The 7 Pillars of Life
Seven Pillars represent the structural foundations of a substantive and meaningful human life. A careful reflection into these seven domains which support and substantiate a mindful human existence, in harmony with our nature and knowing self awareness.
This is a meditation and exploration. These seven domains are foundational to a human life. When nurtured and balanced, they provide the pathway to strength, creativity, peace, power and purpose. They are self supporting and reciprocating, entwined and inseparable.
Seven Pillars that encompass the holistic whole of human need and awareness to thrive and flourish. The Seven Pillars are highly adaptive, but interdependent. They are mutually reinforcing, and structurally connected. Divisible at the cost of fragility.
An imbalance could bring unpredictable chaos. Asymmetry would produce disorder. The structure would be unsound. Symmetrical strengthening of the Seven Pillars optimizes the human condition (Body, Mind and Emotion).
As human beings, we are affected and grounded by the Seven Pillars.
Enslaved by our nature, but free to “know”. We are creative beyond natural limitations, through transcendent self awareness.
Our minds search to understand. We seek self awareness, meaning and the reflection of the divine. Our bodies are sovereign, willful and our minds soar into imaginations. We search for truth, meaning, heaviness and lightness. Something worth dying for, something worth living for, something worth suffering for, something worth loving, something beyond who we are right now, right here.
We know we are more than what we feel, see, hear, touch and taste. We “know” our own existence to be true. To be real and sublime. Beyond natural, beyond comprehension or rational understanding. The human condition pushes and pulls, clenching and squeezing beyond what we know or can comprehend.
We are infants and children but time and mirror reflects differently, something unrecognizable, foreign and forgotten (unfamiliar). We are prisoners in this sojourn, vaguely aware there’s something else in the distance. Beyond there, over there, we know there’s something more. Cognizant of something, forgotten, something left behind. Something we must return to. The journey lead us back, but not quite yet.
We have the Seven Pillars of Life. Our guides, our lattices. Plants to water. Chores and exercises, burdens and sources of strength. Positive suffering. A map of understanding. A light of reason. We hear echos that sound cognizant but yet unknown. We see traces of our true selves, yet shadows, vague and dim.
Let’s acquaint ourselves with the Seven Pillars to build our lives on solid columns. Temporary as it is, our journey imposes this responsibility (burden) and compels action. Build, create, seek, learn, understand, suffer and persevere until the journey end.
These are mental, psychological and intellectual understandings of the Seven elements. But regardless of how much you can intellectually understand them, they are immutable and inevitable.
Our task, our goal, and in our suffering, we build the Seven Pillars of Life. Build them strong, build them well, build them symmetrically. We have only so much time to build. Natural decay ultimately occurs and we arrive closer to the end.
Eventually, the Pillars crumble one by one. The Pillars we have beautifully built, so diligently constructed, must come down. We return to where we came from. Our suffering ends, our journey is complete.
The Seven Pillars are as Follows:
1. Time and Youth
2. Physical Health
3. Mental and Emotional Health
4. Skills, Know How, Talent, Expression, Creativity
5. Experiences, Knowledge, Education, Wisdom, Intelligence, IQ, Self Awareness, Self Consciousness
6. Community Influence, Social Power, Family, Friends, Beauty, Personality, Ability to Communicate, Soft Social Power
7. Financial Wealth, Money
… And then there is the role of luck and randomness.
The Seven Domains are inextricable. They fortify one another. A neglect of any pillar will bring fragility and harm to your system. The human condition cannot properly exist or function without balance. Time is the currency of life. You exchange your time to build your Pillars.
What should you do with your life? – Build your Pillars.
It won’t be easy. It’s positive suffering. It is purposeful and meaningful. It will take all your effort and stamina to build them well. Build them strong to last a lifetime. This is your duty, and your calling. You build your Seven Pillars, and you create the best version of yourself.
If the Pillars must eventually come down, why start at all? If the Pillars are doomed to crumble, why make the effort? “Doomed” is an inappropriate description. I would say, designed for disassembly.
It’s a natural arc. The circle of beginning and end. Assembly and disassembly. We are all called to make this journey. We are the highest expression of life and consciousness. We build until we can no longer build. We struggle forward until we no longer have breath. It is not a flaw, but by design that the Seven Pillars are erected, fortified, strengthened and then disassembled.
We test the limits of our humanity, our divinity, our self awareness, our creativity. We are and therefore we do. We do because we are. We’ll realize our true selves when it’s our time. When the pinnacle of our construction has been reached. When we’ve touched the height of our self awareness, suffering and consciousness.
There is no promise of happiness or peace. No guarantee whatsoever. We can suffer negatively or positively, but suffer we will. We can hide in fear, retreat in confusion and ignorance or move forward with boldness, purpose and curiosity. But move forward we must. Time drives us forward, regardless of our state of mind and state of purpose. We can do it willfully, positively, or haphazardly in concentric (oblivious) circles. We are human and divine.
We boldly push forward with power and awareness, or get dragged forward in impotent subservience. You choose how to commence. In the end, it is the end. Our life can be transcendent through self aware suffering or transcendent through the suffering of ignorance and oblivion (subjection).
The End
