The PATH: On Sitting Quietly, Loving Fate, and Changing the World
sent by J.W. Bertolotti | September 27, 2021
1. On Sitting Quietly
What comes to mind when you think of sitting quietly?
The philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote,
The inability to sit quietly alone in a room is the source of all humanity’s problems: boredom and anxiety as defining traits of the human condition, of the machinelike power of habit, and the gnawing noise of human pride.
The paradox of solitude is that we can realize a deeper connection with the world by learning to sit quietly. "The primary indication of a well-ordered mind is a person’s ability to remain in one place and linger in their own company," wrote the philosopher Seneca.
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2. On Loving Fate
How do we love life despite hardships or challenges?
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrestled with this very question. He ultimately came to adopt the approach he called Amor Fati (translated from Latin love of one’s fate).
Nietzsche wrote,
My formula for greatness in a human being is Amor Fati: one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.
The approach of loving fate (or whatever life throws at us) doesn’t attempt to erase the past but instead accepts what has occurred, the good and the bad, the mistaken and the wise, resulting in a perspective that is all-embracing gratitude bordering on a kind of enthusiastic affection.
Similarly, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote, "The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it."
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3. On Changing the World
How does one change the world?
The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) explained that our initial thoughts on change often look externally.
Kierkegaard wrote,
The majority of people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others . . . but the real task is, in fact, to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others.
Kierkegaard identified a human tendency that shows up countless times in various traditions. For example, the Gospel of Matthew (7:3–4) asks: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your eye?”
"Yesterday I was clever," wrote the poet Rumi, "so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I changed myself." By focusing on changing ourselves, we create ripples that extend far and wide throughout the world.
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful. If so, please consider sharing it with others.
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