Re-reading De La
Rochefoucauld's Maxims and came upon this most magnificent one: Il y a des
gens qui n'auraient jamais été amoureux s'ils n'avaient jamais entendu parler
de l'amour. There are people who would never have been in love had they never
heard of love. At first glance, this slightly confusing maxim forces a double take. Is
De La Rochefoucauld saying that love is an awakening? Is he saying that love
irrevocably is and therefore cannot be denied? We're all familiar with the
Hollywood take on love - a compelling force that literally stops us in our
tracks and then sweeps us off our feet. We've had the experience too- the sharp
intake of breath, the deafening thumping in our chests, the feeling that
suddenly the happiness of the other person is all that matters. Love, that
breathless sensation, quickly all consuming, becomes our reason for getting up
in the morning and our reality.
However reality is
truth grounded in fact. For example, let's take the following sentence: I
watched an apple fall from the tree. A sentence could not be more
unromantic if it tried. 'An apple fell from the tree' is a statement of fact.
Love, on the other hand, is an emotion. And emotions from a philosophical
perspective are illusions.
In his
thought-provoking maxim, De La Rochefoucauld is enlightening us to the
following: our reactions to the world we live in and even our emotions are unoriginal. Put another way,
anyone who does not question convention or express indignation from time to
time doesn't know their own mind. Like Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew, it
is good occasionally to declare that the sun is the moon. According to De La
Rochefoucauld, original thought is something that ordinary human beings don't
possess unless they choose to challenge themselves. And so it follows that if
we had never heard of the concept of love, falling in love would never
happen. In other words, do we know what we actually think? (Perhaps nowhere
else could the answer to that question be more explicit or obvious than in our
opinions on the EU Referendum.)
The implications
of being in control of one's mind are very far-reaching. We live in an era of
great turmoil on all fronts: political, religious, economic and the specter of
war is ever present. Being strong mentally creates a buffer of sorts: it can
help us cope with uncertainty and also spare us unnecessary worry. But here's
the riddle within the enigma: knowing oneself, the journey towards
self-awareness and ultimately contentment, takes tremendous courage. In order
to learn from bad experiences and choose to either succumb or overcome, demands
stores of innate strength and self-belief. Along the journey of self-awareness
we form a unique set of convictions borne or good and bad experiences, which
will in turn become the template for our future behaviour. Without the
determination to know ourselves, life can be a complicated obstacle course,
which at times is impossible to navigate.
When we read De La
Rochefoucauld's maxim again, it is a profound insight into the necessity of
having a strong mind. A literal acceptance of anything is a wildly
reckless thing to do because crucially, it absolves the individual of all
responsibility of their actions and weakens their resolve.
Had we never heard
of love therefore, we would be incapable of feeling it. Original thought- the
ability to think for ourselves, create ideas that are unique and to establish
the parameters by which we define who we are- is sadly becoming a rare thing
indeed. Instead of thinking, we react. Just look at the immense
popularity of every new fad diet or the confusion that surrounds what is good
or bad to eat. It is also becoming harder to find heroes or those to emulate
who represent something that is out of the ordinary and who possess a fortitude
that is neither self-serving nor for the purpose of brazen self-aggrandisement.
In today's world who can we say has incomparable honour and nobility of spirit
that is not for sale?
Walk down any high
street and you will see people who are the carbon copy of someone else, not
merely in their dress or appearance but in their aspirations, lifestyle and
crucially, thinking. Put another way, challenge your perception about what you
know when you read the following statement (overheard on a train) and consider what's wrong with it: My
very excellent spiritual healer smokes and occasionally takes anti-depressants.
I fear we are all
becoming narcissists, masters of self-deception and frauds, permanently
choosing our reflection over the discovery of who we really are. Remaining lost in translation condemns
us to never finding ourselves and renders us more vulnerable- without a strong
mind it is harder to cope when bad things happen and to be gullible, handing
the remote control to someone else. Is a man without thoughts of his own of
value to society? Perhaps therein lies the conundrum. Or perhaps an absence of
thought is the dream of every politician, pharmaceutical manufacturer, health
guru, astrologer or other peddler of what we should be thinking.
A study. Photograph copyright SvD.
