Friday, June 24, 2005

Wanderlust or Spiritual Loss?

"We are seeing a religious wave rising in almost all of Europe, a wave of religious need and despair, a searching and a profound malaise, and many are speaking of... a new religion to come....Europe is beginning to sense... that the overblown one-sidedness of its intellectual culture (most clearly expressed in scientific specialisation) is in need of a correction, a revitalisation coming from the opposite pole. This widespread yearning is not for a new ethics or a new way of thinking, but for a culture of spiritaul function that our intellectual approach to life has not been able to provide. This is a general yearning not so much for a Buddha or a Laotze but for a yogic capability. We have learned that humanity can cultivate its intellect to an astonishing level of accomplishment without becoming master of its soul."


Hermann Hesse, 1920


Siddhartha is a book about a journey in search of spirituality, of hope and of promise, all of which according to Hesse, is what the human soul is yearning for, to quell the growing restlessness and dissatisfaction we seem to feel, time and time again, a restlessness that no amount of "affirmation of self and enjoyment of sensuality and the possession of the materialistic" be able to soothe.

After almost a year of my casting aside Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, unfinished, back onto my bookshelf, I picked it up again this morning, determined to try again, determined to really read it. Of course I had to start again from the very beginning, but this time round, unlike my first attempt, it took me an hour just to get through the 12 pages that were the Translator's Preface and the Introduction. For within those 12 pages, a disturbing image of my life began to take form... and what I saw both scared and saddened me.

Are my feelings of wanderlust really the desire to explore new places and live a different culture? or a desperate attempt to suppress and control the feelings of restlessness and fill in the hollowness I feel deep inside? Am I suffering from spiritual loss? If I am, then I'm afraid that I will spend the rest of my life never truly happy, never completely satisfied; always having to fight off the beckoning finger of wanderlust, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before I give in, and start life anew in a place that promises a new and exciting beginning... knowing even then that wanderlust hasn't really gone away, but is lying dormant, waiting...

3 comments:

The CellMate said...

Of course but I think my need to get out is because I'm not happy anymore, that everything's become routine and I need a change in order to keep me occupied and 'happy'...... i think!

Hiddenson said...

So what if it is really so? What's wrong with not being happy and "need a change in order to keep me occupied and happy"? Do you think this can only prove you run away from responsibilities and stability?

Talking like this, you sound a bit like my wife... What if your happiness is about being on the constant move, never settling down? Who the fuck said we all have to live our lives within the same confined limits, formatted? I mean, we were all nomads before, that is before agriculture, and before realising that settling made us more productive. Do you only dream of being productive, schoenheit?

While I agree some people attempt to escape their reality, whether by alcohol, drugs, whores or travels, you must not listen so much to others without listening to your self. If you're honest with yourself, you should find the answer, no matter how apprehending it will be.

The CellMate said...

Hidd: Productive I am not that's for sure... hahahaha... and I'm quite sure I would enjoy moving around... was just thinking more along the lines of what will happen if I have kids... can't quite bring myself to drag them around the world just because I have the need to...

Anyway, I know all this is waaaay into the future, just that thoughts like this tend to pop into my head every once so often and I panic :p And like I mentioned before, it helps when I write it down... :)