by writerdd

Hi All! I've been away doing knitterly things lately. When I started posting on this blog, my goal was to periodically write about "spirituality without religion" and I still want to continue with that topic. I just have a crazy life and sometimes my paying jobs get in the way of my blogging gigs! For now, I would just like to point your attention to an interesting post on this topic by one of my favorite bloggers, Hemant Mehta, on The Friendly Atheist.

The post is about people changing their religious affiliation, but what caught my attention is that a very large number of people leave their church and religion because it is not filling their spiritual needs. This topic, apparently, caught the attention of other readers as well, and is being discussed in the comments. As atheists, I think we need to think and talk about this more than we do, and in a way that does not belittle those among us who are drawn to spirituality.



I notice that on many atheist blogs, readers who mention that they are spiritual or that they are interested in spirituality are criticized or ridiculed by the majority of people in the comments. (That happens less on this blog than on others, from my observations.) We need to stop doing this. It’s true that some, maybe most, atheists do not feel any need for the “spiritual” or hate the use of that word because of its religious baggage. But there are many, probably most, people in general who feel that spirituality is very important.

To use popular authors as examples, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, and Eric Maisel have written about this and fit into the latter category. Dawkins fits into the first category, and does not seem to understand the need for spirituality at all.

This is a topic I think about, and have written about, a lot. I hope that more people begin to discuss this topic in a way that does not ridicule those who have the desire for spirituality without religion and without gods. I especially look forward to more from Harris on this topic. I found the last chapter of The End of Faith, "Experiments in Consciousness," to be one of the most interesting, but just a teaser.
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15 Responses to Believer Complaints

I was working this morning on adding my responses to “15 typical believer charges against atheists” to my powerpoint presentation in support of my book The Atheist’s Way. I just finished my responses and thought I would share them with you. I’m delivering the presentation to the monthly meeting of San Francisco Atheists tomorrow and East Bay Atheists next month. Cheers!

Here they are:

1. Atheists rob our children of Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the Tooth Fairy

I think that the most straightforward and powerful retort to this complaint is, “Exactly.” It is much better that a child get excited about her parent slipping a quarter under her pillow than that she believe, or have to act like she believes, in the existence of a fiction. You do not have to steal away excitement by telling the truth: be excited that you have kind parents who will buy you the bicycle that you want and leave Santa Claus out of it.

2. Atheists claim to have the truth and no one has the truth (except us).

Actually, atheists claim three things in this regard: we claim that you are patently lying when you invent some god or other; we claim that no one has the truth, if by “truth” you mean an understanding of why the universe exists; and we claim that the application of reason gets us to everyday truths better than does wishful thinking. The shorter answer is, “We have a much better grip on the truth than you do.”

3. Atheists are arrogant to assert that there are no gods.

There are two different sorts of responses to this charge. The first is, “Fine, I accept the charge, if you accept that it is incredibly arrogant of you to assert the existence of a god.” The second is, “No, reason is on my side and all you have is wishful thinking.” But it is really the form of this charge that interests us: all sorts of words can be substituted for “arrogant” in an “ad hominem” sentence with this linguistic form: words like “silly,” “short-sighted,” “deluded,” “mean-spirited,” and so on. So a blanket reply might be, “You sure do know how to use language!” and leave it at that. Or maybe just, “Same back at you!”

4. Atheists are merely negative—they provide nothing positive.

We affirm that human life is as meaningful as we make it. We affirm that a ripe peach is sweet, that love exists, and that a good movie is hard to beat. We affirm tons of things, individually and collectively. And, yes, we do take believers to task for making up gods and using god-talk to perpetrate tyrannies, but we have lots of positive things to say. We only wonder if you care to listen.

5. Since billions of people disagree with atheists, atheists can’t be right.

The idea of responding with a “flat earth” argument springs to mind: at one time virtually everybody believed that the earth was flat, except for a few enlightened folks who knew better. So what a majority believes can’t be the measure of truth. But of course comparing believers to flat-earthers drives the wedge between us deeper. Probably the more useful response is, “If billions of people were atheists, would you still believe?” I think this response is nicely provocative and also paints a picture of a world where atheists are the majority, which is not a bad picture to promote!

