Center of the Universe

 Egocentricity, Characters, and Drama

The egocentricity of humanity is inescapable; the metaphorical world revolves around humanity.  I frequently like to say that humanity's greatest hubris derives from universal egocentricity and the greatest mistake a person can make is to take him/herself too seriously.  I guess it's hard to escape thinking about ourselves when we are so meta-aware and self-involved.  I guess there's nothing else to focus on, really.  Even in altruism, we are concerned about the welfare of other humans, and in that respect, we are still egocentric as a species.  I suppose any egocentricity would be lost in utterly respecting the environment and animals and the rest of the universe, even in temporarily.  So I suppose in that sense, in that we want the universe to continue to exist and thrive outside of ourselves, we are altruistic and lack egocentricity.  I still contend that unless one's uninterrupted life mission is to save the earth and all its creatures, it is impossible to lack egocentricity at all times.

It's very easy for us, however, to fall into egocentricity.  The most obvious and frequently irritating example of this is "drama."  Some people thrive off drama because it makes them feel important and, in a very simple way, validates their existence; they are important enough to gripe about ridiculous things.  Today, at work, I witnessed some such drama that I found somewhat deterring.  It's funny to see the personas that people assume when they put on a "show" of dramatics.  The tones of their voices change, emphatic pronunciation of words, exaggerated facial expressions, and an overall demeanor of self-importance, even when the topic is not necessarily about the individual, themselves. 

I guess life experience has taught me perspective and how some small things are just not worthy of such drama.  Perhaps the worst aspect of the melodramatics, to me, is the character that people become when conveying issues.  I am very conscious when speaking to people of how natural my behavior really is.  I am very cognizant of situations in which I am consciously and deliberately behaving differently from my norm, especially when speaking with others who may hold greater power than I do in certain situations, aka my boss, etc.

Networking is the perfect example of this.  Indubitably, networking can be an artificial and contrived interaction.  I value sincerity and genuineness and their loss seriously affects me; I consider ingenuine interactions as essentially false and insubstantial. 

Shakespeare was none too much metaphorical when he said that "All the world's a stage/And all the men and women merely players."  Obviously, this is a dense statement and leaves me to ponder for minutes before I purport some interpretation.  The quotation comes to mind because of humanity's ability to convert themselves into characters, assuming different personalities in different situations, playing certain roles to entertain people in different situations.  Every situation brings an opportunity for humanity to assume a different character and I can see the transformation in others and myself when we travel to different stages, different contexts, and assume different personalities and characters. 

A part of what makes us "players" is the notion of being observed or watched.  We are very conscious of others' perceptions of us and this contributes to our assumption of various characters.  I am very aware of times when I feel as though someone is watching me and my behavior is that much more deliberate because I am aware of the observation.  Every context, every setting of our lives is a stage, and each provides us an opportunity to play a role, whether genuine or not.  The concept of the world as a stage with every person as a player also acknowledges the "truth" of the theatre.  Though fictitious, many stories contain essential truths about humanity and even though acting is "pretending" it is the reflection of truth; we all project our experiences onto that with which we come into contact.  The author projects his or her own experiences into the script, the actors interpret the script through the lens of their own experience and therefore project their own experiences into their delivery of the script, and the audience perceives all of the words and actions of the players through the lens of their experiences, therefore projecting their experiences onto the play.  Though distortions of reality, plays do, in fact, contain much reality.

I think the truth of fiction scares me because of the vulnerable position creating fiction puts one in.  In a subtle way, fiction can expose the greatest truths about a person.  I find myself so self-conscious when working on my novel because while I do not base it directly on my life's experiences, some things that I have even hidden from myself come out anyway.  This feeling elucidates my own guardedness and desperation to keep myself unexposed, especially my emotional self. 

I am the type of person who is obsessed with fiction, especially books, TV shows, and movies.  I find that many people enjoy this type of entertainment and I am going to think more about this ponder what draws us to these forms of art.

Until next time,

-M.E. 

'Til Death Do Us Part

I recently have a new obsession with WE TV's My Fair Wedding.  It's a reality TV show about an infamous wedding planner who works with brides to plan their weddings three weeks in advance (plenty of time, obviously).  Like the show's tag line states, the brides have their "visions" and David Tutera (the wedding planner) has some "revisions." Hehe.  I love play on words.

So anyway, all this wedding planning has been getting me thinking about what marriage means as a social state, as well as the meanings of all the "traditional" elements of a wedding.  So I did a little research.  Now, I can't say that my sources are scholarly but I'll take what I can get.  So why do people get married to each other?  Well, historically speaking, males dominated the "bread winning," and pragmatically speaking being married was beneficial for a woman.  A man would give the bride's father a dowry for her hand, some cows, pigs; name your livestock. Sometimes the bride and the groom wouldn't even meet prior to their wedding (arranged marriages).

The veil.  

Apparently, some fathers thought their daughters so visually unappealing that they couldn't risk letting the grooms-to-be see their daughters until right before the wedding began, so the brides wore a veil.  Somehow that tradition managed to lose its original meaning and people still wear them.  These days, it's highly unlikely the bride and groom haven't seen SOME part of the other's body prior to the ceremony, so I guess we can nix the veil.

White Dress.

This one was interesting according to my potentially reliable source.  Apparently, women used to wear their best dress on their wedding day until Queen Victoria wore white and then European elitism has pervaded the Western world ever since.  Also, the color white is supposed to symbolize virginity.  Of course, males had to have virgin wives but that was not a mutual requirement.  Ah, patriarchy.  So I can pretty much eliminate the white dress issue.

Engagement Ring.

So I take the engagement ring to be a modern day dowry of sorts.  I asked myself, why do women want a ring?  Well, materialism is answer number one.  Perhaps men spending ungodly amounts of money on a virtually worthless item symbolizes the ability of a man to financially support a woman.  So...women can't financially support themselves and need a man to provide for them. Also, not so much.  HOWEVER, I do find them to be practical in a way as a social symbol.  If I were betrothed, this would basically mean that I'm ready to go for the gold but I may trip just before the finish line.  Translation to my male compatriots: it's not too late yet, but it will be soon, so act now or forever hold your peace.

Wedding band.

Beyond conveying to the public that you're married, I find wedding rings foolish, although they are supposedly worn on the now-called "ring finger" because it contains the "vein of love." Whatevs. It's the socially-accepted "married" finger, so at least I know where my options lie and where they do not.  Urges are more powerful than gold, so that isn't as effective for the weak of self-control, but nonetheless useful to the more inhibited.

Marriage itself.

I'm still struggling with this one.  Call me a noncommittal betch but getting married to one person for your whole life sounds like a risky proposition.  I liken it to getting a tattoo.  You have to thrown down a relatively large amount of money to get it done and you bank on loving it forever.  Maybe I'm self-aware of my own volatility or I've just learned from life experience that many things in life have an expiration date.  The lifespan of something does not detract from its value.  For another thing, I know myself enough to know that I plan for things in the future and when I reach the point in time where I would commence those plans, I find I've changed my mind.  So I don't know how I could plan to love, cherish, etc, etc, one person for the rest of my life and expect myself to feel the same way until I die.  This perspective comes from my lack of ever "being in love."  I don't even know what those words mean.  I love my parents, I love my brother, I love my friends, but I've never loved a man, not really.  I've given a large crap about plenty of guys (always unreciprocally) but not love, I don't think.  Most of the infatuations I've had with men up 'til now have come from a deap-seated self-esteem problem due to and fueled by unconscious conformity to social patriarchy. Now, I'm a baby feminist.  It's kind of ridiculous that the concept of feminism must exist. I guess i'm more of a toddler feminist at this point.

So will I ever get married? Who knows?  If so, will I have a traditional, Western wedding? Unlikely.  Back on the donkey I climb and continue my ride across the mountainous terrain.

PS: Here's the site from which I obtained my wedding factoids:  http://www.pibweddings.com/traditionsorigins.html

Peace.

-M.E.

