It is my opinion that we, Humans, have lost the ability to think. By that I don't mean we are incapable of linking two and two together. There was a time when people thought of their lives, made stops to think them through and adjusted them. Philosophy is dead, people are connected with each other 24h/7 and are not willing to use philosophy. When sad, we text someone, hoping that will cheer us up. We don't allow sadness and melancholy in our lives anymore. Yet there is nothing wrong with an occasional sadness, putting everything and everyone aside and thinking about the reasons for this sadness can be quite useful and insightful.
For this reason, I have decided to reflect a bit on my life, I tried putting everything away and laying on the floor, silent, absorbed in my own thoughts. That was a terrible experience. The floor was cold, the carpet was itchy, the heating system was blowing in my face. I sat down and experienced similar results. That's when I realized in terror that I'm no better than those who I love criticizing so much. Resolved not to be like everyone else, I recalled that the best tool for focus is writing. Now writing by hand is great - I admire my own calligraphy and I take pleasure in it, but hand-written manuscripts are not lasting and reveal too much. Here, on the Internet, there are more chances of my written works being immortalized. Here I am anonymous. Here I am free. Or am I? For the sake of the anonymity of those whom I shall refer in the next paragraphs, I will refer to people who play a role in my life as capital letters.
After learning about Stoicism I was sure that it wasn't for me. I liked the Epicurean philosophy of life much better as it dictated to enjoy the little things and to be happy among friends and your surroundings. After an event with individual X that I thought I appreciated enough to share a bed with (never have I been so wrong) I realized that Epicurean philosophy has one big flaw. Since you allow yourself to care about your surroundings, if your surroundings suffer, you shall suffer with them. You'll suffer twice as much if you are incapable of helping your surroundings. And so one can imagine how heartbroken and miserable individual X must have been, and me among with her. It is only a few days later that I realized (after a philosophy class) that Stoicism would have prevented such a dreadful ending. In fact, were I to have adopted the Stoic view of life, I wouldn't have felt a thing. The Stoics say that any negative thought or even should be greeted with the good old ''So what?''. You broke her heart? So what? However, I cannot fully approve of the Stoic view of life. The problem with that is the concept of Fate. In order to be able to say ''So What'' to the most unfortunate events, one must first think that these events were meant to happen - by God or series of coincidences. I am not yet ready to admit that I'm not in control of my life. Another approach, one that is quite... dark, is similar to the ''Dark Side'' presented in ''Star Wars'' movies. I could adopt a Hedonistic view of life. That is, to live and seek personal pleasure and satisfaction and to avoid confrontation and pain. If I was completely submerged in such a philosophy of life, I would have told her to leave. The moment I realized I didn't want X to be in my house. I would also have broken-off all contact with her, as that would be, I have to admit the way to remove this unnecessary pain in life. Perhaps that would have been better than what I did. I wasn't cold enough, I should have burned all the bridges. Now it's too late... or is it? Among with this Dark Side ideology comes plenty of fears. What if I don't have anyone else to talk to? What if something happens to her and that is blamed on me? What if she tells all my friends how cold-hearted I am and they all end up hating me? Doing all of this pain/pleasure calculus has brought me back to Epicurean philosophy. Since I'm being torn apart between these two philosophies, I will combine them. From the Epicurean philosophy I will take the need for friendship, the enjoyment of the small things and the seek for pleasure. From Stoicism, I will take the coldness when dealing with unpleasant events. In fact, I won't deal with them anymore. It is decided, when dealing with something that doesn't please me at all, I will leave or make it (him/her) leave, thus avoiding the problem. No longer will I feel obliged to see/invite individuals who are not pleasant to me.
