Tag: existentialism

Living by Courage, Generosity & Wisdom

Finn Janning says empathy and compassion are necessary for our thriving and even our survival.

“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday. I can’t be sure.” These are the opening lines from Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger (1942). If these words seem gruesome, it is because the reader has an expectation that a ‘normal’ person simply has to know when his or her mother died. Expect this not, says Camus. Or perhaps he is saying, keep an open relationship with death. The French writer may also be asking: Does it make any difference? Today, or yesterday – my mother is dead!

However, it doesn’t get any better with regard to the reader’s possible expectations when the novel’s protagonist Meursault – the one whose mother is dead – does not seem to grieve at her funeral. On the contrary, he falls in love with a girl during the ceremony. Afterwards they go to the beach, where they bathe, and subsequently make love. The girl wants to marry Meursault, and he tells her that it is of no consequence, but if she really wants to, he will go along with it.

You can read the rest of the essay in Philosophy Now, Issue 148: February/March 2022

“And me?”

Simone de Beauvoir’s novella Inseparable is remarkable in several ways: It was written in 1954 but has remained hidden away among her surviving papers until now. It is an autobiographical text from a prominent writer and philosopher. It is both a beautiful and a sad story about a friendship. It shows how rigid cultural norms and ideals can turn a life into a prison. It indirectly illustrates how one might liberate oneself through authentic love, friendship, and critical thinking.

Inseparable revolves around the meeting between two young girls, Silvie and Andrée, who meet as classmates in a private school in Paris during the First World War. We meet Andrée through the enamored gaze of Silvie, the narrator, who devoutly senses the details of the beloved, as here, where Andrée has hidden in the back garden to play the violin: “Her beautiful black hair was separated by a touching white side parting which one wanted to follow respectfully and tenderly with the finger.” 

Later Silvie acknowledges, “Without Andrée my life is over,” and later, “I had a need to share all with her,” and still later, when Andrée tells about her first love with a boy called Bernard and claims that he was the only one who loved her as she was, Silvie says, “And me?”

Silvie is the smartest in her class; she is a free and critical thinker. For example, one day she is dazed by the obvious truth: “I didn’t believe in God.” Andrée is equally gifted—Silvie fears that she might be smarter—and appears through Silvie’s gaze and fascination to live in her own world. Andrée is more eccentric, unpredictable, and musical than Silvie but also deeply Catholic.

Silvie envies Andrée, especially her independence, until she learns that Andrée lives in a prison where her strict mother watches all the possible exits. Unlike her mother, Andrée believes in the idea of love-marriages. Her mother just wants to marry her daughters off without any concern for love. 

Some might wonder whether the novella is about the friendship or love between the two young girls, later teenagers and young women. Making a distinction between love and friendship may be problematic, since true friendship consists of love—that is, trust, honesty, and equality. For example, Andrée challenges Silvie when she says that wanting to understand everything is haughtiness.

As mentioned, Inseparable is an autobiographical novella, Beauvoir scholars might  debate how accurate Silvie is as an alter ego of Beauvoir—as well as Andrée, who was inspired by the author’s friend Zaza (Elizabeth Lacoin), who died in 1929, when she was only 21 years old. 

Although I look forward to following the debate, the novella can easily stand alone as a sensuous story about friendship, love, freedom, and loss. Still, it may be tempting to tentatively place or interpret the novella through some of Beauvoir’s philosophical concepts. 

In The Second Sex, Beauvoir writes that authentic love is “founded on mutual recognition of two liberties.” Authentic love is freely chosen or, to put it differently, without freedom, there is no love. Freedom is not only remaining loyal or true to your individuality (whatever that means); rather, freedom is becoming—that is, you are free to become whatever you choose, while you also make sure that the other is equally free. 

The relationship between Silvie and Andrée is authentic. In contrast, an inauthentic love is one in which one party is hindered in experiencing freedom. 

In Inseparable, it is primarily the strong Catholic upbringing and faith that guide Andrée’s family and hinder her free becoming. Her mother makes sure that she has so many tasks to do that Andrée intentionally cuts her foot with an ax just to get some free time. Inauthentic love is based on submission, control, and domination, whether by mothers and priests, as here; or gender, race, or religion in general, to name a few of the most dominant examples. 

