Some truths don’t need incense or chanting. Loss already stripped you to the bone and handed you the doorway by itself.
What you wrote sits in that rare place where grief stops being an intruder and becomes a teacher. When the fight against reality finally gives out, the heart doesn’t collapse. It expands. It grows a strange new courage. It learns to breathe inside the wound instead of around it.
Thank you for your heartfelt comments. As a philosopher, you probably already know that you are not alone in this truth, one that is not always popular. Perhaps you know the following words of Rudolf Steiner, the philosopher and founder of spiritual science:
“Suffering is a side effect of higher development. We cannot avoid it in attaining insight. Human beings will one day say to themselves: ‘I am grateful for the joy the world gives me, but if I had to face the choice of keeping my joys or my sufferings, I would want to keep my sufferings for the sake of gaining insight. Every suffering presents itself after a certain time as something we cannot do without, because we have to grasp it as part of the development contained within evolution. There is no development without suffering, just as there is no triangle without angles... SOURCE: Rudolf Steiner – The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World, April 21, 1909 – 2008 edition, p. 147.
“Fabre d’Olivet, who has investigated the origins of the Book of Genesis, once used a beautiful simile, comparing destiny with a natural process. The valuable pearl, he says, derives from an illness: it is a secretion of the oyster, so that in this case life has to fall sick in order to produce something precious. In the same way, physical illnesses in one life reappear in the next life as physical beauty. Either the physical body becomes more beautiful as a result of the illness it endured; or it may be that an illness a man has caught from infection in his environment is compensated by the beauty of his new environment. Beauty thus develops, karmically, out of pain, suffering, privation and illness. This may seem a startling connection, but it is a fact. Even the appreciation of beauty develops in this way: there can be no beauty in the world without pain and suffering and illness....” SOURCE: Rudolf Steiner – GA 95 – At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Lecture Eight: Good and Evil/Individual Karmic Questions – Stuttgart, 29th August 1906
The story I told has been told, re-told, and communicated through religious scripture, myth, poetry, drama and lyrics! This isn't revelation. It is reminding. Transmission. From the past to the future.
Wow! That was profound and beautifully written. I know you’ve been addressing the fools search for immortality that exists amongst some of the tech billionaires. Seeking immortality is an old notion. After all, wasn’t it taught in grade school that Ponce De Leon was seeking the “ fountain of youth?” A place where death did not exist. Perhaps extreme wealth makes it easier to give in to the notion that immortality is a worthy goal. In your piece, you clearly show why seeking such a thing loses sight of the very notion that life should have meaning and that love, in all its forms, is the best path to seek it. Acknowledging that loss is entwined with love, and accepting that all things must end, is a gift we’ve been given in seeking meaning to our lives. It may be the ultimate gift of being human.
Yes, it is beautiful. And it's why in so much literature, those who want to cheat death and live forever are the evil ones. I'm thinking of Voldemort in Harry Potter and his followers (called the Death Eaters) and also of the diabolical organization C.S. Lewis describes in his novel "That Hideous Strength." I know Lewis is considered conservative, and there are many aspects of his worldview that I don't share. Yet Thiel et al. are exactly like the bad guys in "That Hideous Strength" - the book could have been written to describe them and their goals. And when I say "bad guys," I refer to Lewis's description of the demonic forces to whom the wicked ones have sold their souls as creatures who "breathe death on the human race and on all joy." Yup.
Profound and so beautifully written. Thank you for this phenomenal reflection. I still remember the first time I heard the phrase: "we let each other in through the broken places" All part of God's plan to help transform pain. Most of us do not reach out to others or certainly, not as deeply unless we need one another. So much beauty and goodness comes out of these connections that only come about through shared loss and suffering. Walking with one another through suffering deepens our connections and can bring so much healing. I am so grateful for these unexpected gifts. In these more challenging times, may we continue to find strength, joy and healing through supporting one another.
