Keys to Unlocking Our Best Natures

Audiobook Version: E. E. Cane on Soundcloud

(This is a preview chapter 3 of my upcoming book — More Than This.)

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

The maxim “You don’t know what you don’t know” is actually a powerful revelation to people.

Our egos tend to put us in the position of wanting to appear knowledgeable to others, which can limit our actually being able to learn more. I mean, why would you need to listen and accept information from others when you’ve already professed to people your wisdom on some subject?

This is one of the self-limiting behaviors to our growth, which is an extension of our need to be liked or accepted by those around us. The more we appear to know, the more people will come to listen to us, spend time with us, adore us, give us money or power.

But there often comes a point where the harsh reality of truth meets this lack of understanding. As it happens, truth doesn’t care about your feelings. It doesn’t care about your social status or how much money or power you have.

“You don’t know what you don’t know” can be looked at as a gift of sorts — if you are open to the possibility that you may not know as many things as you think you do. If you are open to the awareness of your own desire to be liked and loved and how that might influence what you absorb from those around you and how you express to others.

This is especially important with regard to cataloging people at first glance based on superficial values reinforced by our inculcation into social groups.

Essentially, humans have a tendency to judge each other based first on those things taught to us when we were young and had no say in the matter. We were simply the captive audience to whatever active prejudices were expressed by our mothers, fathers, family and friends and then surrounding social circles.

These first experiences are the great social example of practicing and reinforcing “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

As a child, you are taught not only what your close influencers know — but also what they don’t know yet want to express because of their emotional desire to be loved and accepted, or as a product of their ego states.

It’s rare to find people who are comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” Isn’t that interesting? I mean, there are a great many things we simply don’t know in this life from the trivial to the meaningfully important.

Some of this is actively not wanting to know. This can occur for several reasons. Often, people don’t wish to know because knowing would challenge or make meaningless an internal fantasy they’ve cultured — or even an external one created by others. Knowing — going through the effort of discovery — might also displace their position in society or even their financial success.

There are examples of individuals in corporations who work hard to make sure studies are not taken that might eventually bring the company harm financially. For instance, if they knew their product might actually be slowly killing their customers, they might have great motivation to cover up the truth or maintain an ignorant stance.

In a case like the above, this sort of thing doesn’t occur for just financial reasons. Someone made a choice based on his or her ego. Fear of financial ruin can be the motivator, but it is ego that motivates a person or persons into not accepting responsibility for actions that place their position and the position of their company over others’ lives.

The Ego Investment

A person can invest in his or her ego in a couple of ways.

1. As an expression of truth, based on fact and actions you can perform that reaffirm your personal truths.

2. As a masturbatory process trying to fulfill an emotional desire to gain love, acceptance, or to maintain an existing social standing. This can be based on truth, but most often the ego gets inflated to sustain a sense of higher placing in social structures.

If the ego investment is based on a masturbatory foundation, then it is a poor investment. I use that word to reflect the habit of acting only to benefit your emotional state — regardless how it affects others.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling good about yourself. It is a product of doing well, living in a way that is positive for your body and mind and others around you. To exercise these qualities feels good.

But if your number one priority is to feel good about yourself, then you tend to not take other people’s feelings into account. This is important, because we are part of the greater family of humanity. Ego self-stimulation is a problem when interacting with other people because it is a draw on their resources for the fulfillment of one’s own emotional quota.

It is likely you have encountered people like that in your life. It’s exhausting to be around them because of their constant need to pull at your attention and resources. They have difficulty being by themselves because of the lack of external stimulus when they are alone.

Ego Reduction

Reduction of the ego starts with awareness of your attachment to the value you place on your social standing. This can be with a small circle of friends or in larger communities.

As I said, the understanding that “You don’t know what you don’t know” is a powerful revelation to some people.

If you can step back from your ego far enough to be aware of all the things there are to know in this world, all of the things you have yet to experience, then you can begin to realize that such a thing is okay. It doesn’t make you any less of a person. It doesn’t make you less valuable to others when you realize that everyone on this planet is in the same boat.

We all have extensive gaps in our knowledge and experiences that can be looked at with wonder and as a challenge. There is simply not enough time in our lives to do everything. To know everything. We have to pick and choose our way through life according to the things we find meaningfully interesting to each of us.

