The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Francisco Goya
SLINGS & ARROWS
Life is hard. And its slings and arrows are often difficult to rationalize into hope. We all have bad luck sometimes: traffic, bad weather, accidents, breakups. That’s not what I’m getting at here. I’m also not without hope. But it seems to me that reason itself stands meekly against a sea of troubles.
Henry David Thoreau writes about quiet desperation in Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854). He spent some two years living in relative isolation, surviving on his own. One of his critiques is that nineteenth century New England society was complicated, superficial, and separated from nature. Strict societal expectations, too, played a part in a general resignation people felt, in Thoreau’s view, resulting in unfulfilled lives.
Today’s society is not dissimilar. With our gadgets and games and shows, we are even more separated from nature, from reality. And popular culture is consumerist garbage, mostly, more a result of maximizing profit than creative expression. Further, as in previous centuries, people trade their lives for a wage. We’ve made much progress. Children are no longer working 16 hours a day in dangerous factories. But the US has some of the most worked hours per year of OECD countries. Of course, we have it good compared to many Latin American countries, for example, such as Mexico and Costa Rica, which certainly aren’t the worse. I have family and friends in Latin America and have visited several times. They tend to describe bleak conditions: exploitation of immigrants, capitalist greed, non-stop work, poor pay, economic stagnation, and high inflation.
To be clear, I don’t think the cause of this type of suffering is capitalism or greed or the rich or your parents or friends. It’s not that you weren’t born with this or that.
There isn’t one cause. In real life, you might be poor, a minority, a woman, a single parent, a student, working full-time for minimum wage, face discrimination, face racism, have survived sexual abuse, face violence at home, and, yeah, you might also have a problem with the cops. That’s closer to the truth of quotidian suffering than hope-filled platitudes give credit for.
The human condition is more often faced by a set of intersectional complexities. We face identity crises, meaning crises, economic crises - all at the same time. We try to navigate through them, as if through a Melvillian sea storm. Reason might portend an unhappy end. Our monomania threatens to lead us to ruin, like Ahab. We must see more than the whale; the whale, after all, is merely a reflection of us.
MORE THAN THE WHALE
Critical Thinking
We need a complex solution for a complex problem. Something like the power of problem solving itself. Problem solving can be taught. There are many studies on this. It’s the main idea behind formal education: Teach people to think and learn better. Of course, it takes time. But, for life, it’s imperative.
1. Be like Socrates
One of the most brilliant things Socrates ever said is “I know that I do not know.” As a result, Socrates asked a lot of questions. He didn’t do this because he wanted to “corrupt the youth,” which he was accused of and sentenced to death for. He did what he did because, as he also wonderfully said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The first step, then, is to understand where knowledge begins, in knowing that you do not know. It is only from this vantage point that you can then explore and discover truth, whatever it may be. If we are not open to learning, if we feel we already know, if we let our biases go unnoticed, we will learn little, if anything at all.
Understand that you are human, a soft, relatively defenseless, talking animal. 10,000 years ago, people’s biggest concern was not dying. It’s a wonder you know anything at all. You are full of evolutionary flaws, impediments to logic. You have biases and emotions. You live in a one-sided movie. You don’t feel others’ pain. So, know how little you actually know. And ask questions.
2. Solve Problems
We learn from doing. And we learn to do from watching others. We are Old World apes. And the word ape means to mimic. It’s in our genes. Learning from watching speeds up learning. This is why we watch video tutorials instead of reading detailed instructions to do many things, such as playing an instrument, juggling, singing, dancing, and so on.
Practice on small problems first. Make it a matter of everyday life, a habit, so you don’t have to think about it. Small problems are encountered in life all the time. So I don’t think you need to look for more. Rather, notice them. One thing I do is keep a journal where I reflect on the day: my mistakes, such as watching too much Netflix or YouTube, causes, and possible solutions. Use scaffolding. Start out easy and slowly build your problem-solving ability by gradually increasing the task’s difficulty. After considering everyday mistakes, I might contemplate bigger failures, such as not making enough money or not having yet found a life partner. The solution may not be evident right away. The goal here is the effort itself.
3. Teach
Finally, we learn from teaching. I’m an educator. I’ve spent my entire working life in higher education. I know better than most that teaching is an excellent way to learn. What happens, when you teach people something you think you know, is that you discover that you thought you knew much more than you actually do. Further, when we teach others, we look at things with the beginner’s mindset, also called shoshin, which is a concept from Zen Buddhism. The beginner’s mind is a blank canvas, open to possibility. The expert’s is ingrained; they “know.” Again, knowing is the enemy. Try to unknow.
Almost everyone has something to teach. Take the opportunity when it presents itself. As much as possible. Choose something you enjoy. Passion is infectious. It also tends to make you a better teacher. After your “lesson,” reflect. What did you do well? What not so well?
