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Learn Life, Live Life: The Dilemma

By Shlomo Maital

       The brilliant Danish philosopher Soren Kirkegaard once wrote in his diary: “life can only be understood backwards [learning life] but life must be lived forwards.”

         This appears in Chapter 6 of his book Either/Or.   Kirkegaard explains that life at any given moment cannot be fully understood.  Time never stops.  We never have time to fully stop and reflect on what we do and what is done to us.  And as time passes, more and more experiences accumulate… so, we have a ‘life learning’ debt almost from birth.

         Kirkegaard, ever a practical philosopher, tells how to resolve the dilemma.  We should approach our lives not as problems to be solved, but as realities to be experienced.  He wrote this around 1843.  He is known as the father of existentialism —  life lived as experienced realities. 

          I spent some 10 years working with senior hi-tech management. One tool I taught them was the art of the debrief – learning especially from a failure, something the military does especially well.  I think we can all embrace the debrief.  Follow Kirkegaard. Take a moment, maybe as your head hits the pillow. Debrief your day.  First – what are you super-grateful for?   Second – what have you learned?  What could you not have done or said, or done better, or done differently? 

           I am 82.  I learned the art of learning life (the art of the daily debrief) far too late.  For you, dear readers, there is still time.  It is possible to learn life more or less while we are living it.  And when you do, you benefit hugely. 

           And about the image above? Llama llama?   “Lama” in Hebrew is ..why?  A key question in our daily debrief.