Ambition: Poem & Reflections

I am not ambitious,

nor have I ever been.

I only wish to live my life

with grace and love serene.

I do not wish to change the world,

to fix and mend and clean,

to ascend the endless ranks of power

just to be and to have been.

I am but small; the world is vast,

yet this has never troubled me—

I’m only here for a wee little while,

and this shall pass too fast.

Stop dreaming of the stars

and end your mighty toil.

Gaze instead upon these flowers

growing in the soil.

Breathe the sweet air of summer evenings,

feel your cheeks blush pink,

for the sweetest, strongest, tenderest pleasures

are much smaller than we think.

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I wrote this poem a short while ago. I hardly remember what was going through my mind to provoke it, but I revisited it today and thought it might be interesting to discuss.

It sounds peculiarly passive and vapid to declare that one is simply not ambitious. It would seem to characterize a person devoid of any sense of a mission to fulfill or motive for action in this life. And, free of such motivation, what is man but a rightful object of pity who stays alive purely for the sake of continuing to exist and for no other, more meaningful reason? It can certainly be argued that ambition and achievement are what set humans apart from other living beings: we are unique in possessing the capacity to plan for the future, to act on decided goals, and to formulate a sense of self that is stable through time. Ambition is that force which compels us to behave in manifold uniquely human ways: to form relationships, to pursue meaningful work, to cultivate our abilities and manifest our potential, to make ourselves useful to others and to society. Absent this driving force, what separates a human being from a lion in the wild or a tulip in the garden; a tree in the forest or a bacterium in a colony?

There is merit to the view that to be human is to strive effortfully toward challenging goals, and that meaning is found in the pursuit and attainment of these ends. Plants and animals and other forms of life appear to simply act with an eye to survival and reproduction, at least insofar as we adopt an evolutionary point of view with respect to them. We might be inclined to frown upon such a narrowly defined mode of existence aimed solely at self-preservation in a literal sense. Surely it is somewhat less than ideal to simply exist and leave nothing of oneself behind. The person who strives, achieves, and adapts is praiseworthy, while one who never sets their sights outside of themselves and is content with a humble existence may appear somewhat lackluster. The Epicureans of the Hellenistic Period touched on this point, but with the opposite position on the matter: they claim that being content with what is and acquiring a disposition of “freedom from disturbance” (ataraxia) is the highest end, a psychological goal of sorts encouraging profound mental tranquillity, deeming this the highest pleasure and thus the highest good. This perspective involves refusing to place absolute value in anything external such as accolades or wealth. It is not desirable to have ambition because this necessarily speaks to being less than perfectly content with what is; it indicates a disturbance in that we desire something other than what we have. As such, the Epicureans encourage a lifestyle of humble means, claiming that ambition and accomplishment are not necessary in order to achieve ataraxia. This may be deeply counterintuitive in the cultural context of today, but it is an interesting philosophy to consider.

This is to say that there is a compelling case to be made that we are really not so different from the lion or the tulip, the tree or the bacterium. We exist, we are alive, we grow and develop between the punctuation marks of birth and death, and these latter two events are omnipresent inevitabilities. These may seem like uselessly vague commonalities to point out. One might argue that the features setting humans apart from other creatures are more important to focus on than the uniting features of all living things. But this would be an error. While we humans make our intentions and experiences explicit in language, allowing us to create far more intricate and profound structures of meaning than other animals do, the fundamental facts of life belonging to every living thing are what lay the groundwork for all of these subsequent and more elaborate meanings. So, while I have no desire to cast aside the necessity of goals and ambitions in human life (I, too, have goals; the statement "I am not ambitious" is intended as a statement about the simplicity and inherent limitedness of my own goals, whereas many set more lofty aims for themselves), I think there is value to be found in the observation that "just" being alive - breathing, sensing, perceiving, thinking, feeling, and acting - is quite a miraculous and beautiful thing. As such, it is a worthy aim to simply continue to exist. To sit in the sunlight, to be touched by the cadences of soulful music, to experience laughter, to appreciate the finitude of our being alive at all, is a worthy object of our attention in and of itself. Things that are particular to humans occupy much of this list, of course: we are only privy to a particular mode of being alive, both in the sense of our species and our specific individuality. A wild lion likely does not have reflective moments of self-appreciation as he goes about his day (although what do we know?). A tulip isn't aware of itself as a living thing in the same way that we are. And humans are surely the only ones who plan their lives decades into the future. But ambition, understood as goals external to mere self-perpetuation, need not take hold before we can appreciate the basic miracle of aliveness common to all of our fellow creatures.