The novella might also open up the possibility that Silvie is dominated or restricted by her own ideals. For example, she believes that a woman cannot be free, creative, and innovative if she becomes a mother. Unlike her friend, Silvie doesn’t find the small twins (or babies in general) charming or attractive. Motherhood is apparently a hindrance to free thinking. 

History has, luckily, shown that many women have become philosophers, writers, artists, and much more while being mothers. 

The moral simmering in the novel is that there might not be only one way of being a mother but rather several. Motherhood is a multiplicity. At least, I cannot help but wonder what Andrée, who is capable of cutting her own leg with an ax, would do in a less self-harming way if a potential husband would hinder her playing her violin and writing her stories. Ideally, of course, she wouldn’t have to, if the marriage was one of authentic love. Continuing this line of thought, then no one would have to harm themselves, if they were brought up in a world of love—that is, one of equality and freedom for all.

Furthermore, since we are dealing with a novella inspired by true events, then Andrée was set to marry Pascal, who in real life represented Merleau-Ponty. Could they have matched Beauvoir and Sartre as not only the two dominating existentialists but also another example of aspiring philosophical friendship? 

Returning to The Second Sex, then, one might also describe the relationship between Silvie and Andrée through Beauvoir’s use of the concepts “transcendence” and “immanence.” She writes: “Every subject posits itself as transcendence concretely, through projects; it accomplishes its freedom only by perpetual surpassing toward other freedoms; there is no justification for present existence than its expansion towards an indefinitely open future. Every time transcendence lapses into immanence, there is degradation of existence into ‘in-itself’” 

Transcendence is a person’s ability to transcend a given situation, which, in theory, is possible for all human beings but in practice is reserved mainly for men—at least during the time where the novella takes place in France. For instance, Silvie transcends the Catholic faith. In contrast, a woman is traditionally held in immanence, where she is tied by her biological destiny: becoming a mother. A way to transcend this “destiny” is to throw alternative projects into the future. Silvie appears skeptical about whether a woman, whether Andrée can transcend her “immanent” destiny, but Andrée believes that another life is possible: another form of motherhood. Could Andrée (or Zaza) have found independence within dependence?  

If you appreciate an intimate novella about friendship, freedom, and love, then read Inseparable. I truly enjoyed the book and recommend it warmly. 

Finn Janning, PhD, writer and philosopher. 

This review was first published in Metapsychology, Vol. 25, No. 37

To Love Everyone as Equals

Imagine you were Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish existentialist. Then there would be nothing confusing about the remark: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

In a letter to his fiancée, Regine Olsen, Kierkegaard wrote, “Freedom is the element of love.”

Love presupposes freedom.

All those who are free can love.

Freedom is liberation from something that is obstructive: hatred or ignorance.

The rest in Sisyphus Magazine

Freedom is the element of love

Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and the so-called “father of existentialism” was born today, May 5 in 1813. To celebrate, I drink a bottle of champagne and share this essay which, recently, was published in the Wild Roof Journal.

A man in his late fifties enters a tattoo shop in Barcelona. He shows up unannounced with his new girlfriend. They are both a little bit drunk.

“Can you write her name on my arm?” he asks the young female tattoo artist who was busy tattooing me. 

Before waiting for an answer, he rolls up the sleeves of his grayish sweatshirt. “Here,” he says, pointing to a vacant spot of bare skin close to his wrist. I notice that his arm already carries four other female names. Three of them are crossed out. 

“I need you to cross out the last one and add her name,” he says, as he points to his partner. Her. 

The tattooist looks at the man’s arm, looks at the lady, and says, “Lucky you!” 

Is she being ironic? 

She observes, “Before he didn’t have room for you; now he does.”

Love and Freedom Are Bound Together 

This episode makes me think of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who once wrote in a letter to his fiancée, Regine Olsen, “Freedom is the element of love.” This statement encapsulates the two most important features of a life worth living: freedom and love. 

You’re free to do almost whatever you want as long as you’re willing to take all the consequences. It goes without saying that you’re never free to violate or harm anyone, deliberately, which also has nothing to do with love. Love is edifying, as Kierkegaard writes wrote in Works of Love (1847). 

