4 Things

(1)

From star dust to bacteria to plants to fish to amphibians to mammals to… us.

Isn’t it narcissistic to think that we had a creator? To think that in some way, we deserved creation?

Sentience… does it give us purpose? “Leave the world in a better place than you found it” is the doctrine a lot of people live by.

It almost comes as second nature to us. However, is that because it’s closest to the real answer… or because it’s an easily defensible doctrine: who could criticize the life philosophy of somebody whose only goal is to leave the world having had a net positive existence. It's a doctrine that keeps society in good order. Imagine if instead, everyone lived by “do only what makes you happy.” What would we do with all the serial murderers?

“Ignorance is bliss.” And in this case the ignorance is of the fact that we don’t have a purpose. In light of these thoughts, a lot of things actually start to make sense. Things like religion. Imagine the medieval, celibate monk who abstained from “sin” for his whole life, and devoutly prayed every daylight hour, of every day. As long as he believed that what he was doing had purpose, validating his existence, then he could have died a content man.

Now imagine the abbot of the monastery, who could have been an unscrupulous philandering drunkard who broke every rule in the Christian handbook, but managed to justify his own wrongdoings to himself. Who is right and wrong? Who lived a good life? Who was happy?

The only question that can be answered is the last one. And the answer is one that might not please you: both of them could have been happy. 

Their happiness was in their own hands.

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(2)

With TVs, phones, and computer screens blaring ads in our face every bleeding second, it's hard to feel adequate. Are you... the right size? Driving the right car? Sporting the right hair cut? It's terribly hard to be happy nowadays. But the disease extends a purported cure: hope, the possibility of change. The implicit understanding being that hours of hard work will pay off, that karma has your back, or you could just get lucky, or if you have enough money you'll be... 

Hope is a powerful notion, (and its effect is not lost on Hollywood movie directors who often rip on its clichéd-ness while simultaneously using it to propagate deus ex machinas that conveniently move the movie’s absurd plot-line further). It’s powerful because it promises us the possibility of a future, regardless of how absolutely miserable the present may be. Sometimes it can be all that encourages us to take our next breath.

Yet hope is a double-edged sword, it’ll often disappoint us. It’s an avenue by which we channel our sentiments of entitlement. ‘Today was so bad, if basically just stole my wallet and kicked me in the balls’ you might say to yourself. ‘Tomorrow will be better. I deserve it,’ is a likely afterthought.

Now imagine that unfavourable day, replay it again in your head, or imagine this one. The day at the office was dull. You spent the muggy morning tepidly going through Facebook and feeding the flames of your jealousy as you watched your richer, more attractive friends go about their lives. In the afternoon, (the A/C is broken, and you’re sweating), your colleague, who you never really liked but couldn't really stand up to, passed onto you another assignment he had been given, that you would complete, and that he would ultimately claim credit for. You flirt unsuccessfully with colleagues who definitely saw your sweat patches – why did you wear white? You painfully inspect, prod, and unsuccessfully attempt to ignore the ingrown hair in your groin you got after shaving it to try and spice up your failing marriage. You leave work feeling like crap, and very unfulfilled. Then you hit traffic. Thirty minutes of it, when it usually only takes twenty minutes. And at the freeway entrance, some obnoxious drivers who should have their citizenships revoked cut you off. Thinking the day is finally over, you scrape your car as you park it in the garage, realizing that you can’t pay for the repairs because you’re overdue on your mortgage and you credit card is maxed out.

Tomorrow will be better right?

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(3)

You’d probably be a peasant if your socio-economic status was replicated as you were transported into 12^th century England, unless your family has a net worth of more than $100 million. Life would be short, cold, arduous, and downright tedious. There wouldn't be any hope.

But you’d live. And do you best to enjoy the one life you get on Earth. You’d find a spouse, and do your best to not die early from disease or war.

Like every other miserable medieval-equivalent of somebody-stuck-in-traffic, AKA a peasant, you’d live in the present. Day by day. Hour by hour. Minute by minute.

‘Today’s a great day!...

   We had potatoes in the stew today!’

   I finished ploughing all the fields!’

   I only lost two of my kids in the cholera outbreak!’

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(4)

Living in the present, through the confrontation of our struggle to find meaning and the universe’s inability to provide any (also known as Absurdism) is true living, not living off grandiose expectations of a future steadily accelerating away from you.

It’d be convenient for the world if we all believed that we had a purpose. It inspires the trash collectors of the world to wake up in the cold, early morning to go about their work in the hopes that their children might get into that fantastic local school that sends a few kids to Ivy Leagues every year; from there, they might be able to pick up a six-figure consulting or finance job. It inspires artists to believe that they could be the next “Big Hit”. And it inspires the Big Hits, like Kanye West, to believe that they also have a purpose. (If he has millions of followers, and they all have a purpose, then surely he must as well? A purpose millions of times larger, of course.) 

A big-headed Kanye might try to create a legacy. Something that would survive his death. Something that would validate the purpose he had on Earth.

But he would fail. As all men have done in the past, and will do in the future. The best attempt so far? A pile of moldering rocks, 7000 years old, sitting in Giza.  

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(1-4)

You make your own happiness.

Happiest is he who lives life by his own rules, somebody who does A because he wants to do A. 

Not C to obtain  B to achieve what he really wants… A.

See, usually C is called a job. B is called money. And A is “happiness” as dictated by the big companies in the world, that shiny car, or flawless skin.

Don’t waste time on hope.

Live in the present.

Nothing will last, and neither should it.

Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs everywhere. Everybody’s going to die.

So carpe the f**king diem. :)