On the need to live life not just theorize about it
“If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?” Paul Kalanithi in When Breath Becomes Air.
He said this months into a terminal cancer diagnosis in his mid-thirties reflecting upon his decision to be a chef at a summer camp instead of an intern at a prestigious scientific research lab during his most promising academic years at Stanford.
He loved the Sierra Camp.
When studying moral philosophy and biology, he noted:
“...brief forays into the formal ethics of analytical philosophy felt dry as a bone, missing the messiness and weight of real human life…” and that “Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.”
Bertrand Russell, the controversial English philosopher says:
“To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say: 'Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a labourer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all your energies.' ...after some years of such an existence, the ex-intellectual will find that in spite of his efforts he can no longer refrain from writing…”
Examining life without living life truly is not examining life at all. It is merely theorizing about it.
This has been an important lesson for me. I have had to relearn it several times. I studied sociology in college. I like to look out the window and wonder about people. I dream of being a traveler and a writer. Indeed, I write about being a writer!
I think too much.
I think too much - not because my thinking is bad or unproductive, but perhaps because I have not lived enough.
Take this example from Insanely Simple about working with Steve Jobs, and the value of using concrete examples and experiences to break theoretical stalemates:
This is also a reminder of the utility of operating in the concrete, not the theoretical - at work, this breaks opinionated stalemates all time. Demos over decks.
Not living the life one talks so much about is indeed painfully hollow when we let ourselves grievously realize it, yet we must realize it to correct it as much as we must let ourselves feel the five crumpled piece of papers to change our minds.
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”
― Karl Marx, Eleven Theses on Feuerbach
For those like me who seek to live neat, linear, successful lives, free of failure, broken bones, desperation, unending uncertainty, dirty clothes, shame, humiliation, and so much more, this keeps us from living. It keeps up from staying up late to have that glass of wine around the fireplace that may disturb our sleep but may bond us with a new friend. It keeps up from going on a trip to Lake Tahoe with a bunch of people we’ve never met because it feels uncomfortable and we can theorize our way out of seeing its value. It keeps us from asking a stranger to dance for fear of seeming odd or being rejected. Sometimes a vision for life keeps us from living life itself.
Post-Script:
This quote from Jack London is another important voice in this examination: