Futility of existence
Saw Avatar today. Amazing effects. And a bit of a depressing affect on me... got me thinking and that sort of lead down a black line of thought. So spewed out this essay just trying to get a mental handle on it. The exercise was a bit cathartic, so if anyone wants to look behind the cut they can wallow in the morass with me a while too.
What meaning does our existence have? We glimmer, we impact, we pass. A transient sheen of life, a thin layer smeared out over the surface of the globe. Ultimately, our existence has meaning in the interactions, the impacts, the transactions that we have with other lives around us. Being at the top of the food chain, and in that being in the privileged elite, our footprint is much larger, leaves a much bigger scar across the land. And to what end? We can make great works of art, we can think great thoughts, discover new sciences, create things never scene before. But ultimately the wash of time will erase it all. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" So what can we do? We can strive to bring happiness to the lives of those around us, but inevitably we also bring pain. Even if the happiness comes in hundred pound and the pain in teaspoon cup. And then beyond us, the pain, the death, the suffering that churns in our wake unseen behind us. Life must consume to exist. Life begats life, begats life. A cycle of spawning and dying. Bend our wills to that of some unseen spirit beyond us? A mere illusion of meaning, a strange loop in our meat computer to act as a false balm of Gilead, to ease the nullity of our existence. Ultimately we are bound to those around us, a web we choose to remain entangled in, a web of compassion and obligation and kindness. We seek out connection to fill the void, and mostly we succeed. We do good works, we uplift those around us, and dare not look out in to the unthinkable darkness that is all around us. The whishing sound of the grave eons of time that dwarf and engulf us. The thanatotic wake that even the most humble of us leave behind. When the caul of self delusion is stripped away and you stare in to the void of meaninglessness, it seems that there is naught to do but shatter the illusion by ending forever the strange loop that is your consciousness. But you persevere on, because you can not entirely shake yourself free of the delusion, you can not bear the burden of guilt for the pain that such a decision would bring. Thus you commit yourself to a life that perhaps can bring a touch of something... a stacking up of the weregild that we may perhaps hope to pay back at least for a fraction of the deaths we cause, the suffering we bring by our very existence. We seek out the numbness of forgetfulness, the blinding of pleasure, the deafness of accomplishment, so that the days may blur by and we stay, if not completely asleep (for who can sleep once you have seen beyond?), then at least in a state of near somnolescence. The horror of the void is that it is one of pure awakeness, of no illusion of meaning, of no mercy for the puerility of our existence. We grasp, we eat, we shit, we expire. Along that arc, we have to strive to do what we can, to give some semblance of worthfulness back... all the while realizing that that itself is just a rationalization that will be completely crushed to dust by the Juggernaut of long eons and unfathomable distance.
What meaning does our existence have? We glimmer, we impact, we pass. A transient sheen of life, a thin layer smeared out over the surface of the globe. Ultimately, our existence has meaning in the interactions, the impacts, the transactions that we have with other lives around us. Being at the top of the food chain, and in that being in the privileged elite, our footprint is much larger, leaves a much bigger scar across the land. And to what end? We can make great works of art, we can think great thoughts, discover new sciences, create things never scene before. But ultimately the wash of time will erase it all. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" So what can we do? We can strive to bring happiness to the lives of those around us, but inevitably we also bring pain. Even if the happiness comes in hundred pound and the pain in teaspoon cup. And then beyond us, the pain, the death, the suffering that churns in our wake unseen behind us. Life must consume to exist. Life begats life, begats life. A cycle of spawning and dying. Bend our wills to that of some unseen spirit beyond us? A mere illusion of meaning, a strange loop in our meat computer to act as a false balm of Gilead, to ease the nullity of our existence. Ultimately we are bound to those around us, a web we choose to remain entangled in, a web of compassion and obligation and kindness. We seek out connection to fill the void, and mostly we succeed. We do good works, we uplift those around us, and dare not look out in to the unthinkable darkness that is all around us. The whishing sound of the grave eons of time that dwarf and engulf us. The thanatotic wake that even the most humble of us leave behind. When the caul of self delusion is stripped away and you stare in to the void of meaninglessness, it seems that there is naught to do but shatter the illusion by ending forever the strange loop that is your consciousness. But you persevere on, because you can not entirely shake yourself free of the delusion, you can not bear the burden of guilt for the pain that such a decision would bring. Thus you commit yourself to a life that perhaps can bring a touch of something... a stacking up of the weregild that we may perhaps hope to pay back at least for a fraction of the deaths we cause, the suffering we bring by our very existence. We seek out the numbness of forgetfulness, the blinding of pleasure, the deafness of accomplishment, so that the days may blur by and we stay, if not completely asleep (for who can sleep once you have seen beyond?), then at least in a state of near somnolescence. The horror of the void is that it is one of pure awakeness, of no illusion of meaning, of no mercy for the puerility of our existence. We grasp, we eat, we shit, we expire. Along that arc, we have to strive to do what we can, to give some semblance of worthfulness back... all the while realizing that that itself is just a rationalization that will be completely crushed to dust by the Juggernaut of long eons and unfathomable distance.