an existentialist's conundrum

I should warn you now, this is a long blog and way more serious than normal. Feel free to skip to the end and I'll try to remember to put in some cool links to make up for me trying to be all serious and philosophical.

When I first arrived in the UK it took me 6 weeks to find work. In this time I had plundered what money I had brought over with me and I was at the point where if I didn't get a job by the end of the week, I'd have to change my return date for my flight home. It was that bleak. And, as you may imagine, somewhat stressful. And so I developed my new approach to stress management and about the only thing that would let me sleep at night- I reasoned that if I'd done everything I could possibly do that day towards dealing with stress-inducing things, and if it got to the end of the day and there was nothing more that I could do, then there was no point worrying about it. And so I'd sleep sound and wake up the next day to stress all over again- but at least I slept. This philosophy has proved to work exceedingly well and in a way I guess it is like "no point in crying over spilt milk". I can tell I'm getting stressed because it's like there's a tension or knot in my head that won't go away. So when that happens, I work out what I need to do that I'm avoiding (I'm a prime candidate for Procrastinator of the Year) and just do it and then I can stop stressing.

My discovery of my existentialist tendencies came maybe a couple of weeks after my new method of dealing with stress. Still workless, there was a lot of time for little AyniaBrain to think about life, the universe, and everything. This is a bit dangerous and I usually tend to try to avoid it. I'm sure everyone has thought about their 'purpose in life' at some stage, or something similar. You know, the whole this-is-what-I-want-to-be, this-is-what-I-want-to-do-with-my-life, this-is-the-kind-of-person-I-want-to-be stuff. Well one evening I was lying on my bed and staring at my ceiling and going through one of those meaning-of-life moments when this nasty little thought entered my head: Why?
Why what? I asked myself.
Why try to be a good person/live well/do the right thing?
So that I can be happy with my life.
So what's the point?
What do you mean 'what's the point'?
What's the point in living your life well if you're just gonna die eventually?
Um... because that's what you do? Sure, I don't believe in Heaven (because if you do, then you have to believe in Hell and I don't want to end up there), and am undecided on reincarnation and have no idea how I feel about an afterlife.
So what's the point in an afterlife?
What?!
What's the point? Why?
ummm.....
We're part of a larger whole? Cycle of life?
So what's the point of the larger whole?
?
What's the point of the universe? Why does life exist anyway? I mean what's the point?
[awkward silence]
Shit, you're right. There is no point. There's no bloody reason why any of this should exist at all!
I know.
Dude- even if there's a God, what's the point of God? That's just something that people use to give their lives meaning.
Tell me about it.
Oh my God, there's no bloody point to any of this. Fuck. That's a bit bloody depressing.
Sorry.

Well it went something like that. I still haven't ironed out the creases and at the time, I had no idea what existentialism was. As far as I knew, I was at home by myself and had decided there was no point in life, the universe, or anything. That's a scary place to be because in most cases, people who decided there is no point to life usually trot off to run a nice hot bath and take a razor blade with them. I'm an incorrigible optimist (ironic really because I'm also a total cynic) and this line of thinking was quite disturbing. Luckily, I'm also Grand High Commander of the Troops of Denial and it was decided that the best way to deal with this bothersome uprising was to put it far out of my mind as possible and not think about it again until I could talk to my Dad. Seriously. And I was even quite worried to talk to my dad about it because when you bring up a conversation with someone where you confess that you have decided that there is no point to existence, they're well within their rights to think that you're contemplating membership to the Bathtub Brigade.

But I did bring it up when I was home and low and behold, my father was not at all concerned, he was almost delighted- oh you've gone existentialist! We had a good old talk about it and personally it all sounds very PHIL103 to me. Because when you decide that there is no point in life, no greater and higher reason, the only meaning left is what you give to it. To me that seems slightly contrived and probably the only way to make yourself feel better but still... isn't life somehow more meaningful when it's you giving the meaning to it? I mean you can still give yourself a purpose in life and all that kind of stuff. I guess you could still be religious (just not most of them). But surely there's more meaning when everything to do and achieve is because you've made it happen. It's not God doing it, there's no 'grand design'. When you die, everything good (or bad) in your life, is because of you, not anyone else. That's quite a responsibility really. I can understand why most existentialists are a pessimistic bunch. There's a lot to get you down. But fortunately for me, I made it through 26 years of life with innate optimism and a generally cheery persona with an ability to laugh at almost anything. (Apart from Comic Sans, that is not funny. Not ever.) So I'm not too down about the whole thing. It's a bit of a mind bender though.

So why am I choosing to write about this now? Well this whole find-a-new-home thing is starting to stress me out a bit. We want to do it soon, we want to give a month's notice, Sean is moving down in 2 weeks, we don't want to put out Sue as we feel shit for moving out at the same time to live with not her. But home-finding is not easy. And so I stress. And so I try to implement life philosophy of stress management. And so I discover a conundrum- I don't believe in destiny/meaning of life/Fate. So how can I sit back at the end of the day, happy in the knowledge that I've done all I can and the rest is up to Fate when I don't believe in it? Interesting, huh? So of course I called Dad. He thinks a lot about stuff, he'd be able to help.

The result of the conversation was, as usual, more stuff to think about, but also this: just because you don't believe in an overall meaning of existence, doesn't mean that there isn't a natural rhythm to things. We almost started looking at it like an equation (and this is where it all got very übergeeky) and just because you've done everything you can, doesn't mean you've accounted for all the variables. (Not that I'm saying that there is an overall 'equation of life' or some similar bollocks because a mathematical point to everything (and here part of me starts thinking of 'Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy', 42 etc) is about as rubbish as God giving meaning to everything (sorry to my religious friends).) I don't even know if I'm making sense any more. What I did think was that if life is like an equation- doesn't that take all the mystery out of it? I'm an avid sci-fi and fantasy reader. I'm a dreamer. I refuse to believe in the non-existence of mystery. (Incidentally, my daddy blogged about this. According to him I'm highly intelligent and in my 20's. At 27 I'm staring down the barrel of 30 so I found this all very flattering. Love you D. x) In fact right now I have other things I need to get on with and I'm pretty sure everyone's fallen asleep by now anyway so read my Dad's blog about more on mystery. They aren't all my thoughts but they are interesting.

So in conclusion, for those who have skipped to the end and want a summary: I’m stressed about finding a new home but am dealing with it and along the way have had some deep and meaningful philosophical thoughts.

For more of the noraml styled blg content, check out this link. I mean WHF?

Also this guy's website has some cool drawings on it- neat little pencil sketches of people on the subway. Quite charming. (How patronsing does that sounds? Eeek.)

AND- for a seriously cool dance video thing, click here and then click on the YouTube video thingy. "...very unique group of performers known as the Chinese Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe. A mouthful indeed. This troupe consists of about 21 men and women with hearing and visual impairment or physical disability. They have dazzled audiences in over 40 countries since 1987."

Peace out.

Oh and keep voting on that poll and Kitty don’t cheat by voting heaps of times to make it look like more people care. ;-)