How To Live Different Lives
Four methods I'm aware of
How do you diversify your experiences and enrich your knowledge to such an extent that you feel a profound kinship with all of mankind; to the point where it feels like there is no difference between you and all of mankind?
There are four methods for doing this that I’m aware of, because they are things I do and enjoy.
The first is reading widely and deeply. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,” said the author George RR Martin, “The man who never reads lives only one.” This is especially true of fiction, I find. It’s not just that I enjoyed Hermann Hesse’s writing, I became Siddhartha by the river. It’s not just that I’m in awe of the worlds Borges creates, I’m an inhabitant in those worlds. It’s not just that Huxley’s dystopia frightens me, I see its sinister characteristics in everyday life. What’s best of all is that when you read a great book, it’s as if you were physically there. You heard the characters talking, you witnessed their struggles, and you personally congratulated them on their triumphs.
Second is learning another language. This is perhaps the hardest one, but also the most rewarding. While I think some people exaggerate it too much, you actually do feel like a different person when you speak another language. It’s not so much that you suddenly become someone with a new demeanor who is interested in different subjects and has altered beliefs. It’s nothing like that at all. Rather, it’s the moment-to-moment experience of moving your tongue differently and making different sounds that, naturally, makes you feel so different. That is, it’s more so that you forget the native speaking you for some time. Like, after I spend a lot of time speaking Spanish, it is as if I’m an astronaut coming back down to the planet, Earth being good old English.
Third is traveling as much as you can. Going to new places gives you perspectives you cannot get any other way. It’s not the same as reading about a place. It’s not the same as watching videos about a place. It’s not the same as hearing stories about a place. Not even close. Robin Williams’s character had it right in Good Will Hunting when he was criticizing Will’s fear and lack of experience: “I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling, seen that.” Also, in many ways, being in a foreign country and paying attention to people who live there does something weird to your mind. It stretches your thought process in a super intense way. I do a lot of “sondering” when traveling, i.e. “realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles.” This often happens to me abroad in the most mundane moments, like when buying a water bottle from a convenience store or something like that.
Last, the meta one, is never hesitating to reinvent yourself and what you do. I’ve been a party animal, I’ve been a dedicated student, I’ve been a borderline monk, I’ve been a committed athlete, and there are more archetypes to come. Or, as Frank Sinatra would say, “I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king.”
If all this sounds dramatic to you, that’s because it is. I like saying dramatic things. How can you not romanticize life?