“Is your life two dimensional or three?”
WayneT left this interesting question as a prompt and I’m glad it was down the list because I’ve needed time to puzzle on it.
Sure, it’s easy to say that our lives are three dimensional because, duh, we live in three dimension of space (discounting time or other proposed dimensions). But that’s not the same thing as a “three dimensional life.”
One of the interesting things about life is that it sets up our reality as a finite space. Our bodies, our surroundings, and our time “alive” are all contained by space and time. While there is a lot of research being done into the nature of reality, none of that changes our day to day lives. To a certain extent it doesn’t matter if we live in a Matrix-style virtual reality; we’re here, this is what we’ve got.
These limitations, though, are not all external or something we are born with. We can expand and contract our reality in some basic ways: meditation, travel, drugs, relationships, exercise, etc. Some choices are healthier than others, some are not choices we can make without sacrificing other choices. Becoming a parent, I think, is the most common of these kinds of decisions, but going to college, starting a new job, or running from an abusive situation are all examples.
(And, in order not to put too much “it’s all in your head!!!” woo-woo into this, it’s important to remember that a brain (our reality) is a finite, flexible, and fragile thing. Problems with brain chemistry due to genetics, illness, trauma or physical injury result in different choices to make (or not make) for some people, like whether to live or commit suicide.)
I would posit, then, that a two dimensional life is one where we abjure from making decisions at all, if and when possible…or, I suppose, I mean specifically the kinds of decisions that fundamentally alter our lives. This doesn’t mean that things don’t happen or that our lives don’t get altered in such a two-dimensional life (shit happens, yo’).
What do mean by a three dimensional, life, then? I think it’s a life based on intention and responsibility, that is, a life of purpose. That can take so many forms, such as parenthood as I mentioned earlier. It’s common for people to say they never really “grew up” until they became parents; I think that is less about the actual children than it is about how parenting requires both intention and responsibility. People who have neither intention nor responsibility in their role as parents are usually recognized as lousy parents, at the very least.
Living three dimensionally is being aware of all the space we take up, in every direction, and doing so with purpose. That purpose might be something other people mock (being a houseparent, for instance) or don’t agree is important (being an artist, or a traveler, or a pet owner), but that’s all about individual choice.
I suppose in classic psychological terms, it could be said that I’m talking about the top of Maslow’s Pyramid, “self-actualization.” Personally, I think I’m more in line with Victor Frankl‘s ideas: our self-purpose defines who we are and the reality we inhabit, no matter what good, bad, or horrible external issues we deal with.
As for me: my life is three dimensional at this time, but that has been hard won. After my parents died in the mid-1990s, when I was in my twenties, I became very two dimensional and I spent a couple of decades reacting to what happened to me, never making choices outside of “need a job to pay bills” and “what’s for dinner?” Part of that was simply inexperience, from living a sheltered life as a homeschooled only child, but the other part of it was due to complex grief and PTSD.
Getting out of that long, deep rut was not done by willpower, but again by reaction: I finally cracked in 2008, breaking down hard for three whole days of tears and lethargy. It took therapy, more therapy, grad school, whooping cough, divorce, lots of writing, five years, and adventures in being a single middle aged woman to get to a point where I feel like I have a purpose, and am making choices based on those feelings.
It’s been worth it.
