Several weeks ago I was sitting in the coffee shop imagining how I could possibly feel loneliness when surrounded by people. I am not jealous of these people. I watch them and their behaviors while drowning out the voices with music blaring in my ears. This is an introverted life. Always gathering information; process-process-process. It is almost unending the amount of information I feel compelled to consume on a daily basis.
The loneliness persisted and I text my friend saying I was lonely but didn't feel bad. The feeling so strange that I could mistake it for sadness if I didn't know better. Our conversation went quiet and I was left there with this feeling. It came to me that maybe what I was feeling was emptiness. By emptiness, I refer to the Buddhist idea of emptiness (groundlessness) where there is an absence of grasping for things, for ground to hold onto.
As life would have it, I went to renew a library book and came upon another called "Hiking with Nietzsche" by John Kaag. It was as if the book jumped off the shelf at me. I tend to not let those types of things pass me by. There was something in the book the universe wanted me to read. In a previous time and space I had tried to read Nietzsche with much hardship and eventual failure. I was not emotionally ready to see the world in the way he did. Maybe I wasn't crazy enough, I wasn't sure. The thought of having a middle man to understand Nietzsche made that failure feeling even larger, made me feel like a lesser intellectual, but sometimes you have to bite the bullet.
The book was very wonderful and did give me an insight into the man Nietzsche was and this perspective will open his work to me. In thinking about this blog and how I wanted to approach writing my experience on this topic I have fallen on blank slates. What I extracted might be different for another reader and for me to espouse that I can interpret it for you would make me foolish.
"Words reify (make more real) something experienced in motion, attempting to capture the forever unruly." John Kaag
So what I am going to leave with you in this blog, from this book, are the nuggets that pushed up something out of my soul and have made me look at the world differently. They might be ideas or quotes from the author and other philosophers. Here is what I learned:
1. "He who has attained to only some degree of freedom of mind cannot feel other than a wanderer on the earth--though not as a traveler to a final destination: for this destination does not exist." Nietzsche
For me, not being part of the mental herd does make you feel like a wanderer. I feel banished to the fringe often in which I will spend a life collecting information on a road that will never end. This is both exciting and devastating.
2. "For a child there is no such thing as a forbidden question." John Kaag
Oh. My. If you are a parent then you have experienced the boldness of children and their unabashed nature to ask questions that make people blush. But what do we do when these questions are asked? We shush them. We scold them. We divert them. I know have done this some of the time with my own kid, but I did my best to really answer the questions the best I could. I feel like this strategy has paid off because as a teenager, my child comes to me with hard questions knowing that I won't push them under the rug...that I will find the knowledge somewhere even if it isn't in my own brain. Let the children ask. Keep them curious.
3. "Distracted by two voices 'I' and 'me' and without a friend you could 'sink into the depths" J. Kaag
This shit keeps me up at night sometimes. When you are the only person you share information with you could drive yourself crazy. Communicate....often....out loud to other beings. Very important for clarity and sanity and mental health.
4. "Success in raising children is only reached after a life of battle and worry, meaning that it only ends in hardness when you die. Feeling like you want to run away means you're paying attention." J. Kaag
I have often felt that my desire to run away made me a coward and that I wasn't doing a good job, but this says to me that my innate feeling to run has more to do with the pain of realization and understanding that directing another human being through this insane world is hard business.
5. "Perhaps a pilgrim triumphs not in hardship but in the rare moment when they learn to accept something soft at home." J. Kaag
This was significant to me in the sense that as a "pilgrim" of finding information, in gathering understanding about myself and how to better navigate this world, the most important lessons are the quiet ones I allow myself when I take a moment to be vulnerable and open. The softness at home is me treating myself with kindness even if I make mistakes which I are inevitable.
6. "No price is too high for the privilege of owning yourself." Nietzsche
MIC DROP, exit stage left.
7. "We put limits on our children thinking we are protecting them but really we are avoiding coming to grips with our own anxiety." J. Kaag
Dear lord. This was the point where I felt bad for every tiny thing I didn't let my kid do because I was scared, not because he was scared, but because I let my own anxiety of the world build a barrier to curiosity and adventure. That was how I chose to live my life, but it should not have been how I allowed my child to live his. This year I have dropped this thinking of limitation, not only towards my kid, but towards myself. Let's get living.
8. "How can one love in the right way while being so quietly dissatisfied with life?" Herman Hesse
I do believe I have spent my entire life asking myself this question, maybe not so boldly, but it has always been in the ether around my head. It isn't to say that there has been nothing enjoyable in my life, but there could have been more. I could have loved every person I ever loved, better. I could have given more of myself in a genuine way had my outlook not been so grim. Childhood trauma is a bitch that keeps on bitching.
9. "Life does not change, but the attitude you bring to it might. And this is not a trivial adjustment. It may be the only meaningful adjustment that is possible." J. Kaag
This year, as you know if you have followed this blog, has been all about attitude adjustment. Around every corner I have had to soften and soften some more. I have had to look at my stance on everything in my life to try and see where I fit in. But more than fit in, I have been trying to live an authentic life. This means something different for everyone.
10. "Some of us think that holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go." Herman Hesse
It is all about letting go. Facing fear and moving forward is the win. Letting go of the past that you cannot change allows you to build a life in the present as it is the only life worth living, in my opinion. It is challenging to say the least, but worth each minute.
What this all says to me that we are each in a state of active transformation for all of our lives. Not fighting against that idea has made life easier. Pick up this book if you like philosophy. Pick it up if you don't. It's a great read.
Thanks for reading.
Aleathia