This notion might be difficult to accept for some due to the pervasive tendency to place our personal value in external things - particularly in various forms of doing or having - rather than in the more deeply grounded sense of being. One who finds nothing particularly amazing or gratifying in being alive, let alone healthy, safe, educated, and surrounded by people to love and be loved by, is especially vulnerable to self-hatred and despair in my opinion. When value is placed wholly in elements of circumstance that reside perpetually in the future, love of self and of life is put off like something that is inherently conditional, only permitted when a certain state of affairs is achieved. But love of life really ought to be unconditional, something embraced in each moment as we live it. What’s more, it is noteworthy that individuals who adopt a spiritual practise of some kind often have a greater appreciation for the quality I am getting at, this enamorment with simply being alive. It is difficult to ignore the profundity of love that Christians, for example, feel for their fellow human beings, viewing them each as a child of God and, consequently, as the rightful recipients of unconditional love. Regular meditators may encounter a heightening of consciousness and detachment from self, bringing them in touch with a more expansive awareness that transcends the individual perspective and comes to encompass all things. Moreover, the intuitive sense of empathy that is ubiquitous amongst humans is grounded in a recognition of sameness with the other, and constitutes a re-enactment of the other's being in my own being based on our underlying likeness. Forgiveness, too, stems from this recognition: I come from the same originating material as the other, and as such could have acted as they did. I forgive from the recognition that I am not superior to the other because of my victimization, but rather never cease to be equal to the person who has wronged me. This is true even while my pain at being wronged is real. All of these are examples of an expanded self of sorts, and are tightly linked to a present awareness of the self for what it is. And what it is is something deeply intriguing, complex, and beautiful. The word ‘self’ in this context denotes not the individual human being as such, but the life-giving essence that is common to all people, and even extends beyond this to all living things. We have a natural feeling of respect for this critical essence of being alive, but this feeling of respect or awe is frequently drowned out when our minds are directed elsewhere, valuing objects over subjects. Overbearing ambition is a good example of this phenomenon.

It is not that the sense of wonderment I am advocating is easy to come by and that one who lacks it is unusual or failing in some way. Quite the contrary: it seems that we are all too prone to setting our sights on lofty ideals at the expense of appreciating what is. The life of the mind likes to orient itself toward the past and the future, but a grounding in the present must underlie all else. This immanent perspective necessarily draws our focus away from the ambitions we hold for ourselves. My distant desire to become qualified for a certain profession, to earn a particular degree, to have a certain number of children, or to solve world hunger are all worthy aims yet are completely irrelevant to my ability to choose joy and to adopt an attitude of awe and wonder at the living being I am and the world around me which vibrates with similar life. One who adopts a more flattened attitude toward humanity than the one just described may believe that life is utterly devoid of value unless we make something of ourselves in the realm of achievement, whether this be through social progress, self-development, or relationship. This position is a tempting one. It is not obvious that life has any inherent meaning or that living out a life wherein nothing significant is achieved is worthwhile at all. In fact, this is a question most people probably grapple with at some point, particularly in light of the agony of certain inescapable experiences that befall us all too often. It is nearly impossible to deny that setting goals and achieving them adds value to our lives, not least in the form of giving us a foundation for self-respect. Having ambition and being driven to act by this force is, in a way, a drive to self-expansion and self-strengthening that fits within the simpler model of 'survival and reproduction' that evolutionary theory gives us. If staying healthy through conscious choices, becoming smarter by being a lifelong learner, forming a profound and long-lasting relationship, and having children expands and strengthens my Self in both the limited and expansive senses, then ambition is undoubtedly a vital part of the human experience without which we would be completely lost. Nonetheless, it remains possible to overlook the innate reason for these things being valuable, namely that they are means to the grander end of expanding and strengthening the self. Their value is not inherent, so to speak - or at least not entirely inherent - because it derives at least in part from their role in promoting another, more primary goal, namely that of Self-perpetuation.

