"We live everything as it comes, without warning,
like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth
if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?"
- Milan Kundera. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (8)

This is the Age of Information, the Age of Universal Learning, the Age of Enlightenment. Liberal democracy is winning favor, and evolving. We are discovering new means of identifying and treating all sorts of problems, ailments, mysteries. But one mystery hovers at the center of the mist formed by all the other activites of our world: what are we doing here? how should we behave? why and for whom? is there a 'raison d'être'?

This is the Postmodern Age, the Age of Tolerant Plurality, the Age of Moral Relativism. The laws of the marketplace are often held above the laws of civilization itself, in our enlightened age. And yet, amid the implacable morass of bells and whistles, the digital smoke and mirrors, the progress and impermanence, there is a need to know about the Unseen, to find one's place, to define human existence.

Within the super-scientific outlook of the digital milieu, there seems to reside a trigger for mystical inquiry, for a questioning of the most fundamental meaning of being itself. With the proliferation of choice at the transient, material level, we are faced with the need to ask ourselves why and how the larger, more resonant, more defining choices are to be made. All across the shifting terrain of social discourse, the human individual must face the question of whether any choices might have permanent, irreparable consequences.

Essentially, we must ask whether there is a 'script' by which we might manage or measure our choices, whether such a notion is archaic, simplistic, or too far-fetched to merit consideration. The topic might be framed in light of 'the world as a stage', but proverbial use of this phrase often leads to the misconception that an individual can (or should) fake his or her way through life. Our focus should be instead to open up the question of how we labor at mastering an authentic 'art of living', a classical theme. The stage is an ethical one, and it speaks of our connections with fellow human beings in all places and times.

Is there a script for whose revelation we wait and which, once revealed, must be followed, or do we have the liberty, indeed the responsibility to invent our own script? Immediately upon entering into this inquiry, we are faced with the valuation of ethics, and the underpinning of ethical standards. The notion that all the world's a stage is often used to support the assertion that our behavior need not meet any particular standards of ethical or moral consideration, because it's all just an entertainment, an illusion, a farce. The metaphor has its roots in ancient Hindu teachings about the nature of the divide between the physical and the spiritual realms.

If one reads the Bhagavad Gita, one finds the teaching that only the spiritual realm is real and true and that the material world is illusion in all its manifestations. Many readers interpret this doctrine to imply that our actions in the realm of illusion, which are also illusion, have no spiritual repercussion, no moral quality. In fact, nothing could be further from the intent of the Hindu doctrine. The illusion of the world may be an obstruction or a temptation, in this thinking, but the illusory quality of our actions is mitigated by the parallel doctrine of karma. One incurs 'bad karma', or spiritual retribution, if one veers off the path of authenticity in the application of one's intellect and one's will, illusory as they may be in their turn.

Playing our role in the material world is not a question of acting our way through difficult ethical dilemmas; it is a question of discovering the elusive authentic answer to each question, and applying ourselves accordingly. It is said, for instance, that 'the road to Hell is paved with good intentions'. To interpret such a problem in this light, we must look beyond the raw intent of one's decision-making process; intent is conditioned by the effort it requires of the willing individual.

One may have 'good intentions' at heart, but be simultaneously unwilling to do the research and pursue the knowledge necessary to discover the most effective, just and generous solution to a problem. If the intellect is neglected as a part of the process, the goodness of one's intent is diminished, and the resulting decision may be but an ignorant response to a complex problem. What then, infinite learning? At what point does one know one knows enough to act justly? Authenticity's requirement is not so much complete knowledge as the full employ of one's capacity to learn.

This is the crux of authentic ethical pursuit. When one begins to make excuses, to declare one's limitations and to propound a pragmatist or economic explanation of one's failings, one has deviated from the path of authentic ethical pursuit, and has begun to feign authenticity, to play-act one's role, as according to a stereotype which blends 'realism' with genuine ethical behavior. But the attitude of this individual is clearly one of inauthentic moral half-remedies. One's minimal ethical responsibility is genuine pursuit of the most intelligent and sympathetic solution, a devotion to gaining as much knowledge as time and intellect will allow, and not to make excuses for one's failings.

So, is there a script for living? How do we live the Good Life? And what do we gain by doing so? The script is absent in the sense that it cannot be written in stone and cannot be put into words infallibly or taught as a doctrine. It is present, however, in our ability to apply the full reach of our intellect to any and all situations, to engage the use of our will with the fullest amount of authentic interest in the truth. The Truth, the great, overarching, universal reality, is by definition unknowable. We have access to all experience, let alone absolute Truth, only through the analogue of our perception. There is no way for a single individual to encompass all the knowledge of all perspectives and all phenomena that exist within the space of one intellect, but we can aspire to move closer to such knowledge all the time, to use tolerance, patience and curiosity to pursue that goal.

These ideas are not, quite clearly my own: the questions date back through every human civilization, and my essay is only one attempt at examining the issue. But, I offer this sort of re-evaluation of the problem of ethical behavior, of 'finding our way' and uncovering the script for good living, as an example of the project we must constantly undertake, in order to achieve viable, just and lasting solutions to the horrors eating away at human civilization even as we read and meditate.

© 2002 Joseph Robertson