21.7.09

Death Post

This post has been in my drafts folder for a year now. I'd decided it would be the last post I'd ever put up on this blog. Then I decided it would be the post I'd give to somebody to put up as the last post on this blog, in case something happened to me that would prevent me from blogging again. My Post From The Beyond, as it were.

Now I've decided to just post it. I guess I'm just tired of seeing it in my drafts folder.

And no, I'm not dying. And no, this isn't the last post on this blog.


*************************************************************************

This is going to be disjointed, rambling, yet (in my mind) connected. And long. It's because I'm sleepy (and you know the theory about talking/writing while sleepy, right? Alrighty then).

I'm probably going to hate dislike it in the morning, but that's why I'm writing this. Because I've been putting aside the things I think of to write, realising I won't be happy about having published them.

Which is not how it should be. Writing. Blogging. Whatever.

It should be easy. Fun. Cathartic. Enlightening. And it is...occasionally. When I'm blogging spontaneously, or thinking about the little things and making sure they're not about the (seemingly) big issues. Like Life.

Because there's no point to that. Talking about Life, that is, or giving your own views on it.

That's hubris.

Because the moment you say things like "the moment you" is the moment you've decided you understand how things work.

But we don't....we don't.

We're all just living this little dream, hoping to whatever powers we may choose to hope in, that we'll get through all the traps without hurting ourselves too much. We're all just hoping that we won't be the ones that will be hit by natural disasters, we won't be the ones to suffer random accidents, we won't be the ones to be diagnosed with some rare terminal disease. We're hoping to make sense of it all, when all we're really doing is trying to find some justification for this perpetual guilt we feel that we have because we have homes, and food when we want it, and money to spend on things we desire, and the knowledge and freedom and the opportunity to be able to reach out and improve ourselves.

And saying all that too, is hubris.

It's me thinking I know more than you. It's me believing that the little minor insights I have gained, which make it easier for me to deal with others and see their problems, makes me better than you. It's me hoping that if I think hard and long enough, something somewhere will make somehow make sense. And that I will be able to explain it to you, and everything will be happyhappyjoyjoy.

It's me keeping this blog alive because I thought I had something to say once. It's me hoping that by thinking and writing, I will some day do.

Do the things I could do, and perhaps should do, given that I can do them well (and better than many others if I choose to), and given that if I did do them, it might make a difference to somebody somewhere.

This is me hoping this isn't my epitaph.

And it's all hubris.

But tomorrow, I'll probably laugh cynically. And turn again to thoughts of how little this all matters anyway. These hopes and thoughts and dreams and actions. These intense investigations of ourselves and our desires and our lives. This handwringing about the true nature of things, and the underlying facets, and oh yes, let's not forget that big grandpappy of them all...the Meaning Of It All.

I believed in it once. I believed that everything could be explained if you could just realise that one moment of complete understanding. That everything would make sense. And that even if it didn't make things, it would make them bearable at the very least.

And I've lived by that credo. Lived by laughing at life, yet living it. Lived by saying that nothing really matters, but willing to accept that perhaps it does. Lived by being alive, but keeping a part of me dead, ready for the possibility that all this is some incomprehensibly complex and insignificantly irrelevant joke. Hedging my bets that this life is all there is, but with the possibility that there's something more.

....
This is all so ridiculous. And petty. Look at the comfyliving pseudogourmet booklover whining about his existential angst. Oh yes, so much woe is me.

What fuck.

I'm doing exactly what I for so long have tried not to - try and explain myself. Describe myself. Telling someone who you are or what you feel, uninvited, is one of the most pretentious and ego-seeking things I can think of. It's like people who go 'Oh I have such a sensitive nature'. Prats. Show, don't say.

And yet here I am, going - oh look at me, look at the 'deep' thoughts I think. Aren't they so insightful? Isn't your life now so much better than it was ten minutes ago? Aren't you just blessed to have found this blog, or even that I deigned to write all this out for you? Worship me, fool!

Again...what fuck.

Like you don't think of them too. Like they haven't been thought of by countless others before, and will be thought of by countless others again. Like they aren't just another piece of surreality that makes this whole life feel like an endless repetition of a terrible waste of laboratory resources. Like any of it matters.

So what's the point of it all; why am I typing all this?

I don't know.

I really don't.

And I'm just too tired, too confused, too thought-out to care.

Maybe I do need to just witter away about something so specific that only eight other people in the world are interested in it. Maybe I need to just witter away about anything and everything in general, that may or may not catch my fancy. Maybe I need a project. Maybe I need to stop being all meta about blogs and blogging and friendships and (you guessed it) Life, and just go with the first thought that occurs to me.

Maybe.

I just can't help feeling that even doing any of that will still be hubris, though.

8 comments:

km said...

Excellent post. And yet, the note you end it on makes it sound somewhat flippant, which I think is not what you intend to convey.

So is that nihilism I hear?

/If that treasure hunt is on, we will be arguing over this post endlessly, I assure you.

??! said...

KM:
As always, you give gyaan, we learn.

You're right. The ending was awful. It's changed, and it's now probably closer to what I wanted to say (still likely to change again though).

//Blog treasure hunt! Idea achha hain?

km said...

Gyaan? Who, me?

I certainly didn't mean to make you change the closing lines. These are, after all, your thoughts and not mine.

So the question is, why is talking about life necessarily hubris?

Talking about Life (capital L) maybe so. But life? This life, the little one, the one with time and plans and births and deaths? IMO, in the context of this life, *everything* has a point.

//A blog treasure-hunt sounds like a great idea.

Tabula Rasa said...

have a drink!

??! said...

KM:
Because of the fallacy that these thoughts are original. The hubris of it being something that's unique to me, or understandable only by me. And the whole cylical nature of it all.

// Prizes?

TR:
You always say that!

Space Bar said...

i think a group hug is in order. those saying 'aye'?

??! said...

Space:
Awwie. It's ok. We're like that only.

Tabula Rasa said...

nono, sometimes i say pass the j.