Demian - Part 2

Demian (Continued)

In Demian - Part 1, I mentioned that the author reiterates how he believes that defining one's own philosophy or path is lives' purpose. Below quotes are examples with each highlighted in different perspectives.

"For it is the same indivisible divinity that is active through us and in Nature, and if the outside world were to be destroyed, a single one of us would be capable of rebuilding it: mountain and stream, tree and leaf, root and flower, yes, every natural form is latent within us, originates in the soul whose essence is eternity, whose essence we cannot know but which often intimates itself to us as the power to love and create."

Humans, including atheists, often found answers to their life questions from observing how the nature existed. Recognizing the connection and similarity between nature and people, the indivisible divinity, I believe comes to us through an experience which we cannot quite describe it in words or logically prove for that matter. Yet, Hesse described the core, reason and existence of connection very boldly that "a single one of us would be capable of rebuilding" the destroyed world and gently too, "often intimates itself to us.." and I am captured by his words. 

"An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led."

"Our responsibility is to find no one else's but our own destiny and to live fully to act upon that destiny. Every other action is only half-solved solution. It is an effort to avoid his own destiny and run away to majority's path for an easier settle and an action of fear from a true self."

The same stories we hear from every entrepreneurs, philosophers, poet, theologists, etc. Thinking is hard, but one must struggle to think. Nowadays it's easy to hear "settling is not bad". "being an average is not bad", to give equivalence to choices: the choice to be special and the one not to be. But we have to make sure that choice is made after one's thinking. Thinking our own strength and weakness choosing which adventure to take or not.

"We did not live isolated. We often lived in the center of the world with thoughts and conversations. The only difference was where we stood. We did not build a wall. We only saw with different perspectives. Our task was to represent an island in the world, a prototype perhaps, or at least a prospect of a different way of life."

They were chosen people to sense and think, but they are not an aliens. Anyone can choose to look things differently.

"He had loved and had found himself. But most people love to lose themselves."

Are you loving to find yourself? or lose yourself? Can one find themselves without losing themselves first? What kind of love did Sinclair had?

"At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one. But such ideal was not a personal, free, or chosen ideal, but one defined by the others, the community's."

Individualistic ideal may not be powerful in this world like the community's. However, not having one's own, seems tragic when it meets death for settling. Be awake. Struggle to live a meaningful life.