Are You Basho or Tennyson?

People often come to therapy because they are suffering from a lack of purpose. They are seeking guidance on how they should live and what they should live for. 

This presents a significant challenge for the psychotherapist who is sometimes lured into the trap of thinking they can actually guide another person directly towards their life purpose. They can’t—the best a psychotherapist can do is act as witness and preside over someone else’s journey as they discover what makes them come alive. 

What we do know is that purpose requires more than rote and mindless striving. It requires moving past the superficial and exploring the deeper boundaries of one’s experience. Part of the problem seems to be that we obsess over discovering the purpose of life through the intellect instead of being open and responsive so that we can experience as much life as possible. We incorrectly assume that purpose is a prerequisite to full living when it is the opposite. 

The answer to the question of whether one is Basho or Tennyson deals with the way one chooses to approach their life. Each man shared their view on living through the expression of their poetry. Life can be treated as an object meant to be dissected or it can be treated as a mystery meant to be experienced. 

Tennyson’s poem expresses the first sentiment: 

Flowers in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies;—

Hold you here, root and all, in my hand.

Little Flower—but if I could understand 

What you are, root and all, and all in all 

I should know what God and man is. 

If the flower is a symbol of life, Tennyson intends to poke and prod and probe at it until he can understand its secrets. He wants to drill down to the very root of it and understand its essence. This same idea frames Tennyson’s approach to searching for life purpose. 

Meanwhile Basho is uninterested in digging and is content to simply marvel at what is. His poem reads: 

When I look carefully 

I see the Nazuma blooming

By the hedge! 

Basho acts as witness and allows himself to be filled with excitement at the sight of existence. Because he looks carefully he does not have to probe as deeply. For him, the essence of things is all right there on the surface and there is nothing to ponder and nothing to struggle with. 

Both approaches are valid, and the main error may be only seeing life through only one lens. There is beauty in analyzing and formulating ideas, but there is also beauty in harmony and integration. There is beauty that comes from stepping into one’s purpose and there is also beauty that comes from stepping outside of it.