my sudden return!
So I think my philosophical spirit is returning to me. I was hit by the following waves of thoughts this week. To begin I will return to the realm of Camus and absurdism. I have returned to pondering meaning and the very bond that holds my being intact.
Why not just simply chose death rather than struggle through the struggles of existence? An adequate answer to this question requests the answer to the most fundamental aspect of being itself. Such curiosity naturally arose within me once again which is not surprising. My memory then proceeded to reinstate Albert Camus in these pondering escapades to accompany my thought.
What immediately surprised me was my brains instinctive answer: “Death is the beautiful and graceful conclusion for enduring life.” Interesting as it is, this made perfect sense to me because I have endured a coma and was brought quite close to death; although I did not fully experience this wonderful grace of non-being, I discovered that life continued to move at its own rate while I was taken out of the equation. Upon awaking my struggle of reexistence began. There is great truth lying within the common phrase: “may he rest in peace.” I found that my coma was exactly the same as falling asleep. Upon awaking nothing from that period of time plagued me nor caused me to resent that time that had passed. This period of time, I had lost, simply became meaningless exactly the same as the period of time before I was born.
This being the case, what warranted my thinking about this subject was trying to rationally predict the most probable future that was in store for my existence. I was quantifying myself relative to my previous potential and becoming somewhat annoyed and my old pessimistic self reappeared. So my newfound appreciation of non-existence mixed with this pessimism caused me to once again return to the question regarding the of meaning of enduring existence.
So then I pondered how one ought to exist between the tension between both meaing and meainglessness. This is where my mind surprisingly held the answer, and abruptly presented it to me. A quick return in which my memory paraphrases Camus: “To endure the meaningless of existence (absurdity), one must perpetually chose to revolt against this absurdity as being the acceptable conclusion.” So this provided me an answer that I would now like to restate in my own terms. In mathematics there is a tool called limits, in which we can tell some operation within math to infinitely to do some task, so since in mathematics this operation is logically proven to function, then apply the logical tool of limits to the concept: 'being.' In enduring the state of revolt one acquires the emotional disposition of a warrior. The reason I chose this tool in mathematics is due to the fact that it is designed to operate logically infinitely. The idea of enduring 'being' hypothetically also goes into infinity in that as long as one remains conscious the perpetual status of consciousness remains static. To then attempt to support oneself provided by the resulting disposition, fundamentally, it then becomes much more feasible to endure such a state of consciousness.
Biologically I think it is quite apparent that the majority of living creatures are dictated by a priori principles, them being; genetics. I believe it is fairly reasonable to state rather factually that the instinctive need to live is genetically programmed and deemed at the highest importance in relation to every aspect of a living thing. So in essence a great deal of our choice to maintain our existence is mostly out of our conscious hands. This being the case, I find depression rather interesting. It is a mode of being that is directly contrary to the fundamental basis that is supposed to dictate the manifestation of becoming. All existence can essentially be said to be that of organic molecules resisting the laws of nature which have intense demands in which they must abide by, to then remain in the state that they are in. So logically using the term 'enduring' suggests that something is putting forth effort in which to remain in its current state to counteract something that is attempting to disturb it. In this case enduring absurdity is that which is consciousness seeking a rational explanation to adequately supply it with some solid supportive framework in which it can then know with confidence this is how things ought to function in relation to existence.
In that we are then forced to exist as rational creatures knowing the entirety of why something operates is directly linked with the how something should then operate. So my next thought was then the classic chicken and the egg question. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Or to restate it, which comes first, is the how a subset of the why something is, or is it that the why is a subset of the how something is? To reiterate this to clearly show this logical riddle: WHY>HOW or HOW>WHY. So then based upon each two different conclusions, two different approaches can develop in which can then can logically attempt to dictate the appropriate manner to handle phenomena.
