My Final Writing Project - Fall Semester 2011

            Death. 

            Life. 

            Happiness. 

            Knowledge.

            Purpose. 

            Suffering. 

      The broad, bold brushstrokes that indiscriminately illustrate on the canvas of the human experience.  These topics cannot or should not be ignored or left unattended, whether in thought or action.  They are the foundational elements of what makes up me.  What makes up you.  And because of that commonality results human connection, and the human connection is what fuels the bright and roaring fire of life that is in each one of us. 

     To my reader, whoever they are and wherever they may be, I have been fortunate to live a full life, highlighted by greatness and joy; I turned thirty-one years old during this course, this amazing but challenging fall semester in the year 2011.  I have enjoyed tremendous triumphs and successes, but also endured unspeakable, racking pain.  And through it, I have continued to write what is uppermost in my heart and mind, not to simply satisfy certain course requirements, but because it is who I am; writing lends vibrancy to life and reality, and also an escape from life.  It is the way in which I record the trajectory of my experience, my thought, my emotion my deepest everything. 

     As I have recollected upon the last thirteen weeks, reread my writing, and passed along much of it to my friends and family, I have discovered there is a central theme; upon first glance, much if not all of my writing appears negative in nature.  Sad, perplexed, doubtful.  While I do not deny these basic and fundamental truths of my writing and also of my own self, it must be also recognized that it is also the perpetual pulse of the desire for knowledge – knowledge about who I am, what I want, what I fear, what I hope for, who I want to become.  It is this realization of knowledge that has been the driving force behind my writing, my life, my self.  At thirty-one years old, I feel a sense of immense intelligence alongside incredible ignorance.  The decision to go back to school, pursue the dream I have of receiving a Ph.D. and doing what I know I am meant to do in life has opened my mind to a large and lofty influx of knowledge and information; some classes have been an all-out struggle, and some have come naturally and easily.  But while I have been fed a great feast of otherwise unknown knowledge, I feel more and more like I am only just beginning, as if my eyes are being opened for the first time, that actually, at thirty-one I know less and less about life than I did ten years ago.  In the words of the brilliant Blaise Pascal, “It is certain that as man’s insight increases . . . he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself.”  My own wretchedness and greatness have been put on display, plumbed to depths I did not know existed, and come forth in the form of words – honest and sometimes beautiful words. 

     Death.  Death is a central theme in life and literature, and one that recurs often in some of the greatest literary works in all of history.  My writing prompted by Thomas Mann’s “The Path to the Cemetery” reflects my recollections of walking through my hometown graveyard with my mother as a child, and the thoughts and feelings it conjured for me.  However, the subject of death that most profoundly impacted me was the great short story, The Death of Ivan Illych by Leo Tolstoy.  As a lover of Tolstoy, I was anxious to read this story and eagerly ingested every word.  Although a large portion of the story surrounds the subject of death, and the literal physical death of the factious Ivan Illych, the prevailing theme was the natural, innate humane desire to have life matter and mean something to those around us.  This was reinforced with reading excerpts from “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck, one of my favorite novels of all time.  Steinbeck says, “In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved.”  At the end of the life of Ivan Illych, those were the two most important things, that he felt he had mattered, done good, and that he was loved and had given love. 

     Life.  It seems only natural while living a mortal life to stop and ponder its elements and facets.   In “East of Eden”, John Steinbeck writes, “We have only one story.”  In other words, this life is a gift, and with that gift we have one chance at how to use it.  And while it is true, we have only one story, we have countless opportunities to reinvent, recommit and revitalize our lives, thereby improving the quality of life, perhaps without concern for the quantity of life.  One of the elements of life that has been brought to the forefront for me is my ability to be more compassionate, more tolerant and open-minded to the people I travel and meet along this journey called life.  The wise and almost always right Walt Whitman said, “In all people I see myself.”  Is that not the greatest achievement in mortality, to say that in another person you see yourself, and therefore have love and understanding for another human soul that exceeds expectation?  From the magnificent Viktor Frankl, concentration-camp survivor and Psychiatrist, “The salvation of man is through love and in love” (Frankl, 1985).  And finally, from the poetic words of Victor Hugo in the illustrious novel Les Miserables, “To love another person is to see the face of God” (Hugo, 1987).  In my writing inspired by Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”, many elements of life are acknowledged, and although the theme of the piece may at first seem sad, in the end it is the love that comes from light, joy and God that is abiding and never ceasing.  Love, in its purest form, is the answer. 