6. What’s the harm in believing in karma, past lives, or some gentle, loving spirit at play in the universe?

The harm is that maintaining any supernatural enthusiasm weakens your ability to speak out against god-talk. You become a fellow traveler and an implicit supporter of other people’s supernatural enthusiasms. Your “innocent” fantasy ends up supporting much more dangerous fantasies.

7. Religions provide a moral framework—without religion every evil would be permitted.

Probably the simplest response is to point to contemporary research that convincingly demonstrates that the most religious nations are also the most violent, rabid, and dangerous. Another simple response is to note how content and crime-free the least religious nations are, nations described, for instance, in Phil Zuckerman’s Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Teach Us About Contentment.

8. Religions provide comfort—without that comfort life would prove just too hard.

This is a compelling complaint and not unlike the argument one might make for morphine. Doesn’t religious comfort have its place, as morphine has its place? Karl Marx famously said that “religious is the opium of the masses” and don’t people with hard lives deserve opium? The only answer is that a dangerous lie can’t also be supported as a legitimate comfort. If the truth provides less comfort, so be it. The choice is between fighting dangerous god-talk and embracing a comforting lie and we know which choice we hope that people are brave enough to make.

9. The wisdom traditions share so many values that they must arise from a common source.

They do arise from a common source—from the minds of men and women. Each tradition is different from the next because John concocted this one and Harry concocted that one, and each tradition is similar to the next because everyone knows what to value. Naturally the wisdom traditions appear to come from a common source: they do, from one single species.

10. Atheists rely too heavily on the methods and findings of science.

“Too” is the essence of the charge, since the whole world relies heavily on science—do believers not watch television, fly in airplanes, or check their email? So the simple reply is, “Dear believer, please define ‘too.’” Or an atheist can just smile and say, “Yes, I rely heavily on science. Don’t you?” Or we can play their game and respond in all seriousness and in all innocence, “Maybe we do over-rely on science, but surely you believers do not rely on science enough!”

11. On balance, religions do more good than harm.

At root this is an argument that people would not support orphanages, avoid adultery, or cross only on the green light unless they believed in a punishing god. Believers indict themselves and show how weak they fear themselves to be when they say that they would not be good without religion to “guide them.” Their fear is not a reason to countenance religion. Let them be brave and good of their own accord, just as we ask of ourselves and everyone else.

12. Aren’t prophets like Jesus, Mohammed, and the Buddha worth emulating?

All people are just people. They are brave here and fearful there, compassionate here and selfish there. When we say that someone is worth emulating what we actually mean is that we respect certain aspects of the person: her courage, her creative spark, her work ethic, something in particular. The less we engage in the cults of personality and celebrity and the more we announce which personal qualities we revere, the better. There are no prophets—there are just very human human beings.

13. The existence of gods can never be disproved.

Fine. We’d be happy not to bother. You stop creating gods and we’ll stop wasting our precious time helping you see that they are just your inventions.

14. In the absence of certainty, it makes more sense to err on the side of belief than unbelief.

Pascal’s wager boils down to the following: in case there is a god, better stay on his good side! An atheist simply says that he believes the opposite, that in the absence of certainty he will follow reason. The believer can cower, just in case there is a god, and while the believer is cowering the atheist will continue doing his everyday duty, without worrying in the slightest that he has made some miscalculation that will cost him dearly after he is dead.

15. Atheism is just another religion.

Yes, but the right one. And if you can’t that joke, then at least admit that a religion without gods is a pretty mild affair and leaves atheists pretty much to their own devices, having to decide everything for themselves. If you accept that as a reasonable definition of religion—everyone figuring out things for themselves—then we can accept that atheism is a religion. But as linguistic philosophers like to remind us, you can call a horse’s tail a leg but that doesn’t mean that a horse has five legs. You can call atheism a religion, if you like, but you would be doing quite a bit of definitional stretching. Read more!