With that being said, I was currently investigating my philosophical interests regarding: Taoism, Buddhism, Absurdism, and ontology. I found a great deal of very useful and meaningful ideas within all of these. I have also discovered much useful information within the realm of science, specifically: psychology, physiology, mathematics, computer-science, and much more. All of these categories of thought helped aid me in my pursuit of refining my fundamental conceptual understanding, to then devise an acceptable definition for my reason for being. I of course know that what I have now constructed is by no means anywhere near perfect, nor even close to something that is able to withstand the test of time in isolation and not deteriorate. Such things are tremendously hard to come upon and considering I am still recovering from brain damage, I find it highly improbable that I have developed anything truly valuable in the transcendental sense.
Even though this is the case, I am still making the best strides that I can in hopes of achieving the best possible recovery. I am also doing this because I have found myself attempting to facilitate some reasonable plan in which I am satisfied with concluding my existence. Since I've been traversing this mode of thought again I expect it to be very wise to try to return to refining this content in case it becomes very difficult to endure existence again. I am currently very fortunate to have the incredible outcome of what appears to be an inexhaustible supply of gratitude in which I can continually find positive material to become absorbed in. I still have the memories that are incredibly frightening though, in which I desperately hope never occur again. I know the inescapable sadness that can befall a human being. I also know the world of delusion. I've been trapped within inescapable places mentally that definitely remind me of why it is that I find this task to be so important.
I also want to mention the absolutely wonder benefits of physical exercise that I've witnessed upon my brain and body. I definitely believe this manifestation of my giant gratitude has been because of many things. Firstly, I witnessed the outcomes of many different traumatic brain injuries and I can not explain how incredibly thankful I am. Secondly, I was continually contentious about my body (probably since the age of 13) and now I am finally reaching a point in which I am finally becoming satisfied. I also read an absolutely thought provoking book regarding the effects of exercise on the brain. It is titled: Spark. So not only am I superficially reaching aesthetically the point I had envisioned as beautiful for my entire life, I am also neurologically promoting many different physiological processes that are causing an absurd amount of both conscious and subconscious benefits.
Also I had developed a previous explanation regarding the foundation of why I exercise that was not based upon aesthetics. This was prior to my accident and I was quite proud of establishing this thought previously. The act of overcoming. Just to provide a direct quote: “And life confided the secret to me: behold, it said, I am that which must always overcome itself.” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche). So in a sense I took this very literally. I knew that I was that which was a living organism, and I was absolutely certain of everything that was "me." Since this was the case, I then decided to overcome myself three or four times a week in the form of jogging. I knew that scientifically strenous activity was essential to sculpting ones body into a state of 'being healthly'. My interests were at first in the most part completely motivated by my absolute haterd of being that which was unbeautiful. At that point in time, beauty was something that had greatly captivated me.I was completely in love with classical music, and I was quite harsh regarding my taste of artwork that I considered high quality.
Enough of that embarrassing stuff. Now on to what warranted this entire post; this particular thought I had spontaneously the other morning that I was very amazed by: "Death is the beautiful gracious conclusion to enduring revolting from the absurdity of life.” I previously have stated how dark my imagination had become over the past few months. I had been envisioning how wonderful life was in the context of nonexistence. While the majority of people would consider this to be a very unbearable and unpleasant mode of mental imagination to be in, I was in awe of how comforting it was to consider that essentially I had grown very close to no longer being a living entity. Being able to know that you had gotten so close to that point and seeing how simple life was in totality, really strips ones egotistical comprehension of the importance of their existence down quite a bit. It was very comforting to witness that things in their totality do not at all depend upon ones perpetual observation of them. It is quite hard to explain. I think the best analogy I can think of is that of a parent seeing the day in which they can rationally predict that their child will have a happy and fulfilling existence awaiting them even after their parent has passed on. In a way I was able to somewhat experience that. I think it was somewhat due to my upbringing in that I had this fear ingrained into my consciousness of which was: that there is a great unpleasant aftermath for those who do not live in accordance with some set of moral principles. I think I can finally say with undoubtable certainy (even though I do believe I did contain no faith prior) that no such consequence exist.
Also, I am going to study abroad in China, May 3rd. I will get to experience my two year anniversary from my brain injury on May 8th in China!! I am very excited. 太棒了！！！