Give it away and it will come back
A post of obsessive perfectionists, Americans and other imperialists.
I wish to convey an idea to perfectionist, obsessive types that I want to convey to myself. This is a topic that I have written about extensively, but knowledge and awareness can only go so far without action. In Western society, or Faustian society if you wish, particularly in American culture, there are many ideas which, despite being obviously false, are somehow agreed upon by everyone. One such idea is that life is meant to be a certain way, and if life is not that way, then some mistake was made. It never occurs to us to consider that perhaps the mistake was not made by life, but rather the mistake was assuming that things were meant to be as we imagined they would be. If your expectation is that life will be aligned with your expectations, then you are setting yourself up for bitter disappointment.
I think there is a disease in idealism. There are many reasons, for instance, why Van Gogh is such a highly regarded artist, but one of them is certainly that he painted “ugly” things. He found the beauty in what was ugly. There is an anecdote of Nietzsche that I quite like. Nietzsche was hiking in Sils when he ran into a young Irish artist painting meadow flowers. He advised her to put something ugly in the painting so that the flowers would look more beautiful by contrast; she liked the idea. This ties into a principle which is central to society on larger scale, and I think especially to Western culture. It is this obsession with straight lines, geometric shapes, perfect angles, circles, squares, etc. Nietzsche once said: “Mathematics would certainly have not come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no actual circle, no absolute magnitude.”
When I lie awake in bed at night, I am steeped in my own troubles; I am steeped in thoughts. It doesn’t occur to me to stop for a moment and enjoy how nice the sensation is of a soft pillow, a warm blanket, and shelter over my head. When problems disappear we always find ways to invent them. If we are not destroyed from without, we destroy ourselves from within. I am reminded of something I wrote a long time ago: Wu wei is the principle which says, go with the stream of events. Judo, the gentle way, says, use the flow to your advantage. This eastern way is not a way of weakness but a way of wisdom. It is also the cure to the depression which afflicts the intelligent modern man. It is to understand the oneness, and also the extreme slowness with which things must change for the better.
“Be like water.” “Go with the flow.” “Become one with the universe.” These have all become cliched buzzwords and phrases that go through one ear and out the other. But what do they really mean in the context of the world today? There was an excellent video by the School of Life which goes into this: “And to ensure that we are swimming with rather than against currents. We are to be like the bamboo that bends in the wind, or the plant that adjusts itself to the shape of a tree. Wu Wei involves letting go of ideals that we may otherwise try to force too violently onto things. It invites us instead to respond to the true demands of situations, which tend only to be noticed when we put our own ego-driven plans aside. What can follow is a loss of self consciousness, a new unity between the self and its environment. But none of this means that we won’t be able to change or affect things if we strive for Wu Wei. The Tao Te Ching points out that we should be like water, which is submissive and weak, and yet which can’t be surpassed for attacking what is hard and strong. Through gentle persistence and a compliance with a specific shape of problem, an obstacle can be worked around and gradually eroded.”
In Western culture we are taught that it is a show of strength to rigidly hold onto something. There is a certain rigidity in our culture. But true strength lies in the ability to let go. Perhaps this is why there is such an epidemic of obsessiveness and compulsiveness. “Give it away and it will come back.” What does this really mean? Well, our lives have in many ways become like Greek tragedies and self fulfilling prophecies. Like Oedipus, our attempts to swim against the current lead us right back to where we started. But ruminating on this idea and putting it into action are separate things. The rumination is part of the problem. So, how do you put it into action? To this I would say, learn to appreciate things as they are now. You don’t need to throw away your goals or plans. You don’t need to completely “let go” of your ego or anything else. But instead, consider cultivating a way of living that enables you to enjoy life as it currently is.
It is human nature to create goals, to passionately pursue those goals, and the opportunity to do so is a great privilege and blessing. Many people in the world do not have such opportunities. But one should be wary of becoming so obsessed with an idea of how life should be that they forget to appreciate life as it is. I have written extensively about the topic of accepting imperfection, but the writing means very little because it is easy enough to write about, but very difficult to act on. It is extremely difficult, when life becomes miserable and cumbersome, to believe this philosophy of accepting imperfection. But perhaps what needs to be understood is that your thoughts will not change the reality of life. The world is not constructed in your image. Life is chaos. It is messy, ugly, and imperfect. Factoring this into your goals and equations doesn’t have to mean a form of resignation or giving up on your dreams. It is simply a way of cultivating appreciation for the beauty of the world, the meaningful experiences you have had, and the things that you are grateful for. To quote Vonnegut: “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”
Allow yourself for a moment to just let it all fade away. Forget all of your worries. Be imperfect. Be proud to be imperfect. “Throw off your discontent about your nature. Forgive yourself your own self. You have it in your power to merge everything you have lived through- false starts, errors, delusions, passions, your loves and your hopes- into your goal, with nothing left over.” - Nietzsche
I had wanted to express something else, and I don’t feel as though I argued my point the way I wanted to, but in the spirit of what I wrote, I’ll let that go.