Choose Life

That ‘zen master’ sounds like a spiritual infant. I conversed with a Buddhist priest who, in response to my complex question of purpose in an undefined existence, regurgitated the same “shit happens” attitude. I thanked him for his time and sat by myself in the hall where I happened to meet a lowly janitor who answered my question with startling acumen. The zen and the buddhists and the Hindus will always get the answer wrong because those disciplines are obsessed with the ‘self’. Self-awareness, self-enlightenment, self-purification. But the universe as a whole doesn’t give two shits about anyone’s ‘self’. The universe is a collective, and as long as poeople keep wondering “what’s in it for me?” there will always be misery and frustration. But if we drop our obsession with the self and instead imagine the universe as one huge body that we are all trying to guide, then we realize the importance of our acts and contributions no matter how little reward, material or spiritual, that we reap for our troubles. The meaning of life? Push with all your might and do everything you can to correct the course of this barge. We are sailors on a ship in perilous waters. No time for demanding higher pay, no time to run off to your bunk and meditate or jerk off. This is essentially what the janitor told me, and if I had my say, he would be addressing the disciples while the self proclaimed Buddhist master would be pushing the broom.

midian monster, I actually agree with you. I figure we can either live to benefit the universe, or we should kill ourselves. I’m still not sure how I’ll end up. But like the guy in the scene, I don’t like the idea of accepting the crap just for the sake of living. It sounds like that’s what the zen guy was saying… Either you die now, or you go through a bunch of stuff and die later, he says. I think that’s sort of a cop out. I think the choice is either you die now (suicide), or you fight to make a difference in the world. The guy in the clip seems to be saying the world is hopeless, and maybe it is. But there’s a 2nd possibility, that all the shit can be changed if we try real hard. Either way I think the idea is “Do something.” Living 70/80 years of torture or with all the artificial crap the clip mentions, that’s not the way to live. I guess I’ll keep trying to make a difference in the world, in my small way, until I lose faith in the world completely and then I’ll kill myself. Maybe you’re already at the point of losing faith and killing yourself… that would be sad but at least it makes more sense than continuing the torture for no good reason.

“All i see is a sinking ship tbh.”

Yeah, I’m starting to see that too. When I was younger I was a lot more optimistic and that’s what I’m trying to hold on to, but after a while you start realizing it was just naïveté. Who knows, maybe that’s part of the grand scheme. We are born optimistic and delusional so we can be productive, and then when we’re older and weaker mentally and physically we realize our life is pointless so we die and make room for the next generation. The big question is, are we making any progress? That’s hard to know. There have been some improvements, but there have also been damages. I think we’re stuck in a loop. I keep waiting for some indication that the world is getting better but there’s nothing. Funny the other night I was watching a Star Trek movie (first contact) and they said the human race was basically screwed in the 21st century but they would eventually make first contact with an alien race and realize they weren’t alone in the universe, and that would give everyone’s life meaning and the whole planet would unite. That would be great, but for now it’s just a stupid sci-fi movie, fantasy & faith all we got to keep us going. Not very convincing.