The Human Problem
To understand the modern human problem, it must be placed within its proper historical scope.
Human beings have existed for tens of thousands of years. Yet the condition in which each individual must consciously construct a personal identity is extremely recent. For the vast majority of human history, this burden did not exist.
What we experience today as a personal struggle is, in fact, a historical and civilizational condition
Prehistoric period
In prehistoric societies, human life unfolded without a writing system. Meaning, norms, and direction were transmitted through oral tradition, embodied practice, ritual, symbols, and images. There was no stable medium for abstraction or sustained self-reflection.
Identity was not questioned because it could not be separated from the group. A person existed within tribe, kinship, and environment. Becoming was collective, implicit, and unquestioned.
Structure was inherited.
Therefore, orientation was stable.
Ancient and classical periods
As civilizations emerged, roles became more differentiated, yet identity remained given rather than constructed. One was born into a social and cosmic order that preceded choice.
The backbone of the classical age was epic tradition—most clearly expressed in The Iliad and The Odyssey.
These works did not ask, “Who must I invent myself to be?”
They asked, “How must I live within the order that already exists?”
Achilles does not search for an identity; he fulfills one.
Odysseus does not invent himself; he returns to who he already is.
Identity was revealed through role, duty, honor, fate, and action. Meaning preceded choice. Orientation was sustained by shared structure.
The middle ages
During the medieval period, identity continued to be
inherited. Life was oriented by God, tradition, vocation, and communal obligation. Meaning was received before reflection. The question of self-identity as an individual project had not yet arisen. Structure was given, and therefore orientation was stable.
the modern age: the great rapture
This changed decisively with the Renaissance and the emergence of modernity.
Tradition weakened. Authority fragmented. Inherited roles lost their binding power. The individual conscience was elevated. For the first time in history, each person became responsible not only for actions, but for becoming a self.
As Anthony Giddens observed, modernity introduced reflexive identity—the requirement that individuals actively construct, maintain, and revise who they are.
This was unprecedented.
Humanity entered a new condition: individual becoming without an inherited structure for becoming.
Responsibility was transferred to the individual, but the structure that once produced orientation was removed. This condition has persisted for approximately
800 years.
inventing the individual
The modern age did not merely dismantle inherited structures. It also produced one of the greatest achievements in human history: the individual.
As argued in Inventing the Individual, the idea of the individual—an autonomous moral agent with personal dignity, conscience, and responsibility—was not ancient or universal. It was historically constructed.
This invention transformed humanity.
For the first time, a human being was understood as:
- personally responsible
- morally accountable
- capable of self-reflection
- worthy of individual dignity
This was not a mistake. It was a civilizational advance.
The individual made possible:
- human rights
- freedom of conscience
- scientific inquiry
- political responsibility
- personal moral agency
Yet this invention carried an unintended consequence.
By inventing the individual, humanity created a new requirement: each person must now
become someone.
But while the individual was invented,
no structure for the individual's becoming was provided.
The individual was declared free and responsible— yet left without instruments for:
- inner orientation
- evaluation of self
- correction of inner error
- sustained formation over time
The modern age invented the individual.It did not invent the method for individual becoming.
Vagabond Humanity and Total disorientation
The result was neither moral collapse nor a lack of effort. It was total disorientation.
Total disorientation is not the absence of intelligence or sincerity.
It is the absence of
structure capable of producing orientation.
A ship without a rudder still has power.
It still moves.
But movement no longer leads anywhere.
Modern humanity is not weak. It is powerful without a rudder.
This condition appears in humanity’s earliest story. In Genesis, after Cain’s act, he is named a fugitive and a vagabond—unsettled, unrooted, moving without direction. What occurred in Cain individually has reappeared in modern humanity collectively.
For centuries, humanity has moved, reformed, corrected, and searched—without a stable inner structure for becoming. This long wandering is not evidence of failure. It is something to be wondered at.
the triumph of the outer world
The intellectual turning point of the modern age arrived with Novum Organum.
In Novum Organum, Francis Bacon introduced an inductive method of scientific study. Instead of relying on inherited authority or speculation, all acceptable knowledge was required to be:
- observed
- examined
- tested
- verified
- corrected through repeated experience
Truth was no longer received.
It had to be
earned through method.
With this, humanity gained a
scientific structure for observing, measuring, and managing the outer world.
The results were decisive.
Science, technology, and ultimately the Industrial Revolution followed. Humanity learned to engineer matter, harness energy, and accumulate reliable knowledge. The external world became manageable.
Humanity became
abundant in wealth.
Yet the same rigor was never applied inward.
No corresponding structure was developed for:
- inner orientation
- attention
- evaluation of meaning
- correction of inner error
- direction of becoming
The result is not a poverty of resources but a poverty of spirit.
Not because spirituality was rejected, but because it lacked what the outer world now possessed: structure capable of examination, verification, and correction.
orientation and structure
Orientation is not a feeling or a belief.
Orientation is the result of structure.
Where structure was inherited, orientation was stable.
Where the inherited structure collapsed, orientation was lost.
Where orientation was lost, humanity wandered.
Orientation without structure collapses into guesswork.
Structure without orientation collapses into a mechanism.
The modern problem is not merely loss of meaning, but the absence of a structure capable of restoring orientation.
The present moment
Today, individuals are expected to define, correct, and reinvent themselves continuously—yet without instruments to do so.
The greatest obstacle to resolving this condition has never been difficulty. It has been misidentifying the source of the problem.
When the source is unclear, humanity wanders. Effort scatters. Solutions multiply. Vagabondage continues.
But once the source is correctly identified, the problem becomes simple—not easy, but simple.
If the condition is total disorientation, the task is orientation through structure.
The Age of the organon spirit
Just as the modern age required an organon for managing the outer world, the present age requires an Organon of Spirit—a structure capable of producing inner orientation.
Not as a belief.
Not as theology.
Not as motivation.
But as a structure.
The Organon of Spirit does not compete with the scientific method. It completes the historical trajectory it began—by orienting the inner world with the same seriousness once applied to the outer world.
The age of material civilization has reached maturity.
The age of inner orientation must now begin.
That is why now is the age for the Organon of Spirit.
-The end.