[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].]
If you love fairness, justice, freedom and goodness, you will never fit comfortably into society. Your boss treats everyone cruelly. Will you just smile? Will you smile and smile and keep on smiling? Or will you sorrowfully but adamantly resist?
And so, we arrive at the sorrow of the freedom fighter. A Kirist knows that her ethical sense will pit her against her culture and her society. She understands the absurdity of fighting such an unequal fight but she also knows exactly why she is fighting.
She may be able to find allies. She may be able to find cultural companions, like-minded warriors, other lone Kirists. But, still, every morning she will wake to her world—to a storm, to a culture clash, to a seduction—and she will wake up to that all alone.
She will wake up as a freedom fighter wakes up in occupied territory, committed, anxious, and sorrowful, with bravery forced upon her. She will sit up, take a deep breath, and swing out of bed, planting her feet on her rug and into the world.
Kirists understand the world, understand resistance and understand the sorrow of the freedom fighter. They do not call this sorrow “depression” or act like their challenge is biological and the answer is chemical. They know better than that.
We could draw a picture of a beautiful world and we strive to make this recalcitrant world that beautiful one. We aim to increase its goodness, its fairness, its wisdom. We march in that direction, maybe with some comrades. That’s the Kirist agenda.
We have intimations of paradise, glimpses of heaven-on-earth. Paradise is a healthy baby born into a happy family. Heaven-on-earth is freedom, friendship, a soft cheese and a crusty roll. We could easily draw that picture, if only the world would let us.
But instead, the world gives us genetic abnormalities, angry parents, and political tyrannies. It gives us pandemics and mindless cruelties. It gives us this group pitted against that group. Sorrow comes and we cry dry-eyed.
The world gives us despondency. Yes, we can also have joys and pleasures. We can rise up, feel proud, sing songs. We can pass some time in trance, consuming culture’s relaxations. But there the world is again, deflating us, demeaning us, constraining us.
Imagine a fifteen-year-old struggling with his world. His world is home, high school, the Internet, mass culture, texts, constant news, plus all the cataclysmic events that affect him: a rash of suicides, a rash of school shootings, a rash of expectations.
He is sorrowful. Call it despondent. Call it melancholic. Call it down. What he is not is “depressed,” if by that we mean that he is having a problem with his hormones, his genes, or his neurotransmitters. The world has made him despondent.
What should we invite him to do? How can we help him? We can take him fishing for the weekend or enlist him in a project to get his mind off the world. But most crucially we can invite him to become a philosopher, to learn and absorb Kirism.
We can paint him a picture of how to live in this exact world, with its precise difficulties. We can help him understand why it is his obligation to stand up, to absurdly rebel against the facts of existence, to identify and then to live his life purpose choices.
He is just fifteen, after all. He will have a lot on his mind. Much of it will feel obsessive: pimples, video games, the girl who isn’t giving him the time of day, the car he wants, the band he’d love to start, the way his grades aren’t what they should be.
He keeps his headphones on to drown out his parents’ fights. In his peripheral vision, he sees that the polar icecaps have melted further. Then there is the teacher who has it in for him. And the pimples! And so much Spanish vocabulary homework!
Into this obsessive, claustrophobic, melancholy world we drop hints about his obligations, his choices, and his path as a Kirist. Maybe Kirism will ring a bell with him or maybe it won’t. Either way, we pry him from his video games and invite him to think.
We invite him to think about the world. It is not an invitation he is usually offered. What he is usually offered are trailers for the blockbuster films coming at Christmas. We offer him something very different: a philosophy of life to chew on.
Cataclysmic events are inevitable. Sorrow is inevitable. That doesn’t make life a strictly dark affair. But it does make it an enterprise crisscrossed by shadows. On some days those shadows will make for darkness. On other days, they will highlight the light.
You have a body, for better or worse. You have a personality, for better or worse. You have a mind, for better or worse. And you have a world, for better or worse. You are lashed to it as if you were lashed to the mast of a schooner. And that hurts.
As Kirists think about life and as they plot their course, they factor in the reality of the world. They do not call it hell and they do not fantasize about it being heaven. They know that it has sharp edges and sweet moments; and that it comes with sorrow.
During a sweet dream, we escape the world. How lovely a respite! There are the scents of flowers and the smiles of children. Wars end and waves of peace commence. But then we waken and the obdurate world returns, as it always does.
The world is and we are in it. Those facts don’t guarantee only sorrow: but they guarantee a measure of it.
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
