…may well be isolation and solitude. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek them, but in the process, a couple of things may happen: You may find you need others less and less, maybe losing tolerance for the mundane that characterizes so much social interaction. But you may also find that the unaware and unknowledgeable lose interest in you. There can be several reasons for that, but let’s leave it for now. The whole thought just seemed to merit mention…and maybe a warning.
Only a minute fraction are attempting to fashion an autonomous, self-directed life for themselves. defined by the formulation of personal, highly individualized meanings and the living them out that is the richest aspect of meaning-making. The masses derive meaning from shallow cultural chaff assaulting us from every side or from ancient creeds created by peoples of a radically different era and locale. One can and must use the past to create meanings in the present age, here and now. These meanings are one’s own, they are not wholly derivative. Alienation is the price of autonomy.
There is a reason why I didn’t expand on this. To use a cliché, this whole topic is “fraught with danger,” and your comment comes right to the edge…without quite jumping in. I congratulate you! Seriously, the problem is using labels and drawing comparisons. I’m as guilty as anyone, but both quickly descend into pejoratives. Deep thinkers call non-deep thinkers “shallow.” People who never went past high school call the college-educated “elitist.” And etc… To have a non-inflammatory discussion about this, we have to come up with words that objectively characterize us without being pejorative.
I’ve thought a lot about what differentiates the seven billion individuals on the planet today, as well as the many who have existed since we descended from trees (I know, another cliché…). To throw down something quickly here, three useful characterizations might be “leaders vs non-leaders,” “critical thinkers vs non-critical thinkers,” and the “curious vs the incurious.”
Personally, I think critical thinking is a learned skill and the most identifiable advantage of advanced education, especially in the sciences. Leadership and curiosity, on the other hand, may well be genetic. I firmly believe, for example, that there is some tiny fraction of our species who from birth blaze their own path through life..and whether they like it or not, most of the rest look to them for guidance.
I am beginning to believe now that leadership and curiosity may be conjoined, part of the same gene, if that is what it is. Or, an alternative interpretation: Maybe the genetic trait is a mutation that manifests as a disinclination to follow. In that reading, leadership might just be an incidental artifact. In any case, I’d much like to find a research psychologist who is working on this and invite him or her to have a drink. I call it the “leadership gene” (for want of a better term), but I’ve been unable to find any books on it. If you know of any, or maybe of technical papers, I’d like to know about them.
If a person actually achieves the capabilities defined by Maslow’s Self-Actualization Theory, that person WILL be a superior individual and Maslow himself says so. If egalitarians find this inflammatory that is just too bad. The point of philosophical ethics since Plato is to guide one to a superior state of being. People are not equal from birth and those who have consciously and deliberately worked to understand themselves and the frenzied life swirling around them are going to be far removed from those who haven’t done such work. The truly elevated will have no interest in exploiting the unelevated masses—such pettiness is beneath them—so there is nothing dangerous to be feared.