Two approaches to modern life

In the absence of the of the transcendental signified (God, the American Dream, Science), we find ourselves with two possible paths to take:

The first path involves acting as if the transcendental signified really did exist, and simply constructing our lives in such a way as to ensure that its absence is never felt. People have finite lives, so theoretically this should be possible. This approach is generally the one taken throughout most of human history, to various success. It seems however to never have been a total success, and as more and more being began to participate in the world, and culture produced to a greater and greater extent, the fundamental untenability of this position had to be felt. Even still, it is only in the past hundred years or so that the absence of the transcendental signified has become apparent, at least within general consciousness.

It is here, at the cultural consciousness of the 21st century that we are faced with the second possible path: that of living a life of pure groundlessness, where not only do we not attempt to base our lives around a single foundational point, but instead root out any that appear.

“If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”

This philosophy is an approach that lives under no illusions, and supports no false consciousness. It is also an existentially difficult one. Once God is dead, we so easily find someone else to replace him. It is this tendency in ourselves that we must be ever vigilant against.

Any close examination of either path shows that suffering is inevitable in each. In the former case, the force of alterity announces itself in countless ways as the perennial unsettler of lives. “God is just, yet my infant was killed.” In the latter case, that otherness is sought out, and the unsettled life is met constantly “There is no the Truth, so now what?” The challenge in life is to find freedom, happiness, and joy within this perpetual de-centering. To see it not as an obstacle to be avoided, but rather as a friend come to jolt one out of a stupor. There is a Buddhist saying that one must learn to see Bodhisattvas of compassion in all things, particularly those most challenging. Indeed the alterity of living itself contains countless such luminous beings, waiting for embrace.