To be

“The point of life is itself”

“One should love life more than the meaning of it”

These quotable motifs quell not the insatiable Socratic dialogue that is internal to me, many others too I imagine. So then one is left to shift its engine elsewhere, but how then to achieve this ideal state of curious but contented amnesia and not be called a madman?

As I’ve said before: The power of the human mind lies in its’ ability to deceive itself, to rationalize our trials and trivialities however unreasonable. But even attempts to dodge this fact leaves one in no less deluded a place than one obsessive over obvious frivolties: from democracy to debauchery. Nonetheless, one must belive [in] something, and further one must live it for any semblance of a life truly lived. Free from diversions or outright distractions only leaves one left to live dying, which is surely the worst of the three. Distractions feel fake for those who can, and without dying then one can only best divert vitality toward an end they can’t call a distraction to themselves.

Another framing similar to those three d’s above, but partitioned differently are responses to the prompt of the final existentail question. Whatever that may be is up to you (What is the meaning of life?, Why was conscious life made, or was it ‘made’ at all?, Is there some divine telelogy toward which we were meant to mobilize?, ad infinitum) but the responses are encapsulated by either:

(1) Ignore this question. Concern oneself with the day-to-day. The immediate. You land in the land of ignorance

(2) Entertain this question seriously. Ponder it daily and let it give you life and death. First, a sober smile perhaps then fear, uncertainty and pain. You land in the land of despair

(3) Entertain this question, but refuse to take it serious. Never doubt the validity or cosmic importance of the question, but consider it wholeheartedly only in the light of humor. You land in the land of the absurd

It’d be redundant to say I dwell in the (3) absurd, and no less unecessary that I see (1) with some contempt. It’s only (2) I view with sympathy that on my worse days do I find myself bothered by the existential question of the day.

A passing reference I would be remiss to forget is Kierkegaard’s three stages of life: The Aesthetic, The Ethical, and The Religious. Taken in the abstract to map roughly to both my alternative framings above. The rest is an exercise left to the reader.