At this point most of us have probably come across these neat little quotes and sayings with which people plaster their walls, be they physical or virtual. They range from something like "Carpe Diem" to something like "Sometimes we just have to let things go" and whenever you find yourself in someone's apartment at their kitchen counter disguised as a cool self-made bar you are invited to ponder these deep secrets of life over your matcha tea. I'm not saying that all of these things are complete bullshit however, there is something about this that doesn't sound right. Author and host of the Drunken Taoist Podcast Daniele Bolelli has already touched on it during one of his podcast episodes while talking about the New Age movement. While there may be some truth to certain claims, often times there seems to be nothing behind them, no experience or proof that could provide these quotes with a real significance or meaning. It's fairly easy for someone who has never experienced any difficulties in his or her own life to claim that if you only think positively or do good things, good things will come to you. Firstly, there is no proof of there being a law or something similar which will provide you with good fortune once you start thinking positively and secondly, it is almost insulting to good people who have to live through horrible things. For further inquiry into the debunking of the New Age movement and critical thinking in general I recommend MMA pioneer Matt Thornton's blog: http://thorntonsguerillablog.blogspot.de/
The point here is, that you may like the way a particular statement sounds or even understand it intellectually, yet until you have experienced what it is about directly, you cannot fully consider it knowledge. There sure is a place and even a necessity for intellectual comprehension of certain things, however only direct immersion will gift you with true knowledge. Deeply ingrained, felt and alive knowledge. You cannot read about walking through fire and then still gain the wisdom, you in fact will have to walk through the fire yourself. (That obviously doesn't mean that you should go and look for a fire, but do not expect to understand what that means before you have done it.) It's the great human tragedy of only realizing the crucial truth when it is already too late, but nothing can give you the required knowledge except for the experience itself. You need to act. And you will be hurt, most certainly, but there seems to be no other way of learning. Friedrich Nietzsche frequently resorted to using the image of the fool. The fool is characterized as the one who makes every mistake himself and doesn't ever learn anything from the mistakes of others. Foolishly, he just acts and does whatever, with little consideration of whether that would be the 'wise' thing to do right now. Because of this he flounders, he falls and he fails again and again. This, however is the courageous way. He could have fallen once and then decided to never try again. He could have fallen in love once, gotten hurt and decided to never open himself up to that possibility ever again. But..he's a fool. Therefore he will act again and again and again, meanwhile walking the path of acquiring true knowledge by way of heartfelt experience. He may not come out on top and that's also not the goal. The goal is to go where it takes you regardless of failure or success, of suffering or happiness.
Imagine one of these heart rate monitor things that you often get to see in hospital scenes in movies. The display shows the upward and downward movement of a graph signifying a person's heartbeat.* Regardless of whether the graph goes up or down (which we may call good or bad), the amplitude merely measures intensity. Therefore, it doesn't matter if it's way up or way down (subjectively it sure does), either way it's intense. Further, whenever it goes up, it will (unfortunately) come down again and whenever it goes down, it will (fortunately) come up again. The only way to avoid that it goes down is to never let it go up. As we know though, if it stays in the middle continuously, you are dead.. So the fool, probably also gifted with a bad memory, will fall flat onto his face, get up and do the same thing again right away. Not because he is particularly determined or fierce, but because that just happened to be the next best thing on his mind again. He freely acts according only to himself. He never holds back or hesitates out of fear of failure or pain, but acts with all his heart and therefore authentically. Hence, instead of attempting to understand life from the safe distance of reading about it, analyzing it or thinking about it, why not try to act foolishly from time to time and do something foolish like..plastering your walls with annoying quotes or something like that..
*The following is to be regarded as a metaphor and is not supposed to be medically accurate in any way.
The point here is, that you may like the way a particular statement sounds or even understand it intellectually, yet until you have experienced what it is about directly, you cannot fully consider it knowledge. There sure is a place and even a necessity for intellectual comprehension of certain things, however only direct immersion will gift you with true knowledge. Deeply ingrained, felt and alive knowledge. You cannot read about walking through fire and then still gain the wisdom, you in fact will have to walk through the fire yourself. (That obviously doesn't mean that you should go and look for a fire, but do not expect to understand what that means before you have done it.) It's the great human tragedy of only realizing the crucial truth when it is already too late, but nothing can give you the required knowledge except for the experience itself. You need to act. And you will be hurt, most certainly, but there seems to be no other way of learning. Friedrich Nietzsche frequently resorted to using the image of the fool. The fool is characterized as the one who makes every mistake himself and doesn't ever learn anything from the mistakes of others. Foolishly, he just acts and does whatever, with little consideration of whether that would be the 'wise' thing to do right now. Because of this he flounders, he falls and he fails again and again. This, however is the courageous way. He could have fallen once and then decided to never try again. He could have fallen in love once, gotten hurt and decided to never open himself up to that possibility ever again. But..he's a fool. Therefore he will act again and again and again, meanwhile walking the path of acquiring true knowledge by way of heartfelt experience. He may not come out on top and that's also not the goal. The goal is to go where it takes you regardless of failure or success, of suffering or happiness.
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| Something like this |
Imagine one of these heart rate monitor things that you often get to see in hospital scenes in movies. The display shows the upward and downward movement of a graph signifying a person's heartbeat.* Regardless of whether the graph goes up or down (which we may call good or bad), the amplitude merely measures intensity. Therefore, it doesn't matter if it's way up or way down (subjectively it sure does), either way it's intense. Further, whenever it goes up, it will (unfortunately) come down again and whenever it goes down, it will (fortunately) come up again. The only way to avoid that it goes down is to never let it go up. As we know though, if it stays in the middle continuously, you are dead.. So the fool, probably also gifted with a bad memory, will fall flat onto his face, get up and do the same thing again right away. Not because he is particularly determined or fierce, but because that just happened to be the next best thing on his mind again. He freely acts according only to himself. He never holds back or hesitates out of fear of failure or pain, but acts with all his heart and therefore authentically. Hence, instead of attempting to understand life from the safe distance of reading about it, analyzing it or thinking about it, why not try to act foolishly from time to time and do something foolish like..plastering your walls with annoying quotes or something like that..
*The following is to be regarded as a metaphor and is not supposed to be medically accurate in any way.
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