This represents a shift in what I have being arguing, I think: ambition is necessary as an element of the human life cycle, but this is only the case because it catalyzes our growth and development. The sense of ‘ambition’ used in the poem perhaps ought to be designated as a recognition that extending oneself far and wide without having the primary understanding that life itself is a beautiful, awe-inspiring thing, is worthless. We might imagine a person who is fundamentally cynical and nihilistic, believing life is ultimately meaningless, but who is nonetheless ‘ambitious’ in the way we would ordinarily use the word. This person may have a flourishing career, a happy family, and seem completely successful. But ambition without a substantial grounding in the inherent value of being is misdirected. This person doesn’t live their life or achieve their goals as an exercise of Self-expansion, but as a detached and somewhat empty expansion of their narrow, individual self. Their goals might take the form of self-development that stops at the limits of their particular individuality, never going beyond this to add to the power of the deeper Self I have spoken of. Further, it seems very likely to be the case that a simple life of humble means like that praised by the Epicureans would foster a greater connection with the right kind of ambition, the kind that leads one to a connection with the sheer beauty of being alive, than a life of busy greatness.

So I suppose the point is rather a simple one: try to appreciate time as it comes and goes, inhabiting the present fully, as they say, rather than continually setting your sights on distant ideals. These have their place, undoubtedly, and occupy rather an important one for many of us. But we ought to remember that these aims are not to be conflated with the true source of joy. They may certainly bring us joy when we achieve them, but insofar as they remain objects of ambition and not material realities, a grounding in what is, in what we are now and what we can experience in the present must remain. Being alive between two eternal darknesses is rather an incredible thing that ought to inspire us at every turn. I suppose I wrote the above poem lest we forget this amazing fact.

On Virtue and Having an Opinion

One does not ordinarily hear the notion of virtue summoned in a discussion about opinions (in the simple sense of having them or not), yet there is an important relation to be noted between these two things. Many a reasonable person refrains from engaging in the controversial issues of their day, eager as they are to stay far away from impassioned disagreement, and perhaps more eager still to avoid committing to a view only to turn out to be wrong. There is good reason for such an approach: topics on which people widely disagree can be a source of unwarranted drama, a destructive force within relationships, and a path to ideological commitment that leaves one with a firm set of beliefs and no way out, once the ego has become involved in defending them. Such neutral parties may like to think of themselves as cognitively flexible, able to see the merit on both sides of a debate, and consequently make agreeable companions to a range of opinionated friends. Other neutral nellies may simply lack interest in the affairs of the world, believing that there is no point in attempting to learn about a topic and come to a conclusion that many others will disagree with anyway. These individuals are disengaged in a less deliberate way, steering clear of public discourse out of insecurity or accepted ignorance. They are unwilling to put any effort into forming an opinion; into asserting themselves as free-standing individuals. Both of these types live in fear of being challenged, of having others push back against their assertions, and thus live to protect themselves from self-doubt and conflict with others.

On the other end, vast swaths of people who 'have an opinion' do not actually have an opinion at all: they merely regurgitate the somewhat intelligent-sounding views of those around them, spewing platitudes about complex social issues and attaching their egos to the passion contained in the argument. These types often use their poorly formed opinions as a way to assert a kind of pseudo-enlightened, holier-than-thou attitude whenever the opportunity arises - and this tends to happen rather frequently when the opinion in question is on a pertinent topic. This tendency rests within all of us, of course, as a basic manifestation of our evolved tribalistic psychology. The difference lies in how actively each of us resists the urge to 'pick a team', so to speak, and begin defending its honour with vigour and passion. Some people are mostly reasonable and open to new information on the opinions they hold, while others are almost entirely ideological, taking on a predetermined set of opinions that fill them with fire and provide a sense of identity and purpose. These individuals are those whose entire sense of self is intertwined with a particular world view, and who will therefore behave most dramatically in situations of dissent. For them, an opinion being challenged is equivalent to an attack on their very sense of self, and so it is understandable that a strong reaction is elicited. But let it be noted that the majority of us probably enact this artificial opinionatedness on some topics while adopting a more reasonable or neutral view on others, such that the people we meet are not immediately cast into the crude categories of self-adjacent or other-adjacent, in-group or out-group. (At least this is my optimistic belief). I maintain that for most of us, though perhaps less and less every day, the world is not black-and-white but appears chiefly in shades of grey.

