Interview with Arne Naess

Part 2 - RICHNESSS

Tvergastein, Hardangervidda, Norway, June 1995
Interviewer: Jan van Boeckel, ReRun Producties
This interview was made for the documentary film The Call of the Mountain.

Arne, can you tell about the tree line, why the tree line is important to you?

It is not only the mountain, I think, of such metaphysical value, but also the very tree line, where you come from more or less dense forest and you suddenly have this freedom of vision. So, there is a special pleasure in Norway, where you have a broad tree line, where the trees are fairly small, and you see the storms are keeping them small and keeping them in shapes that are not the ordinary ones. So this, to get from the forest above the tree line, is for me, both increase in freedom and also increase of challenge. It is challenging to get above the tree line. That is why I have written an article on the metaphysics of tree line.

Some people say: below it is friendly and warm, and up, high in the mountains, it is cold and hostile.

For many people it is the opposite and that is OK for me. I don't know, I don't wish that other people should be like me there. Some would find the opposite being the case, that getting from the treeless, austere, challenging mountains down into the forest is a good thing, and they feel better and feel it's more friendly, nature there. Excellent, because we need people, absolutely, to take care of the forest and feel happiness in the forest. That is fine with me. But as I say: I'm happy to be different from that.

To you, the upward movement is important.

Well, that's a symbol for me, yes, that's very important symbols, and also for others, and I associate this advance, getting upwards, get up, I associate that with a movement from below the tree line to above the tree line.

You are not particularly fond of the fur trees, blowing in the wind.

It is said that I have distaste for big fur trees blowing in the wind. That is because sometimes I told about such trees outside my window as a child. And the slow movement, back and forth like this, was a kind of saying no to my future. I was somehow doomed; I was a doomed being which should vanish. I had a lot of fantasies like that during the night, very special! The only important thing is that humans live and must live and should live in not only dreams, but with ideas that have a form of symbols, a symbolic life. Human life is life in symbols, and only to a small extent in verbal symbols. Now, philosophy is full of respect for language, but I've respect for non-language. All this symbols which have nothing to do with verbalisation [clicks].

Symbols like a tree or a mountain.

Yes, the tree is full of symbols, of course. The branches, you see the happiness, unhappiness. And different kind of branches: some being like this and some being like this, and you associate that of course with human movements. And what you see when you see a tree is so immensely more complex than what you think you see. When you say 'Oh, that's just a tree, or that's just such-and-such tree.' But what you see, if you take hours to analyze what you see, then you grasp the tremendous complexity of what humans see spontaneously, immediately.

You once said: 'We might have to relearn the way children appreciate trees.'

Well, children are more spontaneous in the sense that reflection and conventional views of things do not yet play such enormous role. If we could be able to see a little bit more like children, we would gain very much. That's a very difficult re-development, to get into this state of children's inner life.

Arne, the conventional idea is that if you see a tree as being sorrowful or joyful, it is in your mind, it is not in the tree.

Yes, what I say is that in some kind of conventional thinking, the real tree is what science talk about, the tree. Whereas I say the sorrowfulness or joyfulness of a tree is just as real as its size, its dimension, and its geometrical... let's say Gestalt, form.

What do you mean by Gestalt?

Well, that is difficult to say, only that you... if you place three dots on a black board, it is very difficult not to see it as a triangle. You see, immediately, some kind of form: those three points. And if you hear: Da-da-da-daah, if you are acquainted with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, da-da-da-daah immediately gets colours from the gestalt that is the Fifth Symphony which is a tremendous gestalt. And da-da-da-daah is the smallest gestalt within the first movement, with a tremendous complex gestalt which is again part of a more comprehensive gestalt which is a symphony, which is again, part of a gestalt when you are really sitting there in a concert, listening to it, looking at the orchestra. And it depends on who is sitting, if you are together with your girlfriend, da-da-da-daah would sound differently. That means that your life is in very comprehensive forms or gestalts. And it is only by analyzing that you get down to particular beings and things. A thing is just an abstraction.
But this is already philosophy! That's good, after all this nature.

