I'm naturally solitary and I don't sense anything inherently wrong with that. Nevertheless, I'm sometimes overcome with a crushing mammalian sense of loneliness. And everything suddenly seems remote, like watching a crudely pixelated disaster unfold on a video monitor.
Paradoxically, this very sense of detachment catalyzes my interest in undermining the definition of "human" -- because, frankly, I'm sick to death of being human. Either "humanness" has failed me or I've failed it; in either case, I'm left disillusioned, like a tourist with someone else's luggage and only a fuzzy sense of the local geography. And it never quite goes away. The most I can do is douse it in caffeine and bury it under mounds of preemptive disgust.
I crave mutation -- but I want to be in control. Naturally, one of my pressing concerns is staying alive long enough that future science can help reconcile the schism between the fragile construct that passes for my identity and the laughable exhibition that passes for civilization.
I'm not asking for a quick fix. I'm not dodging personal responsibility. I just want a more concrete sense of why I'm enduring this spectacle. And I don't think for one minute that I'm unique in that sense.
7 comments:
I do beleive i have felt this as well....perhaps even as often if i might be so bold.
The thought occurs that perhaps this is similar to one outgrowing and moving away from home...becoming so suffocated by an environment to be forced to leave it or change it to suit the new.
a simplistic view i agree.
but theres only so deep i can be after a day of numbing wageslaveness.
Here is a quick fix.
You probably need to get laid. it changes ones perspective on life.
Stan
Mac:
But is your funk more about you as an individual than mankind? Hey, I've been guilty of it myself.
Could it be that you're projecting what is lacking in your life onto the world at large? Could your problems with humanity's ultimate future just be a way of not dealing with what you as a person will finally leave behind? We all bid for immortality. We hope to do something positive that will live on after we die.
Of course, if we do leave a legacy, that it means nothing if it dies with mankind. I would like to leave something worthwhile behind. But I've realized that even time and the universe can come to an end. While I'm concerned about a legacy, I know that all I can count on is the here and now. Instead of worrying about what you can't control, maybe you should try to change or ameliorate those parts of your life that will make living more enjoyable.
And that means more than just "getting laid."
Best,
Ray
Paradoxically, this very sense of detachment catalyzes my interest in undermining the definition of "human" -- because, frankly, I'm sick to death of being human. Either "humanness" has failed me or I've failed it; in either case, I'm left disillusioned, like a tourist with someone else's luggage and only a fuzzy sense of the local geography.
Hey, that's *my* line - seriously.
You ask questions that most people avoid thinking about (assuming they are smart enough to even think about it) since it gets them nowhere (i.e. depressed). I know it depresses me.
We did not ask to be here so how can you expect meaning ('reason to endure this spectacle')? A person's parents had little idea of what they were doing when they conceived an offspring (having fun or making a baby?... never bringing a being into existence).
So there is no 'real' meaning to existence. That said, we all give meaning to our existence in our own feeble ways. Most do this by creating things (e.g. children, ideas, art, writing, tech). These pass the time until we die. No sense hurrying to the afterlife because there may not be any or it may be much worse than the current situation we find ourselves in.
'I crave mutation'..... Mutation is mostly negative. If you want to be in control, its called genetic engineering.
Rather than waiting for the next Bill Gates of nanotech to come along to help you mutate or become something 'better', perhaps you need to devote your energies to making it happen. Certainly its not easy and requires alot of energy but at least its a path one could take. Often you will find though that after travelling such a path, one will discover that perhaps the goal is not justifiable or desirable after all.
Mac -- Sounds like you're just asking for some pop psychoanalysis, so here is some.
I might as well be honest: my long-term outlook is colored by a case of lukewarm depression. Or impotent fury; I'll leave you to decide which is more debilitating.
Actually, anger and depression are closely related, the latter very often resulting from turning our anger inward towards ourselves. The remedy here might be (in part, anyway) to stop beating up on yourself for whatever reason (including for "being human"!)
Another piece of advice given to me by a therapist I saw for a while was this: "Stay in the hurt." In other words, when something (or, especially, someONE) hurts you, instead of getting angry (first at them and then, if you're like me, at yourself), which is the natural impulse, simply stay with that feeling of hurt. It's not fun -- in fact, it can be agonizing -- but it also can (at least potentially) disrupt the whole cycle of anger and depression.
(Oh, Jesus, stop me before I pop psychoanalyze again!)
As for other quick fixes? Well, I gotta agree with Stankan. Getting laid definitely does wonders for one's self-esteem. (Easy to say, though.)
You probably need to get laid.
I *knew* someone was going to recommend that ;-)