The following is an antidote to misguided tendencies in Western society -
In our culture there is a certain standard narrative that seems to ooze out of most movies, pop music and general common sense. It is the idea of never giving up, of pushing through no matter what in order to, finally, take home the gold. "It matters not how strait the gate, how filled with punishment the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul", as William Ernest Henley put it. At the center of this concept and hence strongly advocated in our culture, is the use of will and determination, of obtaining power and control and of general mastery and domination.
There are quite some problems that show up with the overindulgence into this fantasy of understanding strength as pushing hard and obtaining power and control over something. As philosophy, psychology and our modern sciences merge more and more, this becomes strikingly obvious. Firstly, let's take a look at where this kind of thinking may come from, so that we can understand what we're dealing with.
A lot of the following is based on one of Alan Watts' talks, so if you feel like it, check it out here. The Abrahamic religions presented us with a worldview in which God, the Father, is understood as the almighty potter who created us as human beings merely by way of his mercy. Further, within that idea of the cosmos lies the premise that there has to be a boss who controls everything from above, who brings order and discipline into the chaos. To him we must obey and in the same way that he obtains power and control over the whole universe, we strive to obtain power and control over our lives. Hence, in order for something to happen, to get going, there has to be someone who gets it going. From Latin we get the saying "Ex nihilo, nihil fit"*, meaning something like "from nothing, nothing comes" or "you can't make something out of nothing." We therefore feel that in order for anything to get going, we need to actively go for it and get it done, using our will, using our determination and pushing on!
If we however. were to look at nature and natural processes, to which we as human beings belong just as much as any other animal, in a different light, things start looking a lot different. The Chinese word for nature is tzu-jan or ziran and literally means "that which is spontaneously/of itself so." Here, we find a way of looking at the world that does not require some external boss who pushes on to make things happen. Things simply happen. If one goes along with this a little further one can discover that most of the vital and crucial happenings of our daily lives seem to simply happen. Your heart beats, you breathe, you circulate blood, etc. without ever having to make these things happen. In fact it would quite likely be detrimental to try to make these things happen with effort which will simply result in futile exertion.(Keep that in mind for later.) Of course this sounds rather ridiculous who would try to beat their heart or circulate their blood. However, as a culture we still tend to feel like we always have to push push push. Be it to produce bowel movements or improve thinking skills (think of a child in class being encouraged to "try harder" contorting his face in all sorts of ways) our cosmology barely allows us to accept that things happen or to let them happen. It should be obvious that no amount of push, struggle and strain will help with either happening, be it thinking or bowel movements.
This confusion is further also partly due to the way our Western languages work. In German or English it is necessary to delegate someone or something who is doing any given thing or activity. This leads to rather weird constructs such as "It is raining." Who is it that rains? God? The sky? "it" seems to be the rain itself, then why would you need to have the rain doing the raining when it itself is..rain? Whether our language has developed to fit our Christian premises, or the language itself is responsible for these confusions is another question, however it's obvious that such a language won't help clear them up.
Now, let's get back to giving up. Remember, Ex nihilo nihil fit. Living in a world where in order for something to happen there has to be someone actively, by way of the will, doing something, the following connection is easily made: Since being alive always seems to imply the necessity of pushing, of doing of holding on, the opposite of that, meaning passivity, stopping, letting go and giving up seems to imply death. But as we have seen, stopping, or letting go of the struggle does not at all result in the stopping of events or of life. although you may crack a fart. One could further argue however, that if we were to release our firm grip on the steering wheel of life, we may not die instantly but will surely end up in total chaos. For that matter let's take a look at one of the other marvelous organisms in our world that live without concepts like "will" and do not seem so pushy:
To, again, quote Alan Watts: "This thing here, this plant. Im quite sure it doesn't say to itself: You ought to go on living." The plant seems to simply grow. Just as we did as children. You didn't say to yourself I ought to grow, you simply grew. And we're still growing. With all the most vital things in life, breathing, digesting food, the beating of the heart, even the development of a new life taking care of by spontaneous processes which happen by themselves without the need for any kind of effort, why all the struggle?
To pick up where we've left off above, due to our language and cultural common sense we create "innumerable ghosts."** It seems as if there existed something other that does the raining. "It" however, is the rain. Also, a tree certainly isn't made of wood, it is wood. There aren't two different things, the tree and wood, with the tree incidentally being made of wood. The tree is not made, the tree grew. In a similar way we create and value ghost-like concepts such as a good reputation or social status, money as wealth, and happiness as a goal to be achieved. We, just like the plant are organisms. Organisms know pleasure and pain. Concepts like money, respectability, or wealth are meaningless concepts to organisms. Of course we can only think and talk about the world metaphorically anyways, yet at the end of the day happiness is not bound to goals or wealth, it arises out of the spontaneous functioning of the organism, out of its ability to breathe deeply, express freely and let life happen.
