“When the mind is thinking, it is simply talking to itself, asking questions and answering them, and saying yes or no.”
Socrates
“Humanity has to travel a hard road to wisdom, and it has to travel it with bleeding feet.”
Nellie McClung
As Qohelet begins his inquiry into futility, he follows the path of both Socrates and Nellie McClung (or rather, he blazed the trails they trod after him). We are very fortunate that the rabbis later wisely incorporated his musings into that ancient mini-library we now call The Bible. We now get to read this great sage’s reflective journal, full of the questions he asked himself and the lessons he gleaned as he nears the end of his life-journey with much scarred feet. If we come with open minds, we can easily recognize ourselves, or at least our times, in his journey.
But just how scarred can his feet be when he lived a life of great privilege and unfettered ‘self-actualization’, as we would now progressively call it? He had it all, starting with royal blood and great wealth from birth, which only increased over his lifetime. Add to that almost unlimited power, lakes of fine wine, a huge harem of the most voluptuous women, and the best live music every day—as much as and more than his appetites could ever crave of all these things. He had fame, renown, and prestige, and was feared by all his rivals. He could indulge his slightest whim and explore any question he pleased, ordering slaves and servants and ministers to fetch and remove, build and destroy. Tribute flowed into his coffers from as far as Mesopotamia, southern Arabia, and East Africa, and his traders and merchants moved far and wide to satisfy his curiosity and bring him things he had never seen or perhaps even heard of.
Yet when he had enjoyed all this to the max, his heart was empty, untouched. Like all great tycoons, he discovered that once you have it all, what’s left? He discovered that he had been trying to fill a vacuum that no amount of ‘stuff’, admiration, adulation or sycophancy could fill. No amount of cheap sex could bring the peace and harmony of spirit that one real loving relationship could bring. No amount of wine or other intoxicants, fine food, beautiful clothing, posh dwellings, brilliant live entertainment, or partying could do more than give a temporary reprieve, be more than a ‘fix’ to relieve the inner hunger and briefly salve the soul-wounds perturbing his conscience. He read many treatises and listened to many readings; he collected advisors and composed his own proverbs, but his heart and soul remained incomplete. He tried religion, lavishing immense treasure on it, hoping its ceremonies and rituals would bring favour and comfort, but they did not do that or give peace.
When it was all said, done, and explored, he still sighed that, “It is all futile and chasing after the wind.” He realized that when he died, all that he had accumulated would just be passed to a successor who would probably behave like a fool and retain none of his hard-earned wisdom. No amount of trying to educate a son-successor could prepare him or prevent his becoming a fool if that son’s heart was unreceptive and he chose to behave like a typical young idiot who thinks they already know more than their parents.
As a good Israelite king Solomon knew how to rule according to God’s idea of good government. He wasn’t supposed to use his position and power to accumulate stuff and lord it over the people like a tyrant, as the kings of the other nations did. But bit by bit he had contravened virtually everything he knew not to do: gathering an enormous harem to show off his power and indulge every sexual fantasy; imposing heavy taxation to pay for all his great projects; levying heavy tribute on the conquered provinces, guaranteeing that they would become rebellious in the future; building lavish personal dwellings even more ornate than the much-gilded Temple; erecting powerful fortresses and garrison towns to display his military might and cow any opposition; amassing state of the art chariot forces on top of all that. “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired …. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind …” (2:10-11)
Having acquired everything wealth, power, and ambition could give him, he finds it empty. Yet, as he predicted, three thousand years later we still find these pursuits to be the main goal of life for masses of folk all over the world. Granted, most people do not usually chase these goals on the same scale as Solomon (although the several hundred wealthiest people on Planet Earth today could probably directly relate to a great deal of what he said), but from the USA to China, India, and Kenya, people are still seeking “more and better” of whatever peculiar portion of Solomon’s universal lust for ever more has “turned their crank”. All modern economic theory is built on this covetousness.
Empty-hearted and soul-starved Solomon then reverts to something from his youth. He had once told God something was worth more than any of that other stuff. God had told him he would grant his wish, plus give him all the other stuff he hadn’t asked for. His wish had been for wisdom to rule well and be a godly king. Now, several decades later he says, “Then I turned my thoughts [hello, Socrates] to (re)consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done?” His conclusion? “Wisdom is better than folly … but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both [the sage and the fool].” So, “What do I gain by being wise …. This too is meaningless.” Whether sage or fool “in days to come both will be forgotten.” Both must die and disappear from memory. He confesses to then being very low. “So I hated life … all of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (2:17) Existential despair anyone?
Much like Solomon, most of us in the West speed along from one thing to the next hoping to “get ahead” and find the sweet spot when all the material concerns seem to look after themselves. Occasionally we find ourselves with a little too much time, and a few deep questions rear their heads. So to escape them we turn to distractions and amusements, hoping they will go away and leave us alone. But eventually reality crashes in on us, “For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it …. All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. [Retirement shock, anyone?] This too is meaningless.”
He is brought up short, standing on the precipice of despair about it all, like what French signature existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called la Nausée. For most people in the rudderless West today, where is there to turn at such pregnant life moments? They have no resources within themselves capable of landing anywhere, and the current dominant meta-story underlying our culture and society says there is really only random evolution in back of it—a process so huge, even if true, that it can give no comfort at all at a personal level. The old myths about a Creator reaching out to the beings He/She created in His/Her own image have been shown to be empty, haven’t they?
Perhaps meditation and mindfulness can help. But, as healthful and beneficial as these practices can be in bringing personal rest and internal calm and self-acceptance, what are we reaching for through them? Typically, we say we seek connection with something greater than superficial self, once we move beyond the physical preliminaries. They may become another quest to find “the true self” or even the “Greater Self”, or the “Non-Self”. We will leave a discussion of this quest aside for the moment.
Having meditated long on these perplexing issues and examined his own mind, having dialogued with himself and read his own wayward heart after all his striving, here is where Solomon lands. “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner [not a popular word any more, but one that begs for explanation beyond the usual knee-jerk reaction of outright rejection within our culture] he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over …” (2:24-6)
We are left with many questions to explore from Chapter 2, and as this episode of “The Third Way” ends.
World.V.You 