Inadequacy is a Bitch
Today I want to write about inadequacy. Not because I think I will enjoy it, but because I’m afraid of it. I’m not a big marijuana fan. There’s something about being high that increases my general malaise, anxiety, and discomfort. I got high a lot in high school and college, because, you know, that’s what we did. We got fucked up because we could. But I’m older now and don’t drink much alcohol anymore, and in my state MJ is legal, so hey on the 4th of July - why not let loose a little and get high?
And then the vibe hit. Inadequacy. Insecurity. Anxiety. I fucking hate this feeling. And being high is a cerebral affair, so while it brings up this energy I don’t welcome, it is useful in that it gets me thinking deeply and tangentially. So when I felt inadequate I knew I had to write this essay. Also I know I’m not the only one who feels this. Inadequacy is a root cause of fear, both individually and collectively. So let’s dive into the uncomfortable.
I grew up in a large family. To call it unstable would be a nice way to put it. My parents are deeply spiritual and religious. Growing up the Bible is THE word of God, all else paves the road to hell. Don’t fuck up (too late you already did because of Adam and Eve), so you better believe in a God that needs to kill his son or you’re going to hell. Be that as it may, faith in God is something my parents have in spades (and I mean this in a positive way even though I don’t subscribe to the totality of their religious beliefs). Per the Bible, it was their job to have as many children as possible, regardless of the financial situation. I came out 4th in a batch of 8 children.
Looking back on my childhood past, I still sugar coat much of it in my mind. My mom had 3 miscarriages after me, leaving me to connect tightly with her in my formative years, where it really matters and truly I’m grateful for how it unfolded. She calls me the “Golden Child” and tells me I was a painless birth. We were tight because I was chill and she could take me anywhere, and unlike my 3 older brothers, I would just be content wherever she brought me (note - of course her job was full time Mom). She’d clip coupons at McDonalds while I’d have a hamburger and play by myself in those awesome 80’s playgrounds. She’d take me to Bible studies, and I’d just chill in my baby seat. So, in a sense I did have an amazing first 4 formative years.
But the truth is that I’ve repressed much of the traumatic assaults from my youth. And if you can’t tell, I’m one of those dudes who has ridiculous recall of memories (they may not be completely accurate, but I can see and feel much of my past). One thing that does not seem to be totally repressed is the feeling of inadequacy.
To get inspiration for this essay, I pulled up one of my favorite current books called The Gene Keys by Richard Rudd. To keep it high level, this is a book of the I Ching (the Chinese book of changes), written in an updated esoteric wrapper that includes Jungian archetypes, shadows, Siddhis or gifts, and ties it all to activating DNA potential (notice the thread between this and my last essay). I of course recommend it; it has been extremely enlightening and instructive to understand myself, my strengths, and more importantly my weaknesses and shadows.
The 48th gene key is called “The Wonder of Uncertainty” and starts off like this:
“There is no darker place represented anywhere within the human DNA than the 48th Shadow. This Shadow gives rise to one of the deepest human fears - the fear that we are inherently inadequate”.
Nailed it.
Instructively he also writes that this Gene Key imprints us throughout our second seven-year cycle from the age of seven to fourteen.
Ahhh, no wonder I am susceptible to giant waves of insecurity.
It was this time of life that I could compare my family and home situation with similar aged friends and acquaintances. I learned we were on food stamps. I learned my house was dilapidated. The septic system in the back couldn’t handle all of our shit and seeped rotten egg stench all through our yard. We had one full bathroom in our tiny house, with broken tile and rust stains from well water - which also stank like Sulphur and rotten eggs. We couldn’t pay for school books or school lunches and had special times and methods for getting them. I somehow still played in sports, but that was just more comparison to other kids who seemed to have nice things and come from stable homes. Equipment was borrowed/loaned, never bought. We regularly visited the local food bank for staples. I also was ashamed of my weird middle name, Poy, because it was different (today of course I wear it like a badge of honor as it was my Grandpa’s name who is 100% Chinese. Interestingly one of the only reasons I have it is because my parents watched Roots and realized how discrimination molded his life, of which he had much anger, was an alcoholic, and gambled too much…ancestral insecurity anyone?). Anyhow, as my wife knows all too well, I keep track and account of everything. Back then I didn’t have the emotional insight and wisdom I have today - I just knew it was embarrassing and felt insecurity, fear and shame to my core. I come from inadequacy.
In early High School it got even worse. Fortune would have my home address be in the wealthy school district, which truly I was extremely lucky as school and learning became my safe haven away from the chaos of home. But of course the comparison and feeling of inadequacy only became worse in my head. Ironically my older brothers got into stealing and figured out they could scam stores with stolen credit cards. I was the benefactor of an array of top cover in the guise of Abercrombie and Fitch clothes. I recall so clearly how great it felt to have “cool” clothes to wear to school. Anything to fit in.
They also taught me how to be cool by partying with the best of them. Regardless of this top cover, deep down the inadequacy was there. Girlfriend? Forget it. I wasn’t worthy.
In true maturing fashion, however, by the end of High School I was able to adapt my persona and learned through close friends that it didn’t matter. I did get a real girlfriend (surprise they were rich!), but I recall doing my best to push away the shame and hide it with bravado and partying. I was able to carry on in this fashion through college, but if there’s anything I’ve learned in Jungian psychology, it’s that your childhood shit doesn’t just vanish. It’s lurking in the shadows.
