Once-Born and Twice-Born People | Reason and Meaning

William James, in his well-known guide The Varieties of Religious Experience, drew a distinction between what he calls “once-born” and the “twice-born” individuals.  As soon as-born individuals seem biologically predisposed to happiness. They’re comparatively untroubled by their very own setbacks in addition to by the struggling the world; they not often communicate in poor health of others; they don’t complain a lot; they have a tendency to not be fearful or indignant. Right now we’d name them happy-go-lucky, easy-going, or upbeat.

In contrast, twice-borns really feel there’s something incorrect with actuality that have to be rectified. They’ve a pessimistic view of the world; they expertise extra ups and downs in life; they want the world could possibly be completely different from it’s. Right now we’d name them neurotic, anxious, or unstable. James describes them like this:

There are individuals whose existence is little greater than a collection of zigzags, as now one tendency and now one other will get the higher hand. Their spirit wars with their flesh, they want for incompatibles, wayward impulses interrupt their most deliberate plans, and their lives are one lengthy drama of repentance and of effort to restore misdemeanors and errors. (p.169)

Nevertheless, this doesn’t imply that twice borns are sad. The reason being that their perspective typically results in a disaster, skilled as medical melancholy, in a want to grasp the that means of life. However the incompatibility of their want for making sense of issues and their pessimism calls for a decision if they’re to like life once more. And it’s this demand that may result in rebirth. For instance, James considers the disaster of that means skilled by Leo Tolstoy. (I’ve written about his disaster here.) James describes Tolstoy’s transformation like this: “The method is one among redemption, not of mere reversion to pure well being, and the sufferer, when saved, is saved by what appears to him a second beginning, a deeper form of acutely aware being than he may get pleasure from earlier than. ” (p.157)

Whereas the sense of being “born once more” typically describes so-called non secular or mystical experiences, James makes use of the time period to explain any expertise the place there’s a robust sense of renewal after a tragic occasion. The purpose is that challenges and tragedies might be seen as a way to a happier and extra significant life.

As for the blissful life, James mentioned it consists of 4 principal substances. First, we should select to view the world as optimistic despite the fact that life comprises sorrow and ache. Second, we should take dangers by appearing from the calls for of our hearts. Third, we should act as if we’re free and life is significant despite the fact that we are able to’t make certain of both. Lastly, we should always keep in mind that a disaster of that means typically results in the happiest life. Thus a disaster for twice borns presents the potential of renewal.

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Postscript – William James knew so much about all this, as he suffered from depression for a lot of his life. (A variety of different people of historic importance suffered from melancholy as properly together with Abraham Lincoln, Sigmund Freud, Georgia O’Keeffe, Franz Kafka, and the Buddha.)

I believe there’s a lot to this. Given our actuality, we should always attempt to be taught from struggling. Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning that enduring struggling nobly was one option to discover that means in life. Maybe we should endure a kind of purgatory with a view to expertise true happiness. However, I don’t imagine that twice-borns essentially develop into depressed. Perhaps they discover pleasure in a philosophical seek for that means as a substitute.

Nonetheless, I don’t imagine that ache and struggling are intrinsically good it doesn’t matter what good consequence they could result in. Like my colleague David Pierce, who first articulated the hedonistic imperative, I too imagine that every one ache and struggling in life ought to be eradicated. The that means of life is to create a heaven on earth.

As for the opposite view, that struggling is by some means mandatory for redemption, it was greatest captured in these strains by Shelley from his “Ode To A Skylark,”

We glance earlier than and after,

And pine for what just isn’t:

Our sincerest laughter

With some ache is fraught;