Hello friends. Hope your day went swimmingly.
Sometimes I wish someone would bully me about my work ethic, or my lack of aspirations, or my failures in sticking to a routine. Bully me to the point where I would be driven by insecurity and shame, approval and the usual bowl of confectioneries that keep people moving on and up and out.
Alas, whenever I attempt to be that someone to myself, I easily retort with how pointless and meaningless it is to fret over these things. What starts as a simple “just go do it!!” turns into this debate on one’s existential meanings. I’ve talked at length about suffering, and it’s clear I’ve not suffered enough yet – that’s the main thing I’m banking on toward being my taskmaster. If I suffer enough, maybe then I will see the errors of my way.
But, alas, I am just a squeaky wheel parading around this weblog. I’m on a roll!
If the things I’m avoiding give me no pleasure, then I can only hope the pain of not doing them becomes untolerable someday. Sometimes it does occur, and I find myself driven by a shame to keep up. Thus I scramble around to study things, program things, walk over things, but it feels like the ground is moving and the things are G.I. Joe dolls for adults.
That is, whether I have this knowledge or not doesn’t necessarily affect me. I’m happy without it… I suppose. The main concern is when you’re twenty cycles later, are you happy then?
It’s a little bit cruel, don’t you think? This is something you can always exploit in a story: the character grinds and grinds for their medal, only to find they no longer want it. Well, no point fretting about it!
In any case, I just find myself on this balancing beam and I wouldn’t mind falling. There seems to be some plushies to break my fall, and when I stare straight ahead the beam extends infinitely into an abyss. Maybe the plushies inevitably are swallowed too.
What is one to do? It seems the main driver of my existence is to live as minimally and expend the least amount of energy and that’s all fine and dandy though the pesky Book of Changes lets you know you’re traveling along Ouroboros gut.
You can play it the other way though: whether one plans to work on those “aspirations” or not, you’ll change anyway. This is why the best thing one can do is find a state of bliss that secedes from it all. Whether I am the hissing bum or the pinnacle of societal existence, my rock is found in the eternal anime figurines of one’s heart…