Life's Philosophy: Reason and Feeling in a Deeper World

2. How Do You Feel Yourself and the World?

2 How Do YouFeel Yourself and the World? We ought to ask moreoften how we feel ourselves and the world. Thefact is that the division between ourselves and the world is not clear. It may be troublesome toput feelings into words, but to suppress them rarely leads to anything fruitful. Our emotionallife seems so rich that it isalmost impossible to grasp. Are feelings subjective or objective? And how can we distinguishbetweentrue and false emotions? At the same time,feelings have afar from unequivocally positive status in our society, fixated as it is on intelligence. Someone has just come on a visit, bringing mail with him. I found a card from a friend on which was written, "How do you feel yourself and the world?" The question was well put. Today people need to concentrate more on feeling the world. It ought to be natural to askthe question my friend asked. Why not! Becauseemotions have such a low status in our society, people say, "This is how I see the world," or "This is how I understand the world." They do not say, "This is how I feel myself and my situation." Emotions are undervalued in our dealings with life—in spite of their central role in practically all social and private contexts. Can something be done about it? I believe that it can. I like to sit at the living room window of my isolated mountain hut, Tvergastein, which offers an eagle's eye view of the very Nor20 wegian scenery of the Hardangervidda Plateau. It is easy to let my thoughts soar far away. Here, there are no distractions like radio and TV, no sounds except the wind. Above all, I have a work space that I have built in the southwest corner with a view over untrammeled space, a precipice of the majestic Hallingskarvet Massif as my closest neighbor, and more than fifty thousand square miles of landscape within sight. Up here it is difficult not to think big. Polemics and gossip become impossible. Here wetread warilyin the landscape ofboth place and thought. I find it difficult to understand how Nietzsche could manage to write pettifogging letters among the high mountains. Perhaps I have not read those letters carefully enough. I hope that those who have done so, and call them less than elevating, have judged wrongly. At Tvergastein, I find serenity within me, a serenity that the Hallingskarvet Massif also seems to possess. Bitter blast and hurricane , snow and rain—nothing can disturb its serenity. I recall a phrase from my favorite philosopher, Spinoza: acquiescentia in se ipso, "a serenity within oneself." That kind of serenity does not prevent the wind from blowing strongly in life. But it is an inner consolidation and presence that means that in every kind of situation one can feel like a complete human being. I feel that kind of serenity only in the way of life here at Tvergastein. Nature seems to help us to find that kind of calm. Some seek the mountains, others the sea, and still others the forest. I feel a particular affinity with the small animals up here. As a three-year-old, and later, I was together with tiny shrimps and flounders off the beach at Norheimsund in western Norway. I was so much bigger than they, but if I stood still, they might suddenly turn round in midnight and inquisitively examine me. The flounders sought shelter under the soles of my feet. I took that as a sign of confidence. Then and there I unquestionably developed a sense of being part of a vast world of living beings. When I wasfiveyears old, How Do You Feel Yourself and the World? 21 my family bought a hut at Ustaoset, on the Oslo-Bergen railway.At an early age I felt that inner serenity when the steam engine hauling the train puffed from Geilo over the tree line to Ustaoset Station, where we had a fairy-tale-like view of the Hallingskarvet. Gradually the naked rock face becamelike a faithful old friend—a divine dream of a father figure. When I built the Tvergastein hut in 1937,my wish was to live in the high mountains. I did not want merely to come on visits but to become someone who belonged there. All in all, I have now spent about twelve years of my life up here. So when I am asked how I...