Gnosis
I guess I felt tonight was as good as any to start. I am not sure what made tonight significant. Maybe it was the mounting anxiety, apprehension...regret? Or maybe it was the 90 milligrams of amphetamines I took today. Who's counting though? Whatever it was, I figure talking to myself on paper is less crazy than just doing it in my head. That way I can at least remember what I am saying and will have to repeat myself less. Sounds logical to me. It's hard enough as it is to pay attention to what other people are saying, let alone the seemingly incoherent, non-linear rambling that is commonplace in 95% of my waking thoughts.
I have perfected the autopilot. Ok... perfected is a gross exaggeration. I have jerry-rigged a passable excuse for an autopilot. Sometimes it can even be pretty convincing. In the end, the smoke always clears and the real me is left on the hook to engage in the current social distraction. Whatever we have selected to placate/satiate ourselves... keeping us from facing reality. A reality that nothing is or ever will be what we expected.
Life is funny that way. The word life itself is subjective. Depending on who you ask, its meaning, application or the experiences that constitute our existence can be any number of things. I find myself always reverting back to the same question...
Why?
The strength and conviction in which so many answer this question elicits a myriad of emotions in me. Sometimes I struggle to comprehend how people truly think that they know the answer to this question. A question that has, in my opinion, had to have plagued people since the time when we were finally able to stop grinding out a nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gathering long enough to say... Man what the fuck is going here. It really must be a divine comedy, and someone has a fucked-up sense of humor. Kinda makes me feel better about my own sick jokes. At least that's how I'll justify it for now. But really...how this daily facade we call a life is anything but mind-numbingly frustrating to everyone amazes me.
I am completely aware of the multitude of factors and variables that determine our motivational impetus, yet the context in which it plays out still perplexes me. I find myself imagining the sheer vastness of space sometimes. Usually on nights when the light pollution is tolerable enough to actually see anything. Looking up at the stars, I can't help but think back... back to when the sunrise and sunset were a thing of awe-inspiring majesty. Not for their beauty, but for the sheer magnitude of their impact on every single thing that exists on the planet. For the realization that without their presence, the Earth would be barren... "Life"-less.
Which brings us back full circle to that word again. I think about what it has come to signify today. Having been told to "get a life" on numerous occasions, it is curious to think about in a literal sense rather than the convoluted, contextual mess that is encountered when trying to convey abstract concepts via the English language. Of course, that doesn't stop us from making the subjective interpretation through the prism of our own experiences and reasoning. Which, in the case of the latter, leaves the door open to the various reactionary feelings associated with our particular viewpoints. I try to remain conscious of all this nonsense throughout thus affording myself an opportunity to find humor in the midst of madness. Maybe irony is a more apt description. The premise that people know the why behind this life or what life is itself, based on belief... based on faith... is just as curious to me at the present as is the fundamental question from which it derives its own existence. I don't think people even notice the conflicting nature of the very concepts they choose to express themselves. The fact that the topic is capable of eliciting the strongest of our emotions, yet rarely do we probe its inner workings is something I find genuinely disheartening. I understand the rationales behind the choices of some and even empathize with a few. However, I would be remiss to pretend that the majority of people were not oblivious to their own ignorance regarding that of which they speak. That statement itself at first glance seems like a redundancy. Yet, the truth is, some people are aware of their ignorance. Why these people choose to continue in what amounts to ultimately a case of self-delusion, is as intimate to the particular individual as their purported belief itself.
