It always amazes me how we keep cycling ideas that other people had long before we were even born. Since Richard Dawkins, this is called a meme, coming from the Greek word mimema which means “imitated thing”.
So what is a meme? It is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. And the author of the term also says that memes spread through the behavior that they generate in their “hosts”, so in other words they almost seem to behave like a parasite or a virus, influencing each and everyone’s lives.
Just like in the real world, these idea-viruses tend to compete with each other for dominance over the living organisms. And the result is mostly pointless conflict. Pointless – so long as we can all agree we are not free of such viruses. One way or another, a particular virus might be guiding how we react, how we interact, how we think.
Of course, over the period of our lives new viruses can gain dominance and that is really where we can come to the actual realization of their existence. Just like in fashion. At some point we were wearing flared jeans and they looked amazing. And then the fashion trend changed and suddenly the flared jeans became ugly and unacceptable. Same pair of jeans, different virus, none actually better than the other.
Because so long as we lived with our older version of the virus, we acted like it was the best thing we knew. And then things changed. And when they changed, they brought with them the realization of the fact that there can’t really be a particular virus that is right, while the others are plain wrong.
They are probably all right and wrong to different extents and that’s why we should always agree to disagree rather than fight in the name of ideas, regardless of what those ideas might be.
This brings me to my favorite topic. Who are we, if we are influenced by ideas and attitudes that didn’t originate within us, but rather “inhabited” us?
If we are swayed by these defining memes?… Who are we really?
If you strip away everything you took for granted and never questioned?
If you take away those things that define us but are not really necessary or even beneficiary to our lives?
And why are we so prone to defend all of these external images that try to define us but are not actually us?
My personal view on these questions is that holding tightly onto a clear definition of who we are might be outdated. Following causality (one thing must naturally lead to another) is outdated.
Each moment has a tremendous potential to offer exciting new things, so then why let causality and clear definitions decide how things turn out? There are two things that I personally believe can greatly enhance our daily experiences:
1. Never take yourself too seriously
Take whatever you’re thinking or feeling and put it in the larger context of your whole life. Realize it is most likely a very temporary thing. As things constantly change, whatever you are concerned with right now belongs to the present moment alone and might very well have no connection to what the next day might bring. It sounds like a bit of chaos but there are many advantages. It does come with a sense of freedom, and even freedom from yourself as you no longer have that many expectations on what should happen next.
2. Be flexible about who you think you are
I think we are here to live, experiment, play around, and a strict definition of who you can be will tend to limit options a lot. What is so special about being yourself anyway? What are the perks? Think about it. And why would something different be less special or enjoyable? Just change the story you tell yourself and I think you will find that the new story is not in any way “less you”.
I would like to end with a quote I really like from a person who lived quite a long time ago from our perspective, and who’s words have become a meme for us today.
“I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here. I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”
― Richard P. Feynman
