Is there something real in the statement “I can’t”? It is through owning the resistances we face, step by step, that we discover our ability. We are then sustained by purpose and the power of joy.
When faced with a challenging task and our own soul’s limitations, we often exclaim, “I can’t!” But if we look closely at the situation, we realize that these words don’t actually refer to something real, but rather to a mental picture like “I can’t walk; I’ve lost a leg!” In spite of this we could grab a pair of crutches or strap on a wooden leg—or better, a modern prosthesis—and then say: “Behold, I can walk!” Our first statement referred to a momentary situation, not to life itself. It was a stimulus for us to take action, to move forward in some way. When confronting external obstacles, there are countless ways to express the impulse to live on that lies deep within us, no matter how weak it may be in the moment. Every being strives forward in their own way. Development itself is the primal being of creation: the movement from potential to realization, from inner predisposition to its unfolding. Beings “unfold” themselves. Life is self-realization. Through all spheres of beings, the joyful cry resounds: “I am becoming—I can!” There is something significant here.
Resistance Is Part of Us
Let’s examine the phrase “I can’t!” We can see that it’s often a cover for “I don’t want to!” If our impulsive feelings filter our view of a situation, we actually confirm that this view does not come from an understanding of reality but is rather a self-deception—one with severe consequences. We don’t usually want to admit it, but our nature lives fundamentally in a process of development. To not acknowledge this means that I don’t know myself! We tend to hide from confronting this fact because hidden deep within our will we sense—or even know—that “to be able” requires strenuous effort. We use our self-deception—albeit unconsciously—to justify our “I can’t!” The purely external impossibilities of our situation are often clearly known to everyone. And yet we conceal, blur, suppress, or simply gloss over the fact that they are of limited significance. We move them from the realm of living, processual thinking into the realm of finite, fixed mental pictures.
What Shuts Down Thinking
This self-deception often has to do with the fact of simultaneity. If I justify my inaction by saying, “I can’t play tennis and swim at the same time,” we can easily see that to claim otherwise would be absurd. It’s more complicated when I look at a list of tasks and say, “I can’t.” If these tasks come as a cluster of demands, I easily feel overwhelmed, and this feeling shuts down my thinking: “That’s too much; I can’t handle it.” My will is paralyzed. A similar situation occurs when a teacher stands in front of their class for the first time and sees all the unfamiliar faces. The teacher suddenly feels completely overwhelmed, fears appearing foolish during the lesson, and fails to connect with the students. But then they dive into the lesson and it turns into a great class—even according to the students! The key is both a sense of trust in the unity of life and carrying out our tasks step by step. This is only possible when we know that each step is part of the whole; each step mysteriously encompasses all other steps within itself.
It Is We Ourselves
The knowledge that “all is one and one is all” gives us confidence that we can master every possible step as time goes on so that the thought “I can’t” won’t arise. There is no outer force that comes and overwhelms us—it is we ourselves. In my 1989 article, I wrote how often Rudolf Steiner clearly pointed out where we must seek the path to the innermost sanctuary in spiritual science.1 For example, in The World Riddles and Anthroposophy, he says, “It is a fundamental principle for the occultist to see other human beings in reality as the revelation of one’s own higher self, because then one knows that one must find the others within oneself.”2 In Theosophy, his statements about destiny (Ch. 2) culminate in the sentence, “In what happens to him [the human being], he will know his own ‘I’.”3 This is summarized by Steiner in his verse: “Seek within your own being, and you will find the world; seek in the workings of the world, and you will find yourself.”4 What can act as a hindrance to our understanding and experience is a deep fear that the vast and stronger world seems to want to attack us. But this is a fear of the ego, the “lower” self bound by space and time. We shut ourselves off from the world, saying, “I am here; the other is there.” We begin to wither away like a branch that cut itself off from the tree’s life-giving sap. To get moving again we must then ask ourselves, “What is the essence of God?” and we will know: “He is all and he is each and every one. If He is infinite and eternal, nothing else can exist besides Him. He created the universe from nothing other than Himself.”
