“The explosion of the human in being, the breakthrough of being about which I have spoken in the course of these interviews, the crisis of being, the otherwise than being, are indeed marked by the fact that what is most natural becomes the most problematic. Do I have the right to be? Is being in the world not taking the place of someone? The naive and natural perseverance in being is put into question! …I mean to say that a truly human life cannot remain satis-fied in its equality to being, a life of quietude, that it is awakened by the other, that is to say, it is always getting sobered up, that being is never—contrary to what so many reassuring traditions say—its own reason for being, that the famous conatus essendi is not the source of all right and all meaning.”
Emmanuel Levinas, “The Hardness of Philosophy and the Consolations of Religion”, Ethics and Infinity, pp. 120-121
What does it take for one to live a good life?
I think I remember writing an essay with a similar title some time ago, around when I was working on the first module of my Advanced Reflexive Metaphysics course. Do I even remember my answer back then? I wonder how much has changed. Maybe it has all remained the same. For right now, my answer to such a question is simple: nothing. Ah, that is, so it seems, easier said than thought of. I had no idea what the answer was actually, in words that is, before I started writing the question. I wrote the question precisely because I wanted to know the answer and it seemed like the easiest case.
The thesis is this: it takes nothing—concretely, tangibly, literally—for one to live a good life, for life is and always will be good. I quoted Levinas at the start although I do not think he would immediately agree with that sentiment, yet the intention of the thesis come from a similar sentiment as his thoughts in Ethics and Infinity: that life is not a struggle of existence, but something so much more. (Or maybe that this is an attempt to reconcile ethics and metaphysics.)
When one says that life is and always will be good, does that mean that one needs only to be aware of it/such goodness? Or perhaps that one ought to only be grateful regarding this goodness of life so that one might truly experience it?
It feels paradoxical in a way that is both confusing and sensible to say that one needs to be aware of something so that it can be made ‘concrete’ in one’s life. That is, as life is and always will be good, in order for one to live a good life, one only needs to be aware that it is good so that they are to live that goodness. However, does that mean that one still needs to do something for it to be a good life? That without awareness, it will not be good?
Maybe it will help to go back to the concept of awareness—is it possible for one to not be awareness? While it may happen that at times one is aware of various things, especially things that might contradict the truthfulness of one being aware, if one so believes (and one actually need not believe, for one only needs to feel and observe and remember), one can come to the truth that one is simply awareness. This writing, this action of pressing keys to put letters out on a screen, one is aware of this happening. One experiences it through one’s senses, processes it through one’s thoughts and feelings and in both of these aspects (as well as more), what is the source is simply one’s awareness of them. The one from which the senses are grounded on and that which comes up with and processes the thoughts are both awareness.
So then: is it correct to say that one need not do anything in order for one to live a good life? That not even to be aware of anything is necessary, at least not anything in particular, for one is always simply awareness. Can one not be aware?
That is a funny question too, to ask if one can ever be not aware. One is always awareness. However, this awareness does not always manifest itself in the form that is at the same time self-aware. Hence, one is aware—one experiences sensations and notices thoughts, however, one is not conscious of the source of this myriad of happenings. The source is one: awareness.
This is also to say that there is an awareness that is aware. One may experience something so strong and so moving and yet they are both wholly feeling the creation of the source and truly aware still of what the source is, that they are the source.
What is the point of all of these? These lines of questioning stem from something so simple: how can one come about changes to one’s life? How can one ask for something and get that which they ask for? Why ought one pray? What does it mean to ask and for that asking to be accomplished in receiving? What does on need to be with their wants and wishes and desires?
One may do many things and the results in the world would vary. One does one thing and another person seems to do the same thing and they get different outcomes—why is that the case? How can one ascertain that what they get is something that they want or something that is good for them or something that is within their control? What is within one’s control?
It seems like a future attempt sometimes to exist in this dimension—to interact with this world and things do not seem to go one way, when things seem to be so chaotic and so unpredictable, when there seems to be not even the slightest silver lining to things.
That is, until one comes back to awareness and realises that all of these are already. There is no outcome to wait for or to wish upon, for things happen but not really as everything has already been completed. Everything is there—from being to nothing. One then needs only to be aware of this abundance. What does this mean? Sometimes it is hard to change what one is aware of. I wonder why that is the case. Why is it that it is easier to complain about what is lacking, about what are supposed to be illusory things and not be grateful of the truth?
No, actually, it is not hard. Even that idea of ease and difficulty are not true. They are also illusory. Evaluations—what is the point of them if they are at the end arbitrary?
But is not everything in this world arbitrary anyway? How can we say then that something is real or that something ought to be manifested in this reality? In this dimension?
Yet, even without the answer to those questions, we can just go back to the simplest state of the matter: if the answer to both the good and the bad evaluations are the same, then why would one ever pick the ‘bad’ one? Why not just pick the good one if they are all the same anyway?