How you hold information or visuals in your mind, how you process your thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a way specific to you is something no one else knows. The rest of the world gets glimpses of it when you share what is inside you, as best you can express it. But we cannot see or feel with your body and mind.

And that is okay, too.

Awareness of this should help you understand that you are on the same level as those you meet when moving through your life. They each possess something you cannot know. The same as you. It is an unknown of great value. It is a genetic and evolutionary expression of original quality and authenticity.

It also turns out that this sort of thing is highly valued in this world. And that means you, and they, too, are valuable.

Ego reduction requires this awareness and knowledge that we all have value. That at any time, any one of us could spring forth a meaningful perspective that inspires. We are no different from one another in that regard.

I do make allowances in this for those who are sociopathic or have like disorders that prevent them from empathizing or relating to other people on meaningful levels.

Gratification from external sources only lasts as long as there are external sources available and willing to stimulate you to that end. People relying on this for their sense of worth often have great sadness and depression when those external sources are no longer there.

Some people who have worked for many decades in corporate or other community environments where they are constantly stimulated for their active participation are often left greatly depressed upon retirement — or when injury or other infirmity removes them from their long-standing social presence.

This is a very real thing, and people whose egos are tied to that kind of stimulus have a hard time adjusting when it is no longer present.

In essence, their ego-building is the equivalent of a house built of sand.

The constant struggle for gaining attention from external sources becomes an exercise in the insubstantial. To rely on others for your sense of self worth and a healthy ego state is a recipe for disappointment.

A more valuable perspective is when you realize that you are building a foundation on the whims of an ever-changing mass of individuals looking for their own sense of self worth. Their own positive stimulus that brings them meaning in their lives. Such a thought is humbling. We are no different in this than those from whom we seek attention.

Your Worthy Self: Detachment

You have an intrinsic self-worth whether you know it or not — or whether others know it or not.

This last part is important: whether others know it or not.

How can someone know your value if they don’t know you? If you don’t share to the world or to those immediately around you?

Think of this for a moment: Among us walk and breathe people who will change the world in a meaningful and positive way.

Who, interacting with a young runny-nosed Einstein, had any clue as to the effect he would have on the world?

Or Marie Curie?

More importantly, think about this: if Einstein’s father hadn’t given him a compass as a child to stir his imagination and wonder, would he have started on his particular path to genius the way he did?

The fact is you cannot know how your creative expression will change people in the world once it is released. This is incredibly important to realize and understand. It is at the heart of understanding your value and potential.

Did the compass-maker have any idea his work with wood and glass and metal would touch and fire the mind of one genius who did change the world in a very meaningful way?

Perhaps you’re stuck in the mindset of seeing powerful life and world-changing events and inventions and thinking you have no place there.

You would be wrong.

The fact is you don’t know how your expression will inspire someone else. You can’t know what little thing you do might inspire greatness in someone else.

One thing is certain: if you don’t express your creative perspective, it is guaranteed not to inspire someone you don’t know.

Your creative expression is worthy in ways you cannot know. Each individual has this potential to change and inspire others into action and greatness.

There are plenty of examples of individuals, whom others might dismiss out of hand because they don’t reside in certain social circles or have the right kind of genitals and so on, who had an intrinsic drive that survived their surrounding social inculcation and pressures to do what they knew was right for them. What was right for their own sense of self worth but not reflected in the people around them.

It just so happened that their original, authentic expression and drive to share it, turned out to help the rest of the world.

We simply cannot dismiss the potential each one of us has just because it doesn’t meet some criteria that have nothing to do with who we are on a meaningful basis.

You cannot know someone’s worth by looking at their skin color, social status, or gender. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

One of the most valuable things you can do to increase the awareness of your self worth is to recognize and detach from foolish notions held by those around you.

At our base level, before culture or religion or other social constructs are overlaid on us, we move through life in the same way as anyone else. We hunger for nourishment of the body and fulfilling the curiosity of mind. We exercise our bodies according to our sensory input and motivations for survival and feeling good.

That is our intrinsic ego. It is our motivation and modality toward survival and meaning separate from anyone else. It is how we stand alone in nature and reflect on what comes in through our senses. It is how we express that internal reflection in a way unique to our individual brain, body, memories, thoughts and feelings.

