8 ms·

The last paragraph, to me, is most poignant: "...in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fe

The last paragraph, to me, is most poignant: "...in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -so at least it seems to me- is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. "

aldoushuxley001 8y ago
Yeah wow that's a beautiful passage and analogy. Didn't realize Bertrand Russel was a poet as well as a mathematician!
- Koshkin 8y ago
  To be fair, this is not poetry, this is (good) philosophy; by the way, analogy (isomorphism etc.) is a powerful tool in mathematics and not just in poetry.
  - aldoushuxley001 8y ago
    Good philosophy and poetry are often interwined, one almost begets the other.
    - natalyarostova 8y ago
      Ehh... I know you mean this well, but for those of us into more rigorous philosophy of science I can't fully agree :)
      - aldoushuxley001 8y ago
        Why's that? There's a lot of pihlosophy of science that can be elegantly articulated.
        FabHK 8y ago
        Elegant articulation can be part of good science and good poetry, granted, but in many other aspects the goals of philosophical writing and poetry are sort of opposed. FWIW, I find eg Nietzsche's (flowery poetic) writing terrible philosophy, in many ways. Arguably the hermeneutics/analytical divide is (partially) about this issue.
  - prepend 8y ago
    Prose poetry.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- gcb0 8y ago
  he's most widely know for his work on philosophy
PavlovsCat 8y ago
> A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. -- Albert Einstein > As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. [...] This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. -- Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man" (1871)
Koshkin 8y ago
Actually, I am not sure what to make of this... Is he describing the entropy increase that eventually kills us?
- mlboss 8y ago
  I think he is explaining the expansion of ego with age. We should try to expand our ego to include more and more "impersonal" pursuits that force use to think more about the world and people and not our internal thoughts/emotions/memories.
- ambicapter 8y ago
  Its about being less self-centered and instead pursuing life as a member of the human race.
- vfinn 8y ago
  He's saying that it's not MY kids are more important than YOUR kids and that MY work is more important than YOUR work. If you strip your actions from your ego, they become more sound as they are not biased or bloated by your greed or your envy towards others. You are able to applaud other people's success and wish them well without grudge, and you're able to support them without need to get anything back from them.
bch 8y ago
As Siddhartha listens to the river: Siddhartha listened. [...] Already, he could no longer tell the many voices apart, not the happy ones from the weeping ones, not the ones of children from those of men, they all belonged together, the lamentation of yearning and the laughter of the knowledgeable one, the scream of rage and the moaning of the dying ones, everything was one, everything was intertwined and connected, entangled a thousand times. And everything together, all voices, all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil, all of this together was the world. All of it together was the flow of events, was the music of life. And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection. [...] In this hour, Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge, which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness. -Herman Hesse, “Siddhartha”
agumonkey 8y ago
This goes with the adult/parent step. Your ego usually takes a deep hit. I'm sure lots of guys I've seen refuse to make babies did so because they knew it was the end of a side of them. They wanted to keep playing longer. Ego decrease is probably hardcoded for social purposes.
- finaliteration 8y ago
  I definitely experienced this when I had a child. But along with it I also experienced a sort of loosening of my grip on how things “should” be, and ironically I feel more calm and centered than I did before I had a child. Another weird shift is realizing that kids have their own internal worlds and experiences that have nothing to do with your own mind/ego. It’s kind of mind blowing.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    Agreed. Even though the 2nd part is still hard to process for me, yet I did not forget who I was as a child .. but the contrast is yeah mind blowing.
  - hnuser355 8y ago
    Not all parents realize this second thing unfortunately
    - gcb0 8y ago
      and not all adults need to be hand held by a newborn to realize others have different perceptions
      - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        Do you have kids? It's not the "others" bit, it's the "your own kids" bit that makes it surprising for me - it's kinda like one day you pick up a pen with your non-dominant hand and it writes some words in an alphabet you don't recognise: How did it do that? Where did it even come across Akkadian cuneiform? I still remember the confronting the realisation of this with my eldest when they said a word that I knew we, his parents, hadn't taught him. It's such a stark contrast when you're still having to manage a little person's toiletting that they nonetheless have an internal independency of thoughts and feelings.
50 8y ago