     Happiness.  “No aspect of life is more desired, more elusive, and more perplexing than happiness” (Nicholli, 2002).  Happiness, although seemingly foundational in the life experience, is seemingly abstract and can be fleeting.  Why?  What really makes us happy?  In comparing and contrasting the great minds of Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis, the answer to the often puzzling pursuit of happiness is found in meaningful relationships, and as an antithesis, the lack of happiness is found in the rhetorical lack of meaningful relationships (Nicholi, 2002).  It is impossible to discuss happiness without simultaneously discussing love, as love is more often than not the quality that either is or is not in such relationships.  Nicholi says, “…we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our objects or its love.”  The more we are willing to love, the more love we can receive in return, thus bringing happiness in its fullest measure.  And the great poet Charles Williams, as quoted by Armand Nicholi so simply states, “Love you? I am you” (Nicholi 2002).  To truly love, unabashed, unselfishly means that the one becomes the beloved, and the beloved comes the other, and a unique unity is born that offers such great, lasting and real happiness.  To further clarify, Emily Dickinson pens the simple but beautiful words in which the word beauty can be substituted for happiness:

"Beauty be not caused – it is.

Chase it and it ceases

Chase it not and it abides . . ."

     Happiness, although the pursuit of which proclaimed by our Founding Fathers as something available to all, seems more to be a byproduct of living a good, purposeful life rather than a state that should be actively pursued.  In addition, I have found that the knowledge that I am not alone attributes greatly to my own personal happiness, and in my writing titled “Sovereign Sojourn” I illustrate the painfulness of feeling alone and contrast it with the happiness that can come with realizing I am never alone.

    Knowledge.  The great philosopher Rene Descartes famous statement, “I think, therefore I am” implies that the origin of all knowledge is actually thought.  If thought is the spark of knowledge, it then becomes crucial to cultivate thought, pay attention to it, write it down, record it and expand it.  Ortega y Gasset says, “Tell me to what you pay attention, and I will tell you who you are.”  So simple, yet so profound.  From E.F. Schumacher’s A Guide for the Perplexed we learn much regarding knowledge – what it is, how to obtain it, and what to do with it.  We learn about the Four Fields of Knowledge (Schumacher, 1980): self-knowledge, empathy, objectivity about oneself and objectivity about the world.  “The goal of human knowing is knowledge of total reality, which includes all four Fields of Knowledge” (Schwiebert, 2011).  In other words, sole focus on only one aspect of acquiring knowledge will lead to a vast imbalance, a direct disservice to the soul and mind.  The more open we are, meaning taking an active role in our experience of life and then committing completely to making a habit of paying attention to those experiences, the more we grow and develop, learn and progress; in essence, the more knowledge we gain.