We already know what is worthy on a base, unconscious level before we are told what worth is by others.

To regain that awareness of self worth, you have to detach from what others hold as meaningful or important for themselves.

You have to spend time alone in thought and reflection on what experiences have led you to the point of picking this book to read.

That is your journey.

It is well and good to be liked and loved, but if people don’t like you for who you are, then is that love real? Or is it based on what you want them to see of the real you?

How much of you do you restrict or conform to draw a sense of love from others?

Clearly, if there are things about your thoughts or expression that are harmful to others, you have to understand why you have that in you. A world of individuals growing more connected — due not only to proximity but also to awareness — requires an inspirational expression that builds and supports, not tears down others in harmful ways.

Detaching is also the start of reaffirming your original expression. It is the realization of authenticity others will be drawn to because it is original, new, different.

Imagine you are on an island alone. You do not know any culture or religion or other social constructs. It is you, the sand, water, trees, sun, wind.

What do you have?

The answer is: You.

Your senses to perceive your environment. Your memories to hold your world inside your head to mix with your dreams and enrich them. Your brain that processes the whys and hows and wonder in reflection. Your voice and body to express in sound and movement what is only from you.

This realization of self is a distinction and reaffirming clarity when you are surrounded by those who would desire to influence you to their way.

Awareness, detachment, reaffirming self. This is the start of your progression towards your authentic expression. This is the foundation for your intrinsic self worth.

Our fundamental ego is part of our evolutionary makeup and potential to inspire. It doesn’t require any outside source to validate — not that it doesn’t feel good when someone else does validate it. But we simply can’t get caught up in something that can be just as easily taken away at the whim of the mob.

Our deep inspirations on a personal level, when expressed, have the ability to multiply into humanity from others’ seeing, hearing, or feeling our expression.

It is only in others’ lack of self worth that they so easily place another person or persons on pedestals or glorify them beyond the base from which they, too, originate.

Without Patience, Prejudice

To know something requires an investment of time and resources. There are many people who are unwilling to expend this effort — especially when it come to other humans.

When first sighting another individual, we notice certain visual cues that relate to our sense of fear, trust, aesthetics and the like. Many of our responses are tied to genetic carryovers of self-protection or favoring traits to pass on in our descendents’ gene pool.

Actions and mannerisms further add to our understanding of whether the individual is a threat, etc. Someone displaying an angry face and menacing posture advancing on us will make us feel more insecure about the situation than someone who has a relaxed posture and is smiling.

We have built-in tendencies to react a certain way to threatening action. Loud thunder and a bright flash of lightning close to us might make us jump or rush for cover. Just as we have a tendency to reflect a smile when it is presented to us.

What we don’t have built-in — and you can see this in very young children of any race — is prejudice or preconceived notions relating to an individual’s skin color, gender, nationality or the like.

These things are taught. They are passed on from generation to generation as a defensive first line of ignorance relating to an individual or group of individuals. Prejudice, in this manner, instills and promotes a fear-based insecurity.

The Free Child in Nature responds to action: You harm me, I won’t like you. This child does not respond to skin color in this way. To put it crudely, children barely respond to a booger hanging out of another child’s nose — much less be affected by their color of skin or ethnic features.

Parents, grandparents, siblings and closed social groups instill prejudice. This reduces the chances of interaction with people who are different and who may change our lives in positive ways.

Impatience is the lazy person’s shortcut to prejudice.

Prejudice denies the individual and the potential for what they have to offer. It is disrespectful. To start a relationship with disrespect — even before talking to them — is a showcase of arrogance and ignorance that limits our opportunities for advancement and evolution to a higher state.

Imagine if the world had turned away or actively denied Einstein his voice because he happened to be born into a family who may or may not have practiced a particular religion they, themselves, were born into?

Getting to know someone takes time. Our extended lives force time upon us and, for some, wisdom.

To take shortcuts in knowing someone makes certain we will miss something potentially important to our creative lives and connectedness to one another.

Salespeople have to sum up visual and auditory cues and other data points quickly to increase their chances of making a sale or getting a message across.

This practicing of shortcutting the individual to make a profit or to improve their social position is often difficult to break in their personal lives.

