What is it we are searching for in life? Meaning and understanding, what it entails to live a good life, the list is infinitely long. Many books have been written since the ancients in Greece when they pondered the questions we deem philosophical. Plato, for example, through the mouthpiece of Socrates, searched for the perfect republic, the humans living in the republic, and the myriad of other ethical questions they pondered. The thing they all had in common, to some degree, was the search for unity, a state of being which was ideal. Ataraxia, a state free from anxiety; eudaimonia, a state in which the soul is at rest, happy, or at peace with oneself. The search for unity personified. It takes the human to be fragmented, fractured, imperfect. Always already, then, in search of unity, of some wholeness of being which is currently lacking, absent.
"I will be happy when [...]" is a general phrase for people looking for unity.
"Only then will I be content," they say.
The search for unity is tempting. It is stuck in the ideology of original sin. We are born sinful, thus fractured, not whole, broken, fragmented. We search for unity to overcome this deficiency, we search for unity, being. We search for secure ground, stability, permanence, stillness. Motionless. We search for a position in which we can take things for granted, we want predictability, security. In the end, we want unity, being, a state in which fragmentation is healed and we do not have to search any longer.
This is contrasted with the notion of becoming, a state in which unity is not sought after. Being and becoming stand in contrast with each other. There is a peculiar tension at play.
Becoming refers to a perpetual motion, instability, movement. Always on the move. Moving. The nomad, as a perfect metaphor, is never in a stable position or place. She always moves. Once the position is depleted of meaning (read: resources) she carries on. She moves to a different place. Yet, that very place had a profound impact on her. She was changed, not in search of something final or stable, but open and receptive to whatever that place might have brought her. She is not shaped by that place in the sense of some finality, but she is constantly shaping, emphasising the movement, the continual opening-up (disclosing) of possibilities. And in a profound yet paradoxical move, she also shapes the very place in which she resides at that moment. She is intimately aware of the impact the place has on her, but she is always mindful and cognisant of the impact she has on that very place. She is changing but the place is also changing. Becoming more than what she was previously, but the very place she is situated in as well.
Yet, this place is not essential to her becoming. Or more specifically, the place in which she resides is not essential, it could have been another place. Always open to the possibility of change, becoming symbolises the radical openness to disruption, interruption, fragmentation, dissolution, deferral. The nomad, or someone open to becoming in its radical freedom from rigid compartmentalization, is not in search of something, she is not in search of unity, of being, stability. No, she is shaped by and shaping the very fabric on which her life is printed. She recognises the profound disunity and chaos of life itself, she stands in front of the universe and contra what Camus said about the absurdity of life, she does not search for meaning. The absurdity of life does not even come to her mind as she does not search for unity. Only in searching for that unity — meaning, being, stability — can one confront life's absurdity. But once one rejects that notion, by focusing on the fundamental disunity, can one become something.
But there is a profound tension in comparing being and becoming. A productive tension. One in which a profound possibility of growth resides. Being symbolises a search for unity in a seemingly chaotic world. Becoming, on the other hand, symbolises a search for nothing specific in a world obsessed with being something (rather than nothing). The two ideas are worlds apart. To not fall into the problem of synthesising two polar opposites into a quasi-unity, one might keep the two ideas separate with the goal of merely bringing both closer to each other, thus calling it being-becoming. What might this being-becoming entail? What is being-becoming?
Once we focus too much on one thing, we essentialise it. We objectify it. Being is obsessed with finding meaning, stability, unity. Becoming is obsessed with movement, perpetual continuity. Both are obsessed with something to such a degree that is lost all sight of the other. It becomes a dichotomous-binary relationship. The one cannot see the other, we are again lost in the web of dysfunction, in which meaning is scattered.
Focusing on the implications of being-becoming, we might begin to see the importance of both being grounded (being) with the prospects of growth (becoming). Grounding oneself does not need to entail being fixed. The flower, in its fixed position, spreads itself in various ways. Being rooted, it spreads its roots, it grows seeds and sends them elsewhere, it spreads itself in different ways to become something else. Stagnating and searching for a state of unity stifles the spreading of itself. Its roots recede, its seeds die, and it becomes sterile. Pulling the plant from the ground leaves its roots exposed, killing it. Movement can be good, but it does not need to be essentialised.
In recognising our human-search for meaning and some form of stability, yet our complex dynamic nature, we can secure a more thorough discussion or dialogue. Our situated nature, that is, being stuck in a specific time period, and in a specific cultural-economic-political era, grounds us. We cannot escape it. Yet, we can escape the complete rigidity by utilising this to become something else. Motion is not precluded from our being stuck in place. We use it as a dynamic springboard from which we become. It grounds us yet creates the possibility of becoming something else.
Being tries to escape this nature by searching for stability, escaping our fragmented nature. Becoming tries to escape this nature by moving continually onto something else. By underscoring and embracing being-becoming, we realise the necessity of groundedness with the possibility of growth and movement. It does not try to escape the rigidness of groundedness, it embraces it to become something else.
The ideas in this post are still something I am working on. I am not sure how to "ground" it yet. I am working on this. It is something I think has some potential to grow. But I need to work on it. This links to my other work on nomadic thinking and ways of being-becoming. In the future, I will delve a bit more into how these ideas are linked to dialogue and conversation. For now, I hope you enjoyed this verbose philosophical piece.
Happy reading and be safe.
If you have anything to add or something else to ponder on, please do let me know in the comments.
The musings in this post are all my own creation. Many different ideas have inspired me, and it continually does. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D3200.
