A Wiseman Once Told Me (1) A Wiseman Once Told Me A Coming of Age Story By Kevin J. Merfeld Forward The following is an attempt to describe the development of self-consciousness and depict the individual’s search for meaning in life. It tells the story of a general human “Self” as it moves through life and portrays the struggles it faces. Running parallel is a description of my own life experience of this process. I pulled it directly from journal entries, either during or in later in reflection of the events themselves. The general description of the maturation of “the Self” is by no means meant to be an original work. The ideas come almost directly from G. W. F. Hegel, Carl Marx∗and even Friedrich Nietzsche+. However, most of all, I abstracted the ideas from Soren Kierkegaardχ. I will use the exact terms of said philosophers, yet in a unique way. The Great Legend ‘If thyself thou wishes to seek, journey west towards the peak, the mountain itself you must climb and engage the man as old as time.’ This rhyme I carried throughout my youth, until I sought the Mountains of Truth. I wondered for days through this mountainous pass, learning the beauties of the world. Moss that smelled of cinnamon and rain filled the air with a sweet aroma, as I marched through flowers of purple and red tipped white. Weeks passed and I trudged with sweat and toil only to find myself standing still. After a day’s labor, I ended where I had begun. Yet at last the morning came when I fixed my eyes upon the Wiseman, sitting there on a rock in my camp. He had a grotesque purple lump on his knee, with black puss seeping out. His face looked withered and beaten as if without nourishment for too long. “Excuse me sir? Are you not of whom the speak, the legend of this valley?” “Why yes indeed, I have heard your call.” “I passed this way many times and have not witnessed your presence.” “If you truly passed by you could not have missed me,” he replied. “Why do you choose to sit near this cave with such wonders all around?” “It is not I you choose this but you,” he said calmly. “Ask now, what do you wish to know?” “May I be so bold as to request your name sir?” “Is it not your own? Son, this day you will truly learn your name and mine. Let us walk.” We spent the rest of the day strolling on the path in conversation. Onerous it was to walk with the Wiseman, for his crippled body could not keep up. Throughout the day, I carried him as a burden upon my back. “My son, I can see you are in Despair,” he eventually told me. “No sir not I, rather I am quite content with my life.” “That may be, but are you content with yourself. If I stripped of you everything in your life, would you remain content? For if not, you are in Despair,” he responded. “No sir, I do not believe I would be, but does not one have the right to mourn the loss of one’s life, to be sad and depressed over loved ones?” “Depression is not to be confused with Despair my son. The former is an emotion, the latter a condition of the Self.” He answered. For the rest of the day the Wiseman revealed to me what it is to be human… The Self “A Self is an awareness of itself.” he said, “On one hand, you are Kevin Merfeld, and the other; you are the awareness of yourself as Kevin Merfeld. The Self is a correspondence or relation between these distinct natures of itself. The Self then, is a relation between itself (being the physical human) and itself (being the human’s consciousness of itself). The Self is composed of subjective and objective natures. A subject is something that holds a concept of itself and has the ability to perceive objects. An object is something without self-awareness. It can merely be perceived by a subject. The word object, or term “objective world,” is interchangeable with the word material or the term “material world.” They describe the world of matter in which we live. The terms changing and unchanging, or finite and infinite, describe objectivity and subjectivity respectively.” ‘Which is the Self then, a subject or an object?’ I pondered. “The Self is a relation or synthesis between the subjective and objective. It is one that perceives and has a self-concept, thus making it a subject. At the same time however, the Self is an object in the sense that it is also perceived by other subjects; having a body, it exists as a part of an objective or material world, a world composed of matter.” He went on… “However, it is not quite this simple. The Self is defined not only by a connection within itself (between its dual natures), it is also defined by its understanding of itself. Throughout the life of the Self, It chooses between various lifestyles, in each of which the Self defines itself in a different way. At any point, the Self may consider itself not to be a relation or synthesis between its two aspects. In these cases, the Self is in Despair. It wills not to be itself.+ That is, if the Self identifies itself not as a correspondence or relation but rather as something else, it does not know itself as it truly is. Because the Self is a union with itself, when it wills not to be that union, it wills not to be itself.” ‘Why does the Self Despair? Why does it will not to be itself?’ “When first conscious of itself, the Self fails to find meaning or purpose in its life. It never perceives its own significance in and of itself. Rather, it only perceives its own Despair.” “How does the Self rid itself of Despair?” I inquired. “It can only alleviate Despair by identifying or understanding itself as a relation, or synthesis. However, most Selves do not want to be themselves because they find themselves meaningless. To overcome this meaninglessness, most Selves seek a Resolution. Unable to find any in itself, it Resolves to place meaning somewhere in the world. A Resolution then, is something that provides the Self with a means to rid itself of Despair and give meaning to its life. Yet, even this is not true meaning in and of itself because it only contains the meaning the Self gives it. Depending on the lifestyle of the Self, the Resolution comes in various forms. A Resolution can quite possibility sustain the Self for an entire lifetime. Yet, most Resolutions fail. Without a Resolution, the Self Despairs, finding itself insignificant and willing not to be itself. However, if within the Self’s control, it does not allow its current Resolution to fail completely before seeking a new one. In anticipation of the failure of its current Resolution, the Self experiences Anxiety, which is an awareness of the inadequacy of a Resolution.” ‘What causes a Resolution to be inadequate?’ “The Self determines the Resolution to be insufficient in providing its need for meaning.” ‘What causes the Self to make this determination?’ “Either the Self desires greater knowledge of itself, in which it explores a change in lifestyle, or the Self is simply unsatisfied with the capacity of its Resolution to provide meaning. In the latter, the Self pursues a new, grander Resolution within its current lifestyle.” “What are the various lifestyles of the Self? I asked him. “How does it develop throughout its life?’ Life of Immediacy “Every Self is born into the life of immediacy, thus beginning the growth of self-consciousness. In the life of immediacy, the Self understands itself only through its immediate desires. It has knowledge of neither its subjective nor objective natures. After birth, the Self quickly learns that it cannot attain all its desires instantaneously. It finds that the world does not adhere to its every wish and therefore, it learns the world to be other than itself. It notes the accordance of the world with its own rules, and at the same time, perceives itself as part of that world. In order to resolve this discrepancy between what is other and what is itself, the Self seeks to make its own, what is other. That is, it desires to make its own that which is in the world. It becomes aware of itself in the following way. “I want my mother’s warmth, I want my bottle.” It identifies itself completely in this fashion, gaining its first awareness of itself by distinguishing between what is “I” and what is “other than I.” Naturally the Self yearns to know of itself beyond this simple recognition and it comes upon its first Anxiety. Because the Anxiety stems from a need of higher self-knowledge, the Self requires a change in lifestyle. Most Selves proceed to a level beyond the immediate life, knowing it only as a child.” The Aesthetic Life “In willing to know itself to a greater degree, the Self progresses into the aesthetic life. In the aesthetic life, the Self identifies itself through an association with some aesthetic meaning. It knows itself in terms of something beautiful. This includes any activity or substance the Self finds particularly pleasurable. It could be internal or external to the Self, encompassing a wide range of possibilities. The goal of any aesthetic life is to avoid boredom, for when the Self is bored, it must look at itself and therefore realize its Despair. The Self’s aesthetic choice is arbitrary; it chooses among means of stimulation, none of which carry any more or less intrinsic value than any another. The particular aesthetic significant depends on the type of lifestyle within the aesthetic life. An objective, a pure aesthetic, and a subjective life describe the three lifestyles within the aesthetic. In transition from the life of immediacy, the Self succeeds in its search for inner-depth by leading the objective life. Only in extremely rare circumstances would the Self proceed directly into anything else. As mentioned, the Self experiences Anxiety during its immediate life if it desires to know itself on a grander level. In order to rid itself of that Anxiety, the Self finds its first Resolution in knowing itself objectively. In the objective life, the Self recognizes only its objective nature. That is, it relates to itself as it is perceived by another. The Self is in Despair over this misrelation, for it knows only of its objective side and not of itself as a union.” ‘How does this come to happen?’ I asked. “While living the life of immediacy, the Self takes a closer look at the world and when ready, a single event or a single moment triggers understanding. It at once comprehends the existence of another like itself, that is, another self-conscious Self. This can occur in many ways, perhaps in competition between Selves. For example, an unconscious Self, say a girl, dines in the kitchen with her conscious older brother. The girl sets her heart on the last slice of pie while her brother too craves this dish. The girl reaches for it but is slapped away “Its mine!” the boy declares. Thus it hits the young girl that her brother also has desires and wishes to fulfill. She comprehends that he also must have a degree of self-consciousness. For the first time, the Self realizes it is being perceived and therefore comes to know its objective nature in relation to the perceiver (in the case, her brother).
Go to part: 1 2
Copyright © 2007 Kevin J Merfeld |