Life as a Quest - The Antidote to a Wasted Existence

adventure shot oppressive insistent reality as if it were a piece of glass it is the unforeseen the unthought-of the new each adventure is a new birth of the world a unique process how can it fail to be interesting as creatures of habit we derive comfort from our well established routines our routines help us impose order on an unpredictable environment and good habits repeated daily are one of the keys to success in life and career but for some of us our habits and routines are not the promoter of a great life but instead our webs of thought and behavior that imprison us and limit our potential and so the thought of them can elicit feelings of futility and dread there are many lucky or unlucky for whom the course of their lives shows little or no departure from these well ordered routines as comforting as this may seem in the end it is also an unspeakable horror or as Jose Ortega y Gasset echoed soon after we begin living we become aware of the confines of our prison it takes us 30 years at the most to recognize the limits within which our possibilities will move we take stock of reality which is like measuring the length of the chain which binds our feet then we say is this life nothing more than this a closed cycle which is repeated always identical this is a dangerous hour for every man reflecting on the repetitive nature of existence can elicit dread but as the poet hölderlin pointed out where the danger lies also grows the saving power if the monotony of our days has become a practice in futility it is a good sign we need to take measures to introduce more novelty into our life there given that death is coming no matter what we choose to do is it not better to burn out in an exciting life than to fade away in monotony and boredom I would rather be ashes than dust wrote the author Jack London I would rather my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot I would rather be a superb meteor every atom in magnificent glow then a sleepy and permanent planet the proper function of man is to live not merely exist I shall use my time if our goal is to live not merely to exist how shall we best use our time one option is to follow in the footsteps of Don Quixote the main character of one of the greatest tales ever told and instead of acquiescing to a repetitive existence to structure our life as a quest Don Quixote wrote Schopenhauer is an allegory of the life of every man who unlike others pursues an objective ideal and that has taken possession of his thinking and willing and then of course he stands out as an oddity in this world in seeing our life as a quest we can like Don Quixote choose to live in the service of self chosen values and ideals become incomparable and unique and try to make our life unpredictable adventurous memorable and perhaps even worthy of one day being told in a tale as the playwright Tennessee Williams advised make voyages attempt to them there is nothing else to make the voyages of a questing life we must become bold as all quests necessitate leaving the terra firma of the familiar quests are defined by their uncertainties dangers and risks and so we must learn to cope with our primitive fear of the uncertain and unknown the bold adventurer succeeds the best wrote the Roman poet Ovid boldness is in part promoted by the act of becoming more childlike by regaining our capacity for wonder curiosity and most importantly play those who approach life like a child playing a game said Heraclitus moving and pushing pieces possess the power of Kings unlike the normal adult who is dead inside and who consumes junk food drugs alcohol and mindless entertainment in the frantic search to feel alive it is natural for the psychologically healthy child to see the dawning of each new day as a new adventure and to feel as if exciting discoveries beckon and continually lie in wait children instinctively rebel against monotony and boredom like Don Quixote they go searching for adventures a man's maturity is to have regained the innocence of a child at play wrote nietzsche along with cultivating boldness to turn our life into a quest we also need to determine the values ideals and types of adventures that will define our existence one of the more obvious options is to leave the secure of home and with the mindset and values of an explorer venture forth into the great unknown the traveler is active he goes strenuously in search of people of adventure of experience the tourist is passive he expects interesting things to happen to him becoming a world traveler however is not a viable option for all financial constraints coupled with government tyranny and commitments to family and a career can limit the degree to which we can travel fortunately we do not need to physically leave home to turn our life into a quest as we can also go on a quest that takes us into the unexplored realms of our mind and one of the ways to do this is to orient our life around the pursuit of knowledge in devoting his life to a quest for knowledge Nietzsche found the Ariadne thread that not only saved his life but infused it with purpose excitement and joy no life has not disappointed me he wrote on the contrary I find it richer more desirable and mysterious every year ever since the day when the great liberator came to me the idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker of knowledge and not a duty not a calamity not a trickery and a knowledge itself let it be something else for others for example a bed to rest on or a diversion or a form of leisure for me it is a world of dangers and victories in which heroic feelings to find places to dance and play life as a means to knowledge with this principle in one's heart one can live not only boldly but even joyfully and laughs joyfully too questing for knowledge is valuable for its own sake knowledge is the food of the soul Plato has Socrates say when asked whether it is better to be born or not to be born the pre-socratic Greek philosopher anaxagoras replied that being born is better because it grants won the opportunity to study the heavens in the whole universe but devoting our life to a quest for knowledge while valuable for its own sake is made more valuable by the secondary