With regard to his wooden sculpture “The Representative of Humanity,” Steiner mentioned that he should actually have placed Lucifer and Ahriman inside the central figure. He decided not to because it would have been too shocking for people at that time.5 The resistance we face is within; it is the driving force within us. Without it, we would not exist. Even evil is good, precisely because it is “good to overcome.” Life arises from “repulsive manure.”6 “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have created the world, the light and the darkness, the good and the evil. I am the one who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:6–7).
Joy, the Wunderkind [Wonder Child]
The world groans under the immense weight of suffering that causes a thousand voices to cry out, “I can’t.” And yet, it is precisely in the deepest distress that the true human being finally awakens. It is here that the great miracles of perseverance, overcoming, and resurrection occur. If we should be trapped beneath fallen walls and earth or imprisoned in a concentration camp, as so many have testified, and we no longer know any meaning in our lives, we may well fall into despair. But if we know wholeness, we can find a new beginning. We are all familiar with the images of starving children, and we can place beside this another image of a radiant mother at her vegetable stand. We feel called to provide external, material support. But to develop a deeply rooted ability to say “I can,” what humanity needs most is to consciously awake through knowledge. And where do we start? With a love-filled willingness to give and with gratitude to a world that gives to us the possibility of existing and being alive. Born of these two and permeating all the world is joy—the “wunderkind.” Joy extends into the very life of knowledge itself. In his Course on Education for Special Needs, Steiner called upon the therapists to “Live with the deepest joy for truth! . . . There is nothing more delightful than the experience of truth.”7 Schiller and Beethoven, in their timeless collaboration, have given us the most beautiful guidance: “Joy, thou beauteous godly lightning, daughter of Elysium.”8 Joy is the inward essence of positivity. Every doctor, every psychologist knows positivity is what truly heals. And negativity, condensed into modern-day depression, is the great barrier—inspired by the “spirit of negation”—to the process of any genuine recovery. Positivity provides the assurance that one will ultimately get through the difficulty, even when this includes suffering. Ability, “to be able,” has the presupposition: to be willing to endure pain.
Belief, love, and hope: from these springs “I can,” and they cause the song of joy to arise from our hearts. This magnificent “Trine” is that through which the divine Trinity of our eternal spiritual being is revealed in the life of our soul—the Trinity, upon which we “make our vows,” our decision to walk the path to the light, the path we now know deeply. Yes, we know the way—we can!
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Photo Aron Visuals
Footnotes
- This article is a later supplement to the article “Erkönnen: Vom Wahrnehmen zum Wahrgeben” [To be able: From taking-in truth to giving-out truth], Das Goetheanum (May 13, 1989), now included in the book Sternenwanderung auf der Phoebus-Spur [Star journey on the trail of Phoebus] (Dornach: Der Grüne Vogel, 2023). That article described the relationship between the two concepts from the perspective of knowledge, whereas this one proceeds from the will.
- Rudolf Steiner, Die Welträtsel und die Anthroposophie [The world riddle and anthroposophy], GA 54 (Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1983), lecture in Berlin, Oct. 5, 1905.
- Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Suprasensory Knowledge of the World and the Vocation of Man, CW 9 (Tiburon, CA: Chadwick Library Edition, 2019).
- Rudolf Steiner, Truth-Wrought Words, CW 40 (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1979), 60–61.
- See Hella Krause-Zimmer, Das Goetheanum (October 31, 1971).
- Rudolf Steiner, Founding a Science of the Spirit, CW 95 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2025), lecture in Stuttgart, Aug. 29, 1906.
- Rudolf Steiner, Education for Special Needs: The Curative Education Course, CW 317 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2014), lecture in Dornach, July 5, 1924.
- Friedrich Schiller, “An die Freude,” in Thalia, vol. 2, no. 1 (Leipzig: Georg Joachim Göschen, 1786), 3–6; Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 (“Choral”), composed 1822–24, setting Friedrich Schiller’s “An die Freude.”