The mention of a river reminds of me of those ol' words by Norman Maclean [1]: "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters." As an early twenty-something, who thinks often too much about life and death and the wildness of it all, I like to think I'm preparing for death by carrying around a memento mori coin [2]. It's a healthy reminder that puts things in a golden perspective. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsDnrFBpsBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsDnrFBpsBk [2]: https://prints.dailystoic.com/products/memento-mori https://prints.dailystoic.com/products/memento-mori
- sharadov 8y ago
  Love those pendants!
- hornbaker 8y ago
  Neat coin! I just launched a coin project[1], but by carrying them in your pocket they’re meant to remind you to look for opportunities to help someone and then give it to them to pay forward. My first coin[2] has helped at least 3 homeless people in its short life. [1] https://butterflycoins.org https://butterflycoins.org [2] https://butterflycoins.org/coins/2srf https://butterflycoins.org/coins/2srf
- lenocinor 8y ago
  My favorite quote of all, nice to see it around again. :)
ineedasername 8y ago
It seems like a good portion of the essay was tongue-in-cheek, but this part really struck me. I came here to post exactly this excerpt, and was glad to see someone beat me to it.
drieddust 8y ago
I see my most people around me unable to grasp this simple fact of life. They are so engrossed in the struggle to keep control, they don't even realize the amount of personal and otherwise unhappiness they create. Hinduism has a concept of 4 stages of life called Ashrams[1]. Brahmacharya the first stage is focused on learning and acquiring knowledge. Second stage Grihastha is to enjoy the family. In the third stage called Vanaprastha one retires from the household and takes an advisory role. In the final stage of Sannyasa one should completely detach from the desires of the world. I am a born Hindu(never practiced) and was well aware of this concept but never thought about it deeply. Now as I approach 40 and have kids, I realize how spot-on this ancient wisdom is. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashrama_(stage) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashrama_(stage)
- sputknick 8y ago
  I really appreciate this. I too am approaching 40, kids are growing, and I'm starting to think about my next chapter. This is really helpful that someone came up with a concept for this long before I was born.
  - drieddust 8y ago
    Yeah I have also got a copy of Bhagavad_Gita[1] and started reading a few verses daily. Although it comes from Hinduism, text itself is pure philosophy and focuses on living a life of detached action. Hinduism doesn't have a concept of universal commandments. Everyone is free to follow their own virtuous path called Swa Dharma which roughly translated to Personal Duties. Central message of Gita is to take actions inline with your Swa Dharma without caring for the outcome because you don't control it anyways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita
    - FabHK 8y ago
      > take actions in line with your Swa Dharma without caring for the outcome because you don't control it anyways. This is a central tenet of Stoicism as well (though from what I gather Stoicism has a universal, rather than individual, notion of "virtue" or "nature" that one ought to live in line with).
rv-de 8y ago
that is really an interesting way to look at growing old. totally makes sense. I just noticed that older people in movies who are portrayed as being obsessed about personal matters come across as particularly charmless.
gdrift 8y ago
Impersonal interests, receding ego, universal life, like rivers merging with the sea... Yes, nice comforting lullaby. Never understood these types of texts. “And time continues in its immemorial way of making everything and everybody look and feel like shit” – Martin Amis This I understand. Sugar coating not necessary.
- grenoire 8y ago
  I think for some of these concepts that he describes, you have to read a bit more of his other works. That clarifies it beyond what you might guess a lullaby.
- FabHK 8y ago
  > look and feel like shit" Well, but you see, there really are old people who (despite becoming frail and suffering pain) do not feel like shit. Sure, there are many comforting lullabies offering a false hope (particularly religious ones), but this one doesn't strike me as one of those. (Remember that Russell was a staunch atheist, and did not tend to subscribe to false comforting beliefs.) Just the opposite, it offers concrete advice, and embeds the process of getting older in a larger picture offering (secular) meaning.
- TaupeRanger 8y ago
  There is no sugar coating - these two ways of viewing reality are just that - two different viewpoints. It is true that you can find comfort, peace, and happiness in old age. It is also true that your body will become more frail and you will eventually lose consciousness for the last time and turn into a pile of rotting bones in the ground. These facts are not mutually exclusive. To look at the latter and ignore anything that speaks about death and old age differently is just incurious and sad.
Kurtz79 8y ago
I think that the combination of factors that made our individual existence in this world possible it's by itself a miracle (without necessarily attaching religious connotations to it). Hell, just the existence of humanity itself it's mind-blowing, as the conditions for life as we know it presented themselves. We should be thankful of the time we are given in this world, and make the best of it, regardless of its length.

aldoushuxley001 8y ago

Yeah wow that's a beautiful passage and analogy. Didn't realize Bertrand Russel was a poet as well as a mathematician!

