living for nuance, not certainty

 “One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better.”
-Pascal’s Pensees p. 28

I often find it difficult to define my work. It’s been my greatest challenge in starting this business. It’s difficult because people are trained to believe they want hard lines, distinctions, and absolute certainty in all things. [Pay no mind that absolute certainty is the surest way to rot a human soul.] I find that I feel most alive when there are still questions to be answered in the future. Perhaps because philosophy was one of my first deep loves in learning, I’ve always felt that the best answers are the ones that are the most nuanced, leaving room for all of the extenuating circumstances that life seems to offer.

For that reason, I often seek clarity through nuance. Nuance is, I believe, the only way to truly understand this world. For I think you will find the whole world is a kaleidoscope of energetic nuance— feelings, postures, and conditioning all existing simultaneously together, creating a cocktail of nuance to be read from any angle the individual sees fit. 

We, as individuals, are prone to putting our best foot forward, showing only our best attributes, and closeting the rest.

“We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real.”
-Pascal’s Pensees [p. 55]

We pretend it’s polite to abandon our needs, wants and desires, and that it is deplorable to follow your dreams rather than stewing in someone else’s insecurities, or limits. 

In my observations, the further we expand outward as a collective the more callous we become towards the individual. We explain life away in terms too large for a myopic individuals brain to grasp, we use blanket statements and universal ‘truths.’ It’s as if we forget that a collective contains a core of singles, of individuals, and that though we may choose to move as one at times, we ultimately have to move alone through this existence. In my experience, we generally choose to do this in the most distracted, preoccupied manner so as to not have a moment alone with our own thoughts, scared of what we’ll find.

“…[people] are overwhelmed with business, with the study of languages, and with physical exercise; and they are made to understand that they cannot be happy unless their health, their honour, their fortune and that of their friends be in good condition, and that a single thing wanting will make them unhappy… for then they would see themselves; they would reflect on what they are, whence they came, whither they go, and thus we cannot employ and divert them too much.”
-Pascal’s Pensees p. 54

I posit, that the more we ignore the facts that we don’t understand, don’t agree with, or the ones we prefer to pretend out of reality, the more we are unconsciously ruled by those very facts. What if questioning our choices and doubting authorities, organizations and traditions were not dangerous acts, but preserving, healing forces? 

I’ve often been told that I seem to be ‘chasing sadness’ or living in pessimism for my tendency to dig deep. I’ve never resonated with this presumption; for is it chasing sadness to create the space and time it takes for your soul to accept your shadow, and to grieve your woundings and shortcomings carefully, and completely? Quite the contrary! I would say it’s looking at yourself honestly— warts, and all, as the saying goes—witnessing your faults and struggles with compassion and warmth. I would say, that It’s one of many steps to opening your heart to love and understanding, thus transforming your biggest fears into the perspective glow of the calming fire of your now more whole and nuanced soul.

“Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.” Pascal’s Pensees p.42

I choose to live a life of nuance, and depth, even if that means I have to witness the ugliness, the depravity, and the shadow that lurks in all of us, and in me. I choose to feel the depth of everything that life has to offer me, both pain and joy, contentment and disdain, safety and fear, I want it all. I want to feel the way that my jealousy wraps around my adoration for my lover, thickening the experience of love with it’s heavy embrace. I want to feel what it’s like to peel back the layer’s of that jealousy, to uncover the fear, sadness, and twisted desire for ownership underneath it. Another layer, and I want to feel the desire for closeness, the acknowledgement of pure intimacy, and the worry that surrounds the loss of it.

I want my life to be rich with the nuance of these experiences, understanding that there are no good or bad feelings, only layers upon layers of nuance of experience, all necessary pieces of a whole existence, though some are initially less pleasant than others. I don’t give a damn about certainty, and I will celebrate my triumphs right alongside my setbacks, and woundings, because these are the stuffing of a vivid life.