The Big Picture
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own lists. There are atheist commandments, secular commandments, and
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so on. The Socialist Sunday Schools, an organization that began in the
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United Kingdom as an alternative to Christian Sunday schools, proposed
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a list of socialist commandments. (“Remember that all good things of the
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earth are produced by labour. Whoever enjoys them without working for
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them is stealing the bread of the workers.”)
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A good poetic naturalist will resist the temptation to hand out com-
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mandments. “Give someone a fish,” the saying goes, “and you feed them for
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a day. Teach them to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime.” When it comes
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to how to lead our lives, poetic naturalism has no fish to give us. It doesn’t
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even really teach us how to fish. It’s more like poetic naturalism helps us
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figure out that there are things called “fish,” and perhaps investigate the
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various possible ways to go about catching them, if that were something we
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were inclined to do. It’s up to us what strategy we want to take, and what to
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do with our fish once we’ve caught them.
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It makes sense, then, to put aside the concept of “commandments” and
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instead propose Ten Considerations: a list of things we think are true, that
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might be useful to keep in mind as we shape and experience our own ways
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of valuing and caring about our lives. We can draw inspiration from the
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universe by listening to it carefully.
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1. Life Isn’t Forever.
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Julian Barnes, in his novel A History of the World in 10 1/ 2 Chapters, imag-
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ines a version of what heaven would be like. A man, who had been a
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working- class Englishman, wakes up after his death in a new environment,
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where everything is wonderful. He can have anything he asks for, with one
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implicit catch: he has to have the imagination to ask for it. Being who he is,
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he has sex with countless attractive women, eats meal after amazing meal,
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meets up with famous celebrities and politicians, and becomes so good at
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playing golf that he scores a hole in one more often than not.
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Inevitably, he begins to grow fidgety and bored. After inquiring a bit
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from one of heaven’s staff members, he discovers there is an option to simply
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end it all and die. And do people in heaven actually choose to die, he asks?
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“Everyone takes the option,” the staffer answers, “sooner or later.”
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Humanity has always imagined ways that life might continue on after
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our bodily deaths. None of them holds up very well under close examina-
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tion. What the stories fail to account for is that change, including death,
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isn’t an optional condition to be avoided; it’s an integral part of life itself.
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You don’t really want to live forever. Eternity is longer than you think.
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Life ends, and that’s part of what makes it special. What exists is here,
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in front of us, what we can see and touch and affect. Our lives are not dress
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rehearsals in which we plan and are tested in anticipation of the real show
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to come. This is it, the only performance we’re going to get to give, and it is
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what we make of it.
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2. Desire Is Built into Life.
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Imagine trying to achieve perfect stillness. Close your eyes, slow your
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bodily rhythms, let your mind go quiet. While some are better at it than
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others, no person can ever be truly motionless. You will always be breath-
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ing; your heart will be pumping; billions of ATP molecules are being syn-
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thesized inside you, then used to power invisible processes inside your body.
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There is no perfect stillness this side of the grave. (And not even then,
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though we may be permitted a bit of poetic license.)
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Compare this with a computer. Build a machine with immense process-
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ing power, turn it on, and watch what it does all by itself: nothing at all. It
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will just sit there. We can program it, give it some task and ask it to do
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something. But if we don’t, the machine won’t have volition just because it
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has the capacity to crunch numbers. You can ignore it and it won’t get im-
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patient; cause it damage and it won’t defend itself; belittle it and it won’t be
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annoyed.
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Life is characterized by motion and change, and these characteristics
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manifest themselves in human beings as forms of desire. From our evolu-
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tionary origins we have things that we want, from enjoying a good meal to
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helping other people to creating an affecting work of art. It’s those desires
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that shape us, and cause us to care about ourselves and others. But they
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don’t enslave us; we are reflective and self- aware, with the ability to shape
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what it is we care about. We can, if we choose, focus our caring on making
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the world a better place.
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3. What Matters Is What Matters to People.
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The universe is an intimidating place. Compared to its smallest pieces, we
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are quite large; there are about 1028 atoms in a typical human body. But
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compared to its overall size, we are absurdly small; it would take more than
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1026 people holding hands to stretch across the span of the observable cos-
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mos. Long after the human race has vanished from existence, the universe
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will still be here, trundling along in placid accord with the underlying laws
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of nature.
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The universe doesn’t care about us, but we ca
re about the universe. That’s
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what makes us special, not any immaterial souls or special purpose in the
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grand cosmic plan. Billions of years of evolution have created creatures ca-
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pable of thinking about the world, forming a picture of it in our minds and
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holding it up to scrutiny.
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We are interested in the world, in its physical manifestations and in our
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fellow humans and other creatures. That caring, contained inside us, is the
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only source of “mattering” in any cosmic sense.
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Whenever we ask ourselves whether something matters, the answer has
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to be found in whether it matters to some person or persons. We take the
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world and attach value to it, an achievement of which we can be justly
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proud.
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4. We Can Always Do Better.
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Understanding develops through the process of making mistakes. We make
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guesses about the world, test them against what we observe, learn more
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often than not that we were wrong, and try to improve our hypotheses. To
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err is human, and that’s about it.
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We can make our fallibility into a virtue by recognizing it and cherish-
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ing it, by always working to do better at whatever it is we are attempting.