For Kierkegaard, love is the metaphysical foundation of life; it is what is. Yet, combined with freedom, love can take many forms: friendships, parents, lovers, etc. 

Regardless of one’s gender or sexual orientation, what is important when it comes to love is there; it exists. We are all free to experience the possibilities of love, but doing so in our own way. Looking at Kierkegaard through the recollection of this episode, I believe it illustrates—or at least encourages me to reflect on—something more general about society than whether a few people like ink or not. 

For example, many people in today’s achievement-oriented society who suffer from insecurity, anxiety, stress, or burnout do so because they feel alone. They basically lack the experience of real and honest contact with other people. Often even with themselves, as when Wittgenstein defines a philosophical problem with being lost. 

Isn’t showing a new acquaintance, a potential lover, that your arm already carries the names of four other women a way of showing honesty? A way of trying to facilitate real contact? Create a space where love can flourish, despite it all?

If I am right, then there was nothing sad about it for him or her. Quite the contrary, being unconnected with other lives leads to sadness. Unfortunately, many people live behind what resembles a firewall that falsely protects our vulnerability or fear of losing face while, at the same time, prevents us from connecting with other people. It’s like a veil between the world, you, and me. 

Are we being too  polite to be honest?

Many, would probably feel embarrassed if they had to cross out a name on their arm, especially if they hadn’t learned from their first, second, and third mistakes, but just kept on adding name after name. Still, they would only be embarrassed because they would look at themselves through the ideals or norms of others, especially those people with whom they might hope to be identified. This, I believe, illustrates how the existential and political tend to become indistinguishable. For instance, in today’s identity-political sphere, many tend to criticize or oppose other people, thoughts, or forms of life, not because of critical thinking but due to prejudices. Knowing how easy it is to fall outside in a society where people tend to shoot before they ask, or even think (if they think at all), firewalls eventually emerge. 

Freedom, therefore, also becomes a question of power. As Byung-Chul Han has shown in What Is Philosophy? (2019), “Violence and freedom are the two end points on the scale of power.” Although there is a tendency among philosophers to leave power to political scientists and organizational theorists, power addresses existential questions. 

For instance, whether those subjected to power follow their own desire while doing so, or whether they follow the desire of the powerful as if it were their own, or whether they even anticipate the desire of the other. Thus, regardless of how trite this may sound, I believe that many people lack the courage and creativity to live the life they want (again, I am thinking of any kind of life that doesn’t deliberately harm anyone). If we are afraid of losing our good standing among people who don’t actually tolerate any diversion from their own ideals, we are not free, and therefore—following Kierkegaard—not capable of loving. The kind of firewall that I refer to is mainly constituted by powerful norms and ideals of our current achievement-focused society that constantly forces us to live in a particular way. 

For example, many young people today feel a pressure to attain an unrealistic body image, often only achieved through plastic surgery or synthetic enhancement. Or how we may feel forced to develop certain competences or express warranted opinions (typically only those that already fit into or enhance our “human capital”). The result of this capitalization of life is that we drain ourselves emotionally, mentally, and physically. We not only fail to live up to all the ideals but also to forgive ourselves for not being able to do so. We have lost our direction in life playing the power-game of others.

To Become Free 

Returning to the opening episode, we must understand that instead of one true love, some people might experience several. Similarly, instead of claiming that there only exists one right way of living a life worth living, there are several. If Western philosophy teaches us anything, it is that we are always placed in the middle, trying to do our best, exploring and testing life. That is testing our freedom and desires, like asking whether our desire to do this or that really is our desire, or whether we’re just being seduced, forced, or manipulated.

According to Kierkegaard in his letter, love and freedom cannot be separated. Feeling loved and being capable of love make a person free. A simple example could be how most people feel free when they are together with their loved ones. Together with friends, we can turn off our protective firewall. 