So, where does virtue figure in these various opinionated modes? I will take for granted that most readers recognize the moral implications of the second opinion-status described above, where one's tribal inclinations get the better of one and lead to a superficial commitment to one side or another on a given issue. I will also assume that we each have the self-awareness to identify at least one occasion on which we ourselves have adopted such an approach, committing before carefully considering the potential merits of each side and believing the choice to be so obvious that such deliberation is deemed unnecessary - even damaging - to engage in. In doing this, one oversimplifies their adversaries' views, feels justified in condemning them as ignorant and/or evil, and almost inevitably begins mentally to remove them of their status as human beings equal to oneself. It leads to a dangerously oversimplified view of human nature and the problems we face, and fuels the ego-driven emotional wreckage that immoral persons are reliably made of. In holding opinions as a source of identity defined by that which it is not, rather than by that which it is, the individual organizes their psyche in a war-like manner where their entire being is on the line in situations of conflict, and where change and compromise have passed beyond the realm of possibility. This is a death-like way of being in a sense articulated beautifully in the Tao Te Ching:

"Human beings are soft and supple when alive, stiff and straight when dead. The myriad creatures, the grasses and trees are soft and fragile when alive, dry and withered when dead. Therefore, it is said: The rigid person is a disciple of death; The soft, supple, and delicate are lovers of life. An army that is inflexible will not conquer; A tree that is inflexible will snap. The unyielding and mighty shall be brought low; The soft, supple, and delicate will be set above."

Let me note here that the necessity of being flexible in matters of opinion is not to be taken as an admonishment of having firm principles. We need to have principles as the moral and practical basis from which to live our lives, as a source of direction and of meaning. Moreover, these principles may carry profound value for individuals and communities, and this is not to be cast aside in the name of remaining open to alternative views. The purpose of principles, though, is to guide one through life in the best way possible, such that some good comes of our existence. Their purpose is not to provide an excuse to be rigid in one’s convictions to the point of looking down upon those whose principles differ, nor are they to be used as a yardstick for moral virtue so that we may compare amongst ourselves. The need for principles ought to motivate a desire to refine them into the best source of guidance possible, not a desire to be the one who ‘got it right’. This is the point I wished to make with regards to treating opinions as provisional positions rather than as a source of identity. This is to say nothing of the colossal dangers that come with expressing a view with which one is not fully acquainted simply to appear informed. Promoting ideas one does not genuinely support or understand, yet becoming responsible for them in expressing them as if they did, is an abominable but shockingly widespread form of immoral behaviour. Treating opinions like mere accessories to be used to augment a false sense of self-righteousness is perhaps the pinnacle of vice, leading to some very dark places indeed.

What I would really like to elaborate on, though, is the immoral nature of the first opinion-status described above: that of non-commitment. Make no mistake, I am a strong advocate for remaining flexible in one's positions as a topic becomes more and more deeply understood, and for continuing to demonstrate as much flexibility as one can muster even after developing a somewhat firm position. Furthermore, I believe it is wrong that we expect opinions to be permanent, like destinations one arrives at and never leaves. Mere opinions are just that - opinions - not hard-and-fast convictions. We must practise enough humility to admit that even our most closely-held beliefs could change, radically or moderately, in response to new information. The ego has no place in opinion, though the self is importantly implicated, as I will discuss further on. Such was the attitude Socrates took to the extreme in his resolution that he knew nothing at all, which he carried out through a keenness to discuss things openly and extensively in order to get at the truth (or as close to it as possible). My contention here is that there is a critical difference between non-commitment as a philosophy in-and-of itself, and a balanced approach to tumultuous topics where one accepts a particular view provisionally, with the project of refining this view as time goes on always in mind.

