I’m Dr. Jane, and the topic of today’s short talk is the best that life has to offer, so I recently got back from spending a month in Japan, and I was inspired by my time there to share with you one of my favorite poems. Don’t worry, it’s very short; in fact, it’s only three lines long. It’s a translated haiku, and it goes like this:
Oh, snail climb.
Fuji, but slowly
slowly.
I love this poem because there is so much wisdom contained in those three lines, and I think a lot of this wisdom ultimately pertains to the best that life has to offer.
Dream Big
Now if you don’t see that yet allow me to explain three very important teachings contained within this poem. The payoff is the third teaching so be sure you read all the way to the end.
First of all, it’s important in life to dream big. When it comes to most people, their problem is not that they’re arrogantly overestimating what they’re capable of accomplishing. It’s true that there are some people out there who have an inflated sense of self-worth and competence but even when it comes to such people the ends to which they hope to apply that inflated sense of self-worth are so petty and pathetic that they are unlikely to produce a great deal of fulfillment to say nothing of happiness for themselves or others.
Though as I talk about in my episode why I talk about sex and money they may have to attain those things first in order to facilitate Their Own disillusionment. No, what I love about this poem is that we’re addressing a snail. Oh snail, right now the idea of a snail climbing Mount Fuji is ludicrous on the surface. Mount Fuji so big, little snail so small, right? But that’s better than the alternative.
It’s better for a snail to aim at climbing Mount Fuji than it is for a snail to content itself with immediately achievable goals. It’s important in life to dream big because spoiler alert that’s actually what life is for. Life is for the attainment of our dreams so why not climb Mount Fuji? Live an epic life.
Do Things Your Own Way
Okay now the second piece of wisdom pertains to how the snail is going to go about his task. Oh, snail climb Mount Fuji but slowly. Of course, the snail is going to climb Mount Fuji slowly, it’s a snail. So, the second piece of wisdom contained in this poem is that you have to do things in the way that you can do them.
The poem doesn’t say “Oh snail, soar to the top of Mount Fuji” or “swim to the top of Mount Fuji” or “leap to the top of Mount Fuji”. It says to climb slowly because of who it’s addressing — a snail. So the first two things are kind of in opposition to each other. The idea is to dream big, to aspire beyond your capacities but to achieve that dream within your capacities.
Both things are actually possible — the goal is beyond you, but the means are within you. The poem is acknowledging that the only way for a snail to climb Mount Fuji is slowly. By analogy, the only way that you can achieve your dreams is in a manner amenable to your nature.
You can only achieve your dreams in the way that you can achieve them. You’re not going to do it the way that I’m going to do it or your parents did it or your girlfriend wants you to do it, or your society tells you you should do it. Okay, you’re going to do it in the way that you can do it.
Do you understand the idea here? It is to become very very clear with respect to your nature, your preferences, your abilities, your capacities — what really works for you, what you really want — and to align your means with that nature because this is going to greatly increase the likelihood that you succeed, that you actually get somewhere.
Enjoy the Journey
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Now the third piece of wisdom is actually the most important and it has to do with the final word of the poem. Oh, snail climb Mount Fuji but slowly, slowly. The first slowly has to do with the fact that we’re addressing a snail. Of course, it’s going to climb slowly. But the second slowly seems kind of redundant, doesn’t it?
Poetically, the repetition is an intensifier in the sense that slowly, slowly means something like “very slowly”. But I think it’s unfair to the poem if we stop our interpretation there. What you have to understand here is that the poem, like many haiku, is actually an allegory.
In a literal sense, Mount Fuji is the highest point in Japan. But in an allegorical sense, it represents the highest goal to which a little snail, which is dwarfed by the immensity of nature, represents you or me — could possibly aspire. That’s what the poem is exhorting us to do — to aim for the highest goal we can possibly conceive and to achieve that goal in a means aligned with our true natures.
And if we do all that then really what’s the point in hurrying? Think about it, there’s no higher point in all of Japan. So if you actually get to the top of Mount Fuji then all that’s left for you to do is to come down. There is no higher goal.
So, the idea here is to orient ourselves toward the highest goal we could possibly conceive and to spend as long as possible in the attainment of that goal. And with this in mind, the best possible goal is an infinite goal — one that can’t ever really be attained — but that gives us the pretext to eternally climb towards it because this, my friends, is where happiness and fulfillment lie.
Not in the gaining, not in the achieving, but in the climbing. If you ever actually achieve a goal, then either the whole journey ends or you have to suffer the decline that inevitably follows. Remember, the worst part of a road trip is arriving at the destination.
So, the idea is not only to climb Mount Fuji slowly because us little snails, how else are we really going to do it? But to do so slowly, slowly. If we’re doing it right, it’s going to take us a long time to get where we’re going. But it’s really the only show in town so why are you in a hurry to get to the credits?
This process of moving in the direction of our highest conceivable goal might just be the best that life has to offer. There is by definition nothing higher such that if we actually attain this goal, it’s either the end of all life or the beginning of a decline.
So, the best that life has to offer is something like endlessly striving toward an infinitely receding goal of the highest virtue and magnitude. Not bad for a three-line poem, huh? We are happiest when we’re climbing. So, if you’re in a rut, if you’re not feeling very good, then maybe you either need to start gaining some elevation or to seek out a higher mountain to climb.
Look around you — what’s the highest mountain you can see? That’s your goal. And once you’ve found your goal, you’ll discover who you are as you climb it and this knowledge will inform how you climb it. It’s reciprocal. There’s no hurry because there might not be anything better life has to offer once you’re done.
What do you think — does this fit with your own experience? Let me know in the comments below and if you’ve gotten this far, you might as well give this story a clap.
As always, thank you for reading.
