Dethroning the Imperial Self

"Our society grants power to the self that selves have never had before: to change the self and even to change the way the self thinks.  For this is the age of personal control.  The self has expanded to such a point that individual helplessness is deemed something to remedy, rather than our expected and accepted lot in life."--Martin Seligman, Learned Helplessness

The individual helplessness to which Seligman points, when coupled with a pessimistic explanatory style, produces depression.  The rate of depressive illness in the population of the United States has risen in conjunction with what Seligman calls "the waxing of the self."  This is in contrast to the "waning of the commons"--that decreasing sense that the tribe, the church, the village or the nation has some importance over and above the individual.

All of this academic discussion has some day to day value for one who has suffered Radical Loss.  Such a loss, in this nation of narcissists (of which I am a full citizen), shatters the sense of personal control to which Seligman points.  What I find is that such a loss unmasks my ongoing narcissism for what it is.  I am a child of this culture, and I have as much investment in personal control as anyone else.  Now, in the wake of such losses, I am clearer about the decisions that self-absorption creates for me.

If I insist on placing myself at the center of the universe, at the locus of cosmic meaning, then Radical Loss makes my life (and therefore all Life) pointless.  That is one kind of decision that I can make in the wake of such loss.  Sometimes that is precisely the decision I do make.  Sometimes I still descend into the darkness of depression because I can't control things; because I can't make things come out the way I think they should; because I can't manage other people according to my standards and specifications.

The power of the Imperial Self is an illusion.  If I cling to that illusion I will choose a certain level of ongoing misery.

Or I can decide to let go of the need to control all.  I can decide to place myself within a larger context.  Things happen to me, and to you, that are awful.  Of course things happen to me, and to you, that are wonderful as well.  My life is a tiny part of a much larger pattern.  My existence is a drop of purpose in an ocean of meaning.  In Christian terms, I see through the glass dimly when it comes to how things will turn out for me.  But I trust that in fact God does work in all things to make Good the result.

The power of the Imperial Self is an illusion.  If I acknowledge that illusion and dethrone the Imperial Self, then I will choose daily happiness as my way of life.  The real challenge is that this kind of choice is indeed a daily one.  It is the daily discipline of gratitude and humility, of meditation and prayer, of reflection and self-awareness.

This is the life that comes with choosing hope rather than despair.