Immortality

This post does not necessarily follow the chronology of the last, but seeing several infomercials for beauty products (specifically, anti-wrinkle creams and age-related sagging skin removal) has got me wondering about our society's obsession with youth.  Why do people want to look young?

Well, for one thing, there's that pesky patriarchy that has yet to evade us.  Women want to look beautiful for men, much because of subliminal messages that are unquestioned at this point.  So why do men want young, "beautiful" women?  The "look" of aged women objectively differs from young only in elasticity and tautness; however, is the "look" of an older woman (or man, for that matter) independently terrifying?  Well, apart from the fact that an old body symbolizes imminent death, it really isn't "scary."  Biologically speaking, younger women are more fertile and maybe younger women emit some pheromones that are forever tickling the Elmos of males.  Likely? Who knows?  But what's for sure is that generally speaking, males dictate the actions of women, so long as women continue to abide by society's (males') cultural laws.

So let's extrapolate that the obsession with youth is really humanity's never-ending immortality complex.  Let's also extrapolate that socially-speaking, this obsession emanates from an obstinate patriarchy.  All the subtextual feminism aside, let's focus on the fear of aging and its ramifications.  Simple equation.  We're born, we get old (if we're lucky), and then we die.  Despite the fact that most major religions predict afterlives, society continues to fear death.  Why are we afraid?  Well, for me, dying is one gigantic loss of control, so that's a psychological worry.  Beyond that, I don't know what's going to happen when I die - although I imagine that's going to be the final end.  I wouldn't place any large bets on it, but I'm so inclined to believe that's true.  Also, despite what religious people contend, perhaps they aren't 100% convinced what their dogmas proclaim.  I have never been so enlightened to know things I don't know or which may not even be comprehensible.  I'm no prophet and neither is anyone I've encountered, so as far as I'm concerned, nobody knows what happens to us when we die, if there is anything to know.

As rational human beings with brains that desire to know, not knowing is a bit of a dilemma.  The worst part is that we can't even empirically figure out what happens after death.  (This has been fictitiously elucidated in Flatliners, starring Kevin Bacon.  Check it out.)  So we don't know what'll happen and we can't find out.  The biggest fear is the fear of the unknown.  So the moral of the story here has become quite apparent, I think.

So if aging=death and death=scary, then aging=scary. I love theorems.  I'm not particularly interesting in dying, myself, and you betcha I'm terrified of it.  I can't escape this rational mind that wishes to know things.  I'm a curious beetch.  Am I obsessed with youth?  I don't know.  I'll let you know in 20 years.  Death also sucks the big one because once you're dead, apart from any social immortality, you're dead.

With every passing day, it has become clearer to me that the meaning of every life depends on the people involved in one's life.  This is why I would venture that humanity's second biggest fear is solitude.  In the absence of any cosmic meaning, the meaning of one's life is entirely dependent on its meaning to those around one.  When I die, the world is not going to combust.   I would love to think that the world is that much dependent on my existence.  That, in itself, would provide me with enough meaning to keep going.  As far as I'm concerned, when I die the world will combust (my world, anyway).  But as I watch people around me die and I continue to thrive, I know the same is true unless I die in an apocalyptic cosmic implosion.  So what makes my life meaningful is what I impart to those who care about me and who depend on me.  I hate to be so offensive, but I truly believe that people who do not do anything for anyone or anything are wasting oxygen. The job of animals is to merely live, at least from my perspective.  Humanity has a greater capacity.

If I decided to burrow myself in a hole until my demise, my life really would be worthless.  Of course being alone is scary, complete social solitude must feel like death.  The penalty of being a social being is that our lives are inextricably intertwined with others.  I am itching to believe that my even if I were buried in a hole by myself for eternity, that my life would independently be valuable.  This is why Jesus is such a popular symbol - who doesn't want to believe that humanity is inherently valuable?  Another person flaw of an empirical learner - I can't just believe things without any evidence. 

