Bezieling and inspiration at the Philosophy Cafe

Last week's Philosophy Cafe evening at De Vrije Ruimte (the school that Anne Sophie goes to) was about exploring the concept of "bezieling", a Dutch word meaning something like inspiration, enthusiasm, drive, being on fire, and may well be literally translated into a non-existing English word "ensoulment", the root of the word being "ziel" or soul. Being the only non-native speaker of Dutch in the room, I had difficulty with understanding and feeling the exact meaning and context of this concept. Eventually, I settled with the closest I could come to in my native Russian: "воодушевление" (душа meaning soul).

We divided into two groups based on whether we wanted to think about "bezielen" (inspiring others) or "bezield worden" (getting inspired). As usual, the Philosophy Cafe is at least just as much about a question at hand as about how we approach the question. The method we used this time was 1) to come up with a few concrete examples of how we inspired someone or got inspired ourselves, then 2) choose one such example, 3) let the person describe the situation in as much detail as possible and explain exactly how the concept was manifested in their example, 4) ask clarifying questions about the situation, 5) try to put ourselves into the situation, and from there 6) ponder whether we felt that the situation had to do with the concept in question (bezieling) and explain why.

After 30-40 minutes, the groups joined together again to exchange ideas. Interestingly, the first group (to which I belonged) approached the subject from an individualistic perspective, while the other group was talking about getting inspired in community and solidarity with others. We were invited to think about our criteria for bezieling, resulting in something like: (let someone) discover new things from within, insight, enthusiasm, long-lasting effect, source of energy, being deeply moved, connectedness, joy, etc.

After a break, we proceeded towards attempting at a definition of bezieling, using a number of techniques:

1. keeping to a concrete example and putting ourselves into a situation (see above)
2. thinking of common idioms, proverbs, ideas having to do with the concept at hand
3. identifying what we include in and exclude from our definition
4. exploring whether our definition is necessary and sufficient

Eventually, I came up with the following definition: burning desire to do, make, practice and excel at something. Some other definitions given in the group included: "from standstill to motion", "intense drive leading to remarkable action", etc.

All in all, as always, it was a very enjoyable and thought provoking evening in a good company of special people. Bezield and inspired, I stayed for another half hour or so, talking, listening, sharing ...