Longing

“We all long for Eden and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature…is still soaked with the sense of exile.” –J. R. R. Tolkien

 

I begin with a deep, personal, and universal subject. When I refer to “longing,” I am simply talking about desire for more than we have or for something we need. I suppose “longing” would be most apparent when experiencing life’s most disappointing aspects. Disappointment may be too weak a word to describe our lowest points in life. Yet even embraced by life’s greatest pleasures, complete satisfaction seems to have eluded us. At the tops of a mountain, we cannot help but look to the stars. The trip to an attractive place wasn’t quite as magical as you might have hoped. A remarkable work of art or a dream stills feels like a shadow or a reflection of something else. A feeling I loathe is when various things start to become noticeably boring. The universe seems inadequate, like it cannot meet our standards. Our souls make a remarkably tall order.

We can only find what we seek in a place of infinity, where nothing fades or bores. I now introduce the idea of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. I am not talking about things that are true, or good, or beautiful; those things carry the ideas of truth, goodness, and beauty, but still leave something to be desired. I’m talking about what true, good, and beautiful things inherit their qualities from. This seems abstract, but this is the way I understand it: when we say that a mountain or sunset vista is beautiful, what are we comparing that to? Apparently it is something that we have seen before, or at least have knowledge of. The most beautiful thing in the world is still only something that is filled with something greater, namely beauty. Beauty is undeniably inherent in a vista, like it was given its qualities by something even greater. The vista happens to be measurable by some high standard from outside that we are aware of. I cannot (and should not) settle for anything less.

How did we come to know these high standards? I call it nostalgia: a longing for what once was; a desire to return to what we were once fully present in. When you taste food crafted by a master chef (who knows how to enhance flavors and stimulate the tongue), it is hard to be satisfied with “fast food” afterwards. In the same way, if you have had a taste of absolute perfection, your soul is spoiled rotten and always left craving more. The craving for perfection is not meaningless like a wish for unicorns to exist or for an in-grown toenail to be instantly cured. This craving is meaningful because it gives meaning to life, which we dare not reject out of fear of being considered sick. If there is nothing “out there” and our desire for perfection is only a mood swing, we have nothing but an inevitable grave to look forward to. Even for those that agree that life is a meaningless party that one should live up while he can, they still have a determined nature that refuses to accept their own idea. Why do we stubbornly live like there must be more than this life if we are convinced that there isn’t?

We are starving for paradise, trying to grasp what we once had. We are desperately homesick. Amnesiacs can regain memories of an old home. Memories have a variety of triggers. For instance, a marvelous piece of music, or a dream-like story, or an awesome portrait can re-kindle hearts, reminding them of the warmth of an ancient flame that they once felt. Another trigger to our memories of paradise is when the flame is tucked away: injustice, guilt, pain, cruelty, irrationality (a personal pet-peeve), and disappointment (or a severe form called “heartbreak”) leave us cold, frustrated, and helpless. The coldest of our triggers is death, which is the most anticlimactic phase of life. Death steals any profit that life makes. As far as death is concerned, the idea of living life to its fullest has as much meaning as a life cut short. A life could be long or short, prosperous or poor, upright or wicked, but death would be the end. That would be the case, but we apparently know better.

So we have a need which no experience in the physical universe can satisfy. We have knowledge of an “Edenian” need because we were built for its fulfillment, like the stomach for food. Now I want to apply a bit more cold and rigid logic: I now want to answer what or who exactly the object of our desire is.

As to what the thing is, I say that the object we long for must be personal rather than an unconscious object, place, or force. We have an apparent need for relationships with other persons; do not the most fulfilling parts of our current life involve having other persons (the best kind, anyway) in our lives rather than mere things? The center of our desire must be a conscious mind, also known as a personal being, or a soul (at the very least). It follows that the soul would be immaterial, transcending the physical universe. The soul must also be in need of absolutely nothing if it is in and of itself the fulfillment of everything, and so it would be self-sufficient. Being all-powerful, I think, fits into self-sufficiency; if some things are beyond your control, you are lacking in abilities and in need. Finally, the soul must be the absolute good that embodies the justice and love that we crave, and so be morally perfect. The description I have just given would be what we commonly refer to as “god.”

“God” is the fulfillment of our souls, the source of all the truth, goodness, and beauty that we love. A tall order, indeed. Would it be irreverent of me to call “god” the TGB (True, Good, Beautiful), giving all of my devotion and affection? The greatest conceivable being, our maker, deserves all that we have to give. We have no other purpose but to fill ourselves with whom we were made for. Life’s meaning is to learn to seek the better world and to help others to do the same. The world that we see now is only a glimpse, what we hear only an echo, and the love that we express only a taste of the real thing. Our top job is service, to mankind as well as TGB. Service includes (but is not limited to) teaching to others, working for humanity’s benefit, arousing senses of eternity through art and science, or simply providing an ear to speak to or a shoulder to lean on. We must give pleasant reminders to others of the one whom they truly need. We must also remember to never forget to appreciate the tokens of Eden that we have, while never holding those tokens as the one thing that we must pursue. As creatures made for more than this world, we must never allow ourselves to settle for fleeting pleasures.

Go, therefore, and give ‘em heaven.