I am a fan of solitude and don't necessarily find myself longing for immortality.  I do find myself longing for happiness.  And here lies the intersection between this post and the last.  What is it about being happy that nulls all other worries?  Is it possible to be so happy, one could die?  Maybe.  Maybe all humans really want is to be happy.  All I really want is to be happy.  And that means so many things to so many people. 

Yet the Buddha says that desires only bring suffering.  Maybe I am only unhappy because I desire to be happy.  I understand this philosophy to a certain extent.  Maybe I should just separate ideals from emotions, and organically experience emotions.  My perception of unhappiness is the lack of something which I perceive to be happiness.  Memories and dreams are impure emotions that deceive us into believing they're real.  I need to live in the moment and feel what it is to be feeling right now, right this second, completely independent of any memories or anything in the future.  These posts consistently fail to expand on the thesis.  Stream of consciousness has no thesis.

-M.E.

So Now What?

In the wake of my last post in which I resolved to accept that I cannot understand this world, I am now left with the question: What do I do in a world that I don't understand?  Well, perhaps it's a case of me looking for another answer that doesn't existentially exist; however, it does present a practical dilemma as I attempt to comport myself in a satisfying way for the rest of my life.

It's difficult to separate my life's experiences from what my society and culture has allowed.  I often recognize the luxury of my existence, at least in terms of meeting my basic needs of survival.  I'm 100% sure that in the absence of basic comfort, I would not have the luxury of contemplating the philosophical puzzles that I do, and for that alone I am grateful to have the opportunity.  That being said, I still acknowledge my loss of ethics.  Simplistically speaking, ethics refers to the way in which humanity ought to behave itself.  As with every "should"-type concept, there exists an implication that ultimately one answer remains.   With difficulty, I am vowing off the concept of there being one right answer to every problem; frankly, there may be no answers, there may be multiple answers, and hell, there actually may be an answer that is so obscure and unintelligible that I have no hope of acquiring it.

So what do I do?  (Notice the intentional lack of "should" in this sentence).  I don't know that there is something I "should" be doing with my life, but if only for the satiation of my own need for direction, I must discover some (not necessarily precise) way of life to propel me forward.  Here's what I do know.  Philosophical study has informed me of two opposite thoughts of ethics: 1) rationally-motivated, universal, means-to-an-end ethics and 2) utilitarianism, the concept of  behaving such to achieve happiness for the greatest number of people possible.  Indubitably, many other ethical philosophies exist and can be explored but I am currently tackling these two schools.  So I can almost immediately eliminate the former option as it is based upon universal reason, which I do not believe exists.  In any situation, every single person will not behave the same exact way.  Each person interprets a situation through the lens of their own existence, experiences, and memories, and will bring all those elements to a situation to decide upon an action.

Now, utilitarianism.  That's a concept.  I should do whatever makes me happy.  This philosophy certainly jibes with my recent existential philosophy of decided uncertainty.  As I've previously mentioned, while I can't entirely eliminate it from my perception of the world, I truly do not believe in a life beyond this temporal one.  In fact, I would not want to imagine consciousness beyond however many years I do live for - infinite consciousness seems tiresome and eternal bliss would not be possible if it followed a corporeal life which is aware of temporal woes that plague us and which have done so for the entirety of humanity's existence.

True or false:  Everyone wants to be happy.  I'm inclined to say true.  I don't think that there are many people who wish to be miserable.  Some may disagree; however, I believe that those who thrive off misery revel in the drama and perverse, narcissistic, life-validating quality of misery and in some odd way are actually happy.  As nearly everyone will attest to, the source of happiness varies from individual to individual.  Pragmatically, this variety is likely a good thing because it provides a wider pool of happiness that people can fish from without overcoming another person's joy.  Of course, critics of utilitarianism will argue that Sadism is a type of happiness in which one gains pleasure from the misery of another.  My instinct is to agree with this argument because the thought of being pleased at another person's pain seems cruel and unusual.

Firstly, is it even possible to truly feel pleasure at the pain of another?  Well, I would like to say that it likely is possible; however, the only circumstance I can imagine that would be one in which the "tortured" victim were karmically deserving of the torture; AKA the revenge scenario.  I suppose, then, I can't universally claim that I wish that the goal of every single life on Earth is to achieve pleasure.  Frankly, I guess I can't claim any one way of life as the best way of life.

