Analysis Of Man’s Search For Himself By Rollo May
Rollo tries to express what he thinks is wrong with humanity. Going over many decades of theories from Freud’s to Horneye’s - Rollo and his colleagues come up with our main problem in our decades which is –emptiness. He goes on to explain how humans just “do not know what they want” and “they often do not have any clear idea of what they feel”. With all this internal conflict, a person can easily feel confusion about who they are, and this leads to feelings of emptiness. For example, this emptiness we are always trying to fill by searching for meanings, acquiring things, or other people. This “hollowness” is a byproduct of our forever-changing society. As time has gone by, our demands amongst ourselves has changed drastically. The morality that was once instilled, simply no longer exists, so we are in that transitional search to find that something to fill that void with. We’re conforming to such strict routines that the only outcome is boredom. With this increase in boredom, an increase in destructive behaviors, such as drug addiction, has ensued. As society grows larger and more advanced, corporate powers are taking over all of our lives. These powers are expanding so fast, that it seems that there is no way to fight their ostentation off. However, “the experience of emptiness, rather, generally comes from people’s feelings that they are powerless to do anything effective about their lives or the world they live in”.
The most successful people in our society are no longer the morally devout people, but those who “have been most successful in adjusting to public opinion”. Multitudinous people do not wish to be alone substantially, but that they would prefer to engage in activities they do not want to do- only for the fact of not being alone. This can be detrimental to really finding out who we really are. For instance, if you are always in the company of others, when will you have the time to introspect on the thoughts of what makes you act the way you act? What makes you who you are? In the end, the seeking of constant companionship will leave us empty because we will never know who we are outside of the “pack”, and we will not know how to soothe ourselves in times where we cannot be in companionship. Thus; “many people are like blind men feeling their way along in life only by means of touching a succession of other people”. Society has constantly been altering what the meaning of the ‘self’ is. Due to a lack of understanding of what or who we are, we’re still dependent on the “oversimplified” explanations offered and fed to us. This has led to a vast door opening to totalitarianism, failure, and complete loss of the self. We are like slaves, only trained to be obedient, and accept the modern dictations of government, science, and religion. We hang tough, thinking that we are small, powerless, and have no other choice as an individual. The same goes with pleasing others, as we often have no choice but to be “performers in life rather than persons who live and act as selves”.
Before we can start going down the path of getting to know who we are, first, we must try to find out what it is we are seeking from within ourselves. The main thing that separates humans from other mammals is our development of “consciousness of self”. By being able to be aware of ourselves allows us to observe, project, and influence time, as well as the ability to feel and express emotions like love and fight for ideas and beliefs. It is important to be aware of how we interact with our children because how we react to their actions can shape who they become and how they deal with the world later on in life. In order to be a full person we must free ourselves from the constraints of dominance, whether it be from our parents or anyone else who is heavily influencing our thoughts and actions in a domineering negative fashion. Rollo describes several stages we must all go through- innocence, rebellion, the ordinary consciousness of self, and a fourth stage not experienced often he refers to as, “sudden insight into a problem”. Fulfillment of these stages leads to a chance of getting to know who we are. All life and experience is a learning process, and by keeping in mind our past actions or inaction, we can base our future actions on what we have already learned, in hope of improving our daily outcomes. Being able to freely choose how we develop is crucial in being able to analyze and learn from our past experiences. Just like experience, “freedom is cumulative; one choice made with an element of freedom makes greater freedom possible for the next choice”. Being free however is not something that just happens- it is something that must always be worked towards.
Love is an extremely complex emotion with many definitions, but true love is rarely experienced anymore. Most are not prepared to love. Many things hinder our ability to love. If we attempt to love before we have flourished as a conscience person, it is more possible that the love will be based on dependency, which is not true love at all. True love “is to give without thought of being rewarded”, and it is something that cannot be achieved if one has not “gained the prior capacity to stand alone, to be a person in one’s own right”, “it takes courage not only to assert one’s self but to give one’s self”. Time is an easy scapegoat; always attempting to put off working on problems that may require substantial effort. Living and trying to experience life in any other timeframe than the present is detrimental to personal growth. We must unite all timeframes.
Instead of using the past and present as an escape to what is going on in life right now, Rollo poignantly and simply offers a way to unite all 3 time frames, by eloquently saying, “that the past has meaning as it lights up the present, and the future as it makes the present richer and more profound”. As people, we must jump into action and leave behind the fears of death, and the ceasing of time, and not give up on personal growth and achieving our fullest potentials of self-awareness. Confronting and resolving the tribulations in our lives will set us free of the grips of the underdeveloped, conscious-self. Becoming a whole person is reaching our potentiality, and later will develop a deeper understanding of our role in life and existence, as well as opening a path to experience deeper truer love – of self and others.
