When there is a crisis in a family, say for example somebody is diagnosed with cancer or some other terminal disease, or there is an acute financial crisis that mandates selling off the home and basic possessions of the family, or there is a crisis in relationships with ugly allegations and below-the-belt actions and reactions, or there is a natural disaster like earthquake, we switch on the "survival mode". In the "survival mode", we are driven by a fundamental objective to survive and ensure the survival of our near and dear ones.
If survival is ensured, generally, we want to enjoy life. Have nice, tasty food, meet friends, visit different places, socialise, gather comforts, watch movies, enjoy entertainment, and enjoy life. Basically, we switch on the "comfort mode" of our lives. Sometimes, when we switch on comfort mode, we realise that we do not have enough means to provide comfort for ourselves and our near and dear ones. We set different targets to achieve the desired level of comfort. Some people set up a business to earn money to acquire all those comforts, while others clear a competitive examination to get that kind of job. We just switched on the "achievement mode". The purpose is loud and clear. We somehow want to earn money to get the objects we desire.
Basically, all three modes are centred around comforts. In the first mode, i.e., survival mode, since survival itself is at stake, our focus shifts to survival. In the achievement mode, we want comforts for the future. That's why we adopt a delayed-gratification strategy, making efforts in the present to secure means of comfort for the future. Different people feel comfortable with different things. Some are comfortable with physical comforts such as money and wealth, and that's why they make efforts to acquire them, while others seek comfort in intangibles such as power, name, social image, and heightened self-esteem, and they make efforts to acquire these intangibles.
All three modes of existence are in the domain of the "known". We make some meaning of the comforts. One person feels that he would be comfortable if he had money, while another feels that he would be comfortable if those around him praised him and considered him a good person. For him, societal validation plays a very important role. Of course, people want to achieve whatever meaning of comfort they have made in their lives. In our interactions with people around us, there are lot of exchanges. These exchanges are taking place everywhere around us. When a mother asks a child to bring a glass of water, and the child brings it, and the mother praises the boy as a "good boy", the mother has given that validation to the child in exchange for effort. The same thing repeats itself as we grow up and join an organisation as employees. The employer asks us to put in extra hours, and we do. At the end of the day, the employer praises us in front of everybody, and we feel happy. We buy "social validation" out of that hard work.
In contrast to these three modes, there may be a very different mode of living: "explorer mode". Here, we are not fixated on a meaning of life based on our experiences. Rather, we just want to explore to the maximum. We are not driven by a fixed concept of comfort. We do not want to achieve comfort by switching on the "achievement mode" or enjoy those comforts in "comfort mode". Rather, we are curious to find the meaning of life. Our mind has not "concluded"; rather, it is constantly trying to integrate experiences to make sense of the meaning of life. With every new input and experience, it reviews its present understanding of life and refines it. The mind has an infinite quest to explore. The mind feels enthused to see new things, meet new people, and examine different perspectives. It is like dancing with the wind, as the tree's branches sway. In "explorer mode," we constantly rediscover ourselves, the people, and the ecosystem around us. We can see things from so many different perspectives. People around us feel that we have changed, but we have just realised the relativity of the perspective we used to hold some time back. We no longer consider any single perspective absolute, and accordingly, no single perspective can sit in the driving seat of our lives.
We try to switch on "explorer mode" while "comfort mode" is on. We try to make everyone around us comfortable and do a little exploration in the limited space available to us. I feel that every "explorer" does the same thing unless he has grown up as a free soul. Since childhood conditioning is very strong and we have to make ourselves and the people around us comfortable, most people spend their whole lives in just "comfort" and "achievement" mode. There is no end to the comforts, and nobody can ever say as to what amount of money and comforts is sufficient. The desire to get social validation may never be satiated. That's why, when we explore and see the limitations of comforts, we just need to make a call to keep comforts to a bare minimum so that more and more space is created for exploration. Only those who can see this truth clearly dare to switch off the 'achievement mode' and switch on the 'explorer mode'. Otherwise, the brain is very good at creating illusions and making us feel as though we are exploring. Many Babas are playing this trick on the minds of millions.
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