Very nice piece, Mike. Truly enjoyed your beautiful thoughts and sentiments about what it means to be alive - the suffering, the ecstasy, the countless liminal spaces in between - knowing full well that it must needs always end. Seems intuitively obvious that Thiel, Altman and other uber wealthy would fund someone like longevity researcher, Aubrey de Grey. Because while their immense wealth gives them awesome power over so much of life, it gives them no dominion over death. Which, despite their robust ledgers and spreadsheets and disciplined health regimens, must frustrate and rankle them to their cores. Their ultimate desire remaining well beyond their reach and grasp…
In his recent memoir, “We Did Okay, Kid,” 87 yr old actor Anthony Hopkins, a recovering alcoholic for 50-ish years, writes about learning to truly live once he accepted (and forgave) his own flaws and embraced his mortality. “Now I have become that old man. Going back to the beginning - reliving it here [in his memoir] - has given me an awakening, an appreciation of my good fortune and the summer days of my childhood…I feel free to forget the past and focus on preparing to learn the Big Secret [what his father called death] for myself. The laughable twist is that the past, as T.S. Eliot taught, doesn’t forget us:
“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown, till human voices wake us, and we drown.”
And in an Appendix of poems to his memoir, Hopkins attributes this poem to Seneca:
“Soon we will spit out our last breath.
For a moment, while we still draw it, while we’re in the human world.
Let’s cherish our humanity.
Let’s not be a source of fear or danger to anyone.
Let’s cast scorn on injuries, harms, insults, and taunts; let’s put up with brief annoyances.
As they say, the moment we turn and look behind us,
While the choice is clearly a choice, I believe it's more difficult for those raised by parents sowing mistrust by imposing arbitrary rules and sporadic punishment -- they turn transactional, unrooted in self-mastery and congruity with Nature. We are exploring their recovery by extending extraordinary patience and our own humanity in forgiveness and empathy. Doing so deepens our own humanity, our own conviviality, our own capacity for community, and a true path forward in survival and flourishing. Judeo-christians may be mired in the sadness of expulsion from Eden, but we can reject that by forgoing our selfishness, by committing ourselves to the tending of all Nature, as indigenous people have.
California natives did so, producing what judeo-christian settlers considered an Eden, Heaven on Earth, an exchange of blood, sweat, and intelligence.
Yes! I was just saying the other day in my pro-democracy group meeting that I have more clarity and compassion, and feel more alive, now than ever before. Thank you for sharing this.
Some truths don’t need incense or chanting. Loss already stripped you to the bone and handed you the doorway by itself.
What you wrote sits in that rare place where grief stops being an intruder and becomes a teacher. When the fight against reality finally gives out, the heart doesn’t collapse. It expands. It grows a strange new courage. It learns to breathe inside the wound instead of around it.
Thank you for your heartfelt comments. As a philosopher, you probably already know that you are not alone in this truth, one that is not always popular. Perhaps you know the following words of Rudolf Steiner, the philosopher and founder of spiritual science:
“Suffering is a side effect of higher development. We cannot avoid it in attaining insight. Human beings will one day say to themselves: ‘I am grateful for the joy the world gives me, but if I had to face the choice of keeping my joys or my sufferings, I would want to keep my sufferings for the sake of gaining insight. Every suffering presents itself after a certain time as something we cannot do without, because we have to grasp it as part of the development contained within evolution. There is no development without suffering, just as there is no triangle without angles... SOURCE: Rudolf Steiner – The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World, April 21, 1909 – 2008 edition, p. 147.
“Fabre d’Olivet, who has investigated the origins of the Book of Genesis, once used a beautiful simile, comparing destiny with a natural process. The valuable pearl, he says, derives from an illness: it is a secretion of the oyster, so that in this case life has to fall sick in order to produce something precious. In the same way, physical illnesses in one life reappear in the next life as physical beauty. Either the physical body becomes more beautiful as a result of the illness it endured; or it may be that an illness a man has caught from infection in his environment is compensated by the beauty of his new environment. Beauty thus develops, karmically, out of pain, suffering, privation and illness. This may seem a startling connection, but it is a fact. Even the appreciation of beauty develops in this way: there can be no beauty in the world without pain and suffering and illness....” SOURCE: Rudolf Steiner – GA 95 – At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Lecture Eight: Good and Evil/Individual Karmic Questions – Stuttgart, 29th August 1906
The story I told has been told, re-told, and communicated through religious scripture, myth, poetry, drama and lyrics! This isn't revelation. It is reminding. Transmission. From the past to the future.
Rumi said something like; 'truth is a long lost camel you'll recognize when you see it' Reminding -I like that, thank you
❤️ love is possible, meaning is real
Wow! That was profound and beautifully written. I know you’ve been addressing the fools search for immortality that exists amongst some of the tech billionaires. Seeking immortality is an old notion. After all, wasn’t it taught in grade school that Ponce De Leon was seeking the “ fountain of youth?” A place where death did not exist. Perhaps extreme wealth makes it easier to give in to the notion that immortality is a worthy goal. In your piece, you clearly show why seeking such a thing loses sight of the very notion that life should have meaning and that love, in all its forms, is the best path to seek it. Acknowledging that loss is entwined with love, and accepting that all things must end, is a gift we’ve been given in seeking meaning to our lives. It may be the ultimate gift of being human.
