We are not on earth just to survive, but to flourish
Living a good life in the face of adversity
KEY POINTS
· Human beings choose to live wealthy, enjoyable lives.
· Yet we often face crises that affect our ability to flourish.
· Art and literature can train our way to live properly whilst suffering.
One forgets: The distress that isn’t mine nowadays is mine the following day. But perhaps — the pleasure as well?” — Jean-Luc Beauchard, City of Man
“There could be no happiness,” writes Nietzsche, “no cheerfulness, no desire, no pride, no gift without forgetfulness.” To move ahead, to no longer live for all time trapped inside the grips of beyond traumas or maybe just each day indignities to which every human being is subjected, we must be able to put what has taken place behind us and forget the strife we’ve been forced to bear. Who should power with the reminiscence of an existence-threatening accident at the leading edge of his thoughts? Who ought to discover love once more even as ruminating on a painful divorce?
Forgetfulness is crucial. But so too is memory—the refusal to neglect what has been and the way it maintains to tell what’s. When we consider this, we restrain our choice of distraction and hold fast to the experiences we deem meaningful, whether the significance of these studies has had a tremendous or negative effect on our lives.
Doing so facilitates us to conform and develop, to study from our mistakes, and to undertake goals for the future. Remembering reports of loss and aches can assist us to be grateful whilst lifestyles go well and to remain humble in our achievements. Remembering the times we’ve been hurt teaches us what to avoid and who no longer to agree with.
Both the potential to bear in mind and the want to forget, Nietzsche ultimately concludes, contribute to an existence well lived. We open this piece on what it method to flourish and the way to achieve this in the face of problems with a few reflections on memory and forgetting because we’d want to invite you to keep in mind a time in the recent past, one when lots of us have observed it vital to distance ourselves from and perhaps even to forget about.
Walking via crowded stores, eating in bustling eating places, attending concert events and sporting events, graduations and vacation parties no longer incite the sort of surreal emotions a lot of us skilled upon returning to “regular” existence in the wake of the worldwide pandemic. There was a time, when such sports were unthinkable, while no person knew how the virus unfolded or who turned into most at the chance, while families were averted from seeing one another, and our mosques and our churches and synagogues were all boarded up. Try, in case you’re willing, to bear in mind the early days, the uncertainty, the anxiety, the dread.
Which is an economic flourishing society for all?
Islam is a rules-based system that includes rules for governance, accountability, and transparency; property ownership and protection; the formation and the structure of the market; the role of the state vis-à-vis the market; behavior by market participants; distribution and redistribution of economic output; education, technological progress, and society’s infrastructure; sources of government income and its expenditures. The central axis of the design and operation of these rules is justice. The Prophet especially emphasized the equality of individuals before the law. In the absence of justice, societies invariably end up in conflict and self-destruct. How do these rules translate into policies, practices, and institutions?
Almighty Allah has created sufficient resources to meet the needs of all humans as long as humans share. The Prophet emphasized that it is always the rich, the powerful, and the opulent who are exploiters of other humans, who, to amass wealth, are the source of persecution and suffering. In practical terms, the Quran is clear that this means that humans must create a balanced society that avoids extremes of wealth and poverty.
Islam ordains that what is left after one has reached a modest living standard must be returned to the less able members of society to allow them to redeem their rights. Therefore, while Islam praises hard work, the development of the earth and natural resources provided by the Creator, and the use of proceeds for the satisfaction of the needs of all humans, it prohibits the concentration of output in the hands of a few. It is the adverse institutional structure of society that allows a pattern of wealth accumulation, creating abundance for some and scarcity for many. This is what creates social divisions.
How are humans to know where the right (just) place is for everything?
The answer is: to follow the rules prescribed by the Creator. The Quran’s theory of justice is that societies do not need a separate theory of justice, and compliance with rules of behavior handed down in the Quran and interpreted by the Prophet assures the emergence of justice as a natural outcome of the practice of a rule-compliant society. Justice and a just political, social, and economic system is thus an essential outcome of the Islamic system if Muslims comply with Divine rules. Simply said, a society will be just in Islam if the rulers and the people are rule-compliant.
Now ask yourself: What did it suggest to flourish at a time like that? What did our concept of good lifestyles look like while the one’s activities deemed “nonessential” got here to prevent?
Flourishing, it can seem, is not possible in the midst of intense suffering. Flourishing is regularly portrayed as being synonymous with happiness and success. How is one alleged to prosper whilst survival has ended up in society’s dominant value and all our traditional markers of awesome lifestyles have come to an abrupt halt?
Harvard University’s Human Flourishing Program lists five imperative domains for evaluating human flourishing:
- Happiness and life satisfaction
- Physical and intellectual health,
- Meaning & purpose,
- Character and virtue,
- Close social relationships.
There is no doubt that these are fundamental elements of an existence properly lived. In the early months of 2020, every one of those aspects of flourishing turned into upended. Depression, anxiety, and discontent had been rampant. We were discouraged from leaving our homes and instructed to place our physical and mental well-being on pause. Our lives had been adrift, with no clear direction forward and no certainty about destiny. We had been reduced from our groups and our ability to specify our various skills and virtues had been seriously inhibited.
Amid such peril, hope without problems gives manner to despair, and the notion that one can stay a wealthy, gratifying life wanes. What is one to do?
For Aristotle, it’s miles at simply such moments of moral and existential opacity that one wishes for exemplars who can version the way to live — and perhaps even flourish — through crises. At a nice of instances, these position models may be observed in our households, workplaces, churches, and nearby groups. At instances of social distancing and profound isolation, we should be trying to find them in records, literature, and works of art. There we often meet those who underwent trials that resonate with our own — those who bore the slings of fortune with perseverance and beauty.
It is not any coincidence that Albert Camus’s 1947 novel The Plague became a global bestseller in the summer of 2020; his protagonist Dr. Rieux exemplifies the braveness, know-how, and love it takes to take care of the ill and demise and to achieve this even as keeping one’s humanity intact. Nor have to it wonder us that works of fiction can feature in this manner, that literature and artwork play a crucial role in the cultivation of an excellent life.
How do we not forget the best when trapped in an attempting gift? How do we forget about the prevailing and free ourselves from a fact that threatens to weigh down us?
In the latest letter on the literary imagination and nonsecular formation, Pope Francis reflects on “the cost of analyzing novels and poems as a part of one’s course to private adulthood.” Emphasizing literature’s capacity to “open up new indoor areas,” Francis insists that analyzing “facilitates us to avoid becoming trapped by using some obsessive thoughts that could stand inside the manner of our private growth.”
It does so by reminding us that existence, as we enjoy it these days, isn’t always the totality of life, that instances alternate, and that the ones who’ve cultivated resilient characters can — and frequently do — stay significant lives even within the maximum harrowing of conditions.
More than that, it lets us transcend ourselves, lose ourselves in an amazing ebook, and discover therein lessons on the artwork of residing from the ones who have notion deeply about what it manner to stay nicely. As C.S. Lewis notes, “In analyzing exquisite literature I come to be 1000 guys and yet remain myself. . . . Here, as in worship, in love, in ethical action, and understanding, I go beyond myself, and am in no way greater myself than after I do.”
To become extra oneself — is that not the essence of what it means to maintain a great lifestyle? Is it no longer the very form of flourishing to which each of us is known, no matter what goes on within the globe around us?
