The Meaning Of Life Is Written Calmly And Patiently

The meaning of life is not always experienced by being in love or through a passion … which as it comes, sometimes it goes away. It is through a calm heart and a calm interior from which the treasures that surround us are much better appreciated, as well as those sleeping strengths that we all have and that we have not yet managed to develop or even appreciate.

Something that many philosophers and also some other specialized psychologist, especially in logotherapy, comment is that it is very difficult to find our personal purposes in the middle of the culture that surrounds us. We receive so many stimuli from so many sources and at the same moment, that it is very difficult to filter all this intoxication in order to listen to our own voice, the rumor of our authentic being.

Adam Steltzner, the NASA scientist who designed Curiosity, and who successfully carried out the landing of this mobile vehicle on the soil of Mars, says that at no time in his childhood and early youth, did he think that he was going to dedicate his life to such a project. Actually, he was going to be a rock singer. He had his own group, he did concerts and he was not even interested in going to university like the rest of his classmates.

Now everything changed overnight. He would come home after a rehearsal, he would walk alone down the street and the sky could not be clearer. Silence and calm. It was then that he looked up and was hypnotized when he saw the stars; specifically, the constellation Orion. He stayed there for more than half an hour fascinated. There he was, someone used to sound, music and noise, suddenly finding the meaning of life in the midst of silence.

A few months later, he enrolled in college to be a physicist. His personal adventure had only just begun …

See, think and speak calmly: Nietzsche’s theory to find the meaning of life

Sometimes we have the clear sensation of being like a leaf carried by the course of a river. We hardly have time to delight in what surrounds us. We cannot allow the breeze of the wind to lift us for a few seconds to have a better perspective of what surrounds us, excites us or frightens us. Even of the irrelevant.

Our culture, our education and even society itself encourage those who take us prisoner, our own habits. Some of us have even become addicted to immediate rewards, fleeting pleasures … We want everything and at the same time we feel empty, we want to be unique and special, but at the same time we yearn for the traits or belongings that we see in the person we are. the one we look at.

It is difficult to find the meaning of life in the midst of this thoughtless and at the same time unsatisfactory dynamic. Thus, and as a curiosity, it is worth remembering what Friedrich Nietzsche told us about this problem: to find the goal of our existence we must be able to see, think and speak calmly. They are the three principles that the philosopher defined as that which establishes the aristocratic culture.

The aristocratic culture or the need to educate through calm and patience

In the “Twilight of the Idols”, Nietzsche explained that every educator should have one goal in his work: to lay the foundations of the so-called aristocratic culture. Now, far from relating this ideal or purpose to the higher classes, what the famous German philosopher sought was to train all the new generations in a more refined and demanding way of thinking.  Get each person to make their life a true work of art.

To do this, he recommended educators to focus their work on three very specific axes:

• Learn to see what surrounds us slowly, without anticipating. At least, don’t do it before looking.
• Learn to speak and write in the same way. If we accustom the eye to learn to look calmly, our hand and our communication must also proceed in the same way, calmly and meaningfully.
• The third pillar of education would be to prevent people from reacting on instinct. To do this, we must be able to think with balance and above all with judgment.

Thus, all those who integrate these capacities into their being, who manage to see, look and speak calmly and patiently, sooner or later will find the meaning of life, the one that defines them the most, the one that best fits their identity.

The meaning of life, a search that does not require wearing out the soles of our shoes

To find the meaning of life you don’t have to travel to Tibet. You don’t have to go around the world with a backpack on your back and hitchhiking. We will win in experiences, there is no doubt, but most likely we will not find the answers we need. As Hakuin, a 12th century Japanese poet, said, when you don’t know where the truth is , you make the mistake of looking for it as far as possible. When in fact, the secret to all your doubts is within yourself.

Therefore, we do not need to wear down the soles of our shoes to have a sense of life of our own. It is only about creating a mental space where to promote self-reflection. How to achieve it then? The following keys can help us.

• Slow down.
• Make a list of what is a priority in your life and what is not, what makes you feel good and what takes away your calm. Sanitize vital spaces.
• Spend more time, find spaces throughout the day where you can be calm and quiet.
• Recover your capacity for wonder. Be that person who can afford to look at the stars at night, appreciate the unusual nuances in the middle of the cities, the magic hidden in our daily lives.
• Become aware of those things that give you joy, that make you feel good and inspire curiosity, because that is where what gives you meaning, what defines you, hides …

To conclude, just point out that our vital purposes tend to change on various occasions throughout our existence. It is something normal and even desirable, because it responds to our own movement, to that human growth where as we are achieving and discovering things, we feed new aspirations, new goals.

At the end of the day, life is movement, and if we know how to listen to ourselves with the calm it deserves, we will always find the answers we need.