*William James: "Is Life Worth Living?"

His essay can be found here:
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/23344/

A couple days ago, in the 'Spirituality, Theology, and Health' seminar, Prof. Carrette came and gave a talk on William James' essay 'Is Life Worth Living?'

The seminar itself posed the question, as William James addresses a Christian student group at Harvard, and invites an engagement with the lonely dark corners of being.

In addressing the question, Carrette begins by considering the context and background of William James. He looks at William James' father, Henry James Sr. as well as his grandfather, who at one point was one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. of A. acquiring his wealth through the salt business.

A few points stick out before reaching William James' answer to the question, I'll spare the suspense: Yes, life is always worth living.

One was the point that William James "inherited" depression. Now this is a weird way to put it but it does make sense if we consider the inheritability of serotonin levels from parent to child.

Interdisciplinarity is a great thing and philosophy can benefit greatly from literature and the poets. William James who often wrote like a novelist and Henry James (his younger brother) wrote his novels like a psychologist. James highlighted and emphasized this interdisciplinarity as any one discipline is insufficient to examine the full depths of our psychology, our culture, and our interrelationships with others and our worlds.

That we should ground ourselves in the study of our physiology. Too often we talk about "human nature" without even knowing much about our own biology. I find this to be extremely true. Philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and especially psychoanalyists with their theories of ego, id, and superego, or even worse with Jungian archetypes (which becomes more akin to literary analysis and metaphors for thought as opposed to an adequate psychology), do not know enough about our brains, physiology, and so on. This tends to be the case with scholars of other disciplines as well.

And the final point, which answers the question: Yes. We should be open to life experiences and the life currents that send us in certain directions and ways of life. He ended his talk with a Zen like statement about thinking and doing, that we should achieve a state of non-thinking and emersing ourselves in doing and being. This reminds me of the story about the monk who could not follow the teachings of the Buddha and so was told to sweep the steps to the temple everyday. He achieved enlightenment by doing. In a way this is also to say that we should immerse ourselves in our work and stay focused with the present task (*ahem, I should be writing a differnt paper but here I am). When you walk, you walk. When you eat, you eat. And so on with any other activity. Don't think about anything else. "It's all zen!" as, underground rapper, Sage Francis would put it. To be "at one" with what you are doing.

And while I completely agree with everything the speaker mentioned. The point that's been bothering me is this romanticization with life. That if you're at one with what you're doing everything becomes so easy and life just opens up for you. I would beg to differ. Give this talk to people who experience terror and warfare everyday. Tell this to the person who can't make enough to feed his family. To the people who don't have enough water. Being open to one's life experiences does not solve the harsh conditions of life around the world. To those who commit suicide because they cannot bear the guilt and shame from failing to meet certain social expectations. To those who go homeless because they decided to be what they think is true to themselves. Being open with life is, in a way, a philosophy for those with comfortable lives and opportunities are abound. Of course with the exception of our "first world problems" - the latte wasn't right or I can't get internet or whatever. Being open with life is not so easy for everybody. Economic hardship is real. Poverty is real. Global hunger is real. Genocide is real. Corruption and distortion is real. Shit is happening everywhere.

So William James, is this a practical answer for people outside of the Christian student group at Harvard? Or is there a different set of pragmatics and a different answer to this question depending on who we address?