     Purpose.  Why am I here?  What is my life for?  Does my life matter?  The questions that have been asked since the beginning of time, and will be asked until the end of time.  I have found clarity in my own purpose in and through writing, and in my piece from Wendell Berry’s “Life is a Miracle”, I discuss what motivates me to write, and through my writing I am able to express some of my purpose.  More than anything else, I want to know that what I do matters, to someone;  I want, need, to know that my life has a purpose and I have a reason for being; I believe that desire is universal and irrespective of persons, race, creed or religion.  In “The Death of Ivan Illych”, one of Ivan’s greatest tormentors is the idea that his life has meant nothing to virtually no one; and in that solidarity, he was forced to face suffering, and ultimately a painful death, alone.  No other work in the course of this semester so profoundly affected my vision of purpose than Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”.  Frankl strongly suggests that love and unearthing the purpose of a life are intertwined: “Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality…By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in his beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.  Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities.  By making him aware of what he can be and what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true (Frankl, 1985; emphasis added).  Purpose is synonymous with potential; the potential we see in others, that we see in ourselves, fuels the purpose that we all so desperately need and desire.  To awaken potential and worth in another human soul is to achieve the highest level of purpose.  I have had a greater understanding of my own individual purpose; my purpose has been cut with a clarity and precision that has caused me to know for a surety the direction and path of my life, where I will go, and what I will do.  With that knowledge, that purpose, comes a great deal of peace and hope, despite seemingly endless pain and sorrow.  As Frankl illustrates by his own life and example, once you know the why of your life, you can endure almost any how; for if you never understand the why, what would be the purpose of the how? (Frankl, 1985).  Find the why.  Dig deep.  Do not be afraid of what resides there, what you may find.  As I scrape the hidden recesses of my soul and inner core to discover what the ‘why’ is for me, then and only then can I apply the ‘how’.

     Suffering.  I have relied heavily on “Man’s Search for Meaning” over the last thirteen weeks of the semester, and in particular for this final course project.  Because of the deep and lasting impact Frankl’s book has had on my life, it only follows that much of my material and thought is found in the pages of Frankl’s meaning-seeking masterpiece.  Physical suffering has been a part of my life for almost as long as I can remember.  Emotional, mental, spiritual and psychological suffering also compose much of my experience in this life.  But instead of choosing to be unhappy, negative and miserable, Frankl has shown me how to find meaning, and therefore purpose, in that which I suffer.  And as Frankl himself so bravely showed by his own life and legacy, he did not succumb or surrender to his suffering; but instead, he was victorious.  And because Frankl was victorious means I, too, can be victorious.  I may not be victorious every moment of every day, but that is beside the point.  What does matter is remaining steadfast, always looking toward the future with hope and purpose, realizing that suffering is unavoidable and inescapable, but what I can control is my attitude toward my suffering.  There is always choice.  No matter what, no matter our circumstance or situation, no one can take away my mind, my ability to think, my experience, my past, my memory, my feelings, convictions and principles.  Not even my hope and potential for the future can be taken unless, and only unless, I am the one to forsake it.  In the face of tremendous tragedy, heroes rise, valor reigns, courage and dignity resound and hope is victorious.  That is the purpose of human suffering.  Frankl says, “To suffer bravely, that is, with your head held high, is among the greatest of human triumphs…but what can never be ruled out is the unavoidability of suffering.  In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end.  In other words, life’s meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes the potential meaning of unavoidable suffering” (Frankl, 1985).

So, what?  The two simple but provocative words.   My views of death, life, happiness, knowledge, purpose and suffering have been expanded and fortified through vibrant and tangible examples found in some of the best literature known to mankind.  I have rediscovered truths, truths about life, myself, my soul.  I have recommitted to living with purpose, actively pursuing the habit of attentiveness, in order to appreciate and embody the beauty and sheer magnitude of being alive.  I have paid homage to my own thoughts by recording them, using them to explore the depths of my self and soul.  I have clearly defined my own purpose, and resolve to help unearth the purpose in others; I understand that my purpose may change and be subject to time and a season.  I now see that purpose is and can be found in suffering, and while suffering is unavoidable, the way I deal with my suffering will in essence define me, showing the depths of my character and commitment, values and truth.

References

Frankl, V. E. (1985). Man's search for meaning. New York: Pocket Books.

Hugo, V. (1987). Les misérables. Penguin.

Nicholli, A. (2002), The question of God; C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate god, love, sex, and the meaning of life.  Free Press

Schumacher, E. F. (1980). A guide for the perplexed. Harper Perennial.

Schwiebert, J. (2011).  Supplemental text: English 3210: advanced college writing (fall 2011).