The Introverted Thinker Newsletter #027
A meditative piece on my all time favourite poem.
Hello all,
I know it’s probably not Sunday when you are reading this, but it is for me. This Sunday was quite a special one in the books.
It was one of the first times in a while that three major celebrations of the three Abrahamic faiths all overlapped.
It was Easter Sunday, (Happy Easter!), Jewish Passover (Sameach Pesach!), and the holy month of Ramadan for Muslims (Ramadan Mubarak!)
Today is my last day in South America, as you are reading this I am probably on a flight back home. It’s been an eventful and memorable trip. But I am very excited to get back to London, my home.
It’s kind of a bittersweet homecoming, however. Because 10 days after I’m back I’m flying off to another location for possibly over a month. My travels will be updated via the newsletter!
Today I want to share with you an article I wrote last week about a poem I came across. This poem was instantly solidified as my favorite, along with bluebird by Charles Bukowski.
This poem spoke to me directly, I felt compelled to write an article about it. This article hasn’t been published anywhere yet, so you are getting exclusive access to it.
Enjoy, and don’t forget to share some of your thoughts with me!
Do Not Live Half a Life - Khalil Gibran
A meditation on the epidemic of the mediocre existence
A lot of the time, I feel like I'm living half a life.
I’m not living it to its fullest and knowing this solemn fact, I continue to live in a state of illusive comfort and complacency.
And it wasn’t until I stumbled upon the poem ‘Do Not Love Half Lovers’. by Khalil Gibran, a 20th-century Lebanese-American poet, that I uncovered the harsh truth of my mediocre existence.
And it dawned upon me, that my realization about my half existence, will probably speak to a lot of you, like small daggers into the heart. Because the problem of living half a life is a modern epidemic of the soul.
The Poem That Shocked Me
Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life
and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half a drink will not quench your thirst
Half a meal will not satiate your hunger
Half the way will get you no where
Half an idea will bear you no results
Your other half is not the one you love
It is you in another time yet in the same space
It is you when you are not
Half a life is a life you didn’t live,
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you
and they strangers to you
The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists to live a life
not half a life”
A Meditation on What It Means To Live Half a Life
I want you to focus on the last four lines of the poem. Those are the lines that will leave you with the most potent sense of, “fuck, I might be doing this all wrong…”
“The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists to live a life
not half a life”
One of the most beautiful truths of this universe is that as humans, we are the ones who are free to dictate the meaning of our lives. This is one of the main ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre in the philosophy of Existentialism.
As free individuals, the meaning of our lives is made by what we choose to give meaning to.
“Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre
The problem is that most of us don’t know this fact just yet, apart from those who enrich their minds with philosophy.
“Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy…cities will never have rest from their evils.” — Plato
The average man believes that the extent to which he feels fulfilled in his life is solely dependent on him completing his societal duties.
Graduate from university.
Get a stable well paying job in which he can progress up the corporate ladder.
And start a family.
Whilst starting a family is of utmost importance in terms of our biological purpose, the half-lived life of mediocrity and small-time dreams is sad.
You belittle yourself by slashing down your ambitions, you suffocate your soul when you don’t speak up for what is important to you, and you crush your self-confidence when you don’t go all the way.
As free individuals, the meaning of our lives is made by what we choose to give meaning to.
The Manifestation of this soul-eating parasite
If there’s one thing this poem made me realize, it’s that fear is your best friend. You should in fact fear the statements made in the poem.
When you hear about living half a life, dying half a death, dreaming half a dream, eating half a meal, having only half friends, and loving half lovers, this should instill a disturbing fear into you.
Because as you can see, the poem ends with the idea of living half a life. But the 34 lines before this shows just how much this mindset of living only halfway will manifest itself in every single area of your life.
Your lovers, friends, dreams, work, it all gets eaten up by this half-living parasite. And if this doesn't scare you, then I don’t know what will.
Final Thoughts
You don’t have to be unhappy or depressed to change your life. I’m perfectly happy, probably the happiest I’ve ever been. But I’m always looking for ways to change my life.
Because stagnation is like fast-spreading cancer. Quite the oxymoron, I know.
When you are stagnant in life because you are comfortable where you are, this comfort will spread and you’ll believe you never have to step out of this zone ever again.
I want to sink into the dirt knowing just how fiercely I lived. I want to know I lived with passion and I went about my business by grabbing the horns.
And this is only done by living a full life of mind-expanding risks and developing perspective-shattering ideas.
Repeat after me,
I vow to uphold my self-respect and dive into the unknown black hole when necessary, and most importantly when it scares me the most.
Thanks for reading!
I will see you next week, I have some cool things I want to dive into next week that will very much be worth writing about in the newsletter.
If you have any thoughts you want to share with me about feelings this poem may have invoked in you, or how you interpret the message, hit reply on this email or drop a comment!
See you.
Julian.
Hi Ju, been a long time since the time I can't remember. Thank you, Ju; what a way to inculcate the philosophy. Like that of "The Bard's" 'Half baked meat,' that foretells the upcoming tragedy, the poem by Gibran warns people like me alike the Tamil saying, "Neither Bad nor Good is given to YOU by Others." I have always believed that "A lie has a thousand legs but all of them are lame ones but a truth has only one, which is the strongest which will stand forever." Though easy to say I found it difficult to follow all these years because I've been living a 'half life.' Ju, thank you so much; 'Carpe Diem,' everything gonna be alright in my life from now on. Love you.