I’ve finally settled on the view that life is easy, and that we bring hardship to ourselves. Often we do not intend to bring hardship, but we do anyway when we are incompetent, cling to biases, or when conditions around us change but we refuse to adapt.
This is a polarising view with some saying I have finally lost it, and others willing to hear me out. I must admit, however, that this remains a hunch or a speculation and that I am yet to test it with a rigorous philosophical essay. Nevertheless, it seems plausible on the face of it, counterintuitive as it may seem.
We are products of nature and therefore belong here. Instead of thinking of ourselves as occupants of this planet, we should think of ourselves instead as coming out of it (Alan Watts). We are a symptom of nature, in the same way that apples are a symptom of apple trees and pimples are symptoms of skin. In other words, we are tuned to be here in the same way that musical instruments are tuned to make sounds.
I can think of many objections to this view. For instance, how do we account for natural distasters that bring hardship? Surely, they too are part of nature. How do we account for injustices brought by others through murders and acts of war? All of these, even without exploring them in depth, provoke serious obections to the view that life is fundamentally easy.
I will explore these views in future posts. For now I wish to share that holding the view that life is fundamentally easy is illuminating because it forces one to think carefully about how one is contributing to hardships, rather than holding a more daunting existentialist view that life is inherently hard.
More soon.
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