There’s something wrong with me. Something is not entirely right if I’m starting to miss people depending on my hormonal imbalance. I’m way too dependent on my moods. That’s no way to lead your life. Kierkegaard said there were 3 stages in life: the aesthetic phase where you just go depending on your mood and everything’s ephemeral, the ethical phase where you live by moral rules and only for duty, and finally the religious phase where you just let yourself “fall in God’s loving arms” or some bull like that. Obviously I’m at the first stage. And it’s not a fun place to be because since everything is dictated by momentary feelings and moods, it’s very difficult to make a decision and then stick to it. Everything changes according to the present moment and while I may be sure of something right now, tomorrow might all of a sudden make me realize that my divine illumination was just pure foolishness. So how do you find truth in that case? How do you figure out what you want, when that which you want today, you might perceive as being worthless tomorrow?
This might be the time to move on to the second stage you might think. But what if I don’t want to live a life of duty? What if I don’t want to live my life according to a set of fixed and rigid rules that begin with the starting premise that they can never be broken? I mean, lying can be good sometimes, right? And who wants to make their everyday life into a boring and endless routine? That might work for Kant, but I think I’d end up shooting myself after a while.
And I don’t even want to think about the third stage. I mean the idea of God and everything religion preaches is all good and noble, but I simply cannot believe in the existence of an invisible man up in the sky. There was this part in Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (yes his books are crap for the most part, but I liked the way he put this into words) where the main character was asked if he believed in God and in a nutshell his answer was that he didn’t have the strength needed to believe in Him. I find that’s a nice way to put it. Because by believing in God, so many things are all of a sudden simplified. If not, just the simple fact of not having to find a reason for your existence on this planet is worth the time and energy spent on that belief. Sometimes I wish so much that I could believe, that I could stop feeling like the world around us is nothing more than just atoms and probabilities. A friend of mine once asked me how I could go about my everyday life without believing in God and without a general purpose. And the question is legitimate. How can you go on knowing that you are alone, that nothing you do ever matters in the end and that, when it comes down to it, you are the only person you can count on? The answer? You don’t think about it. I see life like a particularly rough exam period where you can’t take everything in as a whole without it becoming too overwhelming. So you take it one week at a time, one day at a time if necessary, and you just don’t think about the rest. Because if you do, you become suicidal. Literally.
So that leaves me stuck at the first phase with no way out. Sometimes I think that maybe I don’t have the necessary maturity to move on or at least to function properly within this stage. But what if, on the other hand, there was a time to make a choice and I missed my chance to do it? Keating in The Dead Poets’ Society says that in this life we all have to strive to find our voice and that the longer we wait to do it, the harder it becomes and the less likely it is that we ever end up finding it. I already see myself slowly slipping out of the existential crisis and, while in a way this is a good thing for it gives me the chance to enjoy myself a bit more, on the other hand, I find it scary because I no longer question things as much as I used to, I am no longer as open-minded as I used to be, and I feel like I’m slowly turning into my parents, or in other words, like I’m becoming a conventional, blasé and cynical adult who has stopped wondering at the world and whose eyes are slowly but surely closing. I’m becoming trapped by the present day and the mundane. I’m forgetting how to step out of my reality and look beyond.
Maybe I need to cut my hair. Maybe I need to look deep down and try to find the teenager I used to be and uncover my inner rebel who’s slowly falling asleep. The truth is I don’t want to grow up and become an adult. I don’t want to be settled with kids and a dog in a suburban house, with a
No comments:
Post a Comment