as a person.
This approach may have some merit.
First off, it has the benefit of being easily measurable. If you subscribe to the common social ideas about a good life, then judging how well you are living yours simply becomes an exercise in application of general ideas to your specific circumstances. This keeps life simple, and sometimes that's what people need during hard times.
Another benefit of "outside in" is that your job becomes one of selection rather than creation. It's much easier to be a customer than an artisan. The "outside in" perspective — when adopted — provides you with an array of curated life paths that each have their own 'stats' on different metrics. If you want a 'creative' life then you can choose to begin on the premade path of the artist and then adapt it to your own as you walk further along it. This keeps life simple, and sometimes that's what people need during hard times.
Lastly, one can be benefited from this perspective by its commonness. If the life path you choose is one where the majority of people are familiar with its archetype, then you make yourself far easier to understand in the minds of others. Trodding along the beaten path makes your journey something people can imagine for themselves and empathize with without much effort. This keeps life simple, and sometimes that's what people need during hard times.
Inside out
Now we get to the other side of the story. What does it look like to play the role of the artisan in your own life? What does it mean to become self-defined? Firstly, I must make a distinction of measure. The convention with the "outside in" approach is to measure by what is visible, to measure by your actions, assets, and conditions. The things which cannot be seen, the internal world, is considered immaterial and unimportant. Conversely, the "inside out" approach places the measure of evaluation upon the internal world and takes the materially measurable as secondary outcomes derived from the internal.
This approach may have some flaws.
First off, it is incredibly difficult to measure in any standardized way. Each life must be measured on its own conditions. The schema you develop to evaluate one person's life cannot be generalized to anybody else's. When this is the case, it becomes impossible to quickly judge a strangers life in any meaningful way. A life where you can't judge those around you requires FAR more personal security than its inversion. Judgement of others is a powerful way of soothing oneself because you're in control of what measures you use and can adapt them to place yourself above those around you and feel yourself falsely secure. This makes life complicated, and sometimes this crushes people during hard times.
Another difficulty of the "inside out" approach is your job becomes one of creation rather than selection. It's much harder to be an artisan than a customer. The "inside out" approach — when adopted — leaves one with no clear path forward. There is nothing before you to follow if you do not place primary value in that which is outside yourself. You have to choose what you consider important, and then figure out how different choices would measure against those values, and finally organize those choices into a path which you feel comfortable committing yourself to. This makes life complicated, and sometimes this crushed people during hard times.
Lastly, one will suffer from this approach due to its uniqueness. When you originate your own life path, it is unlikely to align with any existing archetypes with which others are familiar. This leaves you either as a perpetual enigma, or at risk of being placed into a wildly inaccurate existing archetype for the comfort of their own perspective. The further 'north of normal' the values you choose to measure your life upon, the more difficult it becomes for the majority of people to empathize with your decisions and conditions. This makes life complicated, and sometimes this crushes people during hard times
Where does this leave us?
Despite the way I have framed the last two sections, I still firmly believe that a life lived "inside out" is more human than its counterpart. Everyone gets one experience of life (potential immortality of the soul aside, each contiguous experience is self-contained in a singular perception). Given this, and an acceptance of some kind of divine or higher quality to creation, it seems obvious that a life self-created will bring this higher quality into the life experience of the self-creator. Every person has their own unique set of dispositions, passions, and experiences which determine their being. Self-creation is the purest way of honoring these and actualizing them into an aligned life experience. However, all of this only applies should one have the necessary conditions to live it.
Most of us don't anymore.
The decline of its prevalence — as most of my ideas do — leads back to the changed material conditions of the modern world, and subsequently changed spiritual conditions. Globalization, atomization, and bureaucracy are the driving forces which create the "hard times" which drive people toward the "outside in" perspective. When this is seen, those who adopt the "outside in" perspective can no longer be seen as exhibiting any kind of weakness or lower qualities, but as victims of spiritually oppressive circumstances.
