"The Stone the Builders Rejected"

In every way that humans have evolved over the years, rejection has always preceded perfection. All people start out doubting. And they don't just doubt themselves: others doubt them as well. Their potential is perennially called to question. Heidegger has, unlike Aristotle and Aquinas, seen potentiality to be pre-eminent to actuality, since it is the possibility that what is lives up to. You probably have heard it said for example: "Mr. Y is not living up to his potential." In Mark 11: 12-25, we see Jesus cursing a fig tree. The tree was not living up to its potential, and did not deserve to subsist, and so Jesus cursed it and it died. It is the same with us. We must endeavor to be useful. We cannot become nihilists, by embracing and living out the nothing. Rather, we must live out Dasein. And this demands, for Heidegger, creativity. We must think creatively. We must act creatively. This means that, rather than complain about situations that ape the nothing, we must participate and create networks and paradigms that hold what is up to the teleology of what can be. Through creative thinking and acting, we can shape a mental reality that gives a moral imperative to what is.

 

But this task is by no means easy. Rejection abounds: rejection of the self; rejection by the community, and rejection by one's family. And yet, rejection is not the final verdict of destiny. "The stone the builders rejected has become the corner stone" (Psalm 118:22). The Bible describes the event as "a marvel in our eyes" (ibid.v.23). Indeed, the creativity of existence in spite and instead of the nothing is a true beauty to see. But what are the grounds for rejection? Isolation is one. The fault here lies with the individual who, rather than embrace the phusis with faith and love, sets himself contrary to it. But other factors cause rejection as well, such as: misunderstanding, jealousy, hate and acrimony. Rejection leads to the nothing; paves the way for it. And the nothing is the principle of depression and annihilation. Our struggle as humans is to overcome the nothing. But where and when we are rejected, we are forced to encounter and stay with the nothing. And we often stay too long, in the pain and suffering of it all. But creativity helps and saves us eventually, if we try.

 

Even if the community rejects us, we must not reject ourselves. We must patiently continue to create. We must persist with faith. We must never lose sight of what can be, our potential, even if what is seems like the nothing. For, Heidegger would remind us that potential precedes the actual. And even if the actual seems to thrust us out of happiness and into the nothing we must still hope in the ought; in the possibility. To them that believe, all things are possible, as the bible tells us. The moral imperative to hold what-is accountable to what can be remains a vocation for as many as are rational; for as many as are truly human. In the quest to live authentic, happy lives, we must always reach out to touch the possible; we must always reach out to touch the ought. In spite of our being sometimes rejected in so doing. Yet, no matter how many times we are rejected - and even if it seems our whole life is one collection of rejections - we must persist. We must continue to think and act creatively and hold the what is up to the possibility of what can be. We must always have faith. We must never fall into the abyss of the nothing. We must always be. Be, instead of not be; be in spite of the nothing.

 

That is where happiness lies: in not rejecting the self; in not succumbing to the nothing. The marvel of Dasein is the perennial holding up to a teleology the potential of the phusis. This is done by creative thought and action. In this poetic creativity lies the answer to the question: "Why is there being instead of nothing?" It is a question Heidegger severally asks in his Metaphysics. The refusal to fall into the abyss of the nothing, but rather to creatively pursue our calling; to submit our actions to the scrutiny of the moral imperative; to be - this is authentic, happy living. The many people that visit psychiatric hospitals for one so-called mental illness or another; the people who fall into deep depression; the people who despair - these individuals have succumbed to the nothing. They have neglected to hold the status quo up to the teleological standard of the ought and, in so doing, have neglected to obey the moral dictate of rational human conscience. They have neglected to participate in the concert of living, the universal struggle to apply a moral yardstick to what is. Yet we must realize that even the stone rejected by the builders stayed put. And it became very useful where it did.