An education for one’s life (Draft)
Yesterday I met the famous and by so many other philosophers quoted Spinoza. From the brief summary I read, I’ll always remember that the “desire”, longing?, is not lack of something but potential. Right there lies completely the difference to those existentialist thinkers. I’m not pretty sure how to relate different schools of thinking, since I’m not educated in such topic; nevertheless, I can recognize the turning point that those words mean for me. I’m using my imaginative capability to create the relation inside of me, the reflection that transforms the potential to action, always within the constraints of our circumstances. This now needs to be polished by future hours of reading and discussing.
By the way, I was very surprised that Ortega y Gasset appeared as a reference of those who have taken Spinoza as a starting point. “We’re us and our circumstances” — From the original: I am me and my circumstance — . Now I do need to read more about it.
Apparently, from Ortega y Gasset’s standpoint, life is a continuous struggle between the belief and search for freedom, where we’re oscillating among those and their intermediate states. I find very interesting when the words: one can find freedom after the embracement of one belief; therefore, live a life with your own purpose, choose your own project and don’t live like those who prefer the unconcerned and imperturbable life just because they’re afraid of choosing a life project.
The latter shows widely that those words could be interpreted in a derogatory way against those who don’t share that philosophical core thinking. It may be true only if the subject lacks of critical thinking and ignores the right of others to choose whatever they want. Nevertheless, there is one big player that comes into the Ortega’s circumstances, namely the society; which means that society itself could push to accept a given circumstances against critical thinking. This may be not as it has been before — by enforcement — but as the way the brain is more sensitive: distraction.
The idea of talking about how the nowadays high technological society distract us from the critical thinking and overwhelm us with news (and fake ones) will be — for sure — topic for another writing.
What I now just want to share is the memory that came to my mind after listening a summary of Spinoza’s thinking.
Walking down the street that leads to “el casco de Santo Tomas”, after stepping out from Normal’s subway station, I was caught by several stands for fast food, drinks, souvenirs and books . Something that is regular in that zone, mainly during those days where the scholar semester is going on . As I used to do also very often, I stepped in front of those book stands as if I really knew what to read. One of all those old, yellowish books caught my attention, it was pink and small. It was showing itself from the bottom layers, as if it had been pushed away to the bottom while all the other books were regularly checked, and always been put on top of it. I grabbed it and check it through quickly. The title did not catch my attention — or at least not as much as the color had done — the name was Una educacion para la vida. I rather thought the title was a bit pretentious, even boring, I though of— what supposedly parents should do- boring discussions about what I should study. I continued reading quickly the subtitles and something was increasingly matching my current mind state.
To give a bit of background, by that moment I had already finished my bachelor in Mechatronics, had already gone home and stayed there for a couple of months, I had even gotten tired of being under the same roof I used to be before going to the capital city. So I decided to go back to the capital to reach a bit more of clarity in my life, what to do next, what not to do.
So I was there, after just three weeks of moving near the Casco, I was getting into reality, I had hopped that I was going to have more time to party or distract myself. On the contrary, I faced more clearly myself, for I did not have my family around myself to complaining about. Then, I used to spend the days walking around, knowing the surroundings, going to museums and reading the things I had postponed for weeks and months. That was my life as I stepped in front of that stand that had been there always, but that day, the pink book had called for me.
That was the first time I read something about Ortega y Gasset, by that time I had not heard that many people mentioning him, was it because he was Spanierd?
There is something I’ll remember from those nights as I was reading that little book; namely, the discussion about teaching the young people on society that there are two activities that should not be taken as contradictory, the activity to earn your money and the activity you feel happy to spend time in, trabajo y vocacion. Education has then been focused only on the future work — trabajo — , the one that allows you to be productive and earn the money with which after one would be feel “satisfied”. The exposition of his ideas was about how the education should be taking the focus on vocation; that what calls for us and our inner self responses energized back to.
There was a word play that I think it would make more sense in another language, German. Beruf against Berufung, being the first the word for work, as for the latter the word for vocation; both of them have the root word ruf. At first sight related to rufen (to call), the prefix Be- creating a sort of “intransitive” — this needs to be reviewed — meaning (what is called). Finally, both of them are nouns and refer to activities that people do, but they are never confused between them. Beruf is what you are educated for and from which you receive a wage. Whereas Berufung is what you do only because you feel like doing it, an activity at which with the time one start getting good at, something that comes from your inner self and does not need to be any materialistic payment to be worth of doing.
When I think about my Berufung I would really like to think it is writing or reading.