The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau opens The Social Contract (1762) with the claim: “Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.” Despite the power of this sentence I don’t believe we are born free; on the contrary, as a father of three, I have noticed that we are all born helpless and impotent. Still, to some extent, I agree with Rousseau. Instead of cultivating a capacity for critical thinking and compassion in our children, most future citizens are institutionalized in a way that chains them mentally. For the same reason, I agree with Rousseau when he goes on to say: “Those who think themselves masters of others are instead greater slaves than they.” They, the masters, maintain a self-constraining system, yet they do so because they seduce themselves into believing that the systematic status and prestige they have reflects how good they are at living a life worth living. But it doesn’t. 

To become free in an existential sense requires more than stripes on the shoulder, a high salary, or being born in a privileged part of the world. It requires first of all an acknowledgement and respect towards the world we are born into, its norms and ideals, but also an empathic yet critical capacity to question these norms and ideals, the structure behind them, perhaps even to change them. In my book A Philosophy of Mindfulness (2018), I defined freedom as a combination of having the courage to stand against all that which limits, controls, or even destroys our lives, combined with the imagination to create space for alternative lives. It’s a mixture of resistance and inventiveness. Or, to put it even more simply, a mixture of saying both “no” and “yes.” The reason why I don’t believe that we are born free is related to the fact that in order to know what is important, we will have to have tested, explored, or experimented with life. With age, most people know when to say “no”; however, they only know so because they become conscious of what to affirm or say “yes” to. 

Love All People as Equals 

Reflecting on the couple entering the tattoo parlor, I propose that we might see them as a couple that, despite their setbacks, imagines a world where love is still possible. They still know what is important, what to affirm: love.

Another way of confirming that freedom and love are the main ingredients of a life worth living could be by postulating that egocentrism is the exact opposite of freedom. I say so because I only believe we can become free together. Saying this, I am aware that some may suggest that the man entering the tattoo parlor is being egocentric in the act of getting a tattoo of each woman’s name. However, such an assumption would require that we see the tattoo as a symbol of more than it is, for example, a kind of ownership or possession which is a part of our habitual capitalist mindset. On the other hand, the tattoo might be nothing more than a faithful confirmation of the strength of love. Of course, the tattoo—-especially in this situation with so many names—-can make us think of the person as naive, romantic, or too spontaneous, and yet, it is also an affirmation that emphasizes what connects those names on his arm: love. 

Love is everywhere the same, although it always expresses itself differently. 

Kierkegaard illustrated this strength in Works of Love (1847), where he elaborated on the biblical sentence “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” stressing that “thy neighbor” does not refer to your people, nation, gender or sexual orientation, but all people. We should love all people as equals.

Now this is something that very few of us are capable of, but even more sadly, loving everyone as equals (not equally) is something that many of us don’t even strive to accomplish. Capitalism has made us lazy in a comfortable way, either by avoiding any kind critical scrutinization of our own pre-existing biases, or by assuming that all problems can be overcome through consumption. On the contrary, love teaches us to become worthy of what happens. It’s hard work but nothing is more enriching and liberating. 

Kierkegaard, in my opinion, doesn’t present us with an abstract ideal of love; rather, he confronts our confusion and limitations, which can be extremely powerful in a time where many are so self-conscious of their own way of thinking (often anchored solely in their race, gender or sexuality) that they become resistant to alternative perspectives. 

Perhaps this more humble approach to life could lead to a more caring educational mission: How can we teach people today what makes them capable of loving all people tomorrow? 

Love is all inclusive

This reflection of love, freedom, and tattoos has become more political than intended. However, and perhaps I am being too romantic or naive as well, I do believe that love belongs in a political context as well. The power of love transforms not only our lives but also societies by overturning the cultures of domination and repression because they have nothing to do with love. For example, when we are dominated or dominate someone, we are never free. Violence and coercion are lifeless. In other words, those who misuse power (not those in power per se) do so because they are not free. A parent hitting his or her child might claim that he or she did so “out of love”, although it is just an act of violence. 

Love is all inclusive. Or as Kierkegaard said, we should love everyone as equals, not favoring our own gender or religion. Our human history is full of violence, discrimination and killing of women for being women, killing and discriminations of different races, religions or thoughts solely for being different. Human history is one where far too many only like the stranger as long as he or she thinks exactly like them. Thus, there are many reasons to be angry, and anger often comes with a clearer vision, just as there is a lot of needed fuel in it, and yet in order to build or construct a better future, only love can do the work. Love cares for everyone and everything. It was there before we were born, and it will be here once we are gone. Love is what links each name together, not just the one on the man’s arm, but all names in human history. 

