This weekend I’ve read extensively the first chapter of Alan Watt’s Wisdom of Insecurity. I reminded me of a text I wrote in 2021. I share it here.
We live in the illusion of a totally mastered world. This belief has insidiously influenced our education at early stages. It certainly entered in dissonance with our youngest intuitions of harmony. Our social imagery has been soaked by the conviction that modern science can control everything, that rationality can overcome every obstacle. The harsh truth is we cease to do science and to be rational when we enter in such quasi-religious assertions. Using science implies as well recognizing, with humility, its limited scope of action.
Limited and finite beings such as humans cannot become masters of infiniteness. This would be incoherent. The infinity of causal relations that constitute our conatus and our universe; the multiple plans that escape our sensitive understanding: here are so many dizzying reasons that should lead us to the path of humility rather than of unfettered aspirations to power.
Socio-ecological crises are best revelations of the limitation of interacting with our environment only through rational lenses: where everything has to be computed, calculated, anticipated, made efficient, monetized. We would gain from more instinctive, emotional and spiritual modes of being in the world. We would also certainly gain from refraining from educating kids as competitors – and rather help them cultivate their intuitive connection to nature. And learn from it.
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NH, 29 june 2021