Stephen Hawking on the meaning of the universe, Hannah Arendt on the pursuit of happiness, Thoreau on nature as a form of prayer

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[Stephen Hawking on the Meaning of the Universe]( At twenty-two, Stephen Hawking (January 8, 1942–March 14, 2018) was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — a rare motor disease — and given a few years to live. He lived for more than half a century thereafter. Despite the increasing bodily limitations inflicted by the incurable disease, he went on to soar with a limitless mind that has impacted the course of modern physics perhaps more profoundly than any scientist since Albert Einstein. His theory of what is now known as Hawking radiation — the thermal electromagnetic radiation which quantum phenomena on the event horizon cause a black hole to emit — revolutionized our understanding of the most powerful objects in the known universe and, [in consequence]( of the universe itself. His pursuit of a [“theory of everything”]( adrenalized the scientific community and his landmark 1988 book [A Brief History of Time]( awakened generations of lay readers to the splendor of physics, welding science to the rest of culture. Stephen Hawking (Photograph: Gemma Levine) A different, complementary, more existential side of Hawking comes alive in an interview conducted shortly after the release of A Brief History of Time and found in the out-of-print treasure [Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists]( ([public library]( — the 1990 collection of interviews by [Alan Lightman]( and Roberta Brawer, exploring “the ways in which personal, philosophical, and social factors enter the scientific process,” which also gave us pioneering astronomer Vera Rubin on [women in science, dark matter, and our never-ending quest to know the universe](. When asked how he would design the universe if he could design it any way he wanted, Hawking, beloved for his dry humor, answers: It is like the anthropic argument: If I had designed it differently, it wouldn’t have produced me. So that is a meaningless question. I’m prepared to make do with the universe we have, and try to find out what it is like. Turning over the question of meaning to Nobel-winning physicist Steven Weinberg’s famous assertion that [“the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless,”]( Hawking offers a laconic yet spirited counterpoint: I don’t feel like that. I think that human intellectual history is a record of how we have come nearer and nearer to an understanding of the order in the universe. I’m proud of our achievement. Complement with Errol Morris’s [documentary about Hawking’s life]( Hawking’s “theory of everything” [animated in 150 seconds]( and his lovely [children’s book about time travel]( co-written with his own daughter, then revisit another culture-shifting, Nobel-winning physicist — Richard Feynman — [on the meaning of life](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( on Facebook]( donating=loving Each week of the past eleven years, I have poured tremendous time, thought, love, and resources into Brain Pickings, which remains free and is made possible by patronage. If you found any joy and stimulation here this year, please consider supporting my labor of love with a donation. And if you already donate, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch. one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now]( [Give Now]( [Hannah Arendt on Action and the Pursuit of Happiness]( “What is happiness, anyhow? … so impalpable — a mere breath, an evanescent tinge,” Walt Whitman [wondered in his diary]( exactly one hundred years after the Founding Fathers wove the pursuit of that evanescent tinge into the fabric of what Whitman considered [America’s “democratic vistas.”]( The notion of “the pursuit of happiness” has been with us long enough to have become normalized — not merely an item of the American Constitution, but a concept permeating the world’s popular culture in an infinite array of guises. And yet, as a political aim, it is highly unusual — odd, even, with the oddness of squinting to discern a stroke of genius from a stroke of foolishness, unsure which it is we are perceiving. The origin and consequences of that singular, epoch-making oddity is what the great German political theorist Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906–December 4, 1975) examines in a 1960 piece titled Action and “the Pursuit of Happiness,” found in the posthumous Arendt anthology [Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953–1975]( ([public library](. Hannah Arendt by Fred Stein, 1944 (Photograph courtesy of the Fred Stein Archive) Arendt, herself [a refugee in America]( writes: Among the many surprises this country holds in store for its new citizens… there is the amazing discovery that the “pursuit of happiness,” which the Declaration of Independence asserted to be one of the inalienable human rights, has remained to this day considerably more than a meaningless phrase in the public and private life of the American Republic. To the extent that there is such a thing as the American frame of mind, it certainly has been deeply influenced, for better or worse, by this most elusive of human rights, which apparently entitles men, in the words of Howard Mumford Jones, to “the ghastly privilege of pursuing a phantom and embracing a delusion.” Writing two years before her landmark treatise on the opposite — [the politically driven normalization of evil]( — Arendt examines the origin of this American promise of the ultimate good, the basic human right to happiness: The grandeur of the Declaration of Independence… consists… in its being the perfect way of an action to appear in words. And since we deal here with the written and not with the spoken word, we are confronted by one of the rare moments when the power of action is great enough to erect its own monument. What is true for the Declaration of Independence is even truer for the writings of the men who made the revolution. It was when he ceased to speak in generalities, when he spoke or wrote in terms of either past or future actions that Jefferson came closest to appreciating at its true worth the peculiar relationship between action and happiness. Art by Maira Kalman from [And the Pursuit of Happiness]( Like Whitman, who believed that [literature is the seedbed of democracy]( the Founding Fathers were greatly inspired by the literature and philosophy of the Renaissance — particularly by the “men of letters” of eighteenth-century France. Arendt traces the chain of ideological influence across time, space, and culture to the French Revolution and its ideal of “public happiness,” which Jefferson appropriated. In a paper penned two years before The Declaration of Independence, he argued that the ancestors who had left Europe for America had enacted “a right which nature has given all men… of establishing new societies, under such laws and regulations as to them shall seem most likely to promote public happiness.” He then incorporated this insistence on happiness into his blatantly obvious yet somehow stealthy revision of The Declaration of Independence, changing the formulation of inalienable rights from “life, liberty and property” to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That such a subtle one-word revision of language can effect so profound a revolution in ideology may be strange, but not nearly as strange, Arendt points out, as the fact that it was undebated in Jefferson’s day and went practically unnoticed as it reoriented the entire national ethos for the centuries that followed. Art by JooHee Yoon from [The Tiger Who Would Be King]( by James Thurber With an eye to the French Revolution and the ideals that informed and inspired Jefferson’s, she explores how the eighteenth-century understanding of tyranny and freedom shaped the political insistence on happiness as a public and private good: Tyranny, according to ancient, pre-theoretical understanding, was the form of government in which the ruler had monopolized for himself the right of action and banished the citizens from the public realm into the privacy of the household where they were supposed to mind their own, private business. Tyranny, in other words, deprived men of public happiness and public freedom without necessarily encroaching upon the pursuit of personal interests and the enjoyment of private rights. Tyranny, according to traditional theory, is the form of government in which the ruler rules out of his own will and in pursuit of his own interests, thus offending the private welfare and the personal liberties of his own subjects. The eighteenth century, when it spoke of tyranny and despotism, did not distinguish between these two possibilities, and it learned of the sharpness of the distinction between the private and the public, between the unhindered pursuit of private interests and the enjoyment of public freedom or of public happiness, only when, during the course of the revolutions, these two principles came into conflict with each other. Drawing on this cross-cultural lineage and building on her previous writings on [action as an indelible form of thought]( Arendt illuminates the clear relationship between action and happiness: Every modern theory of politics will have to square itself with the facts brought to light in the revolutionary upheavals of the last two hundred years, and these facts are, of course, vastly different from what the revolutionary ideologies would like us to believe. […] The rediscovery of action and the reemergence of a secular, public realm of life may well be the most precious inheritance the modern age has bequeathed upon us who are about to enter an entirely new world. [Thinking Without a Banister]( is an intellectually exhilarating read in its entirety, exploring the intersection of politics and human life from angles as varied as the imagination, war crimes, Emerson’s legacy, the meaning of revolution, and the relationship between private rights and public good. Complement this particular portion with Elizabeth Barrett Browning on [happiness as a moral obligation]( then revisit Arendt on [how tyrants use isolation as a weapon of oppression]( [lying in politics]( [the power of being an outsider]( [the life of the mind]( and [the difference between how art and science illuminate the human condition](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( on Facebook]( [Thoreau on Nature as Prayer]( Walt Whitman saw trees — “so innocent and harmless, yet so savage” — as a wellspring of [wisdom on being rather than seeming](. “When we have learned how to listen to trees,” Hermann Hesse exulted in his [love letter to our arboreal companions]( “then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.” Two generations earlier, another poet laureate of nature and the human spirit made trees a centerpiece of his emotional universe. For Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817–May 6, 1862), there were creative and spiritual companions, sane-making and essential. His love of them comes alive in [Thoreau and the Language of Trees]( ([public library]( — a selection of the great Transcendentalist poet and philosopher’s meditations