You ever zoom-out for a sec, register all those little details that pollute our incessant minds, your inane personal history and personality and realize that none of it REALLY matters in the scheme of things?
THIS is why there has been a pursuit of meaning among the bored and disillusioned for thousands of years – because there clearly ISN’T any, at least of a sort that makes sense to the wormish human race.
There’s both a weird relief in this realization and a damp disappointment, like a fire-cracker that was supposed to light-up and dazzle but just fizzes out and dies instead.
Many believe Life’s an ‘organism’ of some kind – maybe… a neurotic mentally-retarded voyeur that never shuts the fuck up and dies…
And yet they continually insist that they are ‘special ‘r ‘divine in origin. Still afraid of the empty darkness…. —I don’t mind and I don’t care either…
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2015.
You got stoned and watched the Simpsons, didn’t you?
The title says empty bottles and ciggarette butts but the content goes into some weird assed “take life into perspective maaaaaan” type rant. Like…. WTF did i just read?
You are describing humanity, not life. Your first call center job is a real eye opener, for sure.
THE PURSUIT OF MEANING: WHY PHILOSOPHY WON”T GO AWAY
“THIS is why there has been a pursuit of meaning among the bored and disillusioned for thousands of years – because there clearly ISN’T any, a least of a sort that makes sense to the wormish human race.”
Interestingly, I’m reading, among other things of course, Rebecca Newburger Goldstein’s “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away” (2013) which addresses philosophical claims like this. So why won’t philosophy go away?
The reason philosophy won’t go away lies in the fact that, insofar as he is a rational animal, man must ask the question, “Why?” Perhaps at the macrocosmic level there is no such over-arching meaning but at the microcosmic level, the level of the individual, such meaning is to be found in the search for meaning itself. It is called “thought” and, far from being restricted to the “bored and disillusioned” as the author claims, it is to be found among the creative, thoughtful elite however defined – literary, artistic, imaginative philosophical and so on. In other words, those who make life meaningful both for themselves and for others.
The author, of course, is clearly not a member in that “wormish human race.” Unlike them, it appears that the meaning of that pursuit of meaning has been uniquely vouchsafed to him. All that now remains is for him to reveal to the rest of us just what it might be.
A pleasure as always,
Cheerio!
. . . and yet . . . there are people all over the world, in all walks of life, who somehow still find meaning, and even happiness, even though each day they face the most grim situations imaginable.
I agree, it defies all logic.
But I believe, in spite of all that, that the human mind IS a unique entity, capable of a vast and open perception of the universe and our place in it.
All humans wrestle with this issue throughout their lifetime–some have left behind very insightful records of their thoughts and ideas.
I suggest two options:
1) Read widely about how others in the present and in the past have faced this quest for meaning in the face of violence and terror;
2) Speak to people who assist others during their most desperate, often final, moments: paramedics, soldiers, nurses, social workers, etc. Ask them how they cope with what they see, and what sustains them in the course of their daily work.
Then report back and let us know what you have found out about “meaning.”