Now, problem solving is good. When there are solutions. When there aren’t any or when they aren’t forthcoming, we need something more, something greater, a kind of armor.
Meaning
I’m with Victor Frankl. Life is about meaning, a universal basic need. Of course, meaning is often hard to find. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl explains the odds of making it out of a Nazi concentration camp were extremely low. But the ones who did survive, he shows, were those who had something to live for; they had meaning. Frankl quotes Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Having meaning doesn’t necessitate a belief in God or that things will work out in the end. It just means that, whatever may come, your suffering, however severe, will not have been in vain. It means something. Even if it’s just for you. Perhaps your suffering will help make the world a better place. Maybe not, but perhaps you are doing the right thing. That may be enough. Frankl writes, “. . . suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
No one can tell you what your meaning is. It wouldn’t be meaningful. You must find your own. Frankl’s was to “help others find the meaning of theirs.” Mine is to help make the world a better place for my having been in it. It isn’t original. I derived this meaning from reading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography many years ago. I was struck by his devotion, sincerity, and temperance. For me, a better place is one with less obligate suffering. When little else makes sense, this postulate still does. Making the world better, then, could mean to expose injustice and stand up for what’s right, despite the consequences.
If you don’t have profound meaning, it will likely take time. That’s ok. You must live. You must suffer. Not intentionally. Don’t be a masochist. But that’s why you must wait; it will come. It comes to all of us. And when it does, you still struggle and, hopefully, find meaning on the other side. Last Nietzsche quote, “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.” I’ll add, it doesn’t have to make you stronger. You can be racked with guilt or shame or trauma. Instead, take time to process. To think critically about it. And then to act. Only then may you become stronger.
Consider the following. If you were to be diagnosed tomorrow with a terminal illness, what would make your life worth living? What would be your purpose? Your ikigai? Your plan de vida? Turns out, you are in such a situation; it’s called life.
Gratitude
I’d like to end with gratitude because when I reflect on my own state of joy, after having endured a lot of suffering, including a suicide attempt and subsequent hospitalization in 2015, I can’t seem to ultimately separate the concept from gratitude. I mean joy, not happiness. In The Book of Joy, featuring the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the difference is articulated. Happiness is fleeting and tied to external circumstances. Joy is more stable and comes from within. So, my joy is not tied to quotidian pleasures, such as exercise or reading, or material possessions, but from this. I am simply more grateful than I am not to be alive.
Here’s another thought experiment. Imagine you have the choice, before you are born (just go with it), to decide whether to live or not. (Many nihilists lament, “I didn’t choose to be born”; in this scenario, you could.) The catch is that you know you will suffer - a lot, actually. Think John Wick but less dramatic. Gratitude, then, for me, is deciding on living; it’s taking the red (not the blue) pill. (End of Keanu fanboying.)
How can you cultivate your own gratitude?
Here’s what’s worked for me. First, accept suffering. Stop running from it. I used to run and run. And that shit would chase me to the end of the Earth. Then I learned helplessness. And that sucked a lot, as mentioned. But when I didn’t die, I realized, “Wait a sec, I’m not scared anymore. I can take this.” Well, that was a game changer. In The Book of Joy, it is said that our lives begin with the suffering of our mothers through childbirth. In a way, suffering is a requirement for life.
Secondly, as Frankl states, be grateful that you can find meaning at all. Imagine that? We live in a universe in which even suffering can have meaning! The universe owes you nothing. Don’t be entitled. That we can find meaning in our suffering is a blessing.
Third, fortunately, many of us don’t live in extremely dire situations. Yes, kids get cancer, and there are even worse horrors. (Though I wouldn’t say those are hopeless circumstances.) But if you’re watching this, you’re probably doing pretty well. Here are some things to be grateful for that many take for granted:
- Having food to eat.
- Having shelter.
- Being free to love who you want.
- Living in a democratic country, however imperfect.
- Having limbs and digits.
- Not being gravely ill.
- Having friends
- Having family
- Being able to cause change in the world
- Being able to reason and problem solve
- Being able to communicate with others with language.
I am extremely lucky. I have these things. I’m also American. I could have been born in the DR, the birthplace of my mother, and spent most, if not all, of my life there. The weather is good. It would have been a good life; I would have found meaning, even if only toward the end. But opportunities remain limited there. Many relatives have come here, after years of trying. The trend doesn’t go the other way. I’ve also had a loving mother, who is still alive and healthy. Also, I’ve never gone to jail, broken a bone, or required surgery.
So, how can I not be grateful? Seriously, if I can’t be grateful despite being at the top 1% of the world in terms of basic needs and income, then I think I would look at such a person as a fucking dick.
Don’t be a dick.
In brief, reason is useful in resolving suffering. But reason alone can lead to deciding not to be. It would certainly avoid the suffering. We need more. We need meaning, which is part reason, part emotion, and part belief. And to be human, one must learn to balance the three.
Be human.