First drafted 23/05/17, 0200. First Writing.
Do you ever lie there sleepless and weep to yourself, “Fuck”? Finding it hard to balance everything that is unfolding around you, trying to decide which bullshit value you should prioritise. Happiness, pleasure, success, relationships, passion etc., they all seem to be so relevant, in some shape or form. A life without one of them feels like failure, so how can you achieve them all? An impossible task for a timebound mammal, such as humans. But to even attempt it, you must ask yourself, “what defines achieve?”. How do you know when you have happiness? It comes and goes. How do you know when your successful? Once you achieve one goal, you just move onto the next. How do you know how to conduct yourself on this ball of gravity? All we have are ambiguous answers.
It is clear to me, that one cannot achieve everything they want. Your priorities will continue to change as you move closer to the grave, understandably so. However, people seem to be very attracted to this idea of love. People commonly place it right on top of their priority list. Most of us are told that nothing is more important than family, which is derived from this notion of love. But what even is love? Unexplainable. So how can someone prioritise something that they cannot rationalise? This is the beauty of love. Although one cannot rationalise the concept, the majority of human beings agree that it is the single most desirable part of human existence. If it wasn’t, why would we put ourselves through the strenuous struggle in hunting for it? After all the hardships, pain, and devastating failures, we are still willing to dive head first into the sea of fish and try to reel something tasty in again, and again, and again. Why? Because, love is the driving force which makes life worth living. It gives people hope. Hope that one day, the suffering can be abolished. Hope that one day, they can bath in the unexplainable phenomenon. Hope that one day, they will no longer have to weep to themselves, “Fuck”.
But in the words of Isaac Newton, everything has an equal and opposite reaction. Love is also the driving force which can make life NOT worth living. It can drive people into a certain chaos in which there is no return. We see it all around us. We see it walking down the streets of San Francisco, we see it in the eyes of a soldier’s widow, we see it in the face of the betrayed. Love causes more suffering than it does good. So why bother? Why risk descending into a state of hell for love? From what I can see, you have two choices. One. Don’t. Don’t fuck with it and live out the rest of your days the best you can with no intimate relationships whatsoever, and thus, have no risk of descending into that hell it’s known to condemn one. Or, two. Play the game. Put your money on the table and play to win. It is my belief that option one is a nihilistic approach. It suggests that life has no intrinsic value (the value system in which love falls into). So why risk the pain if life has no intrinsic meaning? But this cannot be the case with love. Why do people blindly follow love? Because it has meaning, it is the most meaningful thing in life. It gives people a purpose, a belonging and a shoulder to cry on. What is the point in living a nihilistic life? There isn’t, that is their whole case! Although, I'm sure that those nihilists struggle to rationalise pain. Pain is undeniable. If life had no meaning, then why do you feel pain? Pain can only be inflicted when something you value is damaged. The key word being ;value'. As soon as you value anything, your life has meaning (even if it is existence itself that you value). You may as well try your luck in finding this unforeseeable good called love, and when you fail, just get back up and try again, you will be stronger for it. If you fail in your pursuit of love and that nihilist cunt down under says “well you wasted your time didn’t ya?” You can refute, “Yea but at least I tried, what the fuck were you doing moping around for the last 80 years being a sad sack, having no meaning to life, no purpose to live. I tried and failed, but at least I tried you pussy”. Live life with meaning and follow the rainbow of love. You never know, you might just stumble upon the pot of gold.
Love is like music. In that they share a peculiar familiarity and beautiful nature that is bound within us (potentially on a biological level, but idn the science). We don’t know how or why it makes us feel, but it seems to diminish the suffering of life. For this matter, I truly believe that both love and music are gateways to enlightenment. Music is the love that everyone can participate in. It brings everyone together and makes them feel, even though music reaches out to everyone differently. The subjectivity of music is beautiful. One person’s soundgasm, is harsh on another’s ear. In the same way, one person’s love can be another person’s hate. This is the complex nature of our species. Hence why one cannot simply define love.
Subjectivity is a concept which is often forgotten in our days. This leads to judgemental behaviour and the suppression of our true character. For if someone is told that their thoughts and feeling are incorrect, then how can they express themselves? People can be incredibly tyrannical and its danger has no bounds (a trap we all participate in from time to time). It negates our right to free will, to free speech, and prevents us from following what we find to be meaningful/engaging, what they value, what they believe and what they choose to prioritise. Off topic.
It’s now 3.30am and me battery’s about to die, but I think I have cleared my head of the whirlwind of thoughts that clouded my mind, even though it’s extremely difficult to articulate the ol’ brain. I’ll conclude by saying…… na nothing I’m done.