Activities may be divided into two categories, formative and transformative.

Formative activities are any activities that by themselves leave our perception of the world unchanged. For example, watching a football game. The qualification ‘by themselves’ is inserted to remind the reader that potentially any activity given the right circumstances can become transformative. For example, going to the cinema is usually a formative activity, but there is a possibility that a movie will affect us in such a deep way that it literally transforms the way we view reality. 

Formative activities may be pleasurable, but at the end of the activity we remain the same person we were when we started them, and sometimes we even feel a sense of emptiness at the end of the activity. The reason for this emptiness is that man is always trying to find the solution to the problem of existence, and he is trying all these activities with the hope (whether conscious or unconscious) that they will be the solution to his problem. When he realizes that they are not, since he is unchanged at the end of the activity, he feels a vague but nevertheless distinct sense of emptiness. It is the feeling of failure, which increases over the years as all the attempted ‘solutions’ fail to solve the problem of human existence.

As soon as he realizes that each of these formative activities do not solve the problem, he tries to perform them conjunctively with the hope that what one formative activity couldn’t solve many formative activities together would. He goes to work, but his work is boring, and if it is not, just the fact that he has to do it is enough to remove much of the enjoyment of it – but he realizes it is not the solution. He tries to buy things with the money he’s making, and he believes the more he can buy the more he will approach the solution, so he works harder in order to buy them. But as any rich person will tell you, things bought are not the solution; at best they are a temporary alleviation. The excessive amount of work he is required to do makes him idealize ‘rest’ and ‘relaxation’ and he thinks that if he could only not work and ‘relax’ on some beach in an exotic island he will solve the problem, but when he retires on that island he gets bored and realizes it is not the solution. He searches ardently for love, for ‘the one’ person that will be his salvation, but when he finds her and has a family with her, he realizes after a number of years that not only she and their children weren’t the solution, but now he is burdened with even more responsibilities and has to work even harder. He devotes himself to all sorts of hobbies: jogging, basketball, hiking, sky diving, rafting etc. he tries everything in case one of them is the solution. Then he believes he might find the solution by doing all of the above together; when he realizes it is difficult, he believes that if only he could find a golden ‘balance’ between all these activities he would find the solution, he would be happy. But adding zeros does not get you a one in whatever way you add them – it only postpones the realization of the result of a pointless addition. Sad though it might be, this postponement can last a lifetime, and thus, as Thoreau reminds us, people reach the end of their lives and realize they have not lived.

The solution does not lie in formative activities. That doesn’t mean one shouldn’t engage in them, they make up the spice of life, but spices can’t replace a meal. The nourishment of the soul is to be found in transformativeactivities. As I mentioned earlier, the transformative quality of an activity may not be due to the activity itself but the conjunction of many factors simultaneously. However, there are some activities that are transformativethemselves and do not require the simultaneous presence of additional factors. Transformative activities give birth to our inner potential and allow us to do more, think more, feel more – be more. What are some examples of transformative activities? The archetype of a transformative activity isphilosophy. This is for the simple reason that the very aim of philosophy is the transformation of life into the good life, the life worth living. Philosophy as it is practiced in the universities these days has forgotten its real purpose; that the analysis of concepts and the examination of aspects of reality, is done in the service of the good life, and not as an end in itself. Contemporary philosophy has taken the means for the ends. But philosophy is an examination of bothmeans and ends, and its domain is not limited to the crude division of academic departments. Philosophy deals with the totality of life, and the totality of life is not limited to logic and metaphysics but it encapsulates physics, psychology, sociology, biology, literature, history, just to mention a few. That is why specialization is nothing but a reflection of modern times rather than inevitable necessity. A plant cannot ‘specialize’ in gathering water, while being ignorant of how to face the sun. In the same way, a man will not flourish unless he has a thorough knowledge of himself and the world he is living. Only then, can he spread his branches, face the sun, and bear his inner and most beautiful fruits. Only then can he be fully human.