I remember coming to the conclusion when I was about 14 or 15, maybe, that the point of life (if there was one) was to enjoy it—furthermore: to love and appreciate each other as human beings with inherently lovable strengths and weaknesses. It didn’t make sense to me that we were born flawed creatures—that is: creatures flawed by design. The Baptist church I went to taught me that our ultimate goal in life was to always chase perfection—to be like the only perfect being who ever existed: Jesus Christ. To model our behavior—our thoughts and our actions—after Christ, even if we could never be Christ-like all the time because it was in our nature to be equally sinful and righteous.
I also considered—but I’m not sure how the thought was put into my head—that the ultimate purpose in life was to procreate. But then I reasoned that this could not be because there were some born unable to breed—those born with botched sex organs, etc. And the idea never settled well with me that these people were automatically disqualified from birth from leading purposeful lives.
I’ve gone back recently and started to re-read the book of Ecclesiastes. While from a biological perspective, the succession of the species does seem pretty important to me, the book confirms my previous notion—that life is for enjoying. In it, the author repeatedly says that: all is vanity and that there is no pleasure except in eating and drinking and finding joy in daily toil. It doesn’t exactly fit with the overall Judeo-Christian message—which is why it’s inclusion in the biblical canon has long been controversial—but it makes sense to me; not just as a work of Christian philosophy or religious philosophy but as a book of general skepticism. There’s something very honest about the way the book is written—the way the author presents his message: as if wrestling with his own doubt that there is a point to life. What he determines is what anyone skeptical about the pointlessness of life would determine: that life is for enjoying. Not in any hedonistic sense (this is the only real evidence, I can find, that classifies this or typifies it as a book of Old Testament wisdom), but to enjoy life for one’s self and at the same time enjoy it within the parameters of Judeo-Christian kindness and compassion for other human beings.
It’s key, I think, that the author doesn’t say: all is vanity—so fuck it, go out and fuck whores and sleep around and do drugs and burn out in a beautiful blaze of glory. That would imply that the author considers it acceptable to act self-seeking—which I don’t think he does. Because what he does say is that one should find enjoyment or all of life’s pleasure in one’s daily toil: in things which affect no one, for better or ill, but the person him or herself. He doesn’t say: enjoy life at the expense of others and be damned if it affects them negatively. He says: enjoy one’s own lot—one’s own toil. And that I can agree with—that I think marks Ecclesiastes as something more than religious doctrine—something instead like proto-humanism. I’m not saying that this is definitively what the author is trying to say—I don’t want to risk misinterpreting the Judeo-Christian message. This is just what makes sense to me—what I personally believe and what I personally take from the text.
I remember initially pitching this idea to my mom following a Sunday morning church service. I’d been thinking about it the car-ride home, after being stricken with the epiphany some time toward the latter part of the service. I felt giddy—because I’d been seriously worried about the issue for the better part of a week. What was the purpose of life? Was there a purpose? Finally, I thought I knew and I couldn’t wait to share my belief with someone. My mom, for whatever reason, served at that time as the one adult I could bounce my heavier ideas off of without feeling too self-conscious or fearing rejection. She might reject my ideas, sure, but it didn’t matter because at least I was trying the ideas out on someone else—another human being; another human mind.
I remember walking in the door, walking upstairs to the closet where we hung our jackets and following her around, eager for an opportunity when I had her full or even partial attention. I waited until she’d hung up her coat and gone to the bedroom to do whatever mom-things she did in there after church (check the phone messages, put her purse away—I don’t know). Finally, she’d concluded her post-church circuit.
“Mom,” I said. “I think I figured out the meaning of life.”
“OK,” she said with a skeptical laugh, not expecting to hear something so awkwardly heavy-handed from her 14 year-old son. “And what’s that?”
“I think our purpose in life is to just--.” I couldn’t think of a smart way to say it or even a way to say it that didn’t sound stupid. “I think our purpose in life is to have fun.”
She laughed. That same summer I asked my mom what it really mean to “love” someone—because I didn’t know. To me, it felt like an automatic response—or something people said without really thinking about what they were saying. A feeling that wasn’t always there and which could mean so many different things in so many different contexts. I explained to her that there seemed to me to be a difference between what I later learned was “romantic love” and “familial love”. She told me I needed to “go outside”—the implication being that I was thinking too deeply about things which didn’t matter. If I were a little older and not her son, I’m pretty sure she would have told me that I needed to get laid.
I don’t know why I bring this up except to illustrate that my conviction that life is for enjoying is deep-seated—a strong and prevalent undercurrent since the time I started intellectualizing things. I don’t think this makes it true necessarily—that I feel it so innately. But I don’t see how it could be false—or why I shouldn’t try to make the best of the shitty hand I was dealt. All things considered: it’s not that shitty of a hand. I am continually amazed at how fortunate I was to be born with so many advantages: white, middle class, male, American. It almost makes me feel guilty for feeling dissatisfied with anything. I realize that sadness and dissatisfaction are relative feelings and that I could be the richest man in the world or the lowliest AIDs-afflicted third-world citizen and still feel disenchanted with life: but I sincerely want to find something I can appreciate about living the life I do. There are several things I do enjoy—several things which inspire in me a feeling of purpose. But I get discouraged very easily.
I think talking to people makes me feel good—in the general sense, even if it’s just bullshit water-cooler banter at work. There’s something about human interaction that’s so gratifying. Maybe because I see it as sort of a game. A game that I’m sometimes good at it. But mostly a game in which I’m struggling to stay competitive and engaged.
There are other things, too—including writing. Expressing myself in some capacity—in some way in which afterwards I feel like I’ve learned something new about myself or the world. And writing does that for me because it helps me explore new ideas I never would have explored by simply meditating on them inside my own head. There’s something about the process of physically and intellectually structuring your ideas on paper that helps you assess them with greater clarity. Maybe that’s obvious. But it’s still true.
I think what I’m getting at is that I derive the most pleasure—consistently—from self-expression. From taking in and then offering my impression of what I’ve just taken in. Experiencing life and then documenting my experiences. Because—I’ve thought about this before—I’m not one of those people who can just live day-to-day and not talk about my experiences. I have to talk about what I’ve just experienced or I feel this overwhelming sense of guilt—or that feeling of knowing I should be doing something that I’m not by actively sitting on a new set of sensations and impressions inspired by what I’ve just experienced. It’s weird—this almost compulsion to talk. It’s not narcissism—it’s not that I think my ideas are so great that they need to be shared with the world. I just feel like—what was the point in having these experiences if I don’t intend to do anything with them or talk about them in any way? It’s like seeing a movie with a group of friends and then not talking about it afterwards. What was the point in seeing the movie if you’re not going to talk about it? I guess, it could be argued, since everyone else saw, there’s no need to talk about—since they all had the same relative experience as you. But there’s something about sharing your own completely idiosyncratic impressions or interpretation of things that feels...vital, I guess. For me, it’s comparable to the people who feel the unshakable impulse to produce children—“the need to breed,” if you will. I need to talk. I suck at talking. But I need to do it.
I don’t know.
No comments:
Post a Comment