April 23, 2014

it's funny.

i've basically arrived where i have in life by convincing myself of the single axiom that existence is meaningless, and this makes conventionally interacting in society entirely worthless. centering your life around anything related to property, status or wealth is just throwing your life away to utilitarian/capitalist excesses. yet, even this is not rational: if the aim is maximizing pleasure in the short amount of time we have to do it, doing loads of drugs makes more sense than working in an office. rejecting hedonistic capitalism within the context of this futility of breathing leaves only the individual's whimsical fancies as remotely meaningful goals (i skipped some steps there). art for art's sake (or knowledge for knowledge's sake) is consequently the only worthwhile pursuit (any other existence would and should rationally end up with a quick suicide, as it would be the fastest way to lessen the amount of existential torture brought on equally by slavery and boredom), and capitalist society is merely an obstacle to avoid.

if mortality could be abolished (and i'm ok with existing in software), the entire calculus would change. this ought to present the individual with a hobson's choice to pursue immortality at all costs, as the worst thing that could happen would be to die trying to abolish death. unless failure is certain, of course, in which case why waste the time? unfortunately, i'm convinced that this isn't feasible in my lifetime. death remains the only concrete reality worth planning around.

so, faced with the certainty of all of this meaninglessness, the only thing that can actually motivate me to get out of bed and pursue these goals is the certainty that i have a finite amount of time to complete them in, bringing me back around again to where i began.

yet, you say...

"yeah, well, i'm 30% of the way into paying off a high interest loan to get a piece of paper to allow me to pay property taxes, and that requires me to spend 75% of my time living for somebody else (and maybe more if i'm married). so, you lose at life."

it's actually not so bad for me if people actually continue to think that. i mean, there's two ways forward from where we are: full communism or state-driven social darwinism (popularly, if somewhat incorrectly, referred to as 'fascism'). we've been leaning towards the latter for decades. and, if that's the unalterable future, i can't benefit from winning the argument.

i can snicker about it on my facebook page, though.