... Henrik Ibsen embodying the Boyg speaking to Peer in Peer Gynt
(1867), recreating Dante Alighieri embodying the poet Virgil speaking
to Dante in Divine Comedy (1321) part I, Dante's Inferno
If you ask people
what they want
ie
what they really
want,
you'll likely get burgeoning lists with duplicate items on many of
them: health, a winning lottery ticket, contentment / happiness /
fulfillment, world peace etc (we aren't much different than each other
in
what we really want).
There are two more items which are almost certain to recur on many
lists:
peace of mind,
and calm
emotions.
Our quest for
peace of mind
and calm
emotions
speaks to two things.
The first is we're thrown (we're certain) that there's some other,
better state of
mind
to have than exactly the one we have right now ie that
there's some other, better state of
emotions
to have than exactly the one we have right now ... and
that there are (and that we'll find) many
secret methods
to realizing them: analyzing, asking
"Why ...?",
relaxing, taking a break, chilling, trying to understand,
meditating
(meditating
as a path to temporary
peace of mind
and calm
emotions
is valuable until, as
Werner
distinguishes, it's used like aspirin). The second (hidden behind the
first) is our conviction that our minds
should be at
peace
(hence our attempts to restore
peace of mind)
and that our
emotionsshould be calm (hence our attempts to restore calm
emotions).
There's something useful I'd like to illustrate here. It's this: we
yearn for
peace of mind
in moments of
not-peace-of-mind.
But if we did a test during such moments of
not-peace-of-mind
by doing nothing (nothing at all), experience shows these
moments will pass in time ie
disappear
by themselves, yielding moments of
peace of mind
again. Also during such moments of
not-peace-of-mind,
experience shows we're thrown to futz with them and fret
about them while they're ongoing - as if that will do us some good when
in actuality it may only be getting in our way by preventing the
status quo from
disappearing.
Consider
this: after all the analyzing, all the asking
"Why ...?",
all the relaxing, all the taking a break, all the chilling, all the
trying to understand, all the
meditating
etc, our
not-peace-of-mind
will eventually
disappear
and become
peace of mindjust in the process of life itself, all by itself, no matter
what you do. And look: that's not the end of it. In time,
just in the process of life itself, and all by itself, all
peace of minddisappears
and becomes
not-peace-of-mind again.
What's this process called? It's called being human. Being human
has
peace-of-mind
/
not-peace-of-mind
/
peace-of-mind
again, and calm
emotions
/ turbulent
emotions
/ calm
emotions
again. That's what being human has. And there's no way out. For
human beings, there's no way out of being human. For human
beings, the only way out of being human is through being
human ie not
resisting
being human. For human beings, the only way out is through.
Furthering and expanding my illustration, I assert that once you've
started entertaining the possibility that the only way out is through,
you also - suddenly, immediately, profoundly - gain
access
to a
secret method
for
being authentic.
Of course, once you've
discovered
this
secret method,
then it's no longer a
secret.
In fact, isn't it kinda obvious now that for human beings,
the only way out is through, and that living this way is an
access
to
being authentic?
With that said, don't believe it just because
I wrote it .
Instead, try it on for size. If it's a fit for you, keep it:
it's yours.
And if it doesn't fit, discard it and
walk on.