Philosophical Diversion

Recently, I shared some of Bertrand Russell's writings with a friend; scanning his essays for the most meaningful, accessible bits made me excited about his work all over again... so much so that I feel compelled to post a small excerpt here. This is the preface to his autobiography, entitled "What I Have Lived For"... it is one of the most beautiful passages I have ever read, and it speaks to me deeply. Russel was a brilliant philosopher (yes, and mathematician...) in many fields, but it is his passion for self-reflection and honesty of vision that I admire most. In my opinion, one of the greatest pitfalls of 'modern' living is the ability to walk through life blind, without contemplation; it's easy to become well-fed shells going through the motions without ever looking deeper into ourselves. Russell not only embodied the antithesis of that, he lived its principles. Now, of course, the passage below, beautiful as it may be, is brief and inevitably superficial. But, it's 11am and I haven't slept in nearly 30 hours, so....

What I Have Lived For

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
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