Many of us know people who largely wish to further their own agenda. They work to control a conversation, directing it in a way that teases out information relevant to them. They skim conversations for keywords that help them quickly sum up your worth — your potential for helping them advance in some part of their life.

If this type of interaction seems meaningful to you, then what does it mean to be you?

Do other people exist only to further your own agenda? What is that, by the way? To have financial wealth? Power? A higher social status?

And then what? Once those things are attained, what then?

There are many people who don’t look that far ahead. They get caught up rushing along the path of other people’s expectations only to find the end of the path drops off a cliff.

If you derive your value and goals from what other people say is valuable, then you are left aimless when the other people change their position or are no longer around to praise you for having maintained their expectations.

In that type of life, you are always playing catch-up to other people’s expectations. You are always behind the curve. This is something we have to be careful to not place on other individuals we meet and don’t know except by the superficial qualities of skin color and the like.

Allow people to be who they are. Allow them to have their own values and meaningful interpretations that motivate them in taking their next step and the next beyond that.

Clearly, I’m not referring to people who seek to harm or otherwise hinder another’s life or creative expression. The less attention and power we give these types of people, the freer we are to move about our lives in positive and constructive ways where the thought of togetherness does not equal caution.

When we allow persons to be who they are, we actually find out who they are.

This is an important statement. It seems simple enough, but in practice frequently we have to battle our ingrained prejudices — our “instant thought” — to allow for this.

An example is seeing an overweight person in mismatched exercise clothes sweating and red-faced on a walk alongside the road and you’re thinking thoughts other than, “That person got out of bed and is doing something to improve their life through exercise. Not only that, but they are doing this in the face of public scrutiny. That’s courage. That’s determination. That’s inspiration.”

We improve humanity by being a positive influence, by allowing for the possibility that we don’t know everything. That we don’t know everyone.

Where are you going in such a hurry in your daily life that you can’t spend time knowing someone?

This doesn’t mean that everyone is of particular benefit to your life as a creating being, but how would you know?

If we practice patience enough, we set aside our ego for the opportunity to connect, learn, and grow.

Patience, Chicken Little

Fear of the unknown is one of the greatest motivators for ignorance we have.

Reacting in fear, we establish defensive positions that cut us off from opportunity. We tunnel-vision and revert to shortcut references as a basis for survival.

This had its advantages for our predator-on-the-plains ancestors who had to work efficiently to recognize threats to their survival.

However, the majority of people in the world today no longer have to face the predator on the plains. Our continued evolution allows us to rise above our base ancestral instincts in a civilized society of laws and respect for another’s individual rights.

When it comes to actual and imminent threats, actions are the most accurate reference we have. A person intending us harm will perform actions, subtle or gross, that indicate a threat to our survival.

Opportunity for our survival comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. To dismiss them out of hand for prejudiced references tied to the fear of the unknown means we limit our opportunities for survival as a species.

Isn’t it an interesting thing that people default to ignorance in the face of fear? And this after many, many thousands of years of evolution and advances in social organization and technology.

Simply put, when we revert to default prejudices, we dismiss the quality of an individual and their potential. In doing this, we limit the sum of our potential for finding creative solutions to problems.

Human beings also have the habit of listening to and believing negative information and gossip.

If this information is real and valuable to our survival, then listening will help us motivate toward thoughts and actions that can guide us toward longer lives.

But when this information is simply hearsay and gossip intended to elevate one’s emotional satisfaction of getting attention or stirring up a hive of bees because someone offended them, then it is best left unspoken.

So, how do we know which is a real threat? Do we just always default to believing negative stories because it might keep us safer in the long run?

As I said, that sort of immediacy of threat to survival is something our ancestors, worrying about the predators on the plains, had to deal with because information was either lacking or not timely enough.

We don’t have this excuse anymore.

Nor are the majority of us having to worry about what is on the other side of the rise, when we can simply watch the news, video-communicate with people in the area via satellite transmission, text, etc.

There is no excuse for immediately jumping to accepting the negative version of people’s stories in a technologically advanced civilization. We can “believe, but verify.” We can simply pull out our phones or other devices and check the best search engines and sources that keep accurate and fact-based tabs on memes or social inaccuracies.

We just have to have the patience and take a little time to look. To have this action as a default to gossip would benefit humankind immensely and would save us much anguish.

