Ask Jean-Pierre Weill discussion

Is the state of Well related to anything? Does it exist only relationally? Or, perhaps do you feel that it exists, unrelatedly?

Stephen wrote: "Is the state of Well related to anything? Does it exist only relationally? Or, perhaps do you feel that it exists, unrelatedly?"

I understand your question to refer to whether well-being exists when compared to another condition, such as feeling "out-of-sorts". By comparing one state to another we may experience it consciously. Yet the condition of well-being doesn’t require that I distinguish it from other states in order for me to experience it. An infant may be in a state of well-being without knowing it. I’ll call it unconscious well-being. Most sentient life is like that. A bird sunning itself on a branch is in well-being. It’s unlikely that the bird is thinking about how last night’s bitter storm was such a bummer compared to this terrific moment in the sunlight. I believe that there is both conscious well-being and unconscious well-being.

If well-being is a latent state, not subject to the concoctions of consciousness or circumstance, how exactly do we define the concept?
Would I be correct in interpreting your intimations to suggest that well-being is the absence of unwell-being, and that while well-being may be conscious or otherwise, unwell-being is always consciously validated?

Yes, Ilan, I think well-being may be seen as “latent”, that is, as an “original” condition - original as something first given, belonging to where we come from, our origin. I may be charged with romanticism in saying this: that we are born into well-being and we lose it when we learn to think there is something wrong with ourselves or with the world. (The shattering of the cosmic vessels). It may also be a somewhat romantic thought to say that we all secretly know what it is, though we can't necessarily name it. I believe that.

Well-being may be felt in the body. Being “out- of-well-being” , that is, generally miserable and angry, is also felt with the body: my palm sweats, my breath is likely shallow. Well-being is an energetic matter, as much as it raises existential or ontological questions. That’s important to remember, for sometimes when I intellectualize it, I find that it slips through my fingers and I seem to understand it less rather than more, and even begin to doubt that it’s anything than an invented concept or wishful thinking. I find it useful to remind myself that well-being is simple, it’s utterly uncomplicated, like my breath, like simple active listening. No judgments. Here I am. “hee-nay- nee”; it is about being a self held within a larger oneness that is trustworthy. Sometimes I think of well-being as I think of the Jewish Sabbath - it’s about “being”, as distinct from “doing”, supporting everything.