Our Only True Belonging

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Victor Frankl published these words in 1946. A few years before he had been in a concentration camp. This man, and his ideas about the untouchable nature of choice, is part of the foundation for existentialism (Nietzsche, Yalom, and Sartre are other names in the mix). It’s a way of thinking that is stereotypically attractive to males, and often criticized for ignoring environmental factors that limit choice. The irony of that criticism being levied at a man like Frankl is obvious, but I don’t think that means there’s no merit to the complaint. A philosophy that emphasizes so heavily the importance and responsibility of choice can come off as demeaning to a person who feels themselves cornered by circumstances outside of their control. What choice are they to make when every available option is bad or there seems to be no options at all? What does their choice matter if their efforts will always fall short because of barriers that will never crumble and injustice that will never be eradicated?

Regardless, if we do not believe in choice, what is the point of any of this?

There may be guardrails to choice. There may be unbreakable bonds that limit choice. There may be monsters that come out of the night air and attack without warning or purpose. Life cannot be controlled or predicted, but that does not mean we do not have choice. No matter how constrained, choice can never be taken from us.

There are five remembrances of Buddhism that I learned just the other day. They go as follows:

The list of things we cannot control far outstretches the list of things we can, but we always have choice. It is our “only true belonging.” So why do we fear choice so much? Why do we shy away from philosophies that put the importance of choice at the forefront? Why do we run from the responsibility of choice? Aristotle writes that “A human being is the origin and begetter of his actions.” And yet, we shy away from this truth. Fydor Dostoevsky, in the 1880 novel The Brothers Karamazov, claimed that the first thing a person wants to do when they realize they have free-will is to throw it away, to find something to worship that will tell them exactly what to do and unburden the weight of choice from their shoulders. He writes:

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. Without a concrete idea of what he is living for, man would refuse to live…even if bread were scattered all around him.”

When confronted with free-will, we cast our eyes about and find religion. We find a reason for it all, but the existentialists push back against this instinct. Frankl writes:

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.”

This, once again, puts the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the individual. “Build, therefore, your own world” as Ralph Waldo Emerson writes. The pain of life, according to the existential theory, comes from refusing to acknowledge the stark realities of life – that you will die, that you are alone, and other such intense things – and refusing to take responsibility for your choices, no matter how limited they may be.

Walt Whitman writes beautifully about this very concept in the following poem:

The two great questions of life: who am I and why am I alive?

Throughout the poem, Whitman describes all the people who “vainly crave the light” and cannot find it – “the poor results of all.” He puts himself in that category, as one who walks about “plodding and sordid,” but has no sense of who he is or his purpose. He laments the “empty and useless years” that most people fill their lives with. He finally asks, what’s the point of even asking? What is the good of wondering about “O me, O life”?

The answer comes through clear and plain.

Who are you? You are here. You exist. That’s enough.

As John Green discusses in his book of essays The Anthropocene Reviewed, a group of soldiers in 1916, ringing in the new year with bitter irony, sang to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.” It was, as Green puts it, “a world without whys.” They could find no reason for the death and despair they were suffering. He goes on to say that a friend of his, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, gave new meaning to the song. She changed no words, kept the tune as it was, but asked groups at her public appearances to sing it along with her. We’re here because we’re here because we’re here. Green writes:

“It became a statement that we are here--meaning that we are together, and not alone. And it’s also a statement that we are, that we exist, and it’s a statement that we are here, that a series of astonishing unlikelihoods has made us possible and here possible. We might never know why we are here, but we can still proclaim in hope that we are here. I don’t think such hope is foolish or idealistic or misguided. I believe that hope is, for lack of a better word, true.”

Why am I alive? To contribute a verse.

That is the answer to who we are and why we are here. We are here because we’re here. We are because we are. And what we do with that knowledge is not, as Victor said, something to pull out of the air around us, but something to ask quietly to ourselves. To take solemn responsibility for the verse we add to the great play.

But the key part of that poem, to me, is one word: may.

You may contribute a verse.

That word, once again, puts the responsibility on us. We decide if we add a verse to the great play. We decide what that verse will be. We decide what our meaning will be. We get to “choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” But it is not guaranteed. It is not predetermined. It is up to us.

In John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden, there is a character that becomes obsessed with a line of scripture. It is in Genesis and follows a conversation between God and Cain. God says, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

The character, named Lee, reflects on this passage:

“It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.”

Stuck on this line, he picks up a different translation, the American Standard Bible, and reads the same section. This time, it says, “Do thou rule over him.”

Lee reflects: “Now this is very different. This is not a promise, it is an order.”

Lee then goes on a long journey of studying Hebrew with a group of scholars. Lee finally reports:

“After two years we felt that we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis. My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too—‘Thou shalt’ and ‘Do thou.’ And this was the gold from our mining: ‘Thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin.’”

This phrase, thou mayest, comes from the word timshel. That is the key to it all.

“Don’t you see? The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin…The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’

Lee then, in beautiful language, describes why he finds this word so important:

“There are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.”

That is the great burden and power of human life – to choose. Despite society and our own fear and injustice holding us back and our surrendering choice to a deity and a million other factors that fight to take away choice, it can never be truly eradicated.

“It is always attacked and never destroyed” as Lee concludes.

We are stuck with choice. It is the ground upon which we stand. It is our only true belonging. It is the answer to the great questions. It is the last of human freedoms. It is what makes man great.

When, in Anton Chekhov’s 1901 play Three Sisters, a character near the end cries out at the rapturous music they are all hearing “the music is so gay, so joyful, and it seems as though a little more and we shall know what we are living for, why were are suffering…if only we knew — if only we knew!” we understand that it was never the music that would provide that answer, nor religion, nor career, nor anything else. The meaning of it all is a question answered from within, and practiced through choice. Through the personal development of values. Through taking responsibility for our role in creating meaning and by claiming our right to contribute a verse.

It’s a messy answer, because with choice comes mistakes. With choice comes consequences. With choice comes disagreement. But it is the human answer, I believe. It is the closest to truth I can find. If we have nothing else, we have choice.