benefits that confers one of which is that it helps us escape mediocrity and to become a better human being knowledge is that which next to virtue truly raises one person above another observed the 18th century poet Joseph Addison knowledge like fine wine improves with age and eventually turns into whiz and wisdom is what moves us towards the ideal state of the philosophical sage questing for knowledge also confers practical and economic benefits as it can open new career and vocational opportunities one historical example of many is George Washington Carver born into slavery Carver died a renowned agricultural scientist and inventor his insatiable desire for knowledge helped him overcome immense obstacles and rise above the indignities he was cruelly subjected to by virtue of his birth I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and insect and bird and beast I wanted to know where it got its color where it got its life but there was no one to tell me if questing for knowledge does not appeal to us another option is to go on a quest for beauty beauty is the great seducer of man wrote paulo coelho or as the late Roger Scruton wrote Beauty matters it is not just a subjective thing but a universal need of human beings if we ignore this need we find ourselves in a spiritual desert questing for beauty proves difficult not because of a lack of beauty in the world but because many lack the eyes to see it our aesthetic senses tend to atrophy in our most formative years due to the daily memorization practices repetition rituals and rote learning which constituted our so-called education through state-sponsored schooling we are conditioned to block out the beautiful and to see the world through the hues of lifeless ideas and mindless conformity though we travel the world over to find the beautiful we must carry it with us or we find it not observed Emerson to go on a quest for beauty we need to reactivate our aesthetic senses and we can do this by setting aside time each day to appreciate beauty there are two sources of beauty in the world we can fixate our attention on firstly we can learn to find a genuine pleasure and delight in the natural world and see the brilliance that appears in every seed plant tree insect animal human landscape mountain and lake to speak truly few adult persons can see nature Road Emerson most persons do not see the Sun at least they have a very superficial seeing the Sun illuminates only the eye of man but shines into the eye and the heart of the cha the lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood secondly we can tune our aesthetic senses to the beauty created by individuals past or present which Arthur Schopenhauer called the flower or net profit of existence as a result of his realization that man-made beauty is one of the purest sources of joy and pleasure life has to offer Nietzsche once wrote that without music life would be a mistake and the same can be said for art poems novels philosophies and all the other beautiful creations brought forth by the hands of men and women these stores of beauty are so vast that in going on a quest to appreciate such profitable beauty we have within our hands enough to justify life as Albert Camus wrote there is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it yes that is the freedom I am extolling and it is what helps me through life but going on a quest for beauty does not have to consist solely in the appreciation of beauty we can also create beauty and thereby add to Schopenhauer's flower and net profit of existence we can create music poetry art stories philosophies cinema beautiful gardens or strong and independent children or we can transform our own body or character into a beautiful work of art why put in the time and hard work that is required to create beauty we may wonder I suffer therefore I create is the fundamental principle to which the creator of beauty abides as a suffering creature I cannot do without something greater than I something that is my life the power to create or as Nietzsche wrote creation that is the redemption from suffering and life's growing light each of the aforementioned quests involve uncertainty and risk in becoming a world traveler we expose ourselves to the unknown dangers that lurk in the unfamiliar corners of the world in questing for knowledge in becoming what Emerson called an endless seeker who unsettles all things we can stumble upon terrible truths and knowledge that shakes the foundations of our worldview for in much wisdom there is much sorrow says the book of Ecclesiastes in going on a quest to appreciate beauty we may become more aware of the transience of life in the sorrows of death the force that through the green fuse drives the flower is my destroyer the poet Dylan Thomas penned and finally in seeing our life as a quest to create Beauty we may become a target of the envious for as Rollo may explained it is the artists poets and saints who are the ones who threaten the status quo which each society is devoted to protecting yet we must ask ourselves are such dangers enough to keep us confined to our well established routines to the closed circle of our life that in its repetition fills us with feelings of futility and dread to help us ponder this question we will conclude with a passage from the Italian philosopher Giacomo Leopardi who put the following words into the mouth of an explorer on the high seas in search of new lands if at this moment you and I and all our companions were not aboard these ships in the midst of the sea in this unknown solitude in a condition as uncertain and risky as you please what other situation in life would we find ourselves in what would we be doing how would we be spending these days do you think more happily or would we not rather be in some greater trouble or anxiety where else full of boredom even if we gain no other benefit from this voyage it seems to me that it is most profitable to us in that for a while it keeps us free of boredom renders life dear to us and makes us value many things that we would not otherwise take into account you

Channel: Academy of Ideas

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Length: 12min 54sec (774 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 28 2020