Anyone can become a deep person, or at least a deeper person, because it is a journey. We make significant progress without ever “arriving.” Deep people aren’t manufactured, they’re formed.
Though there is a large body of knowledge about how to form crowds and masses, what I’m interested in here is forming individuals. Here are the basic realities for forming individuals:
· Everything has the potential to form us because humans are inherently imitators and emulators.
· Not everything forms us well.
· Our choices and behaviors influence what forms us.
· Formation is ongoing and not final; what has been formed can be reformed.
We are individually and collectively a product of our formation. What we’ve experienced and learned from family, peers, friends, schooling, churches, organizations, media of all kinds, entertainment, hobbies, sports, wars, and more shape us. We’re inescapably swimming in the multigenerational cultures we live in even if we’re swimming differently than others. Every generation absorbs and learns. Formation is not static. You are not the same person you were at 12, 18, or 30, or yesterday.
(I’m assuming here that we have common agreement that there is good and evil, that love and morality matter, that there is more than power, more than the material world. Formation still matters if you disagree – but logically there is no point to pursuing the journey to become a deep person.)
What works against good formation? There are modern conceits like these:
· “I’m already good enough. I don’t need to improve.” This is usually followed with “It’s those people.”
· Modern people are automatically smarter and better than everyone who came before us. We have evolved beyond those primitive ignoramuses.
· “I can be the <noun> without doing the <verb>.” Examples: I can be fit without consistent exercise, I can be good without self-discipline and sacrifice, etc.
· There’s nothing wrong with being double-minded and living a duality (good & deep in some areas, wicked and shallow in others).
· “I’ll have more time later.”
Hmmm… perhaps none of these conceits are modern.
Today there are passionate advocates and critics about our schools, our media, entertainment, censorship narratives, and political perspectives. Why? These are means of forming people. We might not articulate the “formation” part. What you and I are exposed to (or not) has enormous consequences in how we think, feel, and interpret the world.
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When we go deeper in the ocean or the earth, it becomes darker and darker. When we pursue depth as a person we are growing brighter and see more light. We become more aware than ever. There is a terrific line from the movie “Joe Versus the Volcano”: “My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everyone you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.” I think the key word there is ‘amazement.’ Not everyone is truly asleep. Everyone truly awake is amazed. That’s what greater light brings forward.
Perhaps one way to describe a deep person is that they’re increasingly well-grounded in light.
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The Apostle Paul gave the Romans the paradigm to becoming a deep person (emphasis mine):
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2)
The paradigm (whether you’re Christian or religious or not) is two-fold:
First, actively put your body in a place of sacrifice that you may be formed well.
Second, fight the default messages of shallowness by renewing your mind with narratives consistent with becoming a deep person.
This is conscious, planned, diligent, ongoing work. No one becomes a deeper person passively, by osmosis, or through random sleepwalking. It requires bodily work – it’s not purely a mental matter. It requires shaping our minds – shaping the body is insufficient. This makes sense because philosophy and biology concur that we’re body and mind together.
The journey to becoming a deep person has everything to do with voluntary and cooperative formation. You must push your will towards a collection of behaviors and chosen environments to maximize your deep formation and minimize your shallow formation.
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I published a book last year about influencing the next ten generations. You have far more influence potential than the “shallow” world wants you to know.
I believe my calling now is to enroll others in the great journey to becoming deep people. It’s easy to criticize shallow people, but this only leads to more shallow relationships. Instead, observe the power in a positive example. Deep people somehow catalyze an inner conversation where a person says to herself, “I want to be like that person.” Inspiration (literally, breathing in the spirit) creates the attractive pull into the journey of depth. Isn’t this why we honor the great people of history? They inspire us to become more like them.
