The desire to know another’s soul will end all other desires.
The first poem in A Boy’s Will, Robert Frost writes, “Into My Own.”
Putting an array of powerful words together, Frost turns a forest of dark trees into an escape he alludes to as paradise. Nightmarish for some, this place is where Frost can be alone, now finally able to find himself, knowing that once he does find himself amidst the pines, he will never return back.
Whilst an extreme form of isolation, albeit Frost might use the term vacation, the poem’s message carries a cathartic tinge.
It’s really just an extreme form of camping, right?
People like camping; it’s our jobs and responsibilities and bills and family and Netflix and concerts and bar hopping and skateboarding and such that pull us away from camping.
This solitude reminds me of a quote attributed to the Persian poet, Rumi:
“The desire to know your own soul will end all other desires.”
Between the poem and quote, I can sense some crossover.
Imagine: chuck your phone in a river, pitch a tent, hunt for food, start a fire, and, slowly but surely, start to know your own soul. You may not fancy it, though humans have done exactly that for thousands of years, so I believe it’s just a matter of reawakening that instinct.
Hold on—so what the hell am I getting at here?
One hand agrees with Frost and Rumi.
The other hand, the left one, disagrees; to isolate and be left alone—all for what? That’s for each to decide. What I decide, in order to make the context of the above more accessible is to put the theme of the two, mainly Rumi’s quote, in reverse, not the opposite.
Why?
Because Rory Sutherland said:
“Sometimes the opposite of a good idea can be a good idea.”
To explain this, let’s use Rumi’s quote.
The opposite would be:
“The desire to not know your own soul will continue all other desires.”
While this eerie and almost dystopian-like quote makes sense, this isn’t the reverse of the original quote. The reverse would be something like this:
“The desire to know another’s soul will end all other desires.”
How could you do this in isolation?
You can’t.
Repurposing Rumi’s quote in this way feels like the only true way to live. We all need family, community, and a sense of belonging. The only way to do this, I’d argue, is to pivot from being selfish to being selfless.
And by being selfless, you become the better version of yourself that went from wanting and having to giving and sharing. Because, what if, in order to find yourself, you take genuine interest in what others care for and are passionate about?
What if, with this newfound curiosity, you become, in a way, more human, more connected?
And what if, with this new connectedness, you end the desire to escape and seek out useless shit and somehow, indirectly, make it easier to know your own soul, finding what really interests you?
Or, so I guess.
— George
If you liked this, check out more essays on the themes of marketing, the whereabouts of happiness, and words of authors to live by.
