[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].]
Since Kirists know that the world is the world and that now is a complicated matter, they try to prepare themselves for the perplexing, disturbing reality of now. They ready themselves, smiling a small smile and exclaiming, “Okay, now! Disturb me, world! Confound me, life! Confuse me, mind! I get you!”
As a result of their clear thinking and their active preparations, Kirists come to understand the nature of sorrow. They know that sorrow is not the same as “depression.” They know that sorrow is the song of a world in mourning, a world mourning its injustices, its tragedies, its very nature.
There is also something about love wrapped up with sorrow, and also something about compassion. Sorrow is part sadness but “sadness” does not capture the special quality of sorrow. Sorrow is something like the embrace of a long-lost comrade.
We celebrate our comrade’s return while mourning all those lost years. Love and sadness, happiness and grief are all mixed together. Maybe sorrow is a teaching feeling. Why would nature do that? Maybe so that we live with our eyes wide open.
The pain of sorrow, which we do not crave and which we do not want, is maybe like the pain that tells us that our hand is too near the fire. Maybe it is crucial for our wellbeing. We do not love such reminders but maybe we need that reminding.
Holding our child’s hand, feeling the pain of it as well as the joy of it, we are reminded of what we have and what we will lose. That experience of sorrow resets our compass and, as a result, we decide to bake cookies with them or go out for ice cream with them rather than go back to our daily grind.
Had we not felt that sorrow, we might have been inclined to do the laundry or clean up the living room. But because we got that whiff of mortality, we decided that baking cookies was our way to love and to live wisely. It was the next right thing to do. Sorrow invited in love and we decided to love.
Sorrow is such a complicated feeling, because a large part of what we’re experiencing is our love of life. We feel sorrow because we can love, because we have loved, and because we still can love. Maybe sorrow only comes to someone who still loves life? Kirists think about that.
But of course, that doesn’t mean that we invite it. Sorrow may be a great reminder that we love life but it is also an anchor capable of dragging us into the depths of despair. It does not feel good and we do not want it. To our not wanting it, nature says, “Ha!” and readies its piercing arrows anyway.
You read your guidebooks in anticipation of your six-month sojourn in Paris, where you’ll be strolling the streets and writing in cafés. You grow giddy with anticipation. You arrive. You walk down some charming street. And suddenly you feel sorrowful.
You couldn’t be happier. But you also couldn’t feel lonelier. Something is tugging at your heart and angling you toward despair. You anticipated a beautiful experience and it is indeed a beautiful experience. But inexplicably it’s also a mournful one.
What are you feeling as you walk down that Parisian street? Is it something about the nature of beauty, about how beauty can mesmerize us and seduce us? The street is everything that it ought to be but are we somehow being fooled by its beauty?
Might it be something about the Jews rounded up from this very street and deported to their deaths? Is it something about humanity’s horrors, about collaborators, about neighbors betraying neighbors, about unbearable malice and enmity?
Is it something about the philosophers who lived hereabouts who were sometimes such eloquent thinkers and often so weak as people? Is it something about the vast distance between people as they are and people as we wish they would be?
Is it that you’ve been reminded that you can’t bottle this, that you can’t keep this, that this is just a passing moment and that you must find a job when you return home and that probably it will be an awful one? Has “now” already become “tomorrow”?
Or maybe it is partly regret. Nature provides regrets. We walk down that Parisian street, feeling the psychological experience of meaning, and at the same time we hear ourselves say, “You idiot, you could have had this twenty years ago!”
“Now” is always ripe for regrets. We feel proud that we are loving our child so well. An instant later, we hear ourselves say, “Why didn’t I stand up for my little sister against that bullying father of ours?” Regrets are right there, all around us, waiting.
The world creates sorrow. Circumstances create sorrow. The human experience creates sorrow. And human societies and cultures create sorrow. A philosophy of life must concern itself with human society, since everyone lives in its confines.
There is the world of plagues, typhoons and earthquakes: the natural world. Then there are the man-made worlds of society and culture. Those man-made worlds can be as venomous as a snake, as restrictive as a prison cell, as relentless as a tsunami.
Societies are authoritarian by nature and by habit. Kirists are anti-authoritarian by nature and by habit. Even if they have made the decision to fit in, Kirists are likely to find themselves in a tense, adversarial relationship with their own society.
This produces all sorts of difficulties and its own full measure of sorrow. It makes us sad that society is what it is and not a more welcoming place. It aggrieves us that we can’t just love it and embrace it and that it can’t just love us and embrace us back.
A Kirist has three basic choices: to blend in, to remain aloof, or to stand up. If she decides to blend in, her acquiescence makes her sad. If she decides on aloofness, her alienation makes her sad. If she decides to stand up, society’s retribution makes her sad. A Kirist understands the absurd irony of this.
She would love to stand up. But she knows that, if she does, she will likely be punished. She may be fired, sued, tormented, hunted. The history of the species tells a single tale: dispute society and pay the consequences. Kirists understand clearly why sorrow isn’t a mental disorder. It is exactly the pain you would expect, given life’s realities.
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