HENCE
Most of the struggles we endure, most of the pressure we put on ourselves, most of the things for the sake of which we depress our vital energies, are pains to achieve something that does not carry any real meaning. Yeah you're rich, yeah you're "successful", yeah you own that house, but tell me do you breathe deeply, is there light in your eyes, are you vibrantly alive? If you find yourself stuck and feel life to be a burden, just give up the struggle. Not even necessarily the goal, just the struggle..
Give up now! You'll be fine!
- Jan Fleischer
There are quite some problems that show up with the overindulgence into this fantasy of understanding strength as pushing hard and obtaining power and control over something. As philosophy, psychology and our modern sciences merge more and more, this becomes strikingly obvious. Firstly, let's take a look at where this kind of thinking may come from, so that we can understand what we're dealing with.
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| omg so deep though |
If we however. were to look at nature and natural processes, to which we as human beings belong just as much as any other animal, in a different light, things start looking a lot different. The Chinese word for nature is tzu-jan or ziran and literally means "that which is spontaneously/of itself so." Here, we find a way of looking at the world that does not require some external boss who pushes on to make things happen. Things simply happen. If one goes along with this a little further one can discover that most of the vital and crucial happenings of our daily lives seem to simply happen. Your heart beats, you breathe, you circulate blood, etc. without ever having to make these things happen. In fact it would quite likely be detrimental to try to make these things happen with effort which will simply result in futile exertion.(Keep that in mind for later.) Of course this sounds rather ridiculous who would try to beat their heart or circulate their blood. However, as a culture we still tend to feel like we always have to push push push. Be it to produce bowel movements or improve thinking skills (think of a child in class being encouraged to "try harder" contorting his face in all sorts of ways) our cosmology barely allows us to accept that things happen or to let them happen. It should be obvious that no amount of push, struggle and strain will help with either happening, be it thinking or bowel movements.
This confusion is further also partly due to the way our Western languages work. In German or English it is necessary to delegate someone or something who is doing any given thing or activity. This leads to rather weird constructs such as "It is raining." Who is it that rains? God? The sky? "it" seems to be the rain itself, then why would you need to have the rain doing the raining when it itself is..rain? Whether our language has developed to fit our Christian premises, or the language itself is responsible for these confusions is another question, however it's obvious that such a language won't help clear them up.
Now, let's get back to giving up. Remember, Ex nihilo nihil fit. Living in a world where in order for something to happen there has to be someone actively, by way of the will, doing something, the following connection is easily made: Since being alive always seems to imply the necessity of pushing, of doing of holding on, the opposite of that, meaning passivity, stopping, letting go and giving up seems to imply death. But as we have seen, stopping, or letting go of the struggle does not at all result in the stopping of events or of life. although you may crack a fart. One could further argue however, that if we were to release our firm grip on the steering wheel of life, we may not die instantly but will surely end up in total chaos. For that matter let's take a look at one of the other marvelous organisms in our world that live without concepts like "will" and do not seem so pushy:
To, again, quote Alan Watts: "This thing here, this plant. Im quite sure it doesn't say to itself: You ought to go on living." The plant seems to simply grow. Just as we did as children. You didn't say to yourself I ought to grow, you simply grew. And we're still growing. With all the most vital things in life, breathing, digesting food, the beating of the heart, even the development of a new life taking care of by spontaneous processes which happen by themselves without the need for any kind of effort, why all the struggle?
To pick up where we've left off above, due to our language and cultural common sense we create "innumerable ghosts."** It seems as if there existed something other that does the raining. "It" however, is the rain. Also, a tree certainly isn't made of wood, it is wood. There aren't two different things, the tree and wood, with the tree incidentally being made of wood. The tree is not made, the tree grew. In a similar way we create and value ghost-like concepts such as a good reputation or social status, money as wealth, and happiness as a goal to be achieved. We, just like the plant are organisms. Organisms know pleasure and pain. Concepts like money, respectability, or wealth are meaningless concepts to organisms. Of course we can only think and talk about the world metaphorically anyways, yet at the end of the day happiness is not bound to goals or wealth, it arises out of the spontaneous functioning of the organism, out of its ability to breathe deeply, express freely and let life happen.
HENCE
Most of the struggles we endure, most of the pressure we put on ourselves, most of the things for the sake of which we depress our vital energies, are pains to achieve something that does not carry any real meaning. Yeah you're rich, yeah you're "successful", yeah you own that house, but tell me do you breathe deeply, is there light in your eyes, are you vibrantly alive? If you find yourself stuck and feel life to be a burden, just give up the struggle. Not even necessarily the goal, just the struggle..
Give up now! You'll be fine!
- Jan Fleischer
*"von nichts kommt nichts" is the typical German version
** Alan Watts video mentioned above
Picture take from here
** Alan Watts video mentioned above
Picture take from here
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