Globalization takes what used to be a plethora of interconnected closed systems and turns the Earth into one closed system. This breeds homogenization. The door has been opened for the whole of humanity to judge one another in an instant and it cannot be closed. However, the kinds of values which can apply to the whole of humanity must be dumbed down and made simpler than those which were held in the smaller closed systems. The degree of this simplification is so great that in the minds of some, the only value has become money. This is — I pray — not the global standard as of now, but the current standard does not have a great deal more values. We are also in the early stages of globalization, which means that residues of the more complicated values persist from the smaller systems and come into conflict with one another in the new global marketplace of values. Our world experiences this as a kind of moral panic where all those who are stamped with the values of their smaller systems see the rising set of simplified values with abject horror and disgust. This problem may have a clear solution, but — IF it does — I cannot see it yet. All I can say with certainty is that it exists and attempts to hold us all to its emerging set of simplified values of life.
Atomization drives as many people as possible into isolated social, material, and spiritual situations where they cannot receive the genuine kind of support needed for the confident self-creation necessary to hold the "inside out" perspective, and replaces it with a void that gets filled by mass media messaging which encourages people to simply select from existing life paths that support oppressive systems. The social, material, and spiritual systems causing atomization can, and have been discussed ad infinitum; so, I will take those for granted here. What concerns us is that they unquestionably exist, and are growing (for the benefit of few and detriment of many). When we have no strong systems for social support, material support, and spiritual support in our lives we experience an existential exhaustion which crushes our ability for confident self-creation. Then, the growing dominance of the "outside in" approach to choosing life paths becomes a clear systemic, rather than personal issue. We're all just trying to make by within our existing horizons, and the only thing within those is the archetypal life paths for many of us.
Bureaucracy is a kind of organizational schema which has infiltrated our institutions and systems which exacerbates the previously mentioned problems by raising the barrier to entry for a self-created life. As control of the whole world's material resources falls into the hands of fewer and fewer people, they can perpetuate their power by restricting access to these resources in whatever way they see fit. Bureaucracy is their way of choice. Specifically, it is a method of creating inordinately difficult and an excessive numbers of hoops to jump through to gain access to the resources necessary for the conditions of a supported life capable of self-creation. Once again, we see the systemic nature of the rise of the "outside in" approach to choosing a life path and cannot blame individuals.
I am lucky to have the conditions to live my life from the "inside out" perspective. I have an abundant amount of social support from close friends and family, a high quality of material support from being born into a relatively affluent community and family, and the gift of early spiritual guidance in my life to develop a societally neglected aspect of my human experience. This is why I am able to hold the "inside out" perspective to choosing my life path, and am able to be held blameworthy for choosing a life path which does not work toward expanding the number of people able to pursue this kind of agency in their own lives. To be clear, my position does not make me 'better,' 'stronger,' or 'smarter' than anyone who isn't in the same position. It only makes me more fortunate, and I will be the first to readily — and often — admit that.
A simple newsletter cannot provide you with material support directly, and barely so indirectly. Socially, it is also rather limited. Sure, it is possible to read enough of my writings and create an imagined interlocutor bearing my name within your own mind; but this is a cheap imitation of real social support and real-life interlocutors. However, what I hope to be able to provide is some degree of spiritual guidance. The word "spiritual" carries a lot of baggage these days so I feel it necessary to be explicit with my meaning. Some of what I say will be directly spiritual in the conventional sense, that is, referencing the immaterial aspects of human experience and offering guidance on nurturing said aspects in your own life. More of what I say, however, will be about raising the level of your awareness. The more tools you have to approach the world with and the greater detail with which you can see the world and its interactions, the less susceptible you will be to the oppressive systems seeking to dictate your singular human experience and the more empowered you will be to work outside these systems and begin the practice of self-creation in your life path.
So, what are your 20s for? If you ask me, they're about raising your awareness, developing your social, material, and spiritual support systems, and dipping your toes into the "inside out" perspective so you can become the unique originator of your life path. This won't happen all at once, and the "outside in" approach can be an incredibly useful tool to embrace as you develop these aspects of your life. It is also possible that some people may never want the responsibility of being the self-creator of their own life. At the end of the day, it is the decision of each individual on what direction to take their life; but I wholeheartedly believe aspiring to the responsibility of an "inside out" perspective on ones life path is the most human, and enriching way to live your life.
Until next communion, all my love! <3
Micah Xavier Probst