Continuing to read Etty Hillesum’s diaries. She is very good at describing her moods and feelings and situating them in the context of her day to day life – something I am not very good at. But then as a man I suppose I give less importance to these feelings and concentrate more on understanding and meaning. Feelings are to be enjoyed when they are pleasant and to be endured when they are not, but there is no going into why this feeling now rather than that feeling, and why do I feel this towards X rather than that. One tends to accept that feelings come and go, largely determined by chemistry not in our control and that they are not of primary importance. The significant thing is that they are ephemeral. Whatever you feel now you can be certain that soon you will feel quite differently. Therefore, they are not as important as the real events which are another determining factor. What is important is how one acts and this should be determined rationally. Only then can one live consistently according to a moral code.
And yet, Etty reminds me, feelings are important. Feelings and intuition are closely linked and this is one reason why women are often more intuitive than men. By paying attention to feelings and to the subtle changes in mood induced by different situations – sunlight, a smile, a dull grey day, an angry voice, the sound of the sea, a song, sudden laughter, a weeping woman, a child’s conversation, etc. – one can become more aware of the intangible linkages by which we are connected each to each other and each to the world of which we are part. This awareness can then extend to an even more subtle intuition of how these linkages are rooted in a transcendent unity… with God(?), with the Wholly Other, with…? It cannot be articulated. There are no labels. There is just a profound sense of depth and that all this empirical reality, which we take so seriously, is just the thin surface of an unfathomable mystery.