Love is not hierarchical, nor does it moralize. The tattooist illustrated this. She didn’t moralize as if she represented a higher and more lucrative position of unquestionable “good”. Instead she was open, not just because they were potential paying customers, but due to her capacity to empathize with them. 

The couple in the tattoo parlor shared a belief in love. Not in the sense that life is without difficulties and suffering. It is; but rather that it’s love that helps us overcome these setbacks, never revenge or hate. 

Love, therefore, is not an abstract ideal but something we all experience and notice if we pay attention. It is like pointing out what all football fans share regardless of their favorite team, which is a love of the game; what all languages share, which is the ability to communicate, make connections, and dialogue; what all people share regardless of national origin, which is that they live on this planet; or what all of us share regardless of gender, race, and sexual preference, which is that we need sunlight to live and that we all breathe the same air. 

If we can love all people as equals, then we would also be capable of seeing why all people should be treated with the same respect, trust, care, and justice. There is no love without mutual respect and equality. However, and this is why I have been using this little episode about the man and women as my point of departure; if I cannot encounter two drunk people in a tattoo parlor without feeling better than them, pitying them or any other kind of sad behavior that would illustrate my embedded prejudices, how should I then make myself available for those who live lives far more different.

Is love bulletproof then? Without answering directly, I would claim that the mistakes we make in love can be crossed out. We can go on living because they initially emerged from a free, honest, and nondiscriminating relationship to and with life. It’s an honest mistake. The man in the tattoo parlor doesn’t hide his previous relationships. On the contrary, he brings (or she brings him) to make another affirmation of love. It is like an ethical confirmation; despite all the discrimination, greed, and violence in today’s world, we must “go on” affirming what matters. Daily.

You know when you’re in love. Or to put it differently: if you’re doubting, you’re not in love.

The last thing I heard the tattooist ask the man as I left the store was, “Are you sure?”

“Do I look like I am doubting?”

 It was her saying those last words. 

Doing Nothing

“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday. I can’t be sure.” 

These are the opening lines of Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger. If these words seem gruesome, it’s because the reader has an expectation that a ‘normal’ person simply must know when his or her mother died. 

But does it really make any difference if my mother died today or yesterday? 

The Stranger, like so many other books and songs, reminds me of living with the dominant presence of  the Coronavirus. The days become indistinguishable. The virus—or death even—has become an intimate part of all aspects of my life.  

Camus’s story about Meursault, whose mother is dead, might be regarded as absurd. Instead of grieving at his mother’s funeral, Meursault falls in love with a girl. Afterward they go to the beach, where they bathe and make love. The girl wants to marry Meursault, and he tells her that it is of no consequence, but if she really wants to, he will go along with it. 

Today or yesterday, marriage or no marriage: Nothing really matters to Meursault. As if nothing is important. And that is exactly the point: Nothing—or death, to emphasize my point—is important. 

Since mid-march, I’ve been imprisoned—together with my wife and our three children—in our apartment in Barcelona, Spain. As a family, we do many things. Many more or less normal things, like cooking, eating, playing, working, homeschooling, reading, training, and watching a film together daily. 

Listing all these things, I can’t help realizing that I actually do nothing when it comes to fighting the pandemic. Of course, I’ve—we all have—been told that we do good by staying home. 

Still, I wonder: How can doing good feel like doing nothing? 

When I do nothing, I do so to the level that any Buddhistic monk would envy my capacity for non-doing. Non-doing resembles what we refer to when we say that something has presence. Life has presence. The Latin word prae-esseliterally means “to be in front of.” After 41 days (and counting) of imprisonment, I feel like standing more directly in front of life. It’s within reach; I can touch it, smell it—and, at the same time, I am also just being a witness to a crucial part of life, to the doctors, nurses, garbage collectors, and supermarket employees who are doing what the government calls essential work.

So, I wonder some more, whether all this doing nothing is absurd? After all, being a writer is not on the list of essential jobs.

