I know this seems awfully contradictory, but it’s nice to disappear completely.
You don’t have to worry about anything anymore.
The irony is, of course, publishing this – maybe you could smirk with me and suggest that it isn’t so nice after all. Perhaps. But I’ll defend my claim in these contradictory waters.
To defend my claim let’s first lay out some definitions. To disappear completely means no interactions. Interactions are when two conscious entities are present.
See, it’s not like I have a disdain for humanity or anything like that. In fact I love people a lot. But I guess you could call this love empty. I mean, wouldn’t you agree most words are empty without actions behind them?
When I review my acts of love, they’re few and far between. So that shows an abstract sort of love for humanity, not grounded in reality whatsoever. Why is it like this?
I don’t know. Sometimes it seems the Gods are the same way: just silent observers enjoying themselves. If that’s the case then let’s join their ranks!
But I think it’s because love as an action is hard to follow through. It requires sacrifice, don’t you think? If we want to define love as something selfless. In this sense, most of love we think about are fanciful delusions – why would anyone in the world sacrifice themselves without later gain? Only if you are in an insurmountable position, where no sacrifice does you harm, could you do such things.
The other reason is to perhaps win the admiration of whoever you’re sacrificing yourself for. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense either. Hoping for admiration is a surefire way to remain miserable.
So, in any case, my words are empty and perhaps my love is too. I could silently pray for your good health and fortunes, but – well I guess this conversation is mostly fruitless seeing as love is a meaningless term no matter one’s definitions.
We could certainly break up “love” in many different pieces and yet never get to the bottom of things. So let’s just cut it short: whatever you want to define love as, it’s incompatible at times with a fruitful friendship, relationship.
The trouble I always ran into is that the people I interacted didn’t have a bigger picture, nor a smaller picture either. Not to imply I do have such a picture too. But you know, we always used to interact in a tit for tat sort of manner. You could perhaps be admired as the village cobbler, and I entreat you to mend my boots for a bag of apples. That sounds like we’re going places, aren’t we?
Well, not today. You and I are faceless business entities and it’s unlikely you need my services and unlikely I need yours. That is, if you happily adopt the Employee Framework of Existence (a commendable path for those so inclined).
See, eventually you become nothing to nobody. Your faceless can be exchanged at a moment’s notice. Whether you’re there or not no longer matters: the market will fulfill it.
Seeing as I can’t do anything for you, and you can’t do anything for me, we can certainly enjoy this present moment, and that’s great. Anything more is too much for either of us, seeing as we need to allocate our resources to sustain ourselves in a funny game of monopoly. The monopoly game isn’t that bad from my end, so I’ll continue it. I hope it isn’t too bad for you either.
But that monopoly game is something you’ll deal with on your own. Whatever lighthearted interests we could discuss – whatever shows, books, whatever else – they ultimately have this backdrop of nothingness between them. I am nothing to you, and you are nothing to me, and whether we have these discussions or not, well, it doesn’t change anything.
I guess The Game changes when you want to play Bigger Business Plays but seeing as most of the commoner stock take the Employee Path this emptiness only grows and grows with everyone I used to know, including my own self.
Eventually you learn that, seeing as that backdrop of pointlessness will haunt all your interactions, if you could just learn to enjoy things by yourself and learn to never talk about yourself and keep the bare minimum in play, then everything resolves itself.
Because the alternative of trying to maintain connections when there is nothing holding us together other than an arbitrary fancy, which may break at a moment’s notice, seems like a waste of cycles and resources for both of us.
Why not enjoy the current era and disappear completely? I objectively know it’s the wrong path, depending. It’s definitely a hand-wavy shabby excuse for not cultivating bonds which are mutually beneficial. There is no one to blame other than myself.
But seeing as all my past attempts caused a lot of pain and heartache, I don’t feel like trying anymore. I’ll continue my business and you’ll continue yours – maybe someday when our spreadsheets look all green we’ll finally conjure up a good reason to keep each other’s card.
Until then, why not disappear completely?