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The tagline "Seek what can be" adorns the top banner of this blog. I wanted to take some time to explain what I have in mind with that motto.
To "seek what can be" connotes a notion of possibilities and fulfilled potential, of reaching out and grasping at an idea and turning it into a reality. As noted on our About page, being Deliberately Aimless is about desiring that which cannot be and embracing life's contradictions. And so, with a motto imploring you to "Seek what can be," I present you with another contradiction: a blog rooted in the notion of grasping at unattainable things in life that is, surprisingly, defined by a motto of attainment.
Why the contradiction? Because while we want to take on life's big – and sometimes un-answerable – questions on this blog, we don't do so in a pointless or meaningless way. For instance, when asking the question What is the meaning of life?, it's not enough to just say that we don't know or that there are many interpretations. While this statement is true to a degree, we also want to examine all the different perspectives and practices that have been produced through the ages of our shared and collective human experience. Just because a question is difficult or even impossible doesn't mean that it isn't worth taking on. In fact, we view that difficulty as the very reason to engage with it.
To seek what can be involves looking beyond the mundanities of everyday life to see the bigger picture. Life is hard, but it does us no good to cower in fear or to run from it. We must instead meet it head on. Confront life and let it take your measure, and may it not find your measure wanting.
But neither is this meant to be a rah-rah, puff out your chest anthem. There's a reason that I relate more strongly to Henry David Thoreau than to Theodore Roosevelt, though I greatly respect them both. And as I write this I am struck with the thought that perhaps there aren't such great differences between the two men as a cursory glance would suggest.
When life dealt TR the worst of blows and took his wife and his mother from him in the span of a single day, he entered into his journal a somber and simple statement: "The light has gone out of my life." To deal with his grief and this great tribulation, Roosevelt sought solitude in the Dakota Territory where he became a rancher for a time and hunted and rode on the high plains. Roosevelt did not run from his trauma. He merely sought out a place of solitude wherein he could work through it. Solitude – as Jesus informs us numerous times through his actions – is a great teacher and can be a place of strength.
To seek what can be can also refer to this sort of seeking. The seeking of solitude, of re-centering, of greater understanding, or the realization that one simply cannot understand what has transpired but that it is possible to keep moving forward. That the light may have gone out, but that it can also be re-ignited.
As someone who deals with bouts of despair – and who doesn't these days? – I think it is this secondary definition that is the more important. Sure, by all means, seek what can be in the sense of following your dreams and making great things happen. I want to encourage that heartily, as well. But I think it is in the quiet moments, where we are unsure, downtrodden, beaten down by life, that seeking what can be can really be a mantra to carry us through.
In the words of beloved author EB White, "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." To seek what can be is the hope that some day one need not choose between these desires, but that they would be one and the same.