The understanding is that unless the threat is imminent, real, and directly in front of you, a little patience will go a long way toward preventing your resources or emotional state from being used in ways that are wasteful and time consuming. This is more efficient than the proverbial running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

But humans like drama. They like stories, and they like to be lifted out of whatever emotional situation they are in — or stir their current emotional state to higher levels because it feels like it is important to do so.

Emotional states are contagious to a degree. Someone in great distress gives you signals of their distress. They might be sweating, heart racing, breathing in short and fast bursts, voice pitch raised, volume increased, eyes wide, brows drawn high and together, mouth open as if about to cry (or actually crying) or be screaming and the like.

What we don’t often realize in time is that this is their distress. We are separate beings from them.

It is part of our physiology — our brain’s response — to reflect and mirror what we see in others. This is an evolutionary process most often attributed to bonding with others or forming communal groups that support each other.

But we also have evolved an ability to interrupt our predisposed cyclic thoughts, analyze what we are seeing, and take courses of action that promote greater understanding and more meaningful methods of creating connections based on truth, rather than just emotional displays.

Realizing and reflecting truth can bring about great emotional satisfaction, and, in the long run, it becomes more meaningful to all of us.

But, as I said, humans like a good story. They like drama, especially when it reflects something related to their fears or reinforcing them.

At one extreme, beware the people who are desperately trying to convince you of the importance of their words or experiences. There’s something at work in them tied to emotional states that may be a detriment or obscuration to the truth of a situation.

Chicken Little is a fine example of this aspect of humanity.

Since we tend to default toward actions that preserve our lives, we often don’t wait for a full understanding of some subject before we express it to others. This may be because we actually care for those to whom we speak, but it may also be because, as the bearer of dangerous news, we are looked upon with wider eyes and listened to with larger ears. We get attention. This fulfills an emotional need on some level.

As a process and extension of our predator on the plains experiences of our early evolution, this is understandable. That sound in the tall weeds might be large beast about to eat us, and therefore it is better to err on the side of fear and caution as a precursor to survival.

But when do we get to the point where enough is enough? Most of us aren’t being chased by predators now. A majority of us have food, shelter, water, and some social group to call on when in need.

When do we step back and realize that if we engage patience and think critically on a subject — gathering the necessary information that can brings us closer to truth — we might actually be doing ourselves and humanity a real favor?

Truth becomes easier to see when we get past our egos and amplified emotional states.

As I said, we aren’t being chased by predators. We can wait a while to resume our television-enhanced lives to verify something that seems important to us or perhaps to others.

We would all be better off for it. And there would be fewer of the Chicken Littles running around shouting out what they don’t know. Eventually, they wouldn’t have the audience they seek and would have to come up with other ways to gain attention.

Our continued evolution as a connected, supportive society with a raised consciousness depends on our leaning toward truth.

Patience, Observation, Listening and You

Patience, observation, and listening with intent are the keys to unlocking the doors to truth, greater connectedness, and respect.

It turns out that these are also the keys for unlocking your own particular door to a deeper understanding of yourself.

Have patience with yourself. Where are you going in life that you need to get there in such a hurry? The impatience of youth is understandable, but after you’ve accumulated enough experiences, you can reflect on the fact that it took a lot of time to get where you are today.

Being aware of how long it took you to get to your current stage of awareness might help you be patient with others who aren’t there yet.

And imagine where you’ll be with another one, five or ten years with a command of patience at the ready.

Take time to reflect on yourself. Self-observation is important to your greater awareness. Reflect on your personal progress day-to-day or year-to-year.

Reflect on the people who have interacted with you in your life. How has your presence in their life affected them positively? Negatively?

What are those qualities within you that — if expressed by someone else to you — would make you feel uncomfortable, annoyed, resistant to their words or actions?

Listening with intent, regarding your own person, means understanding the subtext of your emotional state that might be influencing your decision-making process in negative ways that then bleed out to others in your expression.

It’s also valuable to pay attention to your sensory vehicle (your body’s senses) and the information that comes to you from the environment — some of which you may be unaware of on a conscious level. Patience and observation will often reveal those elements, allowing you to make changes or decisions that better you and those with whom you interact.

Our Best Selves

I do admit an affinity to the thought of human beings as a positive force. If we can get past ourselves long enough to realize this, we can start to encourage positivity in ourselves and in others.

