My Intense Yearning For Something "Far-off and Indefinable"
My Intense Yearning For Something "Far-off and Indefinable"
Why do humans have this feeling? We asked five philosophers.
We asked young people what their most burning philosophical questions are. In order to answer them, we went and asked some of today’s leading thinkers.
Today’s Question:
The word Sehnsucht means “an intense yearning for something far-off and indefinable.” Why do humans have this feeling?
- Kathy, 29
James Tartaglia, Keele University, UK
Perhaps Sehnsucht can be interpreted as like one of the special moods that the existentialist philosophers were interested in, the most famous being “existential angst.” They’re philosophical alarm bells that break the spell of everyday life to get you questioning your daily goals and preoccupations, making you wonder if there’s more to life than you’re realising, whether you’re overlooking something. I think humans have this kind of feeling because we’re naturally philosophical, and yet we’ve developed a lifestyle that’s unphilosophical.
Lewis Coyne, author of Hans Jonas: Life, Technology and the Horizons of Responsibility
This is an incredibly important question that goes to the heart of what it means to be human. On the one hand, human beings - like animals - have to make their way in an immediate environment, here and now. But we also live in a shared social and cultural world built on symbols, on language - and because of this, we're also open to what is not present, indeed, to what might never be. With this two-fold existence, it's unsurprising that human beings often have a sense of somewhere 'beyond'’ where we can comfortably belong in a way that is, unfortunately, constitutionally impossible for us here on Earth.
Steven Gimbel, Gettysburg College
Existentialist philosophers contend that humans should be understood as projects. We do not come with an essence or a nature, but rather longing for meaning and a life in which to determine what would make our existence meaningful. This intense yearning is a desire for something that makes you into the self you want to be, but because there are a wide range of ways one can imbue one's being with value and not a single universal blueprint, it has to be frustratingly indefinable. To an existentialist, what you are describing is the infuriating condition of being human.
Grant Maxwell, author of Integration and Difference: Constructing a Mythical Dialectic
For Alfred North Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze, feelings are what lure us toward becoming what we’re destined to become. But this destiny isn’t a fixed and pregiven fate. For these philosophers, our being is composed of powers and forces which always draw us toward the creation of something new. Whitehead designates this felt lure toward novelty as the primary meaning of life.
Stephen Stern, Gettysburg College
Because we live in virtue of others (people, the world, time, space). We are not subject-centered but other-centered. One speaks with an expectation of being heard, which means one speaks for the other. We rely on one another, but we’re not always reliable. We often fail in our obligations to the other. Meaning is made with others, which informs our thirst to be heard, understood, guided, and directed. We take our direction from the other, who awakens us to our intent.
There’s no intentionality outside responding for the other. Response is a cool word, for it implicates us as responsible for the other, e.g., I am responsible for the freedom of those with whom I may disagree. The following instruction shows this: “If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?”
Other posts in this series:
What is the Best Way to Aquire Happiness?
Can We Redesign the Aggressive Nature of Human Beings?
Why Do Things That Are Bad For Us Often Feel So Good?