Life and Death on Easter

It’s Easter; I have memories of getting up early year after year as a child to go to Easter Sunrise Service. We gathered somewhere outdoors, simulating the women and disciples who went to Jesus’ tomb in the early morning on the day of his resurrection. We sang certain hymns that were only for Easter – “Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Ha-a-a-a-He -lelujah,” “He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and talks with me, along life’s narrow way!” I liked it – the brisk early morning, the feeling of life and hope, the joy of the music. Unlike a lot of other church experiences, it was a day of celebration. And what a profound message – death has been conquered! Just put your faith in Christ.

And now? It’s been many years and I’m no longer a Christian. I do not believe I will continue after I die. In my work as a psychologist, I work with people coming out of religion. There are many issues to deal with, and top of the list for many is this question of death and hellfire. The indoctrination is deep and insidious, a form of child abuse in my opinion. Even without hell, the idea of nonexistence (if that is the direction of change in belief), is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow. Fundamentalist Christianity downgrades a human lifetime compared to eternity and denigrates the whole world as fallen. How many times were we told to focus on where we will be in the hereafter? The result is fear, because no one is certain, and also neglect of the life that we have now.

For those of you who are anxious today and struggle with the idea of death, I can tell you that it is possible to stop fearing damnation. I certainly have and many other former believers have too. It is a phobia indoctrination that serves the religion. If you think you should believe “just in case,” think about what you would be missing. Essentially, your life. The greatest challenge for a human is to know about death, and live fully in the face of it. Other animals can more easily “be here now,” and we can learn from them. However, we have more awareness and it is our existential dilemma to make peace with death.

In a way, we do continue on. Our molecules get rearranged and become other things; nothing is lost, not one atom. All matter and energy in the universe is conserved, according to what we know from physics. I find it beautiful to walk in a forest and see a fallen tree where it is decomposing, nourishing the earth, and causing new life to spring up. And if you worry about your soul, ask yourself, “Where were ‘you’ before you were born?” Is that so frightening?

No, we are better off paying attention to the present. This life is limited but so are a lot of things. The Christian attitude of denigrating life because it is short makes no sense. Is a wonderful meal any less wonderful because it ends? When you are listening to incredible music, are you upset because you know the piece will finish? Hopefully not, and we can extend that lesson to life itself. People who have a brush with death often learn to appreciate life in a special way. Our time on this earth is precious. Perhaps when we cherish our days, honor what is possible, love our fellow humans as best we can, and look at the world with awe and wonder, we can achieve a spirituality of a different kind. Of our own free will, we can commit acts of random kindness and dance for no reason at all. Death be damned.

For the recovering fundamentalist, reclaiming intuition and learning to trust one’s inner wisdom is an exciting process. We are not empty, weak, incapable, or bad. We are all interconnected and a part of our amazing universe. Even Einstein said thinking we are individuals is an illusion.
One day, when I was a little discouraged, I wrote to myself from the wise part of me (yes, we are all multiples), and then wondered about that voice. This is what emerged, and it applies to all of us, so I hope you find a bit of inspiration too. I asked where the encouragement was coming from:

“This is from the force that makes the new shoot grow between concrete slabs. This is from the symmetry of fractals. This is from the incomprehensible distance of space, this is from the sound waves that blend and beat and tell you to dance, this is from the little child that looks at you clearly with no fear and says hi, this is from the unadulterated force of the sea under you and all around you when you swim in the ocean, the sea that takes no prisoners when the tide comes in, the sea that spawned life, and the same sea that sends a wave spreading up the sand to your bare feet, with rhythmic purring caress, bringing you the gems that make you smile - the perfect tiny shell, the fragment of blue glass that you tuck in your pocket.

“This is from the cosmic red afterglow of the big bang. This is from all eleven dimensions, from all the things you don't understand and like that you don't understand. This is from the parallel universes that come with the eleven dimensions, penetrating the membrane. This is from the aquifer beneath all of you, the source feeding flashes of human greatness. This is from the massive network of fungus, hidden from view under seemingly separate plants. This is from the power behind the form, the elusive explanation, the delectable mystery. I only have one thing to say to you right now - and that is REMEMBER ME. You are not alone. You always have a reason to go on. and there is no choice; you will go on anyway. Ineffable and inexorable, both. The tide is coming in again today; the ocean has not been deciding.”

