To Follow This Path
Pragmatists,
Where would we be if we did not follow our own nature? What if we did not occasionally feed our idealistic dreams, our creative desires, and our cultivated talents?
To follow one’s nature is a recurring theme in humanity. Artists, philosophers, warriors, and priests all have made statements about following one’s nature. Some damn the idea and say that man’s nature is fallen and corrupt. Others belief that our nature is pure and good at heart— it is straying from our nature that makes us evil. Some believe it is more malleable than that.
Today we are going to explore the idea of following our nature. But that requires us to define ‘nature.’
The Cosmic Undercurrent
In The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin, he closes his book with this:
“Even in perceived chaos, there is order and pattern. A cosmic undercurrent running through all things, which no story is immense enough to contain. The universe never explains why.”
The entire book is about following this cosmic undercurrent to channel creative energy. He discusses countless examples of how to channel and use the divine spark that we call “inspiration.” He shows how to view our works in a way that is balanced— not too rational and critical, not too lofty and arrogant.
A cosmic undercurrent is probably the best way to relate to nature. We cannot help but feel drawn to the things we do. We have an instinct towards the things we love, an instinct as natural as the hunger in your stomach and the air entering your lungs.
This is our nature. Our nature is individualized. We may subscribe to the idea that there is a shared nature, as in the trees, rocks, mountains, deserts, and oceans, but the individual nature that is exclusive to us is unique from individual to individual.
No matter how many people populate this earth, there is a unique set of circumstances and interests that any person will enjoy or leave unfulfilled in their lives.
Some of my readers express this in their martial arts. I have seen it firsthand. When we perform Kata in Karate (a prescribed set of movements and techniques), each person stylistically approaches it in a different way. The tempo and cadence of the Kata changes. Where one is tense another may be relaxed. Someone snaps their head in a direction that is more sharp, while another smoothly moves their gaze.
Our Nature is Not Fixed
To follow our personal nature does not mean we need to discover it in the way that ancient mathematicians discovered the equation for the area of a triangle. It is not one formula waiting in universal ambiguity for us to discover it. We are not fated this way.
Our personal nature can easily change as the moon shifts the tide. Our position in life at any given moment, the people that influence us, these all deeply affect what we believe our personal callings are.
But sometimes we are misled. We are given false signals that something was our true nature. I felt a false signal when I was devoted to commissioning in the Marines, even though I knew very well I was going to be medically denied.
False signals may lead us to the correct signal. If I had not attempted to become a Marine, I would not have sought the next-hardest avenue I could imagine: emergency medicine. I genuinely enjoy my work now, unlike before.
Additionally, that time trying to become a Marine mentally changed me. I was more confident and capable than I had been prior to my initial training. I took away many lessons from my short stint being recruited. I had never physically suffered before the way that PT made me.
It led me to be more capable and mature, and to relate to people around me in a more meaningful and valuable way. I cared less about petty squabbles and my self-image, which led me to make more time for art and less time for drama.
But I expect that my nature will change in the future. It will be dependent on what I did previously, what I believed was my calling before. The vestiges left behind by life are collected and made into a whole unit.
Have you followed your nature?
Until next time,
Eli