This article made me kind of mad. It has made me confront something that I have been avoiding quite pointedly for a long time. Me and my hopes to do and be everything I can imagine have just had a very awkward cup of tea together. I wonder if we will ever part ways.
Brilliant and thorough article. I especially like how you reverse the 'will to good life'. It's too easy these days to want a good life and believe that it involves producing as much as we can, optimising ourselves for output and perfection. Or even moreso, that we can and should strive to have what we want, that we shouldn't settle for the ordinary or quiet. That the good life is being as many different things as possible, like on a resume, or on an ad I saw on the bus which displayed the same lady as simultaneously a mum, a worker, a friend, a cyclist, a rubix cube master ...
Instead, to have the good life we must first renounce the good life, establish that we can never have what we want, only then will we drift towards the things that make us feel truly alive, perhaps out of a necessary death. The good life is one of dying, for when in the present moment one can live for an eternity.
Music can create space. When one listens to its movement, they are watching waves on a beach. Of course, don't let it be a tsunami, for they might find their eyes fixed on a secret imaginary death instead of living at all.
Thanks so much for your comment. It's a lovely thing to receive your thoughts and reflections on the ideas.
The bus ad is great. So typical of the consumpto-culture, telling us that more is always better and that depth and stillness are non-events unworthy of our time and attention.
It's a beautiful paradox that accepting our humanly limits is so freeing psychologically. Once we let go of the imaginary good life we get to return to the eternal present, as you said, and have a chance at actually enjoying it and doing something meaningful.
Again, thanks for your thoughts and your time. It's great to have you with us
This article made me kind of mad. It has made me confront something that I have been avoiding quite pointedly for a long time. Me and my hopes to do and be everything I can imagine have just had a very awkward cup of tea together. I wonder if we will ever part ways.
Brilliant and thorough article. I especially like how you reverse the 'will to good life'. It's too easy these days to want a good life and believe that it involves producing as much as we can, optimising ourselves for output and perfection. Or even moreso, that we can and should strive to have what we want, that we shouldn't settle for the ordinary or quiet. That the good life is being as many different things as possible, like on a resume, or on an ad I saw on the bus which displayed the same lady as simultaneously a mum, a worker, a friend, a cyclist, a rubix cube master ...
Instead, to have the good life we must first renounce the good life, establish that we can never have what we want, only then will we drift towards the things that make us feel truly alive, perhaps out of a necessary death. The good life is one of dying, for when in the present moment one can live for an eternity.
Music can create space. When one listens to its movement, they are watching waves on a beach. Of course, don't let it be a tsunami, for they might find their eyes fixed on a secret imaginary death instead of living at all.
Thanks so much for your comment. It's a lovely thing to receive your thoughts and reflections on the ideas.
The bus ad is great. So typical of the consumpto-culture, telling us that more is always better and that depth and stillness are non-events unworthy of our time and attention.
It's a beautiful paradox that accepting our humanly limits is so freeing psychologically. Once we let go of the imaginary good life we get to return to the eternal present, as you said, and have a chance at actually enjoying it and doing something meaningful.
Again, thanks for your thoughts and your time. It's great to have you with us