The Reductionist view works the other way up, from the parts to the wholes.

Well, you have to work from parts to wholes, and from wholes to parts. So the whole is more than the part, and the part is more than the whole. I mean, a tiny part of the Fifth Symphony is certainly conveying something that the whole cannot convey! So the part also, is bigger than the whole. And that is often forgotten, in so-called holistic thinking.

It is the notes together, which make the gestalt, not the notes separately.

Well, 'the notes', that's an abstraction of course. That's a very abstract thing, the notes. But socially, you point to the notes: 'This is Fifth Symphony.' So it extremely important, the social existence of notes. But from a musical point view, of course, it's nothing.

Can you maybe explain how this idea of gestalt is important for you to nature, in combination with being in nature?

Well, gestalt... I should maybe say the relationship between gestalt-thinking, as I consider gestalt-thinking, and life in nature, what we call life in a place like this. If I look at Tvergastein, the hut, as I do at this moment, it is the surroundings that take part in what I see. I see it in a mineral environment, where it stands out as a living kind of being. The contrast between the minerals, all the stones, all the vastness, the dimension outside: this influences what you spontaneously see when you look at the hut. So you see, when being in nature as vast as this, the very vastness gets into your... as part of your spontaneous, completely spontaneous experience. And then if you look at details here: you see the form of the stone, you see the organisms there, and you see what we would call, being a stone, a part of nature so independent of us, as humans. So your vison is not 'I see a stone', no, 'I see a hut', no no. That is useful socially, and geographically, but what you see in nature that is always.. If you sit reading or writing or whatever you do, what you spontaneously experience is dependent upon your special kind of existence in a great natural environment. So it all comes together, there.

Why have you called this cabin Tvergastein?

Talking about the hut I am looking at; it is called Tvergastein. Why? Well it's an old name, here. And there is a kind of polemics, again, between East and West Norway. East Norway: they think it is coming from a lot of quartz crystals, very big, very beautiful crystals here. When people, hundred years ago, went up here to fetch crystals. 'Tverga' would then mean: 'crossing', like this. But people from the West Norway have another explanation of the etymology of the name. But I like that word very much, Tvergastein. It is the kind of toughness and roughness and I sometimes thought I would call myself 'Arne Tvergastein'. Because I feel I belong to that area here, I belong to it. It doesn't belong to me, but I belong to it. But that would be silly I think, to have such a name.

It would be good, I think, if people understand that this place is rather remote, that the village is a long distance and that you have to carry everything up. Maybe you can tell a bit about that.

Then of course, people say that: Why choose [sigh] the place where you have to carry everything up?' It seems that I very early got this idea that, without effort, it is very difficult to estimate something very highly. Sometimes, yes, of course, you have spontaneous pleasure, deep pleasures, but, on the whole, when I have carried something up here, I look at it a little differently, especially. And water, for instance, in the winter, it's quite a work to get water from the lake. To melt water is very unecological because it takes so many calories from minus one to plus one, as it is from plus one nearly to hundred degrees. The state of being frozen to the state of being liquid. So to have, then, four or five containers with water in the hut during wintertime, gives me not only a feeling of richness, not only a feeling of richness, but I am richer! People say: 'Oh, but this has to do with feeling, that is not real richness.' But when I then explain what real richness is, then they go either into money, or I don't know what, and defining richness as something very few people can have, because it costs so much on the market. And there, so I say: 'No, no, no, I am not talking about my feeling of richness, I talk about richness, and I am rich when I live in this hut because I am able to satisfy all my most important needs.
I must admit, that when you are more the fifty years old, you gradually find that - especially in wintertime - it is unnecessarily far away to make things more valuable. They would be more valuable even if the hut was somewhat near the train station. And in wintertime, we may use five hours to get up here, because the northwest wind is against us, and the snow may be so hard. It's very difficult to keep balance when the wind is blowing. So I am sorry for this, I am not adapted to the hut anymore, in wintertime. I have done it, this winter. But is unnecessary to have this distance and this hard work to get up there.

How was the hut built?