When you write, it’s impossible to distinguish the story from how it is being told, its style, and general mood. The stories being written now will have another rhythm. Perhaps a kind of non-rhythm. For example, while doing nothing, it doesn’t matter what day it is. Presence doesn’t exclude time, but it binds time to a now and here. This is a liberating experience. Most of us are much more here: present.

Maybe that is why I never really did find Meursault’s behavior in The Stranger absurd; rather, it confirmed his capacity of being present with something much more important: death. 

The coronavirus is raising many questions, but one seems to be of great importance: How do we accommodate death? How do we live with the daily presence of death? 

The French essayist Michel de Montaigne said that to philosophize is to learn to die. The idea came from Plato, who saw his mentor Socrates condemned to death because he encouraged young people to think. Socrates could have avoided the punishment, but he chose to drink the poisonous potion of hemlock. 

One way of learning to die is to acknowledge the questions that the end of life confront us with. How can we minimize the estrangement that can arise in our meeting with death? Why does death make so many feel uncomfortable? 

I assume that the answer is not only—as typically proposed—related to the fact that death makes us reflect on whether we manage, or managed, to live sufficiently, whether we were attentive and full of appreciation and gratitude. Death is not what makes life meaningful per se. Quite the contrary, life is what makes life meaningful and worth living. I see the daily presence of death as a test of how well I live with nothing, for example, doing nothing, not being capable of doing anything, or more, accepting my mental or spiritual limitations. 

Doing nothing is for many people—in our current coronavirus—the same as doing good. But is it good in the sense that we come closer to dying without being dead? Perhaps it’s similar to Gandhi’s non-violence philosophy, which was not a resignation, not even the kind of refusal that is found in Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and his “I would prefer not to”; rather it was doing non-violence. Nothing can, therefore, be done. 

So, doing nothing should not make people feel inferior or impotent. I don’t. Rather I am grateful to be witness to so many courageous women and men making things work. 

Many years ago, I accepted that I have a need to invent or create ideas, thoughts, or worlds of fiction. I don’t think that words can stop a virus, but perhaps they can heal wounds caused by the virus. Literature and art can challenge, shock, and expand our field of experience. It is difficult to share sorrow without the aid of art. What binds people together in Europe, where I am placed, is not the European Union; political solidarity is almost absent in the region. The borders are closed. Each nation is responsible for their own actions. What connects people are music and relieving words of compassion. Literature is like a string of sentences tying the past to the present, while throwing a lifebuoy of words into the future.

Death can easily steal time, as people stay in front of their screens slurping the corona news 24/7. It can also make time stand still. During these weeks, most people will experience why the French philosopher Henri Bergson defined time as duration. An hour can feel short or very long, even though 60 minutes is 60 minutes. Bergson can teach us that accepting what is real can be both a positive or negative experience, though it doesn’t change what time really is. 

Paying attention to the passing present moment is also a way of qualifying what forms of life we might leave behind when we can leave our apartments. What will I not forget? Which life is really worth living? 

During the crisis, we are confronted with the basics: Life is movement. Something in life moves us, makes us feel alive. Is death part of it? Yes. Love is another pole. It takes courage to accept the presence of death—that is, to be willing to risk everything for nothing. 

The coronavirus makes me become nothing, not feel like nothing. I am impermanent, constantly changing, becoming someone else. I hope that I might be of a kind of use, when and if I am capable of affirming life when it passes through me. Catching life with a word. Actually, becoming nothing makes me think of the British philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch, who once said that “in the moral life the enemy is the fat relentless ego.”

 I believe that this corona-experience is good for my moral formation. 

The morale might be something like: Doing nothing is good, and when I become nothing, I am good. Why? Becoming nothing makes it easier to resonate with all life’s movements. 

First published in The Mindful Word, April 2020

Kierkegaard: A Responsible Philosopher?

Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) is without a doubt the greatest Danish philosopher. The father of existentialism. In a very simple way, he lived his philosophy. After all, to exist means not only to be alive and breathing but also to “stand out.” 

I always visualized existentialism as a vibe board, where a particular life stands out in an ocean of other lives. The image is romantic but it fits with Kierkegaard. He stood out. 

