LIfe is weird

I want to just write whatever comes to mind; it feels kind of heavy up in here in my head.

I have since long time ago questioned our existence.

Why are we here?

Why are we self-aware?

Why is everything the way it is?

Is there a God?

Of course, most people I make these questions or want to have a talk about this just boil it down to: “We`ll never know, why bother with it”

At the very end I have to say I kind of agree with them. Kind of…

Is life really that weird? 

Over the last couple of months now, I have been just getting amazed by life.

Humans are great at getting habituated to everything, literally just think about everything in your life, you are probably already habituated to it.

You are probably no longer amazed when you see a bird, or when you hear an ambulance, when you see a plane flying or the steam coming out of your cup of coffee.

Think about it, all those things when you were a kid probably sparked curiosity, excitement, maybe even joy. So, what happened?

I believe mostly is habituation, we are great at it, and from an evolutionary perspective we are not wired for happiness, awe, and excitement.

We are wired mostly for survival and reproduction BUT that doesn’t mean that genes determine us, is just important to be aware of it.

Society is not encouraged to think deeply

Then combine that with the fact that is so easy to get lost in the “daily life”, as society focus is to “make a living”, you get distracted, start to think that life is just to go to school, get a job, have kids, retire at 65+, die.

We are not encouraged to think deeply about life, about our system, being economic, our politics, our education system, our health. So, if we are not encouraged to question that, how are we even supposed to begin questioning the deeper more meaningful questions of life?

Don’t get caught up in the game, it is amazing to me to be worried about the simple and dumbest things in life, being angry at someone, worrying about “debts”, being annoyed because there is “nothing to do”-Really?

You are in a flying rock in the middle of the universe, the probabilities of being born are slim, you will only live for about another 50 years if you are “lucky”, no one of your homo-sapiens peers you see on earth know what happens when we die, or why are we alive in the first place, and your biggest PROBLEM is “paying bills or your annoying coworker”?

Or whatever…

Don`t get me wrong, all this rant I say it first to myself, I have been through this, probably we all have, we are humans, thus we are in this “game” of being alive “together.”

Think about it… 

Is just that I find it weird, very weird to be alive. Not weird in a negative sense, more like awe.

That something as a dolphin that has a bigger brain than us, lives in the oceans, and sleep with half of the brain at a time, exists.

That planet Earth exists and that’s all we really know that we have telescopes allowing us to see other planets and even galaxies, but we can`t go there so we don’t know what else is going on out there.

That heat and cold exists and the change between the two can give us lots of learning, that each of it can either benefit us a lot or kill us.

That we can create technologies that are surpassing us, its own creators.

That something as “common” as language exists, and with a combination of sounds we make through our mouth, other fellow human understands, but if he doesn’t make the proper combination of sounds for other fellow human he won’t understand-(existence of different languages)

Probably you think of all of this as common and normal, if you don’t get why this or some of these points above are amazing probably you too just got habituated, you are not questioning, you are most probably distracted, in autopilot.

Is sad that we seem to lose that ability to get surprised when we are kids as we grow older and more habituated to life.

I believe most of the great philosophers were just like kids who never stopped questioning, who were still amazed by life. Who wanted to explore the world and get to their own conclusions.

Anyway, is there a point in questioning?

Most of the problem we may encounter with the deep questions of life and our existence is that we`ll never get an answer.

In a world where we have to “fight” for survival, have work, relationships, face adversity, questioning our existence doesn`t seem to be high in the priority list. I get it, hence Maslow`s pyramid. 

But then again, if it`s useless then we would be like all other animals on earth, why then are we given the capacity of being self-aware and question? 

In that sense I do agree, I don`t think we should stress, or devote our life to finding the answers to those questions, we don’t want to find that life was simple and could be enjoyed in every detail and simple moments at the end of our days and regretting to “waste” it by trying to find those answers, in that sense I do agree.

But I do believe that those are questions worth asking, the answer you find that gives you the most enjoyment, purpose, fulfillment, or peace while being alive is completely the best and up to you.

It could seem life is meaningless. That could make you depressed or not. But i tend to like what French philosopher Albert Camus said:

“The only way to deal with this life meaningfully is to find our passion and pursue it with all our heart.”

He is known for his absurdity concept of life which basically derives from saying the human is a purpose/answer seeking creature, in a seemingly random and meaningless existence, with no answers, so our relationship is just that, absurd.

Nevertheless, we are already here, if we are going to die anyway, why not make the most of it? The result is the same for everybody.

Instead of taking a pessimistic approach and saying nothing matters why bother living? Camus advocated for saying if nothing matters and our existence is “absurd” let’s make the most of it.

Embrace life despite its existential challenges, enjoy its small pleasures.

Anyways, the purpose of life could be really whatever we make of it.

This reminds me of what Victor Frankl who was a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, said in his book Man`s Search for Meaning.

There was one specific part of it where he mentioned that the people who had something to look forward, meeting with their spouse, completing their lifelong research, seeing their kids again, etc. Those were the people that kept on going.

If for example they heard news that their spouse died, many of them would die a few days later. Do you think that is a coincidence?

Conclusion 

The nature of our reality is a mystery and a beauty on its own.

If after death we just go dark like an endless sleep either for millions of year or eternity, then that just means this is the only chance we have, to experience love, to give a hug to our loved ones, to listen and dance to music, to view a sunset, to read a great book, to surf, to laugh, to eat chocolate.

We could think of it as a videogame (Simulation theory)

We could believe in multiple universes (Multiverse theory)

We could believe that we will live multiple life through reincarnation (Buddhism)

From what our limited understanding can see from here and now is that this may be our only ride, sure, we may reincarnate but we also may not.

So, let’s just make the most of this life, whatever that means to you, be present and live to the fullest every single moment, as it may be the last.

Much love to all.

Zifush.

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