TL;DR
The essay argues that contemplating and defining the means to achieve a meaningful life is crucial, especially when integrating diverse philosophical ideas. It highlights the importance of self-expression and personal clarity, with a particular emphasis on writing as a powerful tool for achieving these goals. Writing not only helps in clarifying thoughts but also enhances our ability to appreciate and communicate our experiences, leading to a more meaningful and grounded life.
Most people have a fair idea of what they think the end of life should be. At the same time though - and rather regrettably - only a handful of people have formulated a workable idea of the means to their settled end. Depending on what one believes, one may have had such a means handed down to them by their predecessors. The means to the Christian life, for example, is clear and discernable. So is the case for other ends that are determined by religious orientation, and for some that are not necessarily determined by religion as in the case of Stoicism, Epicureanism to name a few.
Given this, do we still need to contemplate a means?
I think it is important that we contemplate a means to our desired end in life for two reasons: firstly because more often than not we are combining ideas (sometimes in belief, sometimes in practice, and sometimes both ways) about what constitutes a meaningful end; secondly because the pursuit of a desired end is a collective pursuit (with friends, family, contemporaries), and more often than not the ability to find common ground and transcend differences with regards to our perceptions of meaningful ends will enhance the quality of our collective experience.
It is almost impossible to say in definitive terms what such an inclusive means will look like. Most ends and means (especially those with religious underpinnings) are largely fundamentalist and uncompromising in nature, and the immense plurality of means and ends renders such an attempt herculean. It is therefore probably the case, that an attempt to define such a means must be incremental and qualitative; bottom up and not top down.
I think that such a means must incline one to a healthy life that seeks the maximise expression. As much has already been said on the importance of a healthy life, it may be more meaningful to dwell on the importance of expression.
Descartes famously said that to think was to exist. Existence, however, is almost meaningless if not set in the backdrop of the existence of other people and things. To go from existence to co-existence, we must progress from thinking to expression. For it is in true expression that our sense of self is strengthened, and our experience of the mundane as well as the extraordinary is savoured to the fullest.
It therefore goes that any means to a worthy life end must increase one’s capacity for self expression. My personal experiences have convinced me that art is the supreme form of expression. And while there is a lot to say about the expressive power of art as a category, I will speak only of writing with which I am better versed.
To write is to clarify. If one set out to write about the sparrows of Sub-Saharan Africa, the very process of writing should steele into the mind of the writer a structure and clarity of the facts that should educate as much as it should liberate. For lack of a better allegory, we can say that everyone one writes, they share the experience of a woman who untangles and tames her hair; liberating and clarifying. The ancients have known this for years, and it is no doubt that over the years journaling has been a highly encouraged activity.
But if we must fully extract the power of journaling as a means to a life end, then we must promote it to an art form. For in trying to capture the mundane with beauty we sharpen our expressive powers and clarify our position not only with regards to other human beings, but relative to every thing that surrounds us.
How does the rising sun make you feel? What about the singing of the birds, can you listen so intently that you can communicate to an innocent little boy over a telephone why the sounds he can barely distinguish are a harmony of a choir of species? Can you give a woman from the east an immersive tour of that obscure village in which you were raised, the defining elements of which have been lost in time through writing? I have found that to write vividly about such obscure things is to heighten our appreciation of them, and that is liberating.
If writing about Sub-Saharan sparrows can be clarifying and liberating, imagine for once what writing about all the obscure and hidden yet disturbing aspects of your life? Imagine, also, what it must be like to write about every aspect of your life so accurately that there is no divorce between your experience and your ability to convey it. Only then, will you be truly honest with yourself and truly realised in your ability to feel and appreciate your surroundings in a way that is grounding. Dostoyevsky once wrote: “Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” Many times we read that and are tempted to think of lying by what we say, but what about lying by what we do not say because we cannot say? If we learn to write, we increase our ability to not lie by saying what is true and needs to be said, and as a consequence we overflow with life and love.
Perhaps this is a shallow view of the means to life’s many ends, and perhaps I have trivialized how hard it is to write in the manner I describe while overstating the potential benefits. I urge you, however, to consider that writing as presented here is for the sole benefit of the writer. One’s primary goal in pursuing writing for the purposes here presented cannot and should not be literary acclaim or contemporary praise. Seen as such, there is no triviality to this writing and the undertaker must seek a continuous refinement that eventually grounds them in their ability to lucidly express their understanding of themselves and the world that surrounds them.
As we go through life, it is equally important that we consider the means by which we hope to achieve the ends we already contemplate. Those means, as well as the ends with which they purport to align us, are subject to variation due to changes in our environment and the people we encounter. If we seek means that are timeless and inclusive, we can ground our lives for long periods of time, and we can live relatively stably in a world that is chaotic beyond the taming of any laws.