Category Archives: masochism

the unbearable lightness of being

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The lightness of being means accepting that life is meaningless.

Life becomes unbearable when accepting that life is meaningless becomes impossible. We tend to want our actions to have meaning. This lightness of being is instead a painfully heavy weight carried around day in and day out.

Milan Kundera would have us believe that we have one life to live and that in the end it means nothing. Does this give us carte blanche to do whatever we want, or does it create an unbearable encumbrance to all our decisions and choices?

Some acts have more consequence than others, and some track throughout our short history. Not only will we cease to exist at some point, but the passing of time will render our past actions meaningless.

But what of the ancient idea that time is circular? Perhaps our destiny is to repeat this life over and over for infinity. Eternal return is not a new idea.

Which is worse?  This current life being the only chance you have and that once it’s over none of it mattered, or that each choice you make in this life repeats over and over?

Sound and fury

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What is it about birthdays that affect us so greatly? It’s just another day. We grow one day older, one hour older, one second older… every moment. A birthday is just another moment. And yet, it is significant because it is a moment – the same day of the year from our date of breathing our first breath of air on this planet.

Each year some of us celebrate this day. We invite friends over, drink some drinks, eat some eats, listen to music, jabber at each other. It’s a party.

And we celebrate what? That we unexpectedly made it this far? That our life to this point is satisfactory? Are these festivities a vain attempt to deny the march of time into the vale of years? Do we create distractions in order to postpone the wearying self-reflection that these time-markers all too often conjure?

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow….

sisyphus

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Here is the question du jour:

You are in a situation you can’t win. It is not intolerable, but it is definitely not functional. You have small victories, but each day is more of a sisyphusian effort than any kind of actual forward motion.

I generally live my life where quality of life is most important. Money comes and goes but you can’t get time back.

I am learning how to play the game – and I honestly don’t know if that is a good thing or not. You know what game I’m talking about: the one called Cover Your Ass. You kind of have to kill something in yourself to play this game because some of it involves throwing other people under the bus to save your self.  I greatly dislike that.

Do you continue to CYA because you need to make a living, but in the meantime it whittles away some core part of your self? Or do you move on and eat beans and rice for an indefinite period of time but keep your self-respect in tact?

There is survival of the fittest and that isn’t just for lions and tigers and bears. We are always compromising and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but how much compromise is healthy?