Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Day 15

Day 15
Saturday March 15th
Today was spent almost in its entirety in the existential vaccuumm, no exaggeration. Days and weeks of searching for meaning, for life's greater purpose, for reason in the swirling toilet bowl of the cosmos can be pretty dang exhausting. It is easy to get so caught up in the cycle of every day life that we easily fall into an existential necrosis of sorts. Being aware of this is essential to personal growth of course. Awareness of the issue unfortunately however can be a bloody land mine in and of itself. Being aware of and actively working against falling into this psychological purgatory can be a stress even greater then the original complacency with normalcy. An unchecked active awareness can lead to rampant hyperintention ("trying too hard") which in turn prevents you from achievement or hyperreflection ("thinking too hard") which creates mental blockages that prevent success.

Dealing with all the questions (and admittedly answers) is down right fricken exhausting at times. Enter the vaccuumm. If meaning (ie. experience) is the measuring stick by which we define our existence, then the lack of meaning (ie. experience) is the antithesis to being. Stop me if I am talking crazy. Seriously though, stay with me. If there is a lack of meaning in our lives, we feel empty and unfulfilled. We feel as if a huge void has taken up residence in our mind's eye. Put bluntly, it blows. Like all voids, read: vaccuumm, it NEEDS to be filled. That need manifests as boredom. Sometimes boredom is just that, boredom. Sometimes it is hair-pulling anxiety-inducing neurosis. Lets face it, either way boredom blows chunks.

As we fight daily to stay out of the existential vaccuumm, we exhaust ourselves. Sometimes this is a huge benefit to our day to day lives. Other times it is simply a frustration. Sometimes you let the vaccuumm do its thing without putting up any sort of a fight. Today I was more then happy to melt into existential nothingness. I am not sure exactly how I spent 12 waking hours, but most assuredly there was no productivity involved. I made a sloth look a whirlwind of activity. And so Saturday came and went without making a whole heck of a lot of noise.


I did shave the head again, that counts for something right?

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