Figure 1 below illustrated the anatomy of relationship and the fundamental parts.
Every single one of us will have the opportunity within a life time to experience one or more components within this relationship structure.
Since the first spark of life ignited four billion years ago, the relationship between the Self and the world has evolved in complexity.
Once a single cell with built-in capability of fulfilling its ultimate purpose, Self Replication, it evolved to meet the 21st century requirement for the same, unchanged mission – the requirement is the gamut of relationships depicted in Figure 1.
Relationship 101 will be about the key element of the sum – the Self.
There are four types of participants in the Game of Life.
Out of the four categories of the participants, the Game Changers have the greatest insight of the Self very early on in life. On the opposite spectrum are the Spectators, with the least understanding of their own personal identity.
With a clear connection to Self Identity, the Game Changers were able to lead a life that impacts not just themselves but millions if not billions of their own fellow human beings.
Once Evolution hardwired the mission into the human biology, relationship beyond the boundary of self became the de-facto standard for the majority of life forms on earth – especially, the human species.
Yet, after few hundred thousands of year split from the common ancestor and coupled with ten thousand years of civilization, the Self is still a mystery for over ninety percents of the population.
Which one of you have a solid understanding of yourself in the entirety?
How many self-doubt have you experienced for the 10 years?
What about last 5 years, last year, last month, last week, yesterday, today, last hour or last minute?
As eluded in the beginning of the article, only the Game Changers, less than one percent of the population, come close in having the understanding of the Self.
The remaining ninety-nine percents of the population will have to go through the process of self-discovering along the way – it may take the duration of an entire life time.
It is not arduous as it seemed for the simple fact that many life circumstances, it is more so about the journey rather than the final destination itself – the unexpected discoveries along the way.
This article a long with the Relationship Framework discussed here at 1DesignerLife.com will coach the participant in the Game of Life to design his/her own relationship play for execution.
Relationship – the way two or more people or things are connected… – Google search.
It may not seem obvious, but the Self is actually the ongoing construction relationship between the genes and the environment.
Up to the very moment of Puberty, each and every set of genes within a “Self” is slowly and surely revealing its expression in responding to combination of external stimulations – for the most part beyond the control of the Self’s conscious capability.
Psychologically and physically all early years of “Self” is being conditioned by a set of circumstances that are local specific in the proximity.
The two main categories of circumstances that are external to the boundary of the Self are –
- Family
- Culture
The Parents and Family structures in figure 1 are perceived by the Self as one category Family, whereas the Friends and Colleagues, State-Country, Racial-Ethnicity, Humanity and Divinity are combined as Culture.
Interestingly, in the more family oriented countries, the families play the greater role; hence more impact in the conditioning of the growing Self – Mexico, Italian, Vietnam and China are of examples.
In the individualistic emphasized countries, the cultures rival the families in the molding of the Self in accord to the mass values – United States, Germany and Australia are examples of individualistic societies.
The Family and Culture exert influences onto the early Self, but they are operating on two different sets of values.
The Family set of values is essentially a subset of the Cultural spectrum of sets within a specific local boundary.
Figure 5 illustrated the spectrum of Culture in relative to the lives of the participants in the Game of Life. The Family Values Set is delineated as a shade within the range.
Each shade in the spectrum is a specific values set that will place the Self or a Family in a tier relative to the rest of the population within a boundary of a culture.
Right or wrong, good or bad, consciously or unconsciously – the family will compete with the culture to propagate its embraced values onto the new generation of offspring.
Hence all families from any countries and any cultures will experience the some level of conflict between parents and the up-coming generations who embrace the cultural specific values which are more than often fall outside of the Family Values Set.
The first time the Self found and embraced the first value from the specific culture that is different than the Family Values Set. It is the first step onto the path of the Self discovery journey – this time frame is precisely marked at Puberty.
At the same moment, it is the beginning of the Self-Complexity Odyssey for the majority of population – ninety-nine percents.
Self-Complexity Odyssey – is a “Self” discovery journey that varied in length and substance for each and every person that ever lived.
The one distinguish trait in the humans that separate the species from the animal relatives is the expression of need to have a continuous memory path in the entirety.
The need is such profound – the human brain will fill in the memory gaps with fantasies as a self-fulfilling automation.
Too many gaps that laced with fantasies will inevitably resulted in discrepancies – further exacerbate the Self-Complexity phenomenon.
Figure 6 and figure 7 below forecast the Self Values Set in approximately 35 years of life journey when the Self is about 45 to 50 years old – with figure 6 has ninety-nine percents predictive value, whereas, figure 7 is one percent for the entire population.
The apple does not fall far from the tree!
The Self Values Set 1 will be much harder to achieve than the Self Values Set 2 in most cases due to the requirement that the Self has to work harder and smarter and more resourceful than the people from the family where the Self originated.
Self Values Set 2 is easier to achieve, simply discard the Family Values Set – especially, reject the bankable values that the parents had learned over the years to position themselves in the respective tier of the spectrum – unless the parents are at the lowest tier values set.
All instances of “Self” are aspired to be at the top of any Cultural Spectrum anywhere around the world.
The journey begins with Self-Complexity Odyssey when the Self initiates the process of sorting out the keepers and the obsolete items from the Family Values Set and experiments with new values from the Cultural specific spectrum.
For ninety-nine percents of the population, the Self discovering adventure must start with the detail understanding of the Family Values Set. It is a vault of experiences accumulated from current parents, their parents, the parents’ parents and so on.
Moreover, the Family Values Set has an intrinsic value that brings enormous benefit to the inquisitor. It is working set accumulated from the combined views of a man and a woman – an enormous opportunity for the Self to understand the world of maleness and femaleness.
This is crucial element in the Self discovering journey as the world population is evenly split between the boys and the girls – the next layer of relationship outside of the Self boundary will be with one or both of these sub-groups.
It is the best educated guess for designing a life that has a high probability of synchronization with the enigma of genes encapsulated within the Self – the current genetic Self is the reflection of the past expressions within the family of lineage.
In individualistic societies where peer culture often plays the greater role in exerting its values upon the new generation, the Self-Complexity Odyssey will take longer for young adults than their counterparts from the family oriented societies.
A while back, a long time friend and I got together after many years to catch-up. I asked him a simple question – from your own view point, are you more or less successful than your parents?
Reluctant to answer, he asked me to provide the definition of success.
Here is a Self litmus test – at any mile marker in your life journey, the Self-Complexity Odyssey continues if you don’t have a clear understanding your own definition of success.
This question is very simple to answer if the friend had invested some of the earlier time toward the understanding the foundation where his first spark of life has begun – the Family Values Set.
Let’s play the game of life!