Koshkin 8y ago
To be fair, this is not poetry, this is (good) philosophy; by the way, analogy (isomorphism etc.) is a powerful tool in mathematics and not just in poetry.
- aldoushuxley001 8y ago
  Good philosophy and poetry are often interwined, one almost begets the other.
  - natalyarostova 8y ago
    Ehh... I know you mean this well, but for those of us into more rigorous philosophy of science I can't fully agree :)
    - aldoushuxley001 8y ago
      Why's that? There's a lot of pihlosophy of science that can be elegantly articulated.
      - FabHK 8y ago
        Elegant articulation can be part of good science and good poetry, granted, but in many other aspects the goals of philosophical writing and poetry are sort of opposed. FWIW, I find eg Nietzsche's (flowery poetic) writing terrible philosophy, in many ways. Arguably the hermeneutics/analytical divide is (partially) about this issue.
- prepend 8y ago
  Prose poetry.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
gcb0 8y ago
he's most widely know for his work on philosophy

PavlovsCat 8y ago

> A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. -- Albert Einstein > As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. [...] This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. -- Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man" (1871)

Koshkin 8y ago

Actually, I am not sure what to make of this... Is he describing the entropy increase that eventually kills us?

mlboss 8y ago
I think he is explaining the expansion of ego with age. We should try to expand our ego to include more and more "impersonal" pursuits that force use to think more about the world and people and not our internal thoughts/emotions/memories.
ambicapter 8y ago
Its about being less self-centered and instead pursuing life as a member of the human race.
vfinn 8y ago
He's saying that it's not MY kids are more important than YOUR kids and that MY work is more important than YOUR work. If you strip your actions from your ego, they become more sound as they are not biased or bloated by your greed or your envy towards others. You are able to applaud other people's success and wish them well without grudge, and you're able to support them without need to get anything back from them.

bch 8y ago

As Siddhartha listens to the river: Siddhartha listened. [...] Already, he could no longer tell the many voices apart, not the happy ones from the weeping ones, not the ones of children from those of men, they all belonged together, the lamentation of yearning and the laughter of the knowledgeable one, the scream of rage and the moaning of the dying ones, everything was one, everything was intertwined and connected, entangled a thousand times. And everything together, all voices, all goals, all yearning, all suffering, all pleasure, all that was good and evil, all of this together was the world. All of it together was the flow of events, was the music of life. And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection. [...] In this hour, Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge, which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness. -Herman Hesse, “Siddhartha”

agumonkey 8y ago

This goes with the adult/parent step. Your ego usually takes a deep hit. I'm sure lots of guys I've seen refuse to make babies did so because they knew it was the end of a side of them. They wanted to keep playing longer. Ego decrease is probably hardcoded for social purposes.

finaliteration 8y ago
I definitely experienced this when I had a child. But along with it I also experienced a sort of loosening of my grip on how things “should” be, and ironically I feel more calm and centered than I did before I had a child. Another weird shift is realizing that kids have their own internal worlds and experiences that have nothing to do with your own mind/ego. It’s kind of mind blowing.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  Agreed. Even though the 2nd part is still hard to process for me, yet I did not forget who I was as a child .. but the contrast is yeah mind blowing.
- hnuser355 8y ago
  Not all parents realize this second thing unfortunately
  - gcb0 8y ago
    and not all adults need to be hand held by a newborn to realize others have different perceptions
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      Do you have kids? It's not the "others" bit, it's the "your own kids" bit that makes it surprising for me - it's kinda like one day you pick up a pen with your non-dominant hand and it writes some words in an alphabet you don't recognise: How did it do that? Where did it even come across Akkadian cuneiform? I still remember the confronting the realisation of this with my eldest when they said a word that I knew we, his parents, hadn't taught him. It's such a stark contrast when you're still having to manage a little person's toiletting that they nonetheless have an internal independency of thoughts and feelings.

