CHAPTER 1

Know Yourself

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Make sure that [the device] is set up properly and connected to the network.

Before calling for service, review this list. It may save you time andexpense. This list includes common occurrences that are not theresult of defective workmanship or materials in [this device].

If [the device] is not operating, be sure the plug is pushed firmlyinto the electrical outlet and that the device is turned "on."

These samples are text from real user's guides. It seems that, increasingly,over the forty years that I have accumulated owner's manuals andmanufacturer's instructions for devices, the distributors of such documentshave added longer and more explicit troubleshooting tips to their booklets,which are usually prefaced by, "Before you contact our customer servicedepartment ..."

Now imagine that every time our lives get a little out of whack, weare able to consult an owner's manual for possible solutions to the currentoperational crisis. Believe it or not, human beings come equipped withmanufacturer's instructions and complementary troubleshooting guides.Though these remedies are not found in the convoluted, overly technicaltext of guides for technological gadgets and household appliances, we canengage our physical and nonphysical feedback systems to tell us whensomething is off. We can also use our skills of learning, creating, andadapting to get ourselves back "on" and operating in alignment again.We gain access to our self-contained and externally reinforced owner'smanuals by becoming self-aware and proficient in learning, creating, andadapting. Knowing oneself is the pathway to the owner's manual andsmooth operating.

The shuffled and dramatic version of the "owner's manual" isusually introduced to human beings in adolescence. Based on varyingcircumstances, the manual could be dumped on us all at once. In othercases, the manual comes more incrementally—chapter by chapter, sentenceby sentence. It all depends on the unique, nontransferable journey of eachlife. For example, in normal development, at around the onset of puberty,an adolescent's brains, hormones, physicality, and emotions reorganizein ways that highlight the contrast of being a member of a group as wellas a separate and unique individual. This realization is at once terrifyingand liberating. Anyone who remembers his or her own adolescence, hasparented adolescents, or has spent much time with them can speak to thetrapeze ride between autonomy and belonging that marks the adolescentpassage, a particularly challenging chapter of the owner's manual.

I remember when our son went through a challenging phase inhis early teen years when, according to his values, he had to be seenin acceptable, brand-name clothing—regardless of the cost or who waspaying for it. From his perspective, his identity demanded it. I gave greatspeeches about balancing individuality and peer pressure with a dash offinancial responsibility, but the line between autonomy and belonging wasnarrow and constantly changing. Paradoxically, it was essential to look likeeveryone else while individuating—the proverbial keeping up with theadolescent Joneses. We all know adults who are still working to reconcilethis duality of self and group, apparently having missed or misunderstoodthis chapter of the owner's manual.

Based on the work of José Ortega y Gasset and the other thinkersincluded in this book, being an authentic adult human being includesliving one's life mindful of one's design. By design I do not mean a linearpursuit of perfection. The assumption here is that human design is aflexible, dynamic tension among three components: learning, creation, andadaptation. These three design elements are common to all living systemsand serve life's intention of alignment and expansion with a universeof infinite energy. These dynamic system processes fluctuate betweencontrasting phenomena such as infinite/finite, death/birth, bliss/struggle,freedom/enslavement, ritual/novelty, and capacity/passion. Discoveringone's identity along these continua happens as a person engages with andresponds to his or her circumstances. Each of us attempts to reconcilethese tensions, and by doing so we consciously evolve ourselves to thrivein increasingly complex environments and with increasing understandingof our own alignment with possibility. The more we expand and evolve,the more we understand the owner's manual and the more self-aware webecome.

As early as 1914 in Meditations on Quixote, Ortega began to explorehis philosophical stance that individuals are not separate from theircircumstances. His now-famous philosophical premise—"I am I and mycircumstances"—provides a useful lens for revealing and pursuing thegeneral attributes of an authentic, self-determining adult. For Ortega,human being and becoming was all about what happens as each personnegotiates between the necessities of our physical world and the freedomof our nonphysical world. A human self who is fused with his or hercircumstances is, for Ortega, the most essential owner's manual tip forunderstanding the human "device."

The world is designed to expose contrasts and compel choices. By thesecontrasts, life reveals to us, individually and collectively, the harmoniousfunctioning and the discordant malfunctioning of human life. In turn, theexperiences and insights of life help one to have preferences and to choosepaths aligned with learning, creating, and adapting that satisfy the wantsand needs of the physical and the nonphysical self. In this process of self-awarenessand evolution, each person comes to accept and reject previousassumptions and beliefs that he or she and the community held.

For example, in the early twentieth century, many scientists andphilosophers began to seek clarifications and deeper distinctions in thehuman instruction manual and imagine the possibilities of human life froma quantum perspective rather than a Newtonian perspective. Beginningwith (and going beyond) Einstein's exploration of reality, a notion ofquantum fields has been permeating the thinking about matter, energy,their relationship, and the implications for understanding what it meansto be human.

Quantum theory is based on the idea that reality is iterations ofboundless energy that is interconnected across space and time. Thisquantum field of reality, considered to be all energy coexisting in timeand...