Droll, honest and persuasive, Humboldt says to Charlie, “I think you are headed for early baldness . . . But you certainly do love literature and that’s the main thing. You have sensibility.” This from Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift, published in 1975.
We enjoy Bellow because the characters who people his many novels often think about the biological and social forces that both circumscribe who they are and liberate them from the subjectivity that once indelibly determined their fates. Besides, who of us wouldn’t admit that a dry and amusing appraisal can help.
The cultivated ability to appreciate and respond creatively to complex emotional, aesthetic and competitive conditions is a great privilege and, of course, an asset, as well.
This ability can inspire and settle us when we’re overmatched by competition or by loss or disappointment—that is, by the facts of life. And this ability can give to our transformable natures a new depth and resource. Indeed, one of life's unexpected and sophisticated joys is how a developed sensibility and sentimental education can influence our relationship to the way things and circumstances show up for us.
In other words, though forever beset and often intimidated by conflicting biological and social forces, we, too, recognize a mindful sensibility enlivens and valorizes our face-off with who and what would determine our fate. No matter what, our sensibility intact, we push on.
Yes, historically and mythically, our destinies were romanced and determined. Spun, measured and cut by pagan Fates. Or by the plans an omniscient God had for each of us. Today, however, we live in a world where the pulse and purpose of our experience has been remade by science and the liberal arts—that is, by original thought. We see, and we say, that it comes down to this: Each of us, here, possesses the sensibility, perhaps undeveloped, to be responsible for determining our fate.
The more we can draw upon the whole sensation-filled and open-minded opportunity of our sensibility, the more able we are to meet the challenge to be a serious person, one who takes responsibility seriously, who lives an examined life, who thinks wholistically and competes wholeheartedly.
As I said in my post dated 12.08.14, here lives generosity, security and love. Here lives our nerve, our willingness to spend our intellectual and emotional energy in the greater range of human experience. Here lives our opportunity to cultivate the depth and range of mind and spirit that can creatively encompass the pressure of competition and, in so doing, choose a broader and more compassionate view of the infinite variables available to human expression.
And a final word from Bellow’s iconic masterpiece, The Adventures of Augie March, published in 1953: “I am an American . . . and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way . . .”
Are you interested in having more autonomy in your life? Here's a plan of action! Examine our website. If you find it interesting, do the Retreat Workshop. If your interest continues, do our Advanced Classes. Thank you for your interest. I appreciate it.
Arnold Siegel is the founder of Autonomy and Life and the leader of its Retreat Workshops and Advanced Classes.