Underestimating Ourselves
We who think and feel at the same time are those who really continually fashion something that had not been there before: the whole eternally growing world of
valuations,
colors,
accents,
perspectives,
scales,
affirmations,
and negations.
This poem that we have invented is continually studied by the so-called practical human beings (our actors) who learn their roles and translate everything into flesh and actuality, the everyday.
Whatever has value in our world does not have value in itself, according to its nature – nature is always value-less, but has been given value at some time, as a present – and it was we who gave and bestowed it.
Only we have created the world that created man!
–but precisely this knowledge we lack, and when we occasionally catch it for a fleeting moment we always forget it again immediately; we fail to recognize our best power and underestimate ourselves, the contemplatives, just a little.
We are neither as proud nor as happy as we might be.
–excerpt The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, §301
To think and to feel at the same time, now that is quite a trick, a kind of balancing on a high wire, making a transit without falling off, never minding that the fall will be painful, even fatal. What I want to say is that thinking with one’s entire body — is what it takes to sling a motorcycle through a sweeping curve at speed over 150 mph, more throttle to feel the rear tire bite, righting the machine to maximum acceleration down the straightaway…
That is what Al Lykins understood, what he did. I would say such was a poem of horsepower and asphalt. And not just that, those same sensibilities Al brought to the many other dimensions of his life.
That having been said, I know from conversations with him, Al underestimated himself. So do we all.
Unable to firmly grasp our capacity for creation, as with a 120 box set of Crayola crayons, of more nuanced shades than we thought possible, — we have made an eternally dynamic world…
This (imagination) is indeed our best power, “what is” can be transformed into what might be.
Stop for a moment — you have permission to be proud, to feel happy!
Continuing to remember our friend, Al Lykins (January 17, 1947 – January 21, 2023)
This tune is what we need as we make our way on this snowy, gray winter’s day: Stand by Me by Ben E. King.
One thought on “Underestimating Ourselves”
Your line “This is indeed our best power, ‘what is’ can be transformed into what might be” is a profound one. Permit me to suggest that “This” be replaced with “Imagination” and it does describe the human superpower.
Surely this post was not written by you to yourself, Jerry, yet “Stand By Me” does describe what you did for Al in his last earthly hours. Some people seem intentionally to slip out of life only when others have left the hospital room so they can do so privately, but gregarious Al did not seem like someone who would have preferred that, so some of him must have appreciated the send-off from friends literally standing by him.