The Existential Tug-of-War

3.21.18 - Various Locations ~ 1:41 PM -9:10 PM MT

            I just got out of TIPS training and despite the fact that the trainer was nice, I still think that the whole thing is a racket.  That being said, it was nice to clarify the accepted Colorado truths of hospitality: that you CAN serve someone without an ID and that the police CAN lie to you to entrap you.  The process was pretty painless on the whole.

            I followed it up with fries and a beer at Fate Brewing (highly recommend!) and proceeded to run five miles and climb for an hour at Earth Treks—my stomach felt somewhere between a washing machine and a college party—nonetheless, I powered through and managed to enjoy my calorie-burning.    

            I came home to eat the leftover Blue Pan Detroit-style-pizza (I say goddamn!) and watched a leaked video of Buffalo Bills wide receiver Zay Jones who was naked, trying to jump out of a 30th floor window.  

            Here comes the cliché, “athletes and celebrities are people too” that everyone says in unison when things like his happen. It’s sad that things have to come to this for us to remember the humanity of eachother.  I think the core takeaway of what happened with Zay is that mental health is not to be taken lightly, and that we have to be careful choosing the lens in which we see the world.  Who knows the way Zay has been looking through the glass but it’s clear that he’s hit a critical breaking point.  This is just a reminder that our mental health should always come first because the human mind is too powerful to be taken lightly.

            We don’t even know the extent of the capability of our brains yet we press forward with technology as if we can handle the perilous unknown that we are creating.  There will always be nostalgia for a simpler time but the time we find ourselves in is scarily precarious.  Our psyches are bombarded with information, temptation, and subversion almost every second of every day and we’re supposed to stay sane, confident, and working towards a worthy goal in life.  Not to mention that the information we’re being fed is intelligently crafted to manipulate or affect our very sensitive psyches.  Thus, it’s not a mystery when public figures meltdowns like this—the pressure for the average 21st century individual is enough—without the eyes of the world judging you 24/7.

            For most of us in the western world we lead relatively simple lives even though we long for more. Part of it is our culture of rampant consumerism and entertainment, but the other is that the human mind seems to long for acceptance, notoriety, and accolade.  We go to school, we find a job, and we hopefully find a partner and start a family and in between all of it time passes us by.  We wind up climbing into our death beds wondering where the time went watching the reel of our regrets on repeat.  I think that the human mind is confused, caught somewhere between the comfort of the simple and the ambition for innovation, getting yanked back and forth day-in-and-day-out in some sort of existential tug-of-war. 

                                              At least that’s how I feel sometimes.

            That’s why I focus on happiness in the now, assuring that Heather and I hash out our inner workings to the best of our abilities.  Our minds can be scary places and talking to others makes our own feel less alone.  Sharing intimate stories and thoughts reveals to the world that we are alike even though our insecurities tell us that we aren't.  Sometimes we need to silence the thoughts in our heads to let the words come from our lips to make us remember that we all suffer and that misery loves company. 

            Pain is inevitable in life, but the way we process and react to it, whether we share it or lock it up can make all the difference.  The lens in which we choose to view the world determines the reality before our eyes; let it be tinted with the courage to share the pain that stirs inside you: first for the benefit of yourself; and second for the benefit of mankind. 

"We Are What We Repeatedly Do"

2.25.18 - Brittany’s House off Independence ~ 9:46 AM MT

            Coming back from an Internet black hole, 30 minutes later, I’m finally putting some work in.  Its really hard for me to focus when there is so much content to consume, making it really easy to divert my attention to passive activities.  I’m grateful to have Brittany and Mike’s house to take refuge, although I wish their fireplace worked. 

            The thought that’s been bumping around my head is to unify all that I’ve been thinking about since studying philosophy in a non-fiction work about living a meaningful life in the 21st century.  My immediate response to my own thought is: who are you to say how to live a meaningful life?  To which I respond, I studied philosophy, Aristotle intensively, and have meaningful interactions day-in-and-day-out.  If you are what you consistently do, then what does that make the average American?  A consumer: products, food, entertainment--that is what our culture is known for. 

            I used to think about dismantling the ideology of businesses, how ethics should be enforced onto ad agencies and mega-corporations because it’s not “right” to manipulate the psyches of the masses to make a quick buck.  A realization on that idea is that the inertia behind the consumerist exploitation of the American population is so great and monolithic that it’d be like an ant standing in front of a tank rather than a person in Tiannamen square.  A disruption of the system through bureaucratic means not only sounds like an unconquerable uphill battle, but an exercise in futility.

            Instead, focusing on the tenet of Aristotle, you are what you constantly do, in order to have a meaningful life you need to make meaningful decisions.  You need to exercise discipline in your consummatory choices, recognizing the need for pain, for silence, for the higher cost of quality products to live a more meaningful life.  Unless you’re willing to live a meaningless, surface-level life, in which case that’s fine for you to Snapchat your days away, Facebooking until the screen on your phone burns your retinas.

            Aristotle’s tenet, then, is a phrase meaning that life is a pattern of decision-making.  It doesn’t need to be framed in good or bad decisions, but rather healthy or unhealthy ones.  We do not need to invoke a 21st century code of morality to live better lives, all we need is some science.