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.
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