To the world he is known for setting the tone for such themes as fear, guilt, and anxiety, but also for choosing the choice, freedom, and love. In Denmark, his name is spoken with a certain amount of reverence because it can be difficult not to be seduced by his vision of life and poetic style, but also because he was radical. For example, Kierkegaard was openly critical of democracy when he elevated the individual above the crowd. In fact, he would not see imprisonment in isolation as one of the worst forms of punishment, because the truth emerges, undisturbed, between the individual and God. 

For Kierkegaard, I suggest, it all comes down to four important concepts: the self, truth, freedom, and one’s relationship to God.

Read the rest of the essay in Erraticus

When life blooms

I’m pleased to announce that my new book, When life blooms – Breathe with Jeppe Hein will be released November 28th.

The publisher writes about the book:

“Danish artist Jeppe Hein soared to the top of the international art scene before the age of 35. His works were showcased at the world’s finest exhibitions and sold for sky-high prices. Then suddenly his body said stop. In 2009 Hein went down with stress.

In this book philosopher Finn Janning follows Jeppe Hein’s development from the tome immediately after his diagnosis with burn out and onward – a period where Hein underwent psychoanalysis and developed and interest in yoga, breathing exercises and spirituality.

Janning shows how spirituality has become more present in Hein’s works, and in the book, he develops an existential philosophy in continuation of the artists spirituality and art.”

I may add:

Although I was commissioned to write this book, I aimed at turning it into a philosophical biography that describes the life of the artist Jeppe Hein. In doing so, I’ve tried to exemplify Gilles Deleuze’s idea that “life is not personal,” that is to say, each life is a case study.

I choose this approach as a way of addressing the narcissism of the artist without making the narrative confronting, or in anyway judgmental.

Instead, I illustrate how Jeppe is formed by the major cultural trends during the last 40 years, such as the growing accelerating and spirituality and social entrepreneurship. He is an artist of his time.

It’s a book that tests and nuances the popularity of today’s spirituality through a philosophical, primarily existential lens.

ENJOY

Whenlife blooms_cover

When life blooms/ Når livet blomstrer

You can buy the book here (included post and packing). If the address is non-Danish, you will receive the English version.

€30.00

How Should I Live?

Before I try to give a decent answer, I would like to emphasize that I’m glad the question is personal. It refers to me, not you, or someone else. I don’t like moralizing, that is, telling other people how they should live, but I do like the element of self-knowledge and care that this question addresses.

Thus, “How should I live?” I should live a joyous life.

Life, of course, is full of both joy and sadness, suffering and pleasure. Some of these are related to individual limitations, e.g. intellectual abilities. Others are related to social or political circumstances, e.g. financial.

Still, a useful guide is to live in a way that enhances a life’s joyous moments regardless of the circumstances.

How do I do that? From the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, I’ve learned that we always have the thoughts and feelings that we deserve. At first this can seem brutally arrogant, but what he aims at is that our mental state depends on how we relate to or approach our experiences. The challenge that we all share, regardless of setback or misfortunes, is how we become worthy of what is happening. This is not acceptance as a kind of resignation; rather, it’s an approach to life that confronts obstacles or setbacks by trying to create a new form of life that minimizes the effects of what is hindering ourselves from living freely.

Therefore, I should live as a compassionate fighter, that is, become a person that fights by exploring what a life may become. What is possible? I fight hate, discrimination, domination, violence, etc. because it kills life. And by involving myself in this fight — although I have to acknowledge my intellectual limitations – I feel better. Actually, I feel alive. And to live a joyous life is to have an intimate affair with life, to experiment, and dance with it.

I remember the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño once said that children typically are full of joy, and then he wondered why it’s so, before answering, that they are alive.

It sounds like a tautology: a joyous life is synonymous with how I should live because joy emerges through appreciation of being alive, which I accomplish by destroying  everything that seem to hinder life from flourishing, just as I create room for things that flourish. Nothing comes for free, except death.

Joy and happiness require hard work.

A Fragile Life

The main argument in Todd May’s book, A Fragile Life: Accepting Our Vulnerability, is that most of us would be unwilling to choose an invulnerable life even if we were given the opportunity. Of course, we all understand that in reality, it is impossible to live a life where we avoid all sources of pain. In his book, the author proposes that we should accept our vulnerability and acknowledge that the suffering is part of life. The question is: How do we develop that acceptance within ourselves?