on trees, drawn from his two-million-word [journal]( by writer and photographer Richard Higgins, whose beautiful black-and-white photographs complement Thoreau’s arboreal writings. Photograph by Richard Higgins from [Thoreau and the Language of Trees](. Thoreau reverenced trees as living incantations, wordless prayers, benedictions for the art of being. In their company, he found a counterpoint to the falsehoods of society. Fifteen years after his mentor Emerson lamented in his own journal that [“in cities… one seems to lose all substance, & become surface in a world of surfaces,”]( Thoreau redoubles his insistence on [defining one’s own success]( and writes in a diary entry from January of 1857: In the street and in society I am almost invariably cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean. No amount of gold or respectability would in the least redeem it — dining with the Governor or a member of Congress!! But alone in distant woods or fields, in unpretending sprout lands or pastures tracked by rabbits, even on a black and, to most, cheerless day, like this, when a villager would be thinking of his inn, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related, and that the cold and solitude are friends of mine. I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get by churchgoing and prayer. I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home… It is as if I always met in those places some grand, serene, immortal, infinitely encouraging, though invisible, companion, and walked with him. Four decades later, Whitman — who was two years younger than Thoreau but long outlived him — would record a kindred sentiment [in his own notebook]( “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.” Complement the thoroughly elevating [Thoreau and the Language of Trees]( with Rachel Carson on [our scientific and spiritual bond with nature]( and David George Haskell on [what a dozen of the world’s most interesting trees taught him about life]( then revisit Thoreau on [the spiritual rewards of walking]( [knowing vs. seeing]( [the difference between an artisan, an artist, and a genius]( and [how to use civil disobedience to advance justice](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( on Facebook]( [Live Special (April 28, NYC): The Universe in Verse]( “The real wealth of the Nation,” marine biologist and author Rachel Carson wrote in courageous 1953 [protest letter]( “lies in the resources of the earth — soil, water, forests, minerals, and wildlife… Their administration is not properly, and cannot be, a matter of politics.” Carson’s legacy inspired the creation of Earth Day and the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency, whose hard-won environmental regulations are now being undone in the hands of the current political administration. Carson was a scientist who thought and wrote like a poet. As she catalyzed the modern environmental movement with her epoch-making 1962 book [Silent Spring]( she was emboldened by a line from a [1914 poem]( by Ella Wheeler Wilcox: “To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men.” After the success of last year’s [inaugural event]( I have once again joined forces with astrophysicist Janna Levin and [The Academy of American Poets]( and to host [The Universe in Verse]( at Brooklyn's [Pioneer Works]( — an evening of science-inspired poems read by artists, writers, scientists, and musicians, part protest and part celebration, with all proceeds benefiting the [Natural Resources Defense Council](. Dedicated to Rachel Carson’s legacy, this year’s Universe in Verse celebrates the Earth — from the oceans and trees and volcanos to bees and kale and the armadillo — with poems by Maya Angelou, Adrienne Rich, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Lucille Clifton, Dylan Thomas, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Bishop, Denise Levertov, Walt Whitman, and more, read by musicians Amanda Palmer, Zoe Keating, Sean Ono Lennon, and Jewel, astrophysicists Janna Levin and Natalie Batalha, actors America Ferrera and Anna Deavere Smith, authors A.M. Homes and James Gleick, artist Maira Kalman, and bryologist Robin Wall Kimmerer. Three of the great poets of our time — Jane Hirshfield, Marie Howe, and Diane Ackerman — will read their own work. Gracing the evening will be an original poem by Neil Gaiman, composed for the occasion, and a special musical surprise. To make the event both more egalitarian and more welcoming of generosity in raising funds for the two nonprofits, this year we are experimenting with [pay-what-you-can ticketing]( at three suggested levels — $10, $25 (last year’s ticket price), and $100 — to be chosen based on your financial ability and desire for contribution, by an honor system. [GET YOUR TICKET]( Doors at 6p.m., show 7–9p.m. Pioneer Works 159 Pioneer Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231 [Forward to a friend]( Online]( on Facebook]( donating=loving Each week of the past eleven years, I have poured tremendous time, thought, love, and resources into Brain Pickings, which remains free and is made possible by patronage. If you found any joy and stimulation here this year, please consider supporting my labor of love with a donation. And if you already donate, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch. one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now]( [Give Now]( [---] You're receiving this email because you subscribed on Brain Pickings. This weekly newsletter comes out on Sundays and offers the week's most unmissable articles. [unsubscribe from this list](   [update subscription preferences](