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This is a book I’ve been wanting to read for a while. It’s one that if briefly described to someone who has never heard of it, they might raise a confused eyebrow. This is a story written by a German missionary that takes place in India during the time of the Buddha with a main character named Siddhartha but he isn’t the Buddha (his name was also Siddhartha before ascending to Buddha-dom). At it’s heart, though, this is the story of a man and his search for wisdom.
It starts out with Siddhartha studying under his father, who is a well-respected brahmin. For years things were going great, but after a time Siddhartha starts feeling like something is missing. This leads him and his friend Govinda to eventually run off and join a group of aesthetics where they give up their worldly possessions and eat very little while trying to search for a deeper meaning in existence. Eventually Siddhartha once again gets that feeling that something is missing, so he and Govinda leave the aesthetics and study under the Buddha. Govinda finds his calling here but Siddhartha is still not satisfied. From here, readers see that Siddhartha gets this feeling again and again as he searches for meaning, wisdom, oneness, and all that jazz. He even becomes a successful merchant and fathers a child with a courtesan. Still, he cannot find what he’s looking for. Only near the end of the book does Siddhartha have an epiphany while staying with the ferryman Vasudeva. Here he learns to just listen and take in what’s going on around him. The river essentially talks to him and he discovers the importance of just listening without any sort of judgement.
What I got out of this is that he had to spend a lot of time figuring out things for himself and listen to the world around him. It wasn’t advice from others that gave him wisdom but the experiences he had in his search. The situations he found himself in gave him things to learn. The whole idea of wisdom was kept fairly nebulous. He even mentioned to Govinda later in life when they were both old men that it was better to find than to seek. He felt that the latter could result in someone looking for something with a very single-minded determination, ignoring other opportunities to learn and discover along the way.
The last bit there is something that I’ve noticed myself as I get older. In my 20s I could get swept up in things a lot more and develop narrow-minded focus at the expense of missing other things. Nowadays, I try to take a step back from things a lot more, so it has become more natural to soak in more things at once. It’s not always easy to do and sometimes takes some reminding, but it is one of those things I’ve noticed that I do more of now that I’m a bit older.
Another theme that the book touched on was the importance of not assuming everyone are purely detached, rational beings. Many navigate their lives via basic drives and desires, and that’s just the way things are. Siddhartha tried his best to be a thoughtful, rational person and had a somewhat conceited view of people who were more base than this, referring to them as “child people”. However, when Siddhartha becomes a lustful merchant, drinks too much, takes up gambling, and all sorts of other vices, he sees first hand how these child people live and develops a better understanding of them. He realizes that there is more to life than pursuing pure, rational thought, and that a lot of people will simply never be like that. In the wholeness of the world and the human experience, most people are simply motivated by simple drives and desires, and there isn’t much that can be done for it. Siddhartha felt bad for succumbing to vice, but developed a better understanding of people in the process. I don’t know if he came out of that with pure acceptance, but he did seem to at least have an “it is what it is” attitude in the end. Like it or not, we live in a world where quite a lot of people aren’t all that rational (sometimes even ourselves as much as one may not want to admit it) and we just need to accept that and learn to navigate it as best we can.
One thing I do wonder is if I should have read this book 25 years ago. Younger me would probably have got a lot more out of it. Older me has learned a fair bit of what is discussed just through living. My younger self would probably have benefited from the themes in Siddhartha and may have given me a head start in figuring things out in life. I guess the big question though is would the book have been mana from heaven for my younger self or would much of what it has to say have flown over my head? Ultimately, would it prove the theme that wisdom cannot be taught? As it stands, the book was more a nice reminder of things I should think about while making my way through life than anything else.
Pennywhether
pennywhether@posteo.net
September 22, 2022