Interests...

Spirituality & Philosophy

I've loved the teachings of Buddhism since college and have found that its ideas of non-attachment, impermanence, equanimity, and no-self have helped me put my suffering and setbacks in perspective and respond more wisely. Like many Westerners, I don't subscribe to the supernatural claims of reincarnation or literal karma.

However, one idea that seems present in most of the world's religions and mystical writings in one form or another is what is inscribed on the door of St. Paul's Monastery on Mt. Athos in Greece: "If you die before you die, you won't die when you die." If your ego-driven, selfish self dies before your body dies, you won't identify with the dissolution of your body upon death. You'll be connected to your Higher or Essential self that is part of all that exists. This is what Buddhist enlightenment, the Eleusinian Mysteries that transformed the ancient world for more than 1,000 years, and Christian baptism have in common.

I haven't read a ton on philosophy, though I find it fascinating and love the competing ideas. My annoyance, especially as someone who loves well-written words, is that it's is the only field I've come across where being long-winded and obtuse is rewarded ("If he's impossible to parse, he must be brilliant!"). I admit I've got my share of anthologies and summaries like Ideas of the Great Philsophers and Masterpieces of World Philosophy, particularly for folks like Heidegger and Hegel.

While I love the Enlightenment and Classical philosophers (esp the Stoics) and their ideas, it's the atheist / agnostic Existentialists I jive most with, though I'll likely never get through all 930 pages of Sartre's Being and Nothingness. Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil tears the world apart in only 116 pages by comparison.

I love Franz Kafka's short stories. Before the Law and An Imperial Message suggest that we are forever shut off from the purpose and ultimate Law or Message the universe (or a king / god) might have for us, no matter how important. How unfair! In Sartre's Nobel Prize winning first novel, La Nausée a writer becomes revolted at his own existence and gets lost in alienation and dread.

This all sounds like a downer, but they astutely capture the absurdity of the human condition and the loneliness and isolation that can plague modern life. But I do find something in their writings freeing. Existentialism is not nihilism, but an answer to nihilism. Yes, life is difficult, confusing, and possibly inherently pointless, but that is only the starting point. It is we who are tasked with the "terrible freedom" of determining the purpose of our lives, embracing life with all its uncertainty, hardship, and (spoilers!) eventual end. I had this quote on my really old website in the early 2000s. It was misattributed to physicist John Wheeler and probably came from Julian Huxley, Aldous's humanist / eugenecist brother. Anyhoo, whoever said it, here it goes:

"There are many to whom the idea of a world without purpose except what we and our fellow men agree upon comes at first as a dreadful shock. Later comes the feeling of challenge; and then at last an inspiration: a feeling that we who felt ourselves so small amidst it all are, in the end, the carriers of the central jewel, the flashing purpose that lights up the whole dark universe."

And now we're back to the Universe, which is where this page began, so it's time to wrap it up.