The tortured soul of a makeshift philosopher
Someone actually said to me yesterday . . . “I don’t know why I think I’m smarter than everyone else.” She was making a comment about not following instructions while just assuming she was right.
I followed with, “Oh, you too?” Half joking and half serious.
Got me to thinking, though, why do I think I am smarter than everyone else? And what exactly do I mean by ‘smarter’?
More knowledge? Common sense? More ‘in tune’? How about more awake or aware? The captor and purveyor of the wisdom of the ages?
Yes and yes and yes!
It’s something of a burden, though. Keeping it up. Rising above.
I’ve tried to be ‘normal’ . . . believe me I’ve tried. ‘Normal’ meaning like others going through life not knowing, just wasting energy thinking the mundane is important, the stagnant is zoetic or the superfluous is necessary.
Thinking that for the most part the silly work we do has more meaning than it really does; that it’s all about us or the traffic along our daily path or the food that we enjoy making us fat or the newspaper we read actually giving us the news. In actuality, all of it is irrelevant. It’s superficial.
There is so much more that should be considered and then focused on.
The stars, the asteroids, the planets and the black matter present throughout the universe. The omnipotent, omniscient force of the Universal, the All. In the scheme of the cosmos we are petty. Minuscule. Yet, those of us who are less speculative believe the entire existence revolves around us . . wait, them.
What are we, after all? We are nothing. Nothing at all.
BUT, and there’s a really big BUT coming. We are also everything. Meaning . . . we are each our own grand and wondrous cosmos, each of us, individually. The All in finite form.
Do you see why it’s a curse?
Do you see why a person who must, by nature, contemplate these concepts is also trapped in them?
Life is so much more than what we eat for breakfast or what shoes go with what outfit. Getting caught up in the undue importance of these activities leads people into a false sense of relevance.
Life is about learning the truth. Life is about contemplating how and why and where. It’s about the bigger picture not about the circumscribed.
I’ve, at times, wondered why such an affliction has fallen on to me, this advanced level of thinking that I do.
Now, it’s not like I sit in solitary confinement each day in meditation and contemplation. I do what everyone else does: eat, shop, work, pay bills, laugh at funny movies, and chat with friends. I have children and family and co-workers.
I live a pretty normal life except for the desire and the need to seek the answers to the biggest questions. The questions of existence, spirituality, morality, reality and objectivity.
I want to answer questions that we should have answers for. When you think intently about the most intense, deeply held mysteries of life you come up with the same questions that the greatest of philosophers have examined for millennia of which no one can be certain of the answers.
No wonder they are called mysteries.
The complexity of the concepts often lead me to wonder if we even ask the right questions. If we aren’t asking the right questions, can we expect to get answers? A vicious circle ensues.
Progress is made, however. It happens at a snails pace. A century goes by and but little is changed, it’s more like philosophies are reiterated to match the era.
Sometimes I think . . wouldn’t it just be easier if I didn’t feel the need to grip these existential, ethereal, ubiquitous concepts on such a personal level? But I do and I can’t shake it.
So, I’ll resign myself to possessing the tortured soul of makeshift philosopher and dredge the bottom of the lake, continuing to ask and pursue. Knowing that we are each a cosmos while being a infinitesimal part of the greater.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