Happy Spring.

Marlene Winell

marlenewinell.net
mwinell@gmail.com
Recovery retreats May 1-3, June 5-7, 13-15
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Television Interview on The Atheist's Way

Hello, everybody:

Welcome to the first edition of my Saturday Atheism Newsletter. Over the coming weeks and months I want to chat about atheist topics that interest me and pick your brains about what interests you.

Today I want to start quietly by inviting you to view a short television interview I did last week with an NBC interviewer about my new book The Atheist’s Way. I hope you enjoy it. If you have any thoughts or comments drop me an email at ericmaisel@hotmail.com. Here is the interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xiNGZfN5OM

Please feel free to share this video with folks you think it might interest and also alert them to this newsletter. Next week I’ll begin in earnest!

Have an excellent Saturday.

Best,

Eric Read more!

MAKING MEANING INVESTMENTS

Hello, everyone:
A few updates and then on to the main affair.
Don’t miss the Your Creative Career Telesummit on March 21st. Attend from the comfort of your home and jumpstart your career in the arts:
http://www.telesummits.com/
Become one of the world’s first meaning coaches (or come aboard to learn how to answer your own meaning questions) by taking the June Meaning Coach Training:
http://www.theatheistsway.com/meaning_coach.html
Now, on to the main affair:
**
There is a world of difference between actively investing meaning in something and believing that something “should” be meaningful, maybe by virtue of the fact that a word like serious or worthy or useful or spiritual attaches to that something. Maybe you believe that service “should” feel meaningful—but in fact you would like to do a lot less volunteering and a lot more creating. Maybe, conversely, you believe that “nothing is more meaningful than individual effort”—and yet where you really want to invest meaning is in community, collaboration, and fellow feeling. The following email that I received recently does a beautiful job of exploring this idea, about investing meaning without “shoulds” attached (which, by the way, is a very different idea from making unprincipled meaning investments).
Barbara (bkairos@yahoo.com) wrote:
“Hi Eric,
The idea that we are responsible for making meaning in our lives speaks deeply to me. I appreciate your amplification of these ideas. I think that the concept that we search for or find meaning has stood in the way of my creative work. The ideas of making meaning, investing meaning, divesting meaning, meaning crisis, meaning drain, etc. make total sense.
As I look back at the periods in my life when I have been assailed by depression, each moment entailed a meaning crisis. I had invested meaning in a given relationship or activity which ceased to have meaning. I had the mistaken notion that the investment of meaning was permanent, so when the meaning drained away, I was left in despair and blamed myself for it. I now realize that just as I choose to invest meaning, I can also choose to divest meaning instead of feeling that somehow I failed. How freeing that is!

I had thought that I was supposed to write a certain nonfiction book because it was “worthy.” I thought that it “should be” meaningful but it actually wasn’t, which drained energy from my ability to write anything. So I have divested meaning from that project (wish I had done that two years ago!) and am continuing with my mystery writing, where the juice actually is. Writing fiction is much more energizing and freeing for me than the nonfiction project. My mind circles around possibilities—settings, characters, plot—and I can feel my energy increasing.
It is only when I encounter serious difficulties with the fiction (mini-meaning crises) that thoughts of the nonfiction project pop into my head: that that is “worthy” and that mystery writing “isn’t important” and “isn’t serious.” At such times I have to get a grip on mind and remember who is in charge of the meaning in my life!
As for the nonfiction, I intend to read authors who have a developed voice in nonfiction, with the thought of writing nonfiction in the future, but in a different way from the past. There may be pieces of my former project that can be plucked out and explored differently, but I believe that the project as it currently stands speaks to a moment in my past and anchors me there, which ultimately proves meaningless. And the seed of an idea for a literary novel is still that—just a seed. It needs time to develop further before I begin that project. So for now, I am investing meaning in my mystery series—and that feels just right. That is where I can best make meaning at this time!
Barbara”
From what would you like to divest some meaning? Where would you like to make a new meaning investment? Let me know and I’ll share some of your stories. And don’t forget about the meaning training:
http://www.theatheistsway.com/meaning_coach.html
Have an excellent Sunday!
Best,
Eric
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THE RIVER RELIGIONS

