I am not lonely when I am alone. I only feel loneliness looking at the back of the smart phone sitting opposite and as the silence thickens, I realize how less lonely I’d feel if I were by myself.
You ever stand in front of the mirror, looking at the strange old man with the perplexed look on his face, eyes casting about trying to make contact with you? There he is, looking at you with his wrinkled, blemished skin, saggy and mottled instead of taut and tan, with fat where muscle used to reside. Do you try to pretend he’s not you? Do you deny him?
Scented shaving cream applied, razor in hand, and you suddenly wonder why bother? Why, instead of shaving grey whiskers from a slack, jowly jaw line, do you not just cut your throat? According to Algerian playwright and philosopher, Albert Camus, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.”
Who would care? What difference would it make? Life is absurd. If you scream in the forest and no one hears, do you even exist?
Make your living doing what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. What if you can’t make a living doing what you love? Not everyone is good enough to make a living from doing what they love to do. What then?
Then you become a drone. Change your name to Sisyphus, son, you’re life is over!
If you are truly lucky, you’ll find acceptance, after all, the only sense we can make from Sisyphus’s predicament is to imagine him happy. Acceptance is key. Ignorance is bliss.
You can be anything you want to be, they lie. Free will. Maybe. It’s doubtful and much exaggerated, but it’s how you live your life.
Happiness. Isn’t that what everyone wants? Then why so many different definitions of what happiness is? And why is it so elusive? People all over the world will pay charlatans lots of money trying to attain it. It’s a multi-million dollar industry where only the people who actually seem happy are the snake oil salesman themselves.
Remember what your body used to be capable of? Remember how sharp your wits were? When did doubt creep in? How is it the more you learn the less you know? Time is the greatest thief of all.
How many lives do you reckon you have lived? You had one as a child, growing up with siblings, your parents, nana and granddad, aunties and uncles, cousins, and all your friends. There was school, peer pressure, acne, teenage hormones ruling your thoughts and the constant search for sex.
You moved out, got a job, paid bills, and dropped by the pub for a shot and a beer after work. And the constant search for sex.
The first marriage was exciting. You felt grown up. Then you woke up to the reality, it was all in your head and you may as well have been by yourself; you’d have been better off. The kids. They hate you for leaving but not as much as you hate yourself. Leaving their mum isn’t why you hate yourself. It was leaving your kids. And more than that was the guilt you felt and the anger they harbor because you left them with her.
Anyway, four lives, I reckon. I’m into my fourth life. I’m on the cusp, ready or nearly ready to enter my fifth and final life. No one lives forever, mums don’t, nor do dads. Love them or not, the sure thing is you will out live them providing nothing untoward happens to you. It’s the natural order of things.
In any case, make your own happiness and don’t wallow in depression. Don’t let existential angst drag you under. Realize your own humanity and accept your own frailty. Dream big and dream often, who knows? You might live your dream after all. “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.” ― John Lennon
So, don’t despair. Life is absurd, true, but hope, that last resort when reason declares despair, springs eternal. "Be content with what you are and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it," is what the Stoic philosopher and Emperor of Rome, Marcus Aurelius told us.
You ever stand in front of the mirror, looking at the strange old man with the perplexed look on his face, eyes casting about trying to make contact with you? There he is, looking at you with his wrinkled, blemished skin, saggy and mottled instead of taut and tan, with fat where muscle used to reside. Do you try to pretend he’s not you? Do you deny him?
Scented shaving cream applied, razor in hand, and you suddenly wonder why bother? Why, instead of shaving grey whiskers from a slack, jowly jaw line, do you not just cut your throat? According to Algerian playwright and philosopher, Albert Camus, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.”
Who would care? What difference would it make? Life is absurd. If you scream in the forest and no one hears, do you even exist?
Make your living doing what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. What if you can’t make a living doing what you love? Not everyone is good enough to make a living from doing what they love to do. What then?
Then you become a drone. Change your name to Sisyphus, son, you’re life is over!
If you are truly lucky, you’ll find acceptance, after all, the only sense we can make from Sisyphus’s predicament is to imagine him happy. Acceptance is key. Ignorance is bliss.
You can be anything you want to be, they lie. Free will. Maybe. It’s doubtful and much exaggerated, but it’s how you live your life.
Happiness. Isn’t that what everyone wants? Then why so many different definitions of what happiness is? And why is it so elusive? People all over the world will pay charlatans lots of money trying to attain it. It’s a multi-million dollar industry where only the people who actually seem happy are the snake oil salesman themselves.
Remember what your body used to be capable of? Remember how sharp your wits were? When did doubt creep in? How is it the more you learn the less you know? Time is the greatest thief of all.
How many lives do you reckon you have lived? You had one as a child, growing up with siblings, your parents, nana and granddad, aunties and uncles, cousins, and all your friends. There was school, peer pressure, acne, teenage hormones ruling your thoughts and the constant search for sex.
You moved out, got a job, paid bills, and dropped by the pub for a shot and a beer after work. And the constant search for sex.
The first marriage was exciting. You felt grown up. Then you woke up to the reality, it was all in your head and you may as well have been by yourself; you’d have been better off. The kids. They hate you for leaving but not as much as you hate yourself. Leaving their mum isn’t why you hate yourself. It was leaving your kids. And more than that was the guilt you felt and the anger they harbor because you left them with her.
Anyway, four lives, I reckon. I’m into my fourth life. I’m on the cusp, ready or nearly ready to enter my fifth and final life. No one lives forever, mums don’t, nor do dads. Love them or not, the sure thing is you will out live them providing nothing untoward happens to you. It’s the natural order of things.
In any case, make your own happiness and don’t wallow in depression. Don’t let existential angst drag you under. Realize your own humanity and accept your own frailty. Dream big and dream often, who knows? You might live your dream after all. “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.” ― John Lennon
So, don’t despair. Life is absurd, true, but hope, that last resort when reason declares despair, springs eternal. "Be content with what you are and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it," is what the Stoic philosopher and Emperor of Rome, Marcus Aurelius told us.
Ending on a positive note is always good!
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