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Mathematical proofs can be perfect in their logic, but scientific discoveries
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are typically the conclusion of a long series of trials and errors. When it
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comes to valuing, caring, loving, and being good, perfection is even more of
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a chimera, since there isn’t even an objective standard against which to
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judge our successes.
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We nevertheless make progress, both at understanding the world and at
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living within it. It may seem strange to claim the existence of moral progress 01
when there isn’t even an objective standard of morality, but that’s exactly
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what we find in human history. Progress comes, not from new discoveries
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in an imaginary science of morality, but from being more honest and rigor-
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ous with ourselves— from uncovering our rationalizations and justifica-
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tions for behavior that, if we admit it, was pretty reprehensible from the
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start. Becoming better people is hard work, but by sifting through our bi-
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ases and being open to new ideas, our ability to be good advances.
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5. It Pays to Listen.
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If we admit that we can always be mistaken, it makes sense to open our
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minds to our fellow human beings to hear what they have to say. We all
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have our biases, so getting a bit of outside perspective isn’t a bad thing. If
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purpose and morality aren’t out there to be discovered, we might be able to
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learn something from our compatriots in the ongoing creation of meaning.
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That includes ancient wisdom. Over thousands of years, people have
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struggled intensely with the question of how to be a good person. For the
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large majority of history, that work has been carried out within religious or
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spiritual traditions. There’s no reason to throw out everything associated
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with the great thinkers of the past just because we have a more updated and
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accurate ontology. Nor is there any reason to stick with ethical command-
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ments that have become unmoored from their original justification. We
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can take inspiration from ancient teachings, not to mention from great lit-
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erature and art, without being bound by them.
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Consciousness gives us an inner model of ourselves. It also allows us to
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model other people, opening the door for empathy and ultimately to love.
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To not only listen to others but also to imagine ourselves as them, to con-
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sider what they care about, is a powerful driver of moral progress. Once we
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see that mattering comes from inside people, understanding others be-
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comes more important than ever.
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6. There Is No Natural Way to Be.
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Evolution is extraordinarily ingenious, inventing mechanisms that human
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designers would be hard- pressed to match. But there was no designer, which
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has its drawbacks. There is no simplistic, undivided self, no tiny homuncu-
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lus in the brain steering us around on the basis of unbendable rules. We are
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the final product of a cacophony of competing impulses, and so are other
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people.
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If we are part of nature, it can be tempting to valorize “being natural.”
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That’s backward: we can’t help but be natural, since we are unavoidably
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part of nature. But nature doesn’t guide us or lay down rules, or even offer
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exemplars of good behavior. Nature is kind of a mess. We can be inspired
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by it, and occasionally horrified by it, but nature simply is.
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Searching for clues to the nature of human caring and morality in
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the behavior of our animal cousins reveals a mixed bag. Chimpanzee so-
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cial groupings are dominated by males, while bonobos are dominated
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by females. Elephants mourn for their dead comrades, and species as di-
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verse as rats and ants have been known to rescue friends who are in trou-
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ble. Biologists Robert Sapolsky and Lisa Share studied a group of Kenyan
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baboons who fed off the garbage from a nearby tourist lodge. The clan
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was dominated by high- status males, and females and lesser males would
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often go hungry. Then at one point, the clan ate infected meat from the
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garbage dump, which led to the deaths of most of the dominant males.
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Afterward, the “personality” of the troop completely changed: individu-
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als were less aggressive, more likely to groom one another, and more egali-
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tarian. This behavior persisted as long as the study continued, for over a
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ecade.
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The lesson is not that we should learn from the baboons (although if
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they can improve their lifestyles, maybe there is hope for us). It’s that we are
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not simple, unified, fixed creatures. We have inclinations and desires, partly
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born of our innate dispositions, but we also have the opportunity to change,
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as individuals and as a society.
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7. It Takes All Kinds.
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If our lives are to have meaning and purpose, we are going to have to create
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them. And people are different, so they’re going to create different things.
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That’s a feature to be celebrated, not an annoyance to be eradicated.
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Much of what has been written about the quest to lead a meaningful life
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has been produced by people who (1) enjoy thinking deeply and carefully
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about such things, and (2) enjoy writing down what they have thought
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about. Consequently, we see certain kinds of virtues celebrated: imagina-
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tion, variety, passion, artistic expression. And these are all worth celebrat-
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ing. But a fulfilled life might alternatively be characterized by reliability,
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obedience, honor, contentment. Some might find fulfillment in devoting
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their efforts to helping others; others will concentrate on their own daily
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practice of being. The right way to live for one person might not suit some-
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one else.
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Poetic naturalism doesn’t provide much comfort for those who take joy
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in telling other people the proper way to live their lives. It allows for plural-
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ism in purpose and meaning, a rich ecosystem of virtues and lives well lived.
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We are faced with both an opportunity and a challenge. There is no
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single right way to live, an objectively best life out there to be discovered by
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reason or revelation. We have the opportunity to shape our lives in many
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ways, and count them as true and good.
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8. The Universe Is in Our Hands.
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We are collections of atoms and particles, bumping into one another and
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interacting through the forces of nature. We are also collections of biologi-
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cal cells, passing electricity and chemicals back and forth as we metabolize
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free energy from our environments. And we are also thinking, feeling, car-
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ing beings, capable of contemplating our actions and making decisions