Hello, everybody:

The Atheist’s Way Virtual Book Review Tour begins this week. Please take a look and see what people are saying, pro or con, about their experience with the book. Here are the two tour stops this week:

2/18
Donna Druchanas on Wednesday at http://sheeptoshawl.com/blog/

2/19
Catherine on Thursday at http://poetrychook.blogspot.com

In The Atheist’s Way I dub certain religions like Buddhism and Taoism “the river religions” and argue that, like the god-based religions, they betray our common humanity by promoting metaphors, fairy tales, and dogma rooted in the same authoritarian energy that drives Islam, Judaism and Christianity. There is no eightfold path, there are no noble truths, and there is no nirvana: there are only personal paths and personal truths and the necessity of personal meaning-making. The river religions, as attractive as they can seem, are detours from the path of personal meaning-making.

I am calling these religions the “river religions” to capture something of their root metaphor, that flavor or “flow” or “way,” and to underscore that they are indeed religions. Many people move from the god religions to the river religions because they want a recognized and non-offensive container to hold their spiritual enthusiasms, not quite realizing that every such container is a human-made device meant to promote fantasy (whether about Heaven or reincarnation) and grab power (whether in the hands of a Pope or a Zen Master).

This week I got a lovely email from a reader of The Atheist’s Way who, perhaps in conjunction with reading the book, had suddenly “seen through” the river religions. Barbara explained:

“I started visiting local Zen centers a few months ago, and have found tremendous improvement in my calmness, rationality and creativity with daily meditation sittings. However, I've been feeling more disappointed as I spend more time with the Zen centers. Yesterday I acknowledged why - it's because I don't believe. Period. I just don't believe in ‘religious stuff,’ not Catholicism like my father's family, not Episcopalianism like my best friend's church, not the radio-show Evangelicism my mother regrettably seems to favor, and thus, not in Buddhism either.



“I don't believe in reincarnation, or karma except as an abstract notion of ‘be a jerk, have a miserable life,’ or the benefits of prostrations, or that lineages of teachers are super special and worthy of prostration, or that the Buddhist ‘miracles’ are any more credible than the Christian ‘miracles.’ I do like the emphasis on mindfulness and compassion, and appreciate the Bodhisattva's Vow where the vow-taker promises to postpone enlightenment until all sentient creatures are free from suffering, but shouldn't mindfulness, compassion and generosity be commonly prized traits that don't need a religion to ground them?

“I think that 1) I'm a little disappointed that I'm an official 100% nonbeliever, since there might be some beautiful practices or comforts out there that I'll miss and 2) I'm disappointed that the tremendous benefits of meditation and the intellectually engaging parts of Zen still come wrapped with miracles, reincarnation and prostrations. But I'm unapologetically a nonbeliever, and that is fine. I'll keep meditating and I think we'll also go back to our local Unitarian church for socializing and networking, where you can be an atheist or deeply agnostic and that is OK. I'm in private law practice, where we are strongly encouraged to get out in the community and know people, and churches and temples are great ways to meet people: if you believe or can pretend to believe. But I see that the bottom line is that I must make my own meaning, with no dogma or snake oil; and that will be fine.”

If you have moved halfway from the god religions to the river religions, come all the way home now. Yes, there will be fewer networking and socializing opportunities—but there will also be fewer scrapes and bows. Leave the river religions behind and, rising from your cushion, stand up for what you believe. Comments welcome!—you can email me your comments at ericmaisel@hotmail.com or post them at the blog where this newsletter also appears: http://theatheistsway.blogspot.com/

Have an excellent Sunday!

Best,

Eric

Read more!

MEANING CONVERSATION CONTINUED

Hello, everyone:

This Sunday we continue our examination of the meaning difficulties that many people are currently experiencing. Today I’ll share Carla’s story. But first a few updates.

