The True Joy in Life

I recently came across some powerful quotes from George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), the great Irish playwright and winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize for literature. Shaw was among a distinguished group of philosophers, theologians, and artists living during fertile decades surrounding the turn of the 19th century, who all built upon the evolutionary work of Schelling, Hegel, and Darwin, and gave new voice to the “mysterious life force” that seemed to be driving the evolution of the universe. Take for example this excerpt from a 1903 play entitled “Man and Superman”:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations.

Or this one:

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.

And in this excerpt from a 1909 letter he wrote to the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (who was critical of Shaw) he explained the evolutionary theology that fueled his creative fire:

To me God does not yet exist; but there is a creative force struggling to evolve an executive organ of godlike knowledge and power; that is, to achieve omnipotence and omniscience; and every man and woman born is a fresh attempt to achieve this object. We are here to help God, to do his work, to remedy his whole errors, to strive towards Godhead ourselves.

That is some potent evolutionary dharma!!

Filed Under: EnlightenNext Editors’ Blog • Evolutionaries • Evolutionary Spirituality • Philosophy

Tags: Darwin, Evolution, George Bernard Shaw, god, hegel, schelling