Of course, to have it built was not easy. It was considered completely, completely... one would say 'insane' to have a hut up here. And that was in 1937.
But, I was already a doctor of philosophy. And the people who are the best carpenter of the area, they had this thinking that: 'Well, he is not completely insane, so we cannot... and we have seen from when he was five years old, here, down at the railway station, so we will do what he says.' And they build it in fourteen days of very splendid weather. That's to say: half of it, and the other half I made myself.

How did you get the wood up this high?

It really did something very bad, namely they made three horses take the materials on the sledge, in October. And in October, some places, there is only ten centimetres of snow and then you have rock, very difficult kind of rock. Or you have one meter, it depends on the wind. So the poor horses, they had a very bad time, getting up here in October with this materials, I am sorry. We have a picture of them, marvellous horses. And they also made the error to think that it would only be necessary fifteen times, carrying fifteen times the sledge. And after thirty, the very nice man who were in charge of this transport, said to me over the telephone: 'Arne, I am sorry, it is already thirty, and we said sixteen or something. Are we going to continue?' Ha-ha. And I said: 'Yes!' And they used sixty-two times. The horses had to drag material sixty-two times through the snow: bad effect on the horses!

You have also the rules of Tvergastein, like the matches. That you don't spill anything because you brought it up. Can you tell a bit about the rules?

Well, there are an enormous amount of rules, too many rules in a sense, but everything has a value here. And matches, for instance, when I am using some kerosene in my lamps, etcetera, and if you are going to ignite it, I use matches so fast, that it is not burned, all the chemical in the tip of the match. So I can use it, say, two or three times. My wife is a specialist in that. She has a record of using the same match five or six times! And you see, this is play, but with some serious background. I know it doesn't count much, two or three matches. But this is how you see things. Everything has a value that is greater than in the city, mostly. And the old things, I like the old things. That is good for me. These here [points at climbing shoes], probably sixty, fifty years old, so... You see, we are so rich here in the sense that: We get everything we really desire. And that is impossible in the city where you have all this trade going on. All this buying, all the time.

Another rule is that you don't do the dishes, eh?

A rule that makes people laugh, and some not really like it. Because there are so few bacteria here. Very few bacteria come, compared to further down. It is not necessary to make the dishes. You have snow, even in the middle of summer you have snow in the neighbourhood. So if you are afraid of bacteria on the dishes, you just put it in the snow and clean it in the snow. It is permitted, so to say, to go cleaning the dishes every day. Your own dishes! But even if you are four people, we have each our own set of spoons and glass and so on. You have the same set for weeks. Makes no difference. So we need not much hot water. And the young people they will also wash themselves in snow, rolling themselves in snow. Very good way of washing. You get warm, feeling very well, by that. So, it is called Puritanical but it is really luxurious and it is Epicurean. You have so many good feelings! And you have time for dwelling in situations of inherent value. That's a formula. Dwelling in situations of inherent value. Where you have everything. You have company, if you wish company. You have no company, if you don't wish company. You have food, you have not too severe storm, and so on. So you may have everything in an easier way than in the city.
But, sometimes, you need the city! I have nothing against cities. New York, I have lived in twenty fourth floor of an apartment in Manhattan and it was fantastic beautiful sunset, because of the pollution makes it even more beautiful to look at.

Your idea of dwelling in a place, is that in a way, Heideggerian?

Yes. Heidegger has a lot of that, dwelling. Dwelling and being home. Feeling at home. The symbol of 'home' is very important and also here, important. You are at home with such-and-such. And also, I feel at home with a certain philosophy, and not at home with certain other philosophy. Feeling at home with something. Dwelling at home.

In a way, you have been here in total about ten years. Has the experience...

No, four-thousand one-hundred and eleven days, today. Four-thousand one-hundred and eleven. And it is between eleven and twelve years. And I may reach twelve years before I am too old to get up here.

But, you said, things have changed. Like there are a lot less insects, for instance.

