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Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The meaning of life (part 2)

I have the same problem as everyone else here (and anywhere) with boredom, delusions of grandeur, and an over acquaintance with feelings of emptiness and meaningless. I have chided deluded souls before about their Harry Potter syndrome, i.e. wishing that instead of ordinary they were powerful and indispensable, but that is me as well. I tend to deal with it in three ways: (1) try to ignore those feelings as being delusions, (2) try to justify those feelings as being accurate representations of reality by convincing myself that I really am special, and most recently (3) indulging them through religious devotion.

My religion is very self-empowering. I'm basically being told that I'm the equivalent of a superhero all the time -- not just a child of God but a leader amongst the chosen people. This narrative comports well with my delusions of self-grandeur, so it seems authentic to me. I feel like the demigods from the classics. It doesn't bother me at all that my powers come with restrictions or requirements, which I adhere to because the magic doesn't work without them. Am I deluded? Maybe. Am I happier this way than not? I think so. It simplifies things and keeps me out of trouble. I enjoy the ritual and the "spiritual high." Any sort of self denial I do has a tantric, pleasurable quality to it, at least most of the time. Because I am doing good things instead of bad, I feel like the universe should smile on me. I'm not constantly looking over my shoulder.

This last bit is a particularly good consequence. I am terrified that I am going to live to be 120. I know I could always kill myself, but I haven't had the fortitude and strength of conviction to do it thus far, who knows if I would even be physically able to do it then. I want to make sure that whatever I am doing in my life is sustainable, or easily retractable, or at the very least untraceable. Writing the blog violates that rule a little bit, but I guess there is such thing as being too careful. I'm particularly paranoid about the internet's ability to record things for all eternity. Shelley ridicules Ozymandias (“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”) while standing in front of the crumbled ruins of his "works," but now even the commonest of common men in the developed world will be immortal via Google's aggressive cache projects. There are a thousand things I can think of off-hand that I would rather not have immortalized.

But this long, rambling justification for the way I live reminds me of my closeted gay friend who works a nightmarish expat job for the money, is paranoid about touching public door handles, has two regular maids who don't know about the other just so neither thinks he is as unkempt as he is, spends the little free time he has sleeping or on role-playing games, and is secretly enamored with his straight best friend. I know my life seems equally ridiculous to the casual observer. Maybe that's why no one really talks about the meaning of life -- they have already found out what works for them, but are just too ashamed to discuss the sordid details.

28 comments:

  1. Liked the post. There’s a lot of honesty in it. I think. There isn’t much else for me to say other than that. I know, I know. Daniel Birdick doesn’t have much to say, no long comment about the meaning of it all... IT'S A MIRACLE!!! Therefore gawd exists.

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  2. Hi, I've recently started reading, well, obsessing to tell the truth. I've gone back to the very beginning and I'm working my way through them all. I stumbled across it after trying to find out something about sociopaths - went off on a tangent whilst watching Sherlock.
    Only thing is I have noticed some similarities between you and I, and people who comment. I've attempted to have a serious conversation with one of my friends but she won't take it as such, so instead I experimented, giving them a list of traits and asking them to pick out the ones they thought agreed with themselves - just to see how many an "average" person would come up with - I know neither of the people I got to do it our sociopaths, they feel way to much guilt, it would be an amazing talent if they were faking it all, I've faked guilt before but not to that extent.
    Anyway, I was going to leave this for a while but and idea came up and I thought it seemed like a good opportunity to get some opinions...
    I met this guy, we have a load of mutual friends and I've briefly met him once before, only now, I think I want to... how should I say it? Seduce? Yeah, I guess that'll do, I want to seduce him... but not because I like him - okay, he is nice and could be interesting - but I think the main reason is to see if I can. Apparently he's bi, I think he's gay. I've only met him once properly though so it's hard to say. So I think I want to see if I can get him, it's an interesting experiment, right?
    Only I think the other reason is because it's made so much more fascinating by the fact that I know my ex is "in to" him... My ex is male, I think this guy's gay. Therefore my ex should have the upper hand. Only he's an aspie and... an, annoying one at that. I want to see if I could get him before the aspie does. It's interesting, right?

    No relation to the post, I know, but I don't really want to wait until I find another opportunity.

    -Loft Whore

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  3. Nice post, ME. Some very familiar sentiments. Bravo. Can't say I feel you on the religious angle, but the rest was fairly resonant.

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  4. There is no meaning. Knowing this can make life seem very long indeed. Especially when even sociopathic games become uninteresting. When the desire to hide yourself becomes uninteresting. When even the grandeur threatens to quit holding interest.

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  5. That's a good point Medusa. I guess because I don't feel that way about life it eludes me to think it could be so meaningless for anyone. I remember having depression years ago and I felt something like that…and I also felt the disassociation along with it. Horrible feelings.

    Grace

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  6. I agree, everyone is delusional. and that was only me puttng a bit of salt in the pepper

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  7. you're not sociopaths

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  8. I never said it either, just asked and now I troll

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  9. you people are more like narcissist

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  10. Maybe... Or maybe it maybe a bee in may being beat up by May with mayonnaise. A senseless follow-up

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  11. and you're not one

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  12. I'm probably a guy with no guilt whatsoever and impulsive temperament

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  13. still doesn't make you one...

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  14. Stupid is as Stupid Does

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  15. what does it mean when my thoughts mean nothing?...It means that i'm stupid like you.

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  16. That's great, you should start a blog on blogger.com and get trolled by arandom guy that doesn't like your style

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  17. you hide the fact that you ain't one...and one day you'll regret it..

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  18. I don't hide it I just really wonder what am I.

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  19. i'm pretty sure it's autism

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  20. No... Explain what you mean

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  21. Looked it up. Definitely not

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  22. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  23. Hi M.E., I loved your post. And after reading at this site fairly often these past months, I'm starting to think that you are a different species of hominid, an "interpath," a socio who's wired into finding meaning and purpose, weaving together the noble savage in us all with elements of trans-human. Your writing is wonderful.

    June Harvey

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