If contemporary life, in whatever economy and whatever nation, seems strangely groundless, superficial, or empty to you, the following quote might resonate:
“…the absolute triumph of the will turns out to be a ghastly and unstable concept, antithetical to the very happiness it so ardently seeks. An individualism that gets precisely what it wants soon loses its savor, and even its reason for being. Deprived of the hardness and intractability of the very nature it struggles against, deprived of a world whose form and pressure it needs in order to thrive, the will dies of enervation…or it seeks solace, as so many romantics did, in fantasies of self-annihilation, or of immersion in that “oceanic” feeling in which the problem of individuation itself is absorbed and thereby disposed of.”
So writes Wilfred McClay in his prefatory remarks to an essay in Figures in the Carpet. I’ve written about this remarkable collection of essays from my friend WTM three times before, but this quote reminded me of the concept of enabling limits.
Enabling limits are those boundaries of medium, time, ability, or resources that, while seeming to limit artistic freedom actually prompt artists to be more creative, more dynamic. I’ve mentioned the highly formalistic novel Eunoia, by Christian Bok, in which all chapters are written with only a single vowel (among various other rules).
Self-imposed enabling limits replace limits once imposed by resource scarcity, demographic dynamics, and other boundaries now conquered by technology and economic expansion. Artists must self-limit, or drown in a deluge of possibilities. How often does one see a promising young filmmaker, for example, slowly unravel as success allows him to chase every possibility and entertain every self-referential notion?
As it goes with the artist, so it goes with the self: the asceticism of the monk or the training regimen of the obsessive runner are means for overcoming the problem of the enervated will McClay mentions. In a society of plenty, it grows difficult to define ourselves except in adherence to fads and movements (whether shallow or profound) as part of the oceanic immersion he notes or in acts of hostility and self-annihilation.
McClay adds this:
“What forms the soul and makes it interesting, and capable of work and love and responsibility and happiness, is not the triumph of the will, but the triumph over self-absorption and narcissism- a triumph that always entails the defeat of the will…”
What we value as a society is the maximum extension of the will, maximum willfulness, maximum freedom to do what we want, when we want, how we want. One wonders, however, if the freedom to enact one’s will yields any meaningful happiness, or if we aren’t rather like children who wish to eat candy until we feel sick, stay up until we’re cranky, and avoid every lesson reality is kind enough to offer.
