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screamingattheceiling · 2 years

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Temporary Accomplishments and Kyojuro

Did I do everything I could with what I was given? Good words. Great words, even. Is that what life is about? Definitely not. Life is different, life’s nature comes in its difference from others and that one strict accomplishment is not the goal. But the idea that beauty is fleeting, that the peak performance of something not meant to b e sustained. That the peak, the pinnacle of something is only so fantastic because it is temporary and something to be longed for. The theme here is that beauty, strength, or anything of the sort’s pinnacle is only so fantastic because it is fleeting and will one day succumb to exterior factors.

The feats of one’s youth or past are only so significant because they may of been your peak, but they are something to forever be longed for. And when you’re there, at the peak, you don’t feel like it is. There’s always something more, and whether you know it or not you are contributing to the sanctity of that pinnacle by never resting. By never giving up the task you feel you are accomplishing, that’s what makes it so great. It is only in the aftermath do you glorify it. You may even ignore the painful parts of that peak, desperate to return to it.

To me, that’s the most dangerous part of living with a perceived pinnacle. You reach your apex, and when you’re there, it’s nothing special. But in hindsight, you can never tell. Was that an apex, was there something beautiful or worth replicating there? Or was it a mirage, was it fraudulent, was it always a fake? Is that something to want, to fight for, to try and contribute to recreate? The answer might elude you because that’s what you’re looking for. You want to know if it was the real thing, the authentic thing you’ve been chasing. Did it really feel good enough to even fight for ? If that was the peak, was that it? Was that all? Was it worth it? And you never truly know if you’re deluding yourself, that maybe by looking back and searching for replication, you’re losing the meaning in it. You ruin it, ignore the bad parts, hold onto the goods, and attempt to retrace your steps to make something just as great.

That’s what makes someone’s death so final and beautiful. You see them living, you see them living exactly how they wanted to, especially in stories. You know what motivates them, you see through their actions what they hold close and how by dying, they leave behind something they dedicated their life to. John Lewis spent his life fighting segregation and racism in the United States. He died, and everyone knew that he died after committing his life to service for the people he held close to his heart.

For the more militant minded, there’s the story of the Old Guard at Waterloo. "La Garde meurt, elle ne se rend pas!". The guard dies and does not surrender, or something along those lines. A fine sprout of propaganda, but a dedication to their cause. Whether it’s true or not, stories like these give a sense of purpose and attribution to a cause. It's a closure to a lifetime of service to an ideal that can provide an apex and a close of the curtains. It’s something we all long for, but it’s not something that’s easy, nor as simple when viewed from the outside, or when we’re reading a story.

There’s a beauty in an apex that swiftly ends with a conclusion of life, as it ends the purpose of the person on a high note, and a continuing legacy that can be carried on by those who follow. But life isn’t simple like that. Life isn’t a storybook. Oftentimes, we’ll find a peak and try to reclimb the same mountain, constantly looking for purpose in the same old lines of the same old books, rather then finding something new to read, something new to push forward. Pushing the envelope isn’t easy. It’s not even bad to stay the same. If you find meaning in those old words, then that’s good. But for those who find themselves retracing their steps, then maybe it’s time to read a new book or watch a new show, or dedicate yourself to a new hobby, or… you get the idea.

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screamingattheceiling · 2 years

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Existence and Routine Maintenance

There’s this song by Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties and it says a lot about concepts behind the human nature of wanting others to be able to rely on you. There’s this need for others to see you as a pedestal of moral virtue. Sometimes, it’s not the large gestures that matter. In fact, sometimes, those matter the least. It's waking up early and taking your brother to school, and making sure you look presentable. It’s getting an overdue oil change, it’s clearing the drain out, it’s raking the leaves. It’s a million simple steps to making yourself feel needed for others, and it’s a good feeling. It makes you feel like you still exist, and that’s reassuring. That you need to exist for others to have someone to rely on. And, in a way that explains so much of human society. People have a need for purpose, so they start families, they provide a service people need. Once our own needs are met, we meet the needs for others and that’s what makes the big society machine work.

But modern society deals in meaningless and existentialism. There’s billions of us, and the feeling that if you in particular disappeared stops meaning nearly as much. In a small, tightly knit community, you feel like your presence is needed. You need to be around, because these people around you depend on you! You can’t go anywhere, and for many, that makes them happy. But in a monolith, you feel small. You feel replaceable. Like a mass produced item that can be found just a few meters behind on the assembly line. Everyone wants to be an anchor. Everyone wants to be able to exist for someone else because it gives them purpose. Do you exist if someone else doesn’t recognize you? If no one needs you, if you are dead to everyone, to where their thoughts pass you by, will you stop existing? No. No, you can recognize yourself. You still hear your own breathing, you can still feel, you can still feel the nausea overtake you when you feel so sick and can only feel the need to cut yourself open. You exist. But it’s so lonesome.

You can use others as a gauge of your life. To tell that you’re still around, you can use them as a track. Not that you need them to do things for you, you just need them to exist. Not as a person, but as a memory, as the fact that they still exist when you think of them. They are no longer a person but an ideal. An ideal to be placed on a pedestal and looked at for the rest of history. They are no longer an individual but a bust to be looked upon from the other side of a plexiglass box. A moment in time forever sealed. “You’re a milestone… a milestone beside a road. You explain imperturbably and for the rest of your life you’ll go on explaining that Melun is twenty-seven kilometers and Montargis is forty-two. That’s why I need you so much”

-Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea

Things have to continue to exist as set values that can ground us. The sky must be blue because that’s how it is. We can hold people to these same principles. If someone separates from you, they can exist not as a person or a changing variable but an ideal in your head that cannot move or change. They stop existing and become an it. A hopeless, static object that evokes a certain feeling from behind its seal. Nothing can change it until they return and perturb the milestone.

To answer the question I ask myself in the simplest manner, do you need others to rely on you or to recognize you to exist? I find the answer to be a sharp, loud denial. But it sure as hell doesn’t hurt, and to continue living in a world that so demeans your individuality despite crying from the rooftops on its importance, you must have things to ground you. Whether it to be the surroundings, the fact that 3 feet is roughly a yard, that Pearl Harbor was bombed on the 7th of December, 1941, that your old friend from Elementary school was so damn nice, and I can’t believe he was so up in arms about me calling it Ceylon! All of these things can stop being reflections of the world but rather truths. You will continue to exist even if the other animate objects of the world neglect to recognize you.

#nausea #philosophy #existentialism

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