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a message from steve. 3 feb 2007.
a short time ago, a good friend of mine and i had a long conversation that touched on how he and i felt about the nature of things. he had just returned from a trip out of town, he was feeling jet-lagged, and a bit tangibly bummed with how things had gone down during his trip (to sum up: he went to see a girl). for some reason, he and i began talking about 'what life was really about, when you strip away all the bullshit.' it was just one of those evenings, you know.i'm not exactly certain what it was that brought it up, but i remember saying something about how i don't really feel there's a pattern to the universe, or whatever. that i don't think there's a 'master plan' for all things. "you mean," he said, "that your life doesn't have a purpose?"
after a moment's thought, i replied with "i believe that the possibility that there is no order or plan for us is just as likely as any other situation."
now, i don't believe that all things that we do are worth nothing, simply because there is no plan. but i imagine a world in which there is no agenda set before us. a world where there's no need to prove oneself to some higher authority beyond that individual.
in this world, every individual has their own opportunity to plan their life as they see fit. they act on those plans as they see fit. they assess their performance, gauge their experience, and gain experience and knowledge as they see fit. there is no agenda on which to proceed, no checklist to fill out, no end result to be gained, no goal to accomplish. it's simply life as it is known and done.
until i somehow came upon this hypothesis and began to seriously consider it, i found myself wondering if i'd become a failure. i had a college degree, but considerable school loan debt. i had a worthwhile day job, inasmuch as i was 'supposed' to have one, but i had no money, inasmuch as i needed to afford to pay for my rent and food and clothing and incidentals. my most recent girlfriend had left me months prior due to my diverted attention, after which of course i'd realized my mistakes (it always works like that). i let her know that i realized where i'd been wrong to her, but as of now it's not likely there will be a reconciliation.
i could have remained in a self-piteous slump, realizing that i was not 'keeping up with the joneses' while pushing thirty years old. instead, for good or ill, somehow my perspective has since shifted. my entire understanding of life and how we live it has been altered considerably in the past handful of months.
and yes, it's most often (at least for me, that is) when there's a breakup with a significant other that major life changes evolve and establish themselves. part of that is, i think, that one tries to determine just what they did that was so horrible to make a person to whom they were completely dedicated just up and leave.
the truth is, in my view, that the world is an infinite realm of possibilities. i can do whatever i want whenever i want. i can choose to meet anyone i wish, eat anything i wish, enroll in any school or take a job anywhere i want. i can take steps to foster good health, cultivate healthy habits, or 'take a break' and be irresponsible with myself at any time, should i feel the need to do so. if i want to go somewhere to visit or live, i only need figure out where to go. there are choices at every moment.
what guides us in making these choices? nothing but ourselves. we are the ones who direct our energies to our goals, whether we know it or not. whether we can tangibly state those goals, or they remain unarticulated. whatever is in the back of our minds, our souls, that drives us, is from within us and us alone. we may be similar organisms, but even one's subservience to instinct--the supposed common denominator between members of the species--is self-actualized.
is this wrong, to think this way? well, it definitely may be incorrect, so in that sense it could be wrong. but is it wrong, in the sense that it's inappropriate? that's for each individual to determine on their own. but what if others think of it as inappropriate? i'd like to elaborate on this more, but later, and to sum up for now i maintain that each individual determines how others will affect them. so in essence, i say that i'm only wrong if i'm actually incorrect, not merely 'inappropriate.'
and until some incontrovertible authority comes along to prove me incorrect, i'll simply life my life as i see it.
it's actually not the easiest way to live, says i. but it's very...well. i'm not certain of the word. it's part relieving, part daunting, part liberating, part horrifying, part loneliness, part grandly humorous. if i could smear all those words into one, then that's what it would be.
since i consider myself a philosophical taoist, i dare say i feel 'natural.'