[sigh] During this more than four-thousand days and nights, I have seen things happening here, in the environment, which I don't like. I have seen, for instance, since 1944 or something, we have much less insects. And here at this elevation, insects are always interesting. In the 1940's, I counted 220 insect species. As amateur. And now I don't find more than forty. Then some would say: 'That's because you get old and you don't see!' But that's too great difference! No grasshoppers anymore! I saw one grasshopper last year, a tiny grasshopper. But we need grasshoppers around. And I need of course beetles, and I like also mosquitoes here. Because, first of all, they don't like to be that high so they are carried by the wind. And they make no effort to get blood from you, not at all. They are just unhappy. But it is a symbol of summer to have a mosquito at this elevation. It is rare. And so: 'Ah! A mosquito!' Therefore I also get interested in more than ten species of them. And the males all have very nice kind of sense here. It looks like what you have in your face, when you don't use your razor. But more beautiful.

Do you know the reason why the diversity has become less?

No, it has to do - not with this place but also general atmospheric pollution, I think, so. I can't why not the kind of air... I don't know. Maybe it has nothing to do with people. Maybe, within ten years you get it back for some reasons we don't know. We don't know much about nature! We cannot manage nature, as it is said.

Another change is that you get the electricity poles, carrying the electricity to Oslo, in your view.

There are also changes that you see some electricity poles far away. I dislike that very much, when they were made. But now I don't pay attention to them, I just neglect them. The poles themselves are very well made. They have a shape that is fairly beautiful. But they do not, somehow, belong there. I must say, because I have been too much in cities and too much crowded, I like that I don't see much of human influence. If I were here much more, I would like it, probably. If I had to stay here all the year round. It has to do with what you have too much of. And now you have much-to-much, too many people around, compared to animals around. I ask many people about that. And they say: 'Ah, yes, I would like to have more animals around when I go to work, then people.' I ask: 'What would you say against having less people and more animals on your way to work?' - 'Ah! ah!' Haha. So richness and diversity of living beings around yourself. Richness means abundance.

Just to get back to the electricity poles. The idea that they are used for consumption, and maybe over-consumption, of energy, doesn't disturb you, when you look at them?

Talking about richness here, of course electric, these poles reminds me of that Norway uses more electricity per person than any other nation in the world. But that doesn't disturb me when I look at the poles, no, not at all. I am not disturbed very easily, I am glad to say. When I am up here, it is very difficult to get me disturbed by anything.

One more question about the mountain. A lot of people resemble it to a loaf of bread but that is not your view of the mountain, is it?

There is at least one person, who says that Hallingskarvet looks like a tremendous bread, loaf of bread. And that is a good spontaneous experience. And that's all right when some people could look at it in that way. But that's very rare I think, in Norway. Anywhere, it would be rare. But the shape is a little like that. Yes!

How do you look upon it yourself? What is the appropriate metaphor?

No, I have no metaphor for the shape of Hallingskarvet. But it certainly has a sort of weight. It is not a pinnacle; it is not a shape like this. It's a certain weight, a certain solidity, a certain... there is something of eternity there. You cannot easily see it fall down or anything like that. Solid. And it's not rough and tough in a way that would convey aggression or an enemy would like, that is threatening you. It is not threatening you. The shape is... There is a certain distance. It is as if the mountain itself likes the distance. A certain aloofness, to some extent. Aloofness, with benevolence, nevertheless, as some priest or some religious people would have a kind of aloofness. But have also, not a complete smile but something in the neighbourhood of a smile, like a Buddha. And Buddha also has this massive body. So, I have then a enormous number of spontaneous experiences, for each part of Hallingskarvet. So, the names I have of the climbs there, would also have to do with the shapes of Hallingskarvet.

You see faces in it?

Very much spontaneous experiences have to do with shapes of human beings. Probably from when you're one or two years old, you see very much things in shapes of human beings. So in that sense we are anthropocentric. Humans are in the center, whether you like it or not. You have a special relation to humans, seeing so much in their faces. And so you see faces pointing, but you also see animals, I think.
Spontaneous experience is a very important word for me. I think, you can develop your spontaneous experience to such an extent that your life gets richer, and it costs little money.

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