Of course, we humans are hardly capable of being so restrained as to plainly refuse to commit to any beliefs until all the details of a topic have been explored exhaustively. Not only is this something of an impossible goal, but it is not even in the interests of virtue to bring such an approach to salient issues. We must accept a degree of uncertainty in the knowledge we consider ourselves to have if we wish to live successfully in the world and avoid falling into a purely nihilistic, or hubristic, state. For this very reason, opinions ought always to have the form: "this is what I think, for now" if we wish to save ourselves from utter humiliation upon being proven wrong at a later date, and if we wish to regard ourselves as rational and humble people. Avoiding hubris in matters of opinion relies on a commitment to resist tribalism and remain open to dissent. This foundation crucially requires keeping the ego at bay so that we are able to receive criticism without it shaking our (superficial) sense of self and prompting defensiveness. Conversely, avoiding radical skepticism or just plain meaninglessness in its many manifestations requires actually having an opinion to begin with. We must assert ourselves in the world in order to be a complete person; without doing this, we are lacking a distinct sense of self and risk disappearing altogether in a fundamental sense. Taken as the inverse of overconfidence, meaninglessness strips us of all attempted knowledge and in so doing removes our very foundation for being in the world. The result is a kind of death without actually dying - a form of remaining dead by way of failing to assert a Self when one had the chance. In matters of opinion, then, we are left with an appealing middle path between arrogance and meaninglessness: the path of provisional opinion, genuinely believed in but never settled absolutely and for all time.

This brings me to the chief argument I wanted to make: refusing to have an opinion is an exercise in cowardice and laziness that undermines the very foundation of what it means to be alive. The aforementioned element of uncertainty in knowledge is not to be taken as a free pass to exist in a purely uncommitted state where one refuses to engage in matters of opinion and to adopt a particular view, even if only tentatively. Being uncertain and flexible in the views we hold is fundamentally different from failing to adopt particular views in the first place, thereby choosing to exist in a vacuum of meaning. To exist in such a manner is to live as a dead person; it is not only to be ignorant, but to accept and fall in love with one's own ignorance, having no desire to escape it. It is to be an undifferentiated, unthinking, cowardly, virtually non-existent shell of what might appear superficially to be a person, but in fact is not. It is to refuse to be a living, breathing, self-asserting human being. To be unopinionated in this sense is thus to choose not to be a person at all. And such a state is, in every important way, the antithesis of virtue.

I should clarify that by ‘virtue' I mean having a character and a life that has chosen an absolute meaning for itself, such that there is a concrete ‘good’ at which one is aimed and an established set of commitments through which one realizes this aim. To be virtuous is to model oneself after the good, to promote and embody it to the greatest extent one can manage. The inverse is drifting about aimlessly with no direction or meaning, and it is from this state that what we commonly understand as ‘vice’ typically develops. It is virtually never the case that vice is deliberately pursued as an end in itself, but far more common that it comes to be in an individual when he or she lacks some clear and worthy aim to work toward. Without an accepted concept of the good, and of the meaning of all sorts of other important phenomena, one is left empty and vulnerable to any number of terrible ideas taking over and occupying one’s soul - bad ideas, cruel ideas, ideas not purposefully taken on but randomly received by a wide open soul, a soul available for taking over because it lacks any devotion to the good. To remain uncommitted to a particular point of view on any such important matter is thus to choose not to be good - to purposefully be the opposite of good through failing to commit to a definition even of this basic term. More generally, in neglecting to have an opinion, one evades the responsibility we have to live out our existence in as resolute a way as we can. Echoing Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist principles of intentionality and bad faith, our responsibility as conscious beings is to make meaning out of things in the world - to form an opinion, in other words, and to assert it confidently. Evading this responsibility by claiming not to be the consciousness that we are is to operate in bad faith, which is rightly construed as immoral if we take ‘the good’ to reside in fulfilling our duty as human beings, and accept that our duty is to make meaning of the things we encounter in the world. The freedom of our consciousness is worth nothing if we fail to do anything definite with it, to decide on one thing over another and to act accordingly instead of drifting about like a feather in the wind.

