The Emptiness and One-sidedness of Secular Life

How your answer gladdened me! «I am not drawn to it; on the contrary, it repels me. For more than a day afterward I was as though shattered—my soul ached and languished, and I could not get a hold of myself. Only with great difficulty did the feeling pass.» Why did you not write this last time? I had a sense that your silence was concealing some sting or splinter. God grant that such a feeling—repelling you from society life and social entertainments—may remain in you forever. But it is also possible that in time you may grow accustomed to it. Evidently you cannot altogether avoid contact with that sort of life. The second time it will not be so shattering and disturbing; the third time, less still; and after that, it will seem quite ordinary—as they say of a little glass of vodka: the first goes down like a stake, the second like a falcon, and then you simply keep filling the glass. What do those who walk into a tobacco workshop experience? The smoke stings the eyes, irritates the nose, makes it impossible to breathe. But those who work there find it nothing at all; and even these newcomers, after standing there a little while, are no longer squinting and sneezing and coughing so much, and after a time those discomforts cease entirely. Take care lest something similar befall you in relation to the ways of life that so disturbed your peace.

You seem to have anticipated my question and say: «I do not think I will ever make my peace with such a life. I look more closely and find that this is not life. I cannot explain it, but I am confirmed in the thought that this is not life. There is much movement here, but no life. Why, my sewing machine buzzes away furiously—but what life is there in it?» What a splendid thought your bright little head has produced. Now I can consider your position more secure. Feeling alone is unstable: it can change. But when a sound thought comes to its aid, feeling is strengthened, and in turn strengthens the thought. Together they resemble a fortress. But in order for that fortress to be stronger, you must understand exactly why there is no life in that life. If our conversations continue, in time this will be clarified in detail; for now I will say only this: there is no life in that life because it does not occupy and nourish all the aspects of human life, but only a small part—and that a part which stands in the last place, or rather at the outermost edges of life, without touching its center. Human life is complex and many-sided. In it there is a bodily aspect, a soul aspect, and a spiritual aspect. Each has its own powers and needs, its own ways of exercising them and satisfying them. Only when all our powers are in motion and all our needs are satisfied does a person truly live. But when only one small part of his powers is in motion and only one small part of his needs is satisfied, that life is not life—just as in your sewing machine, the proper movement occurs only when all its parts are working. Let one part stop, and the little machine has stalled; it is not alive. Nor does a person live as a human being when not everything in him is in motion. Only in a machine is the cessation of its life—its movement—plainly visible, whereas in a human being the absence of full human life, while one aspect is active and a few needs are satisfied, proceeds invisibly—yet it is just as real as the stillness of that machine. Such is the law of human life! Let us apply it to what we are speaking of. What powers are at work there, and what needs are satisfied? The hands, the feet, the tongue, the eyes, the ears, smell, touch, memory, imagination, fancy, and quick wit are all occupied—all together constituting the lowest aspect of the human being, the aspect he shares with the animals; and only one need is satisfied—the need of animal life, or rather the play of that life, such as acts in lambs when they are turned out into a green meadow. Besides these powers the human being has two or three more levels, and above them a chief center.

Judge for yourselves, then, whether such a life can be life. Your feeling told you that there is no life there. I am pointing out to you the chief reason why there is none. The working of this reason may not be entirely clear to you just now, but the general idea cannot fail to be understood; the details will become clearer in time. For it is my intention to derive everything that is right and proper from the structure of human nature. We must live as God created us to live, and when someone does not so live, one can say boldly that he does not truly live at all. I ask you to be satisfied with this for now.