I can’t express in words how much I love this.
Yes, it is beautiful. And it's why in so much literature, those who want to cheat death and live forever are the evil ones. I'm thinking of Voldemort in Harry Potter and his followers (called the Death Eaters) and also of the diabolical organization C.S. Lewis describes in his novel "That Hideous Strength." I know Lewis is considered conservative, and there are many aspects of his worldview that I don't share. Yet Thiel et al. are exactly like the bad guys in "That Hideous Strength" - the book could have been written to describe them and their goals. And when I say "bad guys," I refer to Lewis's description of the demonic forces to whom the wicked ones have sold their souls as creatures who "breathe death on the human race and on all joy." Yup.
Beautiful. Thoughtful. Thank you for taking the time to write it. It's a nice break from the news which I'm trying really, really hard not to read.
Profound and so beautifully written. Thank you for this phenomenal reflection. I still remember the first time I heard the phrase: "we let each other in through the broken places" All part of God's plan to help transform pain. Most of us do not reach out to others or certainly, not as deeply unless we need one another. So much beauty and goodness comes out of these connections that only come about through shared loss and suffering. Walking with one another through suffering deepens our connections and can bring so much healing. I am so grateful for these unexpected gifts. In these more challenging times, may we continue to find strength, joy and healing through supporting one another.
Really beautiful. Thank you 🙏 💗
Very nice piece, Mike. Truly enjoyed your beautiful thoughts and sentiments about what it means to be alive - the suffering, the ecstasy, the countless liminal spaces in between - knowing full well that it must needs always end. Seems intuitively obvious that Thiel, Altman and other uber wealthy would fund someone like longevity researcher, Aubrey de Grey. Because while their immense wealth gives them awesome power over so much of life, it gives them no dominion over death. Which, despite their robust ledgers and spreadsheets and disciplined health regimens, must frustrate and rankle them to their cores. Their ultimate desire remaining well beyond their reach and grasp…
In his recent memoir, “We Did Okay, Kid,” 87 yr old actor Anthony Hopkins, a recovering alcoholic for 50-ish years, writes about learning to truly live once he accepted (and forgave) his own flaws and embraced his mortality. “Now I have become that old man. Going back to the beginning - reliving it here [in his memoir] - has given me an awakening, an appreciation of my good fortune and the summer days of my childhood…I feel free to forget the past and focus on preparing to learn the Big Secret [what his father called death] for myself. The laughable twist is that the past, as T.S. Eliot taught, doesn’t forget us:
“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown, till human voices wake us, and we drown.”
And in an Appendix of poems to his memoir, Hopkins attributes this poem to Seneca:
“Soon we will spit out our last breath.
For a moment, while we still draw it, while we’re in the human world.
Let’s cherish our humanity.
Let’s not be a source of fear or danger to anyone.
Let’s cast scorn on injuries, harms, insults, and taunts; let’s put up with brief annoyances.
As they say, the moment we turn and look behind us,
Death stands right there.”
While the choice is clearly a choice, I believe it's more difficult for those raised by parents sowing mistrust by imposing arbitrary rules and sporadic punishment -- they turn transactional, unrooted in self-mastery and congruity with Nature. We are exploring their recovery by extending extraordinary patience and our own humanity in forgiveness and empathy. Doing so deepens our own humanity, our own conviviality, our own capacity for community, and a true path forward in survival and flourishing. Judeo-christians may be mired in the sadness of expulsion from Eden, but we can reject that by forgoing our selfishness, by committing ourselves to the tending of all Nature, as indigenous people have.
California natives did so, producing what judeo-christian settlers considered an Eden, Heaven on Earth, an exchange of blood, sweat, and intelligence.
Lovely. In my own framework I might note additionally the concept of acceptance versus denial but really a beautiful piece, agree with Paul also.
That will stay with me… in finitude💖
Earth is heaven.
Yes! I was just saying the other day in my pro-democracy group meeting that I have more clarity and compassion, and feel more alive, now than ever before. Thank you for sharing this.
Surrendering to life is both terrifying and beautiful ❤️🔥