So this past weekend, after having one of those CBD/THC drinks, I start getting the anxiety and insecure feeling of inadequacy again - a feeling that I recall intimately when I would get uncomfortably high in my youth. And I fucking hate it. I wanted to run from it. But then it struck me, I’m not alone in this feeling. We all have it in spades. It is baked into our collective society. And notably, for the matrix controllers out there, it’s a feature, not a bug, for the emptiness we feel from inadequacy can be filled with the American Dream!
But today I offer something different. I’ll call it the Ascension Dream (TM lol). Here again I refer to The Gene Keys. For those that aspire to delve deep into their psyches and confront their shadows, this book is an amazing companion. I’m just gonna rip a paragraph right out of this chapter because it hits the target so well:
The frequency that the 48th Shadow releases into the cells of your body emerges as a profound uncertainty about the future and your ability to handle it. When coupled with its programming partner, the 21st Shadow of Control, the two Shadows program human beings to try to stay in control of every area of our lives.
(pause…OMFG if there’s anything I’ve learned about myself in my marriage, it is this!).
We create a false reality of details, timelines and systems, all designed to make us feel more secure. The irony is that nothing external can take away our core fear of inadequacy. An even darker side to this Shadow concerns the manipulation of the fear as a means of controlling others. The feeling of emptiness experienced at the Shadow frequency drives human beings to try to fill this inner void through the acquisition of knowledge. But knowledge cannot take away the fear. Knowledge has both a dark side and a light side. Whereas the light side transforms knowledge into wisdom, the dark side becomes addicted to knowledge as a means of distraction and false security.
Oh Gene Keys, you insightful motherfucker. I don’t know how you do it, but you have me dead to rights time and time again. Recall earlier how I called school my “safe haven”? Well of course it was. Uncontrollable chaos at home. But at school?…Oh I could ace my tests, win all the spelling bees, do all my homework before class was over. This was my domain bitch! If there’s anything I am secure about (and likely too much so), it is my intelligence. Oh I despise being wrong, but I can control that with elbow grease, by reading and listening to podcasts, and watching YouTube instructional vids, and taking BioGeometry courses and Mentally Fit psych classes, and learning how to use tuning forks, and reading more books, and then reading even more books! I NEED TO KNOW!!!
This is my escape! Learning and pursuit of knowledge is how I escape my fear of inadequacy! And of course it is. My family life was fucked up. My ancestral trauma was mapped into me. And to this day I cannot help myself. Down time? Never. There are weeds in the yard, guaranteed. The generator needs an oil change. My investment portfolio needs more crypto. The Epstein files are being withheld. I need to take a sabbatical to write. Ain’t nobody got time for this shit! And this is a perfect segue. The 5th Gene Key’s shadow, which came up in my personal profile, is Impatience.
Impatience, as succinctly stated in the 5th Gene Key, is the core feeling that all is not as it should be. It boils down to a lack of trust in the moment. I don’t know how many arrows I can take to the heart, but fuck this book just keeps ‘em coming. I’m laughably impatient. I get so irritated when I can’t control my environment. You want to see my blood pressure rise? Put me in a crowd going through a stupid process, one that could be more efficient if the steps were tweaked just a little. My eyes twitch - put this person over there doing that part, put this other person over here doing this part, and there ya go, process fixed and we all get a couple minutes of our lives back. And the perfect fucking irony is that one of the easiest ways for me to quell my impatience is none other than marijuana. Get a little high annnd…fuck it, I’m on island time, except when I get insecure and feel inadequate…I don’t like that.
And just like that we’re back to the theme of this essay. And while I’m getting the urge to wrap up, it wouldn’t be a JeetKuneDoug essay without contextualizing it in a positive message. The Gene Keys is essentially this format. Describe the shadow form of a gene, convey the root cause, and then offer the hope and inspiration to uncover the gift that it brings. So I will just poach from it again:
There is, however, light at the bottom of the well. As parents heal their own emotional issues and raise the frequency of their DNA, they pass on healthy emotional patterns to their children, who then pass these on to their children. There is no role of greater importance or service to humanity than that of being a parent. It is not only the fastest track to your own healing, but is also the fastest track to the healing of the whole world. Every healthy adult is a powerful resource for the healing of our planet, because such people are not afraid of their true feelings and fears.
The secret to moving beyond the reach of the 48th Shadow can be found in a single word - trust. Life invites you to begin trusting the Shadow frequency itself which means that you have to enter into your fears.
And that, my friends, is the reason for this essay. It is a challenge to face our fears so that we can achieve the Ascension Dream. By facing our fears we uncover the gifts they have to offer. The Gift of the 48th Gene Key is Resourcefulness. By facing the fear of inadequacy, what he analogizes as a deep dark well, we learn that out of the well come all manner of solutions to all manner of challenges in the world around you. This is the Gift of Resourcefulness.
No doubt the world is fucked up. No doubt you, much like I did and do, have feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. But instead of filling that void with consumerism and/or external pursuit of knowledge, you face those fuckers head on and see what happens. If I ever get the cajones to do it, you better believe I will have a go at Tonglen on this inadequacy frequency and eat this shit up, not just for me, but for all to be free from it. My eyes are on the prize friends. One of the best qualities my parents imprinted on me is faith. I can see Ascension unfolding - it’s literally happening in front of our eyes. Surfing waves is better with friends. Come paddle out with me. It may be triple overhead and scary, but I guarantee there’s no better ride of your life.