comes
. This is a way of living that postpones life. As long as we postpone
life, we can never go anywhere, and will only pass our days one after the
next in dull monotony, because we think of here and now as just a
preparatory period, as a time for patience. But a ‘here and now’ in which
one is studying for an entrance examination
in the distant future, for
example, is the real thing.
YOUTH:
Okay, I’ll accept that. I can certainly accept living earnestly here
and now, and not setting up some fabricated line. But, I don’t have any
dreams or objectives in my life. I don’t know what dance to do. My here
and now is nothing but utterly useless moments.
PHILOSOPHER:
Not having objectives or the like is fine. Living earnestly here
and now is itself a dance. One must not get too serious. Please do not
confuse being earnest with being too serious.
YOUTH:
Be earnest, but not too serious.
PHILOSOPHER:
That’s right. Life is always simple, not something that one
needs to get too serious about. If one is
living each moment earnestly, there
is no need to get too serious.
And there is another thing I would like you to keep in mind. When one has
adopted an energeial viewpoint, life is always complete.
YOUTH:
It’s complete?
PHILOSOPHER:
If your life, or mine for that matter, were to come to an end
here and now, it would not do to refer to either of them as unhappy. The life
that ends at the age of twenty and the life
that ends at ninety are both
complete lives, and lives of happiness.
YOUTH:
So, if I have lived earnestly here and now, those moments will
always be complete?
PHILOSOPHER:
Exactly. Now, I have used the word ‘life-lie’ again and again
throughout our discussion. I would like to conclude by talking about the
greatest life-lie of all.
YOUTH:
Please do.
PHILOSOPHER:
The greatest life-lie of all is to not live here and now. It is to
look at the past and the future, cast a dim light on one’s
entire life, and
believe that one has been able to see something. Until now, you have turned
away from the here and now, and only shone a light on invented pasts and
futures. You have told a great lie to your life, to these irreplaceable
moments.
YOUTH:
Oh, okay!
PHILOSOPHER:
So,
cast away the life-lie, and fearlessly shine a bright
spotlight on here and now. That is something you can do.
YOUTH:
That is something I can do? Do you think I have in me the
courage
to live out these moments earnestly, without resorting to the life-lie?
PHILOSOPHER:
Since neither the past nor the future exist, let’s talk about now.
It’s not yesterday or tomorrow that decides it. It’s here and now.
GIVE MEANING TO SEEMINGLY
MEANINGLESS LIFE
YOUTH:
What are you saying?
PHILOSOPHER:
I think this discussion has now reached the water’s edge.
Whether you drink the water or not is entirely up to you.
YOUTH:
Ah, maybe Adlerian psychology, and your philosophy, are actually
changing me. Maybe I am trying to let
go of my resolve not to change, and
choose a new way of living, a new lifestyle … But wait, there is one last
thing I’d like to ask.
PHILOSOPHER:
And what would that be?
YOUTH:
When life is taken as a series of moments, as existing only here and
now, what meaning could it possibly have? For what was I born, and for
what am I enduring this life of hardship until I reach my last gasp? The
point of it all is beyond me.
PHILOSOPHER:
What is the meaning of life? What are people living for?
When someone
posed these questions to Adler, this was his answer: ‘Life in
general has no meaning.’
YOUTH:
Life is meaningless?
PHILOSOPHER:
The world in which we live is constantly beset by all manner
of horrendous events, and we exist with the ravages of war and natural
disasters all around us. When confronted by the fact of children dying in the
turmoil of war, there is no way one can go on about the meaning of life. In
other words, there is no meaning in using generalisations to talk about life.
But being confronted by such incomprehensible tragedies without taking
any action is tantamount to affirming them. Regardless of the
circumstances, we must take some form of action.
We must stand up to
Kant’s ‘inclination’.
YOUTH:
Yes!
PHILOSOPHER:
Now, suppose one experiences a major natural disaster, and
one’s response is to look back at the past in an aetiological manner and say,
‘What could have caused such a thing to happen?’ How meaningful would
that be? An experience of hardship should be an opportunity to look ahead
and think,
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