It is doubtful whether May is correct in his assumptions regarding what most people might choose or might not choose. When supporting his supposition, he references Buddhism, stoicism, and the thoughts of Tolle Eckard, an extremely popular spiritualist currently. Many people might find the opportunity to live an invulnerable life, one in serenity or full awareness, an attractive option. However, this possibility seems highly unrealistic for the majority of us if we take the philosophical perspective seriously. Still, regardless of the truth regarding this particular claim, May’s book can be a useful companion for people who want to reflect on their lives. It is full of examples and is written for a broad audience.

The book starts by setting the scene regarding the inevitable vulnerability inherent in our lives. It then moves on to discuss to what extent having a project is required to provide meaning for our lives. He suggests that, “understanding how we can suffer requires that we first understand how we live.” May loosely follows the ideas of Bernard Williams with his suggestion of a meaningful project since it is embedded in a net of social practices such as rules and norms. By living our lives according to a meaningful project, we encounter some of the first potential problems. He writes that ,  “many of the ways we are vulnerable to sufferings” comes from the various things affects us negatively, that is, hinder “our ability to engage with our projects.”

The two opening chapters of the book provide excellent examples of the problems that result from vulnerability as compared to invulnerability. Next, May introduces various philosophies that claim to provide us with a model of how to live without suffering: Buddhism, Taoism, Stoicism, Eckard, and Epicurean. He describes how psychological and physical pain are connected for example. Then, he mentions that one of the challenges when it comes to suffering is whether or not we are capable of accepting the situations we cannot control. This section begins to sound like a book for consulting managers, but it does present an easily understood summary of these various philosophical schools of thought.

One of the guiding ideas links the introduction and his conclusion is how our past has led us to who we currently are and where we are in our lives today. The question is whether we should affirm our past or just simply accept it. May favors the latter approach. He uses the example of the Holocaust to illustrate his point. This is not an event we would want to affirm. Instead, he suggests that we accept that it happened neither affirming nor refusing it. Similarly, we should try to accept our past without necessarily assigning it a positive or negative value.

May’s book focuses on the fundamental question of how to live a life worth living with or without suffering. The answer that May provide us hinges on acceptance. We should learn to acknowledge our suffering. Acceptance, he writes, “does not render us immune to our suffering. It does not take us beyond our fragility. But neither does it leave us bereft. To accept the contingency of things and the quiet sadness that may go along with it is not to lie prostrate before the world. Rather, it is to embrace a perspective that can, with luck, help us find a path.”

The book deals with an interesting existential issue. Even though he uses personal stories as well as the experiences of others, the book never truly had an effect on me. It lacked the power of classical existentialist work, which really cut into my flesh. Perhaps, May’s conclusions were too banal. While I do feel that the invulnerable philosophies presented were relevant, the argument could have easily worked even without their reference. The distinction between a life with or without suffering is already clear enough. I would rather that he strengthened the argument regarding why it might be “attractive” for our lives to include suffering. For example, he could explore how we might develop creativity and artistic expression in an attempt to overcome our miserable lives.

Still, the book would be useful for newcomers to philosophy in my opinion. Also, readers who like a more conversational style would enjoy this book. The conclusions are not dramatic, but they might generate a new interest in the reader for further study of the existential philosophies that May summarizes in passing.

First published in Metapsychology, Vol. 21, Issue 21.

Kierkegaard’s True Love

In the twilight of Søren Kierkegaard’s life, he begins to question his own philosophical fundament. He did not plan this. Actually, he would prefer to avoid it. But it is happening. While lying for nearly five weeks at the Royal Frederiks Hospital certain images, memories, and ideas surface.

Some of these trouble him.

He inscribed himself at the hospital after suffering from a blackout in the middle of the day. The purpose for this inscription is not recovery. Although he is only forty-two years old, he knows that this is a last preparation for the inevitable fact of life: that it ends. Soon he will meet his only master: God.

What he didn’t expect were the questions now emerging.

Read the rest of the short story here

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