Thoughts on Life

Cliffnotes to this whole thing:

A. Trying to write these thoughts is kind of embarrassing. I think it come from a fear of people thinking I’m being dumb and/or silly.

B. Life is confusing. I don’t really have any answers.

C. It’s easy to over think things, but acting without thinking seems like a poor solution.

D. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but when I get back I plan to travel the US for a while.

E. I could probably add lots of letters to this cliff notes list. Five seems appropriate though, so I’ll stop.

While in the midst of writing this, I read a piece called “Against Meat” by Jonathan Safran Foer, in which he wrote about being a sophomore in college and starting to study philosophy. He described that as the beginning of his “seriously pretentious thinking”. I constantly feel like that’s what my writing is, because it seems like I’m indulging my own thoughts without getting anywhere. I ask lots of rhetorical questions without really answering anything, and tend towards the melodramatic. Still, there may be a grain of worthwhile-ness in these ruminations. I hope they at least inspire thought. So here we go.

I am now 23, which makes me feel old. I know this is preposterous. My grandfather is 60 years older than I am which is beyond my scope of understanding, mostly because I cannot imagine what the world was like to him when he grew up, and therefore cannot imagine the world of my twilight years. This is a concept that kind of stops me in my tracks. Where is the world going? How am I going to participate in this brave new world? The art of divining the future would be a welcome addition to my skill set, but I don’t see it deciding to join me any time soon. So I will just have to live life.

This living of life brings the question of how best to do so. Is deep, gritty, hands-on participation required for the fulfillment of my potential? Or are the observation of life and the gaining of broad knowledge the keys?

I’m not sure of the answer to these questions, unsurprisingly, but I kind of live them out in my daily life. On the side of the former, I do work on the shop when I could pay others to do so, and on the latter I consume vast quantities of information that have nothing to do with the actual purpose of me being here. I don’t know which is better, or if either is ‘good’.

This highlights another question; what is the purpose for me being here? (in Cambodia, although certainly the larger question of existence is also interesting) Ostensibly it’s to start a motorbike repair shop, live the social entrepreneurship dream, etc. I just don’t know if that’s really what it’s all about, and I feel like I’m not devoted enough to the project because of my confusion. I’m constantly searching, trying to answer these questions.

My search for answers leads me to read a lot, and I’ve begun to move away from novels. While I dearly love them, and they can contain the essence of human experience, the answers are a little too unclear. I want some straight shooting.

This has led me to books like Irrational Man, which is William Barrett’s explanation of existentialism. While I haven’t finished it, parts of it really strike me, as when the author speaks about the problem of "the divorce of mind from life." This expresses something I have felt, because it seems like so much of modern life is not really deeply thought about, just done. There is certainly something to be said for living in the present, but I think what makes the present 'good' or 'bad' is whether it is mindful. Unfortunately, this path leads to the problem evidenced in the above paragraphs. I’ve started asking too many questions, which rapidly can become a detriment to actually doing things.

But they are important questions, and to try and come up with answers, even if imperfect, seems at least as significant as tangible productions.

So here are some thoughts.

About mindfulness in life, what I mean is that something drives people through the present, generally speaking. They have memories, and hopes for the future, which affect their behavior at every moment. What I have trouble understanding is what drives people (including myself) to do things, and if they think about what drives them.

It’s easy to say people are driven by ‘a desire to help people’, or the pursuit of other stuff, but how does this make them capable of such astonishing feats? I’m thinking of Greg Mortenson and Paul Farmer, who built schools in Afghanistan and Health Clinics all over the world, respectively. Drive doesn’t always lead to good things though. Like Bernie Madoff was probably a pretty driven guy, but he didn’t really help people out very much.

Also, life seems quite fleeting and truth is illusive. I think one reason I read so much random stuff is that I feel like I have a very short time to learn everything I want to. But maybe my quest to learn a lot is a waste of time, because living life in the pursuit of something, whether it is money or knowledge, is a dangerous path. I don’t think people who pursue something specific will ever be totally satisfied. This may be an influence from what I’ve learned of Buddhism, which says that the cause of all human suffering is desire.

To that end, I think the vast amount of time I spend taking in information distracts me from my life. To phrase it more impressively, my personal divorce of mind from life actually comes through the almost continual intake of external information. Ironically, I am using my mind to avoid my life. I’ve begun questioning why and what better use I could put my limited amount of time to.

But what would be a life without desire? Is my want for answers really foolish? Why do I feel like I have to use my time for a specific goal when just being alive is a pretty great thing? I think the Buddhist answer is that the purpose of life is to try and enlighten oneself, where enlightenment does not come from read knowledge but from direct experience of life in its immediate form.

Bleh. I don’t know what to think. The purpose of life, both all of it and mine specifically, evades me. Apparently some people think searching for that purpose is what leads one astray. Others would adamantly state that life is about achieving, and shooting for the stars, etc. Generally though, it seems to me that when people have answers, they are based in dogma, and their specific view of the world. Who is to say what view of the world is correct? Does our personal sense of morality really allow us to tell other people what is good and what is bad? Is collective thought of moral principal (which I guess manifests itself in laws, written and not) the real guiding force in life?

I think when I get back I’m going to road trip around the country for an indeterminate time, visiting people, looking at places I’m interested in working, and experiencing parts of the US that I haven’t. I don’t really want to do anything traditionally considered ‘productive’. Just travel, and learn, in my home country. Re-connect with friends, and see if a cool job that won’t stifle me exists.

Thanks for reading.

Ned.