We Cannot Live in a World Interpreted for Us by Others
“We cannot live in a world interpreted for us by others.
An interpreted world is not a hope.
Part of the terror is to take back our own listening.
To use our own voice.
To see our own light.”
—Hildegard of Bingen: abbess, anchorite, composer, mystic, artist, natural scientist, polymath, 12th century Benedictine badass
There are those among us who have always walked to the beat of their own drum—a small subset of our species that has long fascinated me and whose existence begs the question: Are they even part of our species? Most of us have to find our way there. And the terror is real. Perhaps especially if you’ve been part of an intense community, religious or otherwise, healthy or not. When I discovered Hildegard a few years ago, I memorized this quote. It struck a chord. I’d just spent a year with the merry band of motley existentialists, and, though they didn’t agree on much—perhaps especially on being categorized as existentialists—I’m pretty sure every last one of them would have raised a glass to Hildegard’s words, even more prescient now in this postmodern era where every narrative has been deconstructed and where religious communities—the places people have traditionally procured their package of narrative and meaning—are in precipitous decline. Certainly, any of us average, unliberated members of the species searching for meaning and purpose and transcendence and truth must eventually face the terror, because, certainly, eventually, we all come to the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where we discover for ourselves, in unique and exquisitely painful ways, that an interpreted world is not a hope.
If you’re still in listening range, Hildegard, danke schön und prost.
Universal Man illumination from Hildegard's Liber Divinorum Operum, I.2. Lucca, MS 1942, early 13th-century copy. Public Domain.
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