We also have to start this as early as possible.

When we observe children’s better natures and then encourage those natures, we become a better species.

We don’t have to go far to understand our better natures. To any thinking person, it’s easy to gather information with our senses, process that information, and understand through simple logic the course of actions or behaviors that encourage connectedness, support, love, growth.

Patience: Helping You Get It Right The First Time

The most efficient pathway toward understanding is through patience.

This would seem to be at odds with the need to get things done quickly; however, things that are done quickly often have to be re-done because of errors in the initial quick grasp.

Essentially, it’s about getting it done right the first time.

I think with something as essential as human progress and evolution toward continually expressing our better natures, taking the time to get it done right the first time and every time thereafter is quite valuable.

Patience for something external of us requires patience internally.

Patience for oneself and with one’s self allows us to extend the same to others.

Taking the time to do this as regularly as we brush our teeth or drink water would greatly improve our stress levels and make us choose actions that have a little more thought in them.

The process of patience is an exercise. Life, itself, is an exercise.

Patience demands an internal calm. It requires a mindset not belabored with the need to get something done.

It also requires a lack of prejudice toward the outcome.

When one is able to project calm and openness, it makes it easier for people to be themselves, to express themselves honestly.

Anyone who has watched or taken care of children knows that if you simply sit and listen to them, they will have no compunction to hide themselves. They will give you openly and honestly their stream of consciousness experience.

Then they, too, will eventually ease into their own calm. Their need to express themselves creatively and to be heard will be sated.

Having tended children, adults, and the elderly, I have witnessed the same process in them. That same need to be heard. There is also the same calming effect that comes over an individual when they have expressed themselves to a welcoming, unbiased ear.

So, patience is the first step toward witnessing and understanding our better natures. In fact, patience is a better nature.

Exercising Patience: Listening

As with anything you wish to do well, you practice it.

Muscles are not stimulated to grow or strengthen without being used against a particular type of stress.

The stress encountered with practicing patience is with shutting down or deflecting internal dialog or thoughts that seek to hasten you in one way or another.

Patience exists without time, or it must, in order for it to be effective.

What this means is that one cannot be attached intimately to a sense of time while trying to allow individuals their moment to express themselves.

Their moment.

We all operate with our own sense of urgency, internally.

If practicing patience is a struggle, and time keeps rearing its persistent head, set a timer or an alarm clock for when you next have to do something. That way your perception, your anxiety, with this particular aspect is lessened or removed. You will then be allowed to focus, to exercise your patience for yourself or for the individual in front of you.

When listening to someone, it is often easy to be distracted by our own internal processing. Rest assured that anything pertinent you need to say will still be retained at the end of allowing someone to express themselves. And if you forget, nothing about listening to the other person before you is lost.

Remember, this is about them. It is about allowing another individual freedom to give of themselves. You become a resting place for their hurried states to diffuse. You allow them to be vulnerable.

You may be challenged internally and fight the need to judge the information that is being expressed. To do so, would potentially close off a person. In this case, you would lose an open window into their nooks and crannies. You would lose the opportunity to discover who they are and to learn something new.

This is extremely important when dealing with children. It is the easiest way to discover their logic pathways. It is the easiest way to discover their better natures and where they might be veering from them. Listening with intent helps you later to nudge them into expressing and exercising their best selves frequently.

This also allows them to retain their individuality and to understand that their voice matters.

There are universal behaviors and actions that promote positive well-being in individuals and in populations. This is not hard to understand by any stretch of imagination.

There are also universal allowances and accepting states of mind that promote individual personal growth within a community.

The beneficial effect you have on an individual by being open and listening patiently to them supports the positive well-being of a group.

The problem of people getting lost within a group is a real problem. Individuals subsume their own critical processing and innate freedom of expression to the leading ego or egos of the group.

It is a failing part of our human nature and adulthood to desire no responsibility for the sovereignty of our individuality and person. The need to be taken care of — to be held and nurtured — is something best given to children as they are coming into the world.

As adults, we must first deal with all those harmful things within us that value prejudice, that remove reason for emotion, that separate, rather than engage, understand, and form supportive connections with each other.

We must come to the realization that this very moment is shared by billions of other people who each have the creative potential to usher in the next evolution of humankind.