God Seeker Guy

So many blogs, books and religions take it upon themselves to provide answers to questions about happiness, relationships, suffering and many of the more unfortunate afflictions possessed by most of us.

Anyone who claims to have the answers to your problems, and I don’t mean how to fix your toaster, must surely be making huge assumptions about how you go about problem solving. What works for one does not necessarily work for all. Following a guru, pundit or sage of any kind, can lead us down the path of emotional and intellectual addiction.

All humans are made of the same flesh and blood and are fueled by oxygen, sunlight and fast food – in other words, we’re all the same apparatus, and not any one of us or any one of our religions or creeds has all the answers to our problems. We’re smarter, better informed, and have huge amounts of information at our fingertips. The problem, of course, is how to filter out the noise including dogmatism, self-interest, deceit and uninformed opinion.

In addition to the perils of listening to advisors who may not practice what they preach (see blog post: Where is the trust?) the younger generation in particular must deal with the onslaught of social media and all the stress and anxiety it can cause a developing but inexperienced mind.

A recent Time Magazine cover story (Anxiety, depression and the American adolescent – November 7, 2016) observes that young people are “… looking at other people’s lives on Instagram and feeling self-loathing (or worse).” The high-tech version of keeping up with the Jonses is an added burden for adolescents who are seeking answers.

It’s critical to question all sources of opinion and information (that includes these notes from GSG of course). We’re at a critical stage in the fight for self-worth in a society that constantly pounds away at our failings and shortcomings. Once we accept that failure is a healthy and critical step in the process of learning and discovery, we can free ourselves from the shackles of having others think for us, and even from the harsh demands of God Almighty himself.

-GSG (God Seeker Guy)