Bad faith may be compared to the death-like modes of being discussed previously, wherein we either assert identity with some particular view in a superficial, egotistical manner, rigidly clinging to a specific meaning as though the world depended on it, or we claim to be an absolute non-identity, a disembodied consciousness with no sure thoughts or opinions; a ‘being’ with no real being-in-the-world. To avoid bad faith and to live in an authentically life-like manner requires that we assert a Self through making genuine meaning out of things, by committing to particular opinions while not taking them to be absolute or universally true by virtue of our having arrived at them. Meaning is flexible and transient, accepted in one moment but open to being recreated completely in the next. We do ourselves great harm by attempting to make ourselves permanent through identifying with a singular meaning, or by attempting not to exist at all by identifying with nothing. These two modes of bad faith are, as expressed by Sartre, in direct contradiction with the existentially authentic life. If we are to exist in the world as a definite Self, we must choose ourselves, we must have opinions, and we must be both adaptable and discerning enough to avoid the two modes of vice elaborated throughout this piece.

Expanding from the relatively small-scale matter of opinions, there is an analogous point to be made about committing to a particular path in life over and above ‘keeping one’s options open’ and feeling liberated by the presence of such extensive choice. An abundance of choice is not a good thing in and of itself without the sense of responsibility to actually choose amongst the choices, to commit to one among many and produce something valuable and profound out of this chosen course. Failure to choose, to commit, results in a pervasive emptiness of spirit and flatness of experience that is the enemy of a virtuous life. Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote of the youth of his day: “By dint of feeling itself free, exempt from restrictions, it feels itself empty. An ‘unemployed’ existence is a worse negation of life than death itself. Because to live means to have something definite to do—a mission to fulfil—and in the measure in which we avoid setting our life to something, we make it empty.” It is an incontrovertible fact of life that we must choose a particular mode of existence, including our character traits, opinions and values, the people we surround ourselves with, and the passions we fill our time with. Carving out these specifics from a sea of possibility is the fundamental activity we exist to engage in. To the extent that we fail to do this, we fail to be a complete person.

Life is Special

It all really goes by so quickly, doesn't it? Life is a blurry landscape we witness from the window of a speeding train, watching moments transform into days, weeks, months, and years. Sections of our lives fade into one another with the subtlest of changes, and the value of each section of time only grows in meaning and importance retrospectively. There is even psychological research suggesting that our sense of time is almost inextricably tied to our sense of self. Me then, me now. The same person, but also not. And not even in an 'I've grown and learned so much since six months ago' kind of way, but in a 'six months have gone by, and now I'm here' kind of way. We change purely through the passage of time, even if nothing really seems to happen. This phenomenon is terrifying in a very real sense, because, of course, the self is a transient thing that doesn't truly exist when you look a little closer - it is merely a construction of our individual imaginations that we can't help believing in; a grand myth we perpetually get swept up in. Yet delving into the reservoir of memories that belong to 'me' is the only real basis for my understanding of who I am now, when it comes down to it. Those memories aren't real: they aren't happening now, they won't happen again, and without the personal significance I place on them, they don't mean or matter much at all. I merely require this collective library of thoughts, emotions, and recollections of events in order to make any sense of the world and my existence in it whatsoever. Memories are tools with which we repeatedly dig up a lost sense of self, dust it off, and put it back on to remind ourselves of who and what we are. Like the conductor of a private orchestra without whose proper direction we would crumble into chaotic, eerily misdirected fragments of noise, the self serves to direct or conduct the chaos of the human position in the world so as to produce a moderately coherent - and at times beautiful - symphony.

All of this to say, we owe it to ourselves to cherish those memories of the moments in our lives where we feel most alive, most awake, most ablaze with the spark of consciousness lighted in us at birth. These are the moments, days, weeks, and hours we ought to draw upon each time we turn inwards to reconstruct that ever-so-fragile sense of self that keeps us moving forward. What is it about these particular memories that makes you feel alive and inspired each time you remember them? What was special about that time, about those people, about who you were back then? How do these feelings and recollections serve you now?

Life is special. Treasure it. Note the beauty in the mundane, because without a doubt what is mundane to you now will become an invaluable treasure at some later time. Live now as much as possible, because that is all there is. But write down or document the days of your life in some way so that whenever you lose sight of what has made your life beautiful and worth living, you will have proof to look back upon and be grateful for. Don't allow fleeting moments, thoughts and feelings to slip away into the realm of the forgotten and the non-existent. Cherish them, be grateful they happened, and continue to form those beautiful memories for as long as you live.