A Time of Significance

My "grand essay" from last week has been thrown in the conceptual wastebasket, since it didn't make sense, and was sensationally extreme. I guess I had mixed up the adjective and adverb. Though I hope today's essay will live up to the standard I set.

Over the past months, I have been degenerating mentally. I peaked somewhere around January, and since then have been going slowly downhill. I think I have mentioned this a couple of times, and maybe you noticed it on your own. The degeneracy could be described as decreasing "happiness", or joi de vivre, since I like French better. A year ago I was in love, with a person, and more passionately, the world; I enjoyed art and music much more than I do now; my life and the world seemed beautifully structured; I enjoyed life to the utmost.

Then I decided that superficiality was a Very Very bad thing, which I set out to remove from my life. I'm not completely sure how I became so utterly convinced that superficiality was bad. Regardless, the more successful I was at removing superficiality, the more I degenerated, since all the things I enjoyed the most were superficial.

Of course, I didn't see where the complete removal of superficiality would hypothetically lead me, which I should have done, since it was what I was "on my way" to achieving; though, I don't call it a "goal", since it wasn't at that level. Actually, the way I conceptualized superficiality was such that anything the mind produced was superficial; which, on some level is true, since the origin of the mind is incorporeal. However, that does not invalidate the mind, as I explained in my essay posted here on 12 September 2005. Completely removing superficiality would have led to the complete invalidation of my mind, leaving me only to care about my basic bodily needs (food, sleep, sex), and being completely apathetic to anything else. My apathy has been especially heightened over the past few days. For instance, not only am I not sure if I am the greatest person alive, I don't care if I am or not. This is a terrible (lack of) feeling.

I can't absolutely deny that this is a bad way to exist. I mean, it is pure, in a way. It is pure like suicide. Suicide is a complete eradication of superficiality. Of course, this sense of suicide gets tarnished by people committing suicide (almost unvariably) for other reasons. Maybe I will talk about this later, as I have other things to talk about now. I have made the comparison that being wholly apathetic to anything but three basic bodily functions is essentially equivalent, in meaning, to being dead. So, what I have been "on my way" to essentially, though not literally, killing myself.

This leads me to the basic question of life, which is whether or not I should exist (I have avoided being cliché and not used Hamlet's wording, though which, apart from being trite, is eloquent). I find absolutely no reason why I should live, as opposed to die. As Eric J. Herboso noted, anything that gives my life meaning would give equal meaning to my death. Yet still I live, though I see no reason why I should or shouldn't. Thus, I make as an assumption that, since I am alive, living is better than dying. I have no justification for this arbitrary assumption, other than that I am alive, and I can't be both alive and dead, so I may as well assume, even though I have no reason to believe it, that being alive is superior.

This assumption invalidates complete apathy. It does not invalidate partial apathy; apathy is necessary, since it is impossible to care about everything. However, this assumption not only allows, it requires that I care about something. It is up to me what that "something" is.

This is desirable, since it allows me to regain my old life; I can love music, the world, people, etc. superficially without regret. It also allows me to set goals for myself. This is extremely important. A goal, such as to be perfect, or to be the greatest person alive, or to be the most beast, creates order in life, and gives it a meaning, which is crucial. I have no justification for this. It is intuitive to me.

All of this leads basically to, as I mentioned at the beginning, happiness. I can think of no good reason why I should be happy, but I want to very much. Thus I will take steps to be happy, to love life, as outlined in this essay. This also allows me to be even more beast, which ironically I though my actions were going towards achieving, not moving away from.

This conclusion is probably intuitive to you also. In fact, if you are understanding what I'm saying (and there's a decent probability you aren't) you should realize that I have written a whole lot of stuff, and spent a lot of time, to come to a conclusion which most people have already accepted as obvious, without any of my effort, and without making it seem grand. The distinction here, which may not be important, is that I consciously acknowledge and appreciate this way of life in a deeper way. This is because, perhaps ironically, my intelligence is extremely high. This does not mean that I enjoy life more than other people; it means I enjoy it on a higher level. I don't think a comparison of happiness can be made.