If life were a movie, and you were the director, what would you make of it?
Imagine having that power! That freedom! When you strip away all the fancy language, this is the real question that the world’s great minds have always engaged. State leaders, economists, philosophers, artists, and the guy who drives a taxi all live according to this question. You are no different. I am no different. Every last soul on earth is perfectly equal in this regard; we build meaning inside whatever we are given. For all the mystic searching, for all the profound contemplation, the simple truth is that each person chooses. Each person really is the director, of his existence.
The idea of independence is challenged by social forces. We are so immersed in certain false ideas, we often come to believe they are true, when they are not. Society defines meaning and success in terms of wealth, status, intelligence, ability, charm, and appearance. As people come to believe these ideas, they sacrifice dominion over themselves to the crowd. They become compliant. They lose autonomy, along with whatever they might have been. It does not matter if this sounds nice, or if we don’t like it. All that matters, is if it is true. All of the hostility, arrogance, intolerance, cruelty, substance abuse, and suicide suggest that it is. Consider suicide. It is a wholly unnatural act. Living organisms are designed for self preservation, yet certain people drift so far away from themselves that it becomes desirable. They have lost themselves.
Rusticus is an argument. It is a proposition that if you engage a person while they are at that critical point of development, when the central opinions of meaning are formed, then you can help them see that life is a question directed specifically at them. The answer is their own. Rusticus is as far from indoctrination as is possible. Before any other thing, Rusticus promotes the idea that the individual should consider all points on any subject, then discern the best position. In short, Rusticus is about fostering independent thought.
Rusticus is also experiential. It is a core tenet of the program that physical challenges and cognitive hardships are necessary to the growth process. Accordingly, as a program, it institutes a return to the fundamental notion of achievement through hard work and rudimentary living. While attendees discover that their opinion is central to life’s meaning, they also negotiate the physical truths of being. They learn manual skills, while deriving satisfaction from the sweat of their own labor.