[Kirism is the contemporary philosophy of life that I’ve been developing over the last several decades. It is psychological, philosophical, and existential and takes into account human nature, the human predicament, our contemporary understanding of the world, and our pressing individual and species-wide challenges. I hope that you’re enjoying learning more about it in this series of posts. To learn more about Kirism, please take a look at Lighting the Way, in which Kirism is introduced. To be in touch with me about Kirism, please drop me an email to [email protected].]
Can it be that every human being comes into the world with exactly the same amount of animation, energy, and life force, creating the exact same consciousness? Or are some human beings fundamentally more electric and energetic?
We have no way of quantifying human energy or speaking sensibly about human energy. But it stands to reason that each of us must possess our unique amount: sixty horsepower, a hundred horsepower, two hundred horsepower, who knows what?
What might that range be? And what qualitative differences might arise from differences in energy and life force? Might a person with too little life force reach too simple conclusions? Might a person with a grand life force overflow with ambition?
Most of these questions we must set aside as imponderables, as just too speculative to consider. But some we must come to grips with, as they are fundamental to our understanding of who we are, how we operate, and how we might choose to be.
For a philosophy of life to do its job, it must deal with the idea of life energy and the reality of life energy. What sort of thing is it? How can we increase it? How can we tame it? How can we store it? How can we live with too much of it or too little of it?
For instance, is there a sense in which we can make full use of our genetic animation, whatever its amount, and live a more animated life rather than a less animated life? And, on balance, given the challenges we can predict from energetic living, would that even be a good thing?
Would it be a good thing to maximize the use of our life force? Let’s say that a given car could travel at two hundred miles an hour. Would it be a good thing for it to be driven that fast for an extended period of time? Or would that destroy it?
It would matter whether it was built to travel at that speed for only short periods of time, maybe straining even then and maybe threatening to do itself considerable damage, or whether it was built to race along at top speed for extended periods of time.
It would also matter how important it was for you to make use of that car’s top speed. If you were hurrying to the hospital with an injured child, that would be one thing. But what if it were only for joyriding or because you had an impulse to go fast?
These are our questions. Kirists do not dodge them, even if they can’t answer them. It is our job to speculate about them, ponder them, and think about them. See that young Kirist under that apple tree? Maybe an apple is about to fall!
Consider intensity. Intensity is a high energy state where our energy is maybe all potentiality or where it is maybe doled out very carefully, in the service of an intention. That tremendous energy is gathered somewhere in our being and then, at some point, explosively expended. Think of an opera singer about to sing her big aria!
A race car driver is at the starting line. All that energy is gathered and marshaled. The starting gun is fired. Off! He was intense to begin with but he kept all that energy in check. He is intense now and expending that energy. Think about that sequence. Intensity, then expenditure. What are the logical consequences of that sequence?
You intend to live your life purposes. Not only that, you intend to live them intensely. Feel that intensity, that energy. Where is it coming from? From your brain? Your heart? Your intentions? Your desire? Whatever its source, you are generating it.
A tennis player is about to serve. All of her energy is gathered and marshaled. But she tosses the ball into the air very carefully, even gently. That toss isn’t where she uses all that stored energy. If she did, she would throw it a mile high!
Even with all that marshaled energy and high intensity, that tennis player can still do a careful, controlled, calm thing. That is quite a feat, when you think about it. All that energy pulsing through your body and still you can toss a ball in the air calmly.
Someone with the passion and intensity of a Winston Churchill could still sit quietly and paint. It is no contradiction or paradox that a creature with a ton of energy may also be the stillest of creatures. Picture a tiger crouching. Soon she will be all energy!
Now the tiger is perfect stillness. She is still because she has her reasons for stillness. It isn’t an abstract matter for her, about “balancing energy with stillness.” She is still so that the antelope doesn’t see or hear her. She is still so that she can have some dinner.
We, too, even if we have kilowatts of energy, must know how to be still and stay still, not as an abstract matter, not for the sake of something called balance, but because we can’t write our novel or save the world if we are bouncing off walls.
Kirists muse on this. Imagine feeling a ton of energy in your being but your job is to sit still and write your novel or compose your symphony. It can be done: control and calmness are possible. But isn’t all that pulsating energy a real challenge?
Seriously, isn’t it?
Can you feel how that pulsating energy almost cries out for a distraction, almost demands that you jump up and expend some of that energy? How can you write your novel if you are on the verge of an explosion and hardly able to sit still?
And what if you are downright afraid of that intensity? What if you’re rattled by your own energy? How can you live as a passionate person if that buzzing unnerves you? How can you fight for a cause if you are at war with your own energy?
Say that you grew up with a tyrant for a parent. Internally, you raged against him. The energy of hatred filled your body. Now, whenever energy starts to flow in you, it conjures that hatred and that tyranny. Aren’t you bound to fear your own energy?
It turns out that it is completely possible to stand in unfortunate relationship to one’s own energy. What then? In that case, you would want to inaugurate a daily practice to help you tolerate that energy, to help you carefully expend that energy, to help you marshal and employ that energy. That would amount to energy wisdom at work!
To learn more about Kirism, please take a look at Lighting the Way, in which Kirism is introduced.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
