We are all born with a wilderness of possibility within us. Who we become depends on how we tend to our inner garden – what qualities of humanity and spirit we cultivate to bloom, what foolishness we remove, how much courage we grow to turn our backs on the root of irreverence and look towards the sunshine of life in all its forms: wonder, kindness, open-hearted vulnerability.
Responding to a young person's plea for guidance in finding direction and purpose in a “strange and temporary world” that often seems to conflict with the highest values of humanity, the wise and sensitive Nick Cave offers his eye on the two most important spiritual qualities that must be cultivated in order to live a meaningful life.
A generation after James Baldwin noted in his excellent essay on Shakespeare that “it is said that his time was simpler than ours, but…
The world… is a strange and deeply mysterious place, forever changing and reinventing itself. But this is not a novel situation, our world is not only strange and temporary, it has been since its inception, and will continue to be so until its end – mysterious and forever in flux.
He then offers his two pillars of a fulfilling life – principles of the soul that “have a softening effect on our fixed and divisive value systems”:
The first is humility. Humility is like understanding that the world is not divided into good and bad people, but instead is made up of all kinds of people, each broken in their own way, each caught up in an individual struggle and each with the ability to do both bad and good things. When we truly understand and accept that we are all imperfect beings, we find that we become more tolerant and accepting of the shortcomings of others and the world seems less irrational, less divided, less threatening.
Another quality is curiosity. When we look with curiosity at people who do not conform to our values, they are interesting rather than threatening. As I've grown older I've learned that the world and the people in it are incredibly interesting, and that the more you look and listen, the more interesting they become. Cultivating an inquiring mind, conversation being a key tool, improves our relationship with the world. Having a conversation with someone I may not agree with, I found, a great joy, a life that unites.
Couple that with Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell for what makes a fulfilling life and revisit Nick Cave's humble wisdom on the importance of self-confidence, the art of growth, and the antidote to our helplessness, and enjoy his joy. In life a conversation with Krista Tippett about loss, longing, transcendence, and “the world's courage to keep being good and keep being good in times of great suffering.”