50 8y ago

The mention of a river reminds of me of those ol' words by Norman Maclean [1]: "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters." As an early twenty-something, who thinks often too much about life and death and the wildness of it all, I like to think I'm preparing for death by carrying around a memento mori coin [2]. It's a healthy reminder that puts things in a golden perspective. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsDnrFBpsBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsDnrFBpsBk [2]: https://prints.dailystoic.com/products/memento-mori https://prints.dailystoic.com/products/memento-mori

sharadov 8y ago
Love those pendants!
hornbaker 8y ago
Neat coin! I just launched a coin project[1], but by carrying them in your pocket they’re meant to remind you to look for opportunities to help someone and then give it to them to pay forward. My first coin[2] has helped at least 3 homeless people in its short life. [1] https://butterflycoins.org https://butterflycoins.org [2] https://butterflycoins.org/coins/2srf https://butterflycoins.org/coins/2srf
lenocinor 8y ago
My favorite quote of all, nice to see it around again. :)

ineedasername 8y ago

It seems like a good portion of the essay was tongue-in-cheek, but this part really struck me. I came here to post exactly this excerpt, and was glad to see someone beat me to it.

drieddust 8y ago

I see my most people around me unable to grasp this simple fact of life. They are so engrossed in the struggle to keep control, they don't even realize the amount of personal and otherwise unhappiness they create. Hinduism has a concept of 4 stages of life called Ashrams[1]. Brahmacharya the first stage is focused on learning and acquiring knowledge. Second stage Grihastha is to enjoy the family. In the third stage called Vanaprastha one retires from the household and takes an advisory role. In the final stage of Sannyasa one should completely detach from the desires of the world. I am a born Hindu(never practiced) and was well aware of this concept but never thought about it deeply. Now as I approach 40 and have kids, I realize how spot-on this ancient wisdom is. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashrama_(stage) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashrama_(stage)

sputknick 8y ago
I really appreciate this. I too am approaching 40, kids are growing, and I'm starting to think about my next chapter. This is really helpful that someone came up with a concept for this long before I was born.
- drieddust 8y ago
  Yeah I have also got a copy of Bhagavad_Gita[1] and started reading a few verses daily. Although it comes from Hinduism, text itself is pure philosophy and focuses on living a life of detached action. Hinduism doesn't have a concept of universal commandments. Everyone is free to follow their own virtuous path called Swa Dharma which roughly translated to Personal Duties. Central message of Gita is to take actions inline with your Swa Dharma without caring for the outcome because you don't control it anyways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita
  - FabHK 8y ago
    > take actions in line with your Swa Dharma without caring for the outcome because you don't control it anyways. This is a central tenet of Stoicism as well (though from what I gather Stoicism has a universal, rather than individual, notion of "virtue" or "nature" that one ought to live in line with).

rv-de 8y ago

that is really an interesting way to look at growing old. totally makes sense. I just noticed that older people in movies who are portrayed as being obsessed about personal matters come across as particularly charmless.

gdrift 8y ago

Impersonal interests, receding ego, universal life, like rivers merging with the sea... Yes, nice comforting lullaby. Never understood these types of texts. “And time continues in its immemorial way of making everything and everybody look and feel like shit” – Martin Amis This I understand. Sugar coating not necessary.

grenoire 8y ago
I think for some of these concepts that he describes, you have to read a bit more of his other works. That clarifies it beyond what you might guess a lullaby.
FabHK 8y ago
> look and feel like shit" Well, but you see, there really are old people who (despite becoming frail and suffering pain) do not feel like shit. Sure, there are many comforting lullabies offering a false hope (particularly religious ones), but this one doesn't strike me as one of those. (Remember that Russell was a staunch atheist, and did not tend to subscribe to false comforting beliefs.) Just the opposite, it offers concrete advice, and embeds the process of getting older in a larger picture offering (secular) meaning.
TaupeRanger 8y ago
There is no sugar coating - these two ways of viewing reality are just that - two different viewpoints. It is true that you can find comfort, peace, and happiness in old age. It is also true that your body will become more frail and you will eventually lose consciousness for the last time and turn into a pile of rotting bones in the ground. These facts are not mutually exclusive. To look at the latter and ignore anything that speaks about death and old age differently is just incurious and sad.

Kurtz79 8y ago

I think that the combination of factors that made our individual existence in this world possible it's by itself a miracle (without necessarily attaching religious connotations to it). Hell, just the existence of humanity itself it's mind-blowing, as the conditions for life as we know it presented themselves. We should be thankful of the time we are given in this world, and make the best of it, regardless of its length.