Green Shoots

by Nicky Flood

Our hearts have been cracked open. We have been starkly reminded of the fragility and brevity of life. The existential perspective sees death as an inescapable boundary to life and when kept in our awareness, can add a tension and urgency that enriches life with more meaning, inspiring an impetus to take charge of our lives. In many ways the beauty of life is within the limitation of death - without death, life would lose some of its intensity. Our ability to direct our lives is facilitated by our inherent personal freedom – freedom to desire, choose, act and most importantly, to change.

Freedom implies a level of choice and within its expression lies concomitant anxiety, responsibility and guilt. The anxiety of making a choice from a finitude of options; the responsibility of ensuring it comes to fruition; and the guilt of possibly abandoning or betraying oneself by that choice. Guilt is the dark shadow of freedom - the guilt of having wronged oneself or forfeited one’s own potentialities; it is a transgression against the self.  Choice also implies accountability – accountability for the self, one’s destiny, and the creation of one’s own world. Our identity is formed by a lifetime of innumerable choices made and others relinquished. 

Once we can accept the responsibility involved in creating our own world, we come to the realisation that we alone hold the power to alter our life predicament. Existential anxiety and guilt are important signposts towards what is omitted or absent in one’s life. Yet our propensity towards shielding ourselves from the anxiety and responsibility of choice can result in a flight from freedom, an inauthentic way of living and the denial of our own possibilities and opportunities for the future.

Anxiety, responsibility and guilt provide constructive insights to own, utilise and act on one’s inherent potentialities and freedom of will. These existential anxieties act as a mentor or guide. They are a call to action – the action of courageously engaging with and committing to living a more impassioned, authentic life with wisdom and integrity. Buried in the tangled labyrinth of guilt and anxiety is fertile ground where green shoots are waiting to be born. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset, rethink and remaster our own lives as we move forward in this new and better world. Our hearts have been cracked open, but in the words of Leonard Cohen (1992, 1:36) “that’s how the light gets in”.

(C) IAHIP 2021 - INSIDE OUT 94 - SUMMER 2021