The next round of creativity coaching trainings begins the week of February 9th. For information on the next Introduction to Creativity Coaching Training and the next Advanced Creativity Coaching Training, and for information on becoming a free client in the next Introduction to Creativity Coaching Training and receiving free email-based creativity coaching, please visit:

http://ericmaisel.com/em_trainings_lg.html

Here is a ringing endorsement from someone who took both the Intro and Advanced trainings last year (they can be taken sequentially or simultaneously):

“Hi Eric,

I'd like to thank you for all the wonderful coursework you provided me this past year. Your meaning and purpose message is important to our times and cultural growth as a universal community. The method you use to teach is an outstanding one and your personal style was a special gift to me. Even from Minneapolis I can feel your touch, sparking my creative life into action. Like so many, my creative life needed resuscitation. Your kindness is woven into all you do. Now I have a renewed purpose to create and potential income that is rewarding and something absolutely worth getting out of bed every day. So, for all you've done for me I say a very heartfelt- thank you!

Sandy”

**

A few spots remain in the March Deep Writing Workshop in London. For more information:

http://designyourcreativelife.wordpress.com/

(If you would like to organize a Deep Writing Workshop in a European locale for 2010, let’s chat. I am particularly interested in presenting in Dublin and Edinburgh but I am open to any European locale. If you want to chat about this, drop me an email at ericmaisel@hotmail.com)

**

If you’re interested in the subject of making meaning, please take a look at The Atheist’s Way, which is now available from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Way-Living-Well-Without/dp/1577316428/ref=sr_1_34?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213652533&sr=1-34

**

Last but not least, if you are thinking about taking the Meaning Coach Training that will begin in June (it will be the first of its kind), come on board soon. It is filling up. For more information:

http://www.theatheistsway.com/meaning_coach.html

**

Here, as the main event, is Carla’s “existential blues” piece. As the year progresses we will move toward discussing solutions but for now we are still focused on clearly understanding the problem. Carla explained:

I've had some blend of existential blues since my 20s, but the condition has recently worsened and gotten me closer to genuine introspection and honest investigation of meaning. I recall the blues in my 20s as vague and centered on questions of “what am I going to do with my life now," after leaving a field of study I loved and its career path, for reasons that ultimately turned out to be excellent ones (I don't want that life path back) and then after I started working in business, questions of “why are people in this office so boring? No one wants to study new things or write or draw in their free time; they talk about TV and their lawns a lot - where do these people come from?”




Passion and business are recurring threads for me in the areas of meaning and despair. I always wanted to write and create and do esoteric research (not generally lucrative work) but for better or worse ended up following my parents' desires for me and working in business (comfortable work). The best and worst moments of my college days involve arts and business. The best was sprawling on my dorm bed translating Virgil for Intensive Latin class and getting it! I got it! I got the nuances, meanings, artistry of translation word choices! I was part of creation and art and the heavens parted for a moment - I loved it! The worst was walking across the "Diag" and seeing the business students in their blue overcoats and suits. I saw them and felt like dirt. As much as I loved what I was doing, my family and wider society had already let me know that my interests were useless, frivolous, flaky. The BBA and MBAs in their blue coats, though, they'd go off to something tangible - marketing toilet paper or toothpaste, something that paid. I didn't want their jobs but I did want their probable security and known place to go.

My current existential blues most often arrive in the form of exhaustion, and occasionally as despair. The exhaustion strikes most often when I'm thinking about doing creative work or tired after a day at work (in my business career work) and I can't bear to write, pick up a book or listen to music. It makes me say, “Leave me alone. Why bother?”

I've had long stretches like this. Last year I could not write or even stand to try to read or listen to music for months. I'd visit the book store with my husband and trail after him, picking up and putting back down books, declaring each unreadable on the grounds of type size too small, book too heavy or book looking impossible to think about opening. I slept a lot and looked out of a lot of windows at birds or weather. This would seem like a deep depression, though throughout it, I never missed a day at work, project deadline or bill payment due date and every day was clean, scented and groomed in a suit. It was, perhaps, a deep depression of limited scope that left the rest of my life on course.