If everyone were to lead some "ideal" type of life, everyone would be happy, presumably, if they reached their ideal; however, does happiness truly exist in the absence of its opposite?  Would happiness truly be happy without the existence of sadness or at least the idea of sadness?  Happiness is relative.  The sadist is the gory intersection of both emotional poles, with the sadist feeling pleasure resulting from pain of another, and the tortured just feels pain.  The happiness of the sadist is dependent on the pain of another.  It cannot exist without the pain.  Isn't the same true of happiness broadly?  If everyone were happy and this were a universal emotion, I don't believe it would carry the same value.  I don't believe that happiness can exist without pain.

Utilitarian thought acknowledges the existence of pain and more or less defines happiness as the absence of pain.  I don't know if I go could as far as to qualify happiness solely as the absence of pain.  I find that absence to be more of a neutral point, with happiness towards the opposite end of the spectrum toward which to work.  Maybe I have an idea in my head that whatever will ultimately bring me happiness is something that I have to work for and will achieve (the excellence model emerges yet again).  I think what will truly fulfill my life beyond transient happiness is the sense of validation from truly recognizing that my life is meaningful, that my life matters.

Psychologists may call it the self-esteem conundrum.  I can reckon with the fact that I don't know what the heck I'm doing here but I do know it is for some reason.  I don't know that my individual life plays any part in the grand scheme of whatever the heck is going on in the universe.  If the human race were eliminated, the world would keep on going in the absurd way that it does.  The universe is the constant, not humanity or human perception.


So it seems this exercise in thinking has drawn up a definitive blank.  All I continue to know is that I know nothing, and perhaps, I am striving to understand things which cannot be understood.  But I doubt I will stop trying.

Excellence and the Value of Life

As I plow through my perpetual quarterlife existential crisis, the concept of aspiring to excellence as a life's goal bombards me.  Maybe it's my recent obsession with America's Got Talent that's got my passion-pursuant juices flowing, but it also hearkens back to my days of philosophical study and the Greek philosophy of human excellence.

What does it mean to be excellent?  Inherent in the word is a stratification of worth, rendering those who rise above superior and those who fall short inferior.  I have a difficult time swallowing this concept as I struggle through evaluating the worth of an arbitrary human life.  I would like to think that every single human life has some redeemable factor which makes it inherently valuable apart from one's actions.  This desire for inherent human worth likely derives from my hope that the existence of the universe is dependent on my own existence, and following that logic, would have to apply to every single human being.

This damned human metacognition: it's what separates us from all the other creatures on Earth, as far as I am aware.  You know, it makes me laugh to hear about all the "scientific facts" we have about animal psychology, as if we can even understand human psychology.  The day I can step into someone else's mind and inextricably perceive his or her thoughts, feelings, and personal reason, then I'll put some stock in attempting to understand the minds of others.  Of course, this will never happen and we forever remain trapped within our own consciousness, unable to ever fully connect with another person on a rational plane.  As effective as linguistic expression can be, it is ultimately an impure form of expression.  Words are merely the accepted standardized quantification of feelings and perceptions that allow some type of human progress.  What does it even mean to progress?  What is the point of progress?

So I remain with the dilemma of the value of life.  The concept of excellence suggests its opposite - a failure of some kind.  Excellence places greater value on those lives that possess it than those who do not.  Oh, ethics: how you confound my life.  This ability to be meta-aware of my own existence serves only to stymie me, especially when no obvious and universal purpose for life exists.  Maybe this dilemma stems from my insatiable need for direction.

I recently took a survey at work to determine my learning style.  According to this measure, I am nearly equal parts rigid and fantastical; I need assistance in building a foundation and from there I can branch into the realm of the absurd.  Perhaps this exploration of excellence is me striving for some concrete answer about what the value of life truly is.  I search for answers with the assumption that they exist.  