The fits of existential despair, a more active visitation of my blues, move beyond the territory of “who cares? what's the point?” to arrive as thunderstruck moments in which I am absolutely convinced that I'll die at my office desk, never accomplish anything I truly care for, and might as well be the walking dead in a business suit. These moments make me less sleepy than inclined to throw all of my professional books out of my office window, on fire, and run down the office park road towards the highway, never to return.

Both forms of existential despair come from the same fear – that I might never achieve anything deeply meaningful to me (while I am doing well in my business career, it is not work that stirs my passion or lets me experience "flow"), and that my deepest loves for arts, creative work and contemplative practices are meaningless and selfish matters of self-entertainment and solitary pleasure. The existential blues can arrive after I've been out of balance - too much creative work and I feel frivolous, too much day-job work and I feel like a worn-out machine cog. A mixture of daily wage-earning work and creative work seems to be mentally healthiest for me, but even then, the blues still come.

Today my blues are focused on how to best survive day-job work and daily inanities while trying to find a way to incorporate my creative passions in a life that is meaningful to me. Do I give up on creating and just consume and enjoy? Isn't that selfish? I want to create - but what if I can't create anything that is good enough to make the mark that Bach, Beethoven, Eliot, Yeats, Milosz, Herbert did? What am I worth if I can see truth and beauty but not create them, or apply them beyond my own consumption? It would be easier to stop thinking trying and passively live a comfortable life away from creation, but I don't want to give up.

As much as I doubt my own ability to create and leave meaning behind, I believe passionately that the "softer," non-law/finance/business things like arts and contemplative practices can have tremendous meaning, value and an impact on the world. When I listen to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's recording of the Bach cantata "Ich Habe Genug", I feel the presence of something sacred and healing. When I listen to the Borodin Quartet's 1960s-1970s recordings of Shostakovich's string quartets, especially Op. 68 Quartet in A Major with its haunting, lumbering waltz (a staggering Russian bear?) and the last chords that are the sound of light and hope breaking through gloom, I better understand the pain and absurdity Shostakovich wanted to expose.

Yesterday, before I finished the last set of edits to this essay, I was reading Czeslaw Milosz's "A Song on the End of the World" in my car at the oil change shop. I brought it in a stack of things I'd been wanting to read and too busy at work to get to, and was so impressed that I re-read it three times. What an amazing, gorgeous, true poem. What a powerful final image, the old man who could be a prophet but is not, binding his tomatoes and knowing "No other end of the world will there be." I got it, I felt it, and for a moment, I was enlightened. How can I ever rise to create at this level myself?

I believe "soft" creators like the ones I've just praised have made greater marks than most "hard" businesspeople in touching others and changing, even if slightly, the tilt of our world. Were I any one of them I hope I'd feel secure in my achievement. However, as the person I am for most of my waking hours, a suburban professional and "aspiring" everything else, I'm a bundle of doubts. Is my time spent on art worthy? What must it prove to be worthy? Money and fame aren't perfect correlations to value, but what does it say if work earns no money or exposure? And where does a frustrated creator go from there?

I wonder if I'd feel otherwise if it did not seem on many days as though I'm the only one in my world tilting against "normal" life, as defined by my profession's "work, work, work and make more money at work" mentality. I have several frustrated artists in my family, but none ever pushed forward or tried hard enough to finish anything, and all shared the same “sit down, have a drink, have a smoke, work too hard and you'll wear yourself out” mentality. My coworkers think the arts are frivolous, and I never hear the end of “classical music isn't worth anything, it has to keep fundraising to survive – you don't see 50 Cent asking for government handouts.”

I just don't know. I want to create, to touch if only briefly truth and beauty and communicate them, I want to leave something meaningful that lasts longer than a memorandum or settlement agreement at work. But how and when? And is this always worth it? I just don't know. I just don't want to give up yet.
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If you would like to share your “existential difficulty” story, drop me an email (to ericmaisel@hotmail.com) and I’ll send you along some prompts and guidelines.

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Have an excellent Sunday!

Best,

Eric

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