I crave knowledge.  This rational mind seeks to be satiated with factoids.  As Camus writes, our rational minds can incessantly search for and receive "scientific" facts; however, these small revelations never ultimately compound a single truth.  The more "truth" I obtain, the less truth I possess.  Maybe there is no universal truth.  In fact, it must be impossible.  Is it because we are too primitive to be privy to the universe's secrets or are there simply no secrets to unveil?

Oh, Camus, you are clicking in my mind as I pour out my reason.  You discuss humanity's insatiable need for universe to be "orderly" when the way in which the world works is incongruous with the way in which my mind works.  Here the egocentricity of humanity is highlighted; I project the way in which my mind works as the way the world must work.  Wow.  It is impossible for me to attempt to understand the universe while being trapped by my own human reason.  Camus, the world is "absurd" to us.  It is a truly fruitless endeavor to attempt to comprehend an incomprehensible existence.  

So what is there to do in the absence of enlightenment? That is an exercise for another day.

Eternally oblivious,

M.E.

In the Grind

Disclaimer:

Hereforth is a collection of inconsequential philosophical ramblings. This blog serves to alleviate my woes from lack of  social interaction and to assist me on my journey to linguistic expressiveness.

Without further ado:

     I woke up this morning after three days of 12+-hour shifts at the hospital to the sweet sound of Cascada's Evacuate the Dance Floor on my bedside iPod alarm.  My routine ensued. Grabbed my laptop from next to my oh-so-luxurious sofa-bed, checked my e-mail, and in my ongoing attempt to enhance my vocabulary, read yesterday's Merriam-Webster Word of the Day: "Sisyphean."  Immediately, I recall my second-semester, senior year philosophy class and our brief discussion on Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus. (I'm giddy with delight at the thought of philosophizing - probably the closest thing to passion I possess - but we'll save that for another day.)

     As I was saying.  Merriam-Webster's definition of "Sisyphean:" (adj.)

of, relating to, or suggestive of the labors of Sisyphus; specifically : requiring continual and often ineffective effort.  That handy dictionary, M-W, goes on in the e-mail to remind readers of the story of Sisphyus: "In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who annoyed the gods with his trickery. As a consequence, he was condemned for eternity to roll a huge rock up a long, steep hill in the underworld, only to watch it roll back down."  This functions to give one some insight into the meaning of the daily word.  

     Well, seeing as I've recently entered the working world of adult life, I've been thinking a lot about how my life feels like that of Sisyphus, rolling that rock up, letting it fall down, just to pick the damn thing up again.  I reminisce on Camus and his discussion about whether or not Sisyphus can be happy in his indefinite, tedious task.  Camus says that Sisyphus possesses his stony life, which gives it value.  I've been thinking a lot about this lately as I've gotten into the routine of getting up, going to work, coming home, going to bed, lather, rinse, repeat.  Especially because I work in a setting where patient outcomes are not always favorable, I feel the weight of the rock as I push it, just to descend that hill and repeat it all over again.

    Now, I can appreciate the Zen-ness of repetition but eventually, it's going to get old really quickly.  Although I'm technically more liberated than I have been throughout my entire life because social expectations have all but evaded me, I feel more trapped than ever before.  Somehow, the fervor of academia excited me and drove me to aspire to excellence.  It's easy to lose that drive.  I feel as though I've hit a plateau and my life is one flat surface from now on.  I don't know that I can own this tedium and reap some form of joy from it.  But maybe that's the only thing to do.  Maybe my constant search for happiness continues to turn up dry because some things in life only bring transient happiness.  Maybe the best part of the tedium is itself.

    Working in a place where I see babies die without even the prospect of the opportunity to roll that rock has given me some perspective.  As long as the rock is still there, I can still roll it.  Maybe that's enough.  Maybe possessing that rock is better than never even getting to have one in the first place.  I've never been much of a theist.  I'm not really a believer in an afterlife, and only lately have I contended that there is some purpose to my existence, although I'll remain eternally oblivious about its identity.  

     Now, I make my leave, back down the hill to prepare for another day's weighty incline, and perhaps this time with a smile on my face.  Until next time.

- Midnight Enchantress