Being done with individual X, let's move on to individual Y. Y is a person that I suspect has an eye on me. She somewhat seeks out my company and writes me messages from time to time. Yet there are a few things that are making me hesitate and feel uncomfortable. First of all, I do not appreciate her friends. They have a bad influence on her which make her behave less like a lady. They practice activities such as smoking and getting intoxicated that are simply disgusting to my gentle soul. It's a shame really, because Y is a smart girl full of potential. Another thing that is bothering me is that individuals A, B, E and F know about this girl's interests (me). They often like to point that out and make fun of her for not being very discrete about her whole thing. I made the mistake of laughing the first time and now it's too late to change anything. If I do get interested in Y, my prediction is a fair amount of mocking and a difficult relationship because of very different interests. What am I saying, all of my relationships were difficult because of different interests. They all ended the same way too. I don't want to hurt her too, so I'll be keeping my distances for now.
That being said, I'm clearly turning into a Sith. Their ideology (in red) is starting to make sense...
For this reason, I have decided to reflect a bit on my life, I tried putting everything away and laying on the floor, silent, absorbed in my own thoughts. That was a terrible experience. The floor was cold, the carpet was itchy, the heating system was blowing in my face. I sat down and experienced similar results. That's when I realized in terror that I'm no better than those who I love criticizing so much. Resolved not to be like everyone else, I recalled that the best tool for focus is writing. Now writing by hand is great - I admire my own calligraphy and I take pleasure in it, but hand-written manuscripts are not lasting and reveal too much. Here, on the Internet, there are more chances of my written works being immortalized. Here I am anonymous. Here I am free. Or am I? For the sake of the anonymity of those whom I shall refer in the next paragraphs, I will refer to people who play a role in my life as capital letters.
After learning about Stoicism I was sure that it wasn't for me. I liked the Epicurean philosophy of life much better as it dictated to enjoy the little things and to be happy among friends and your surroundings. After an event with individual X that I thought I appreciated enough to share a bed with (never have I been so wrong) I realized that Epicurean philosophy has one big flaw. Since you allow yourself to care about your surroundings, if your surroundings suffer, you shall suffer with them. You'll suffer twice as much if you are incapable of helping your surroundings. And so one can imagine how heartbroken and miserable individual X must have been, and me among with her. It is only a few days later that I realized (after a philosophy class) that Stoicism would have prevented such a dreadful ending. In fact, were I to have adopted the Stoic view of life, I wouldn't have felt a thing. The Stoics say that any negative thought or even should be greeted with the good old ''So what?''. You broke her heart? So what? However, I cannot fully approve of the Stoic view of life. The problem with that is the concept of Fate. In order to be able to say ''So What'' to the most unfortunate events, one must first think that these events were meant to happen - by God or series of coincidences. I am not yet ready to admit that I'm not in control of my life. Another approach, one that is quite... dark, is similar to the ''Dark Side'' presented in ''Star Wars'' movies. I could adopt a Hedonistic view of life. That is, to live and seek personal pleasure and satisfaction and to avoid confrontation and pain. If I was completely submerged in such a philosophy of life, I would have told her to leave. The moment I realized I didn't want X to be in my house. I would also have broken-off all contact with her, as that would be, I have to admit the way to remove this unnecessary pain in life. Perhaps that would have been better than what I did. I wasn't cold enough, I should have burned all the bridges. Now it's too late... or is it? Among with this Dark Side ideology comes plenty of fears. What if I don't have anyone else to talk to? What if something happens to her and that is blamed on me? What if she tells all my friends how cold-hearted I am and they all end up hating me? Doing all of this pain/pleasure calculus has brought me back to Epicurean philosophy. Since I'm being torn apart between these two philosophies, I will combine them. From the Epicurean philosophy I will take the need for friendship, the enjoyment of the small things and the seek for pleasure. From Stoicism, I will take the coldness when dealing with unpleasant events. In fact, I won't deal with them anymore. It is decided, when dealing with something that doesn't please me at all, I will leave or make it (him/her) leave, thus avoiding the problem. No longer will I feel obliged to see/invite individuals who are not pleasant to me.
Being done with individual X, let's move on to individual Y. Y is a person that I suspect has an eye on me. She somewhat seeks out my company and writes me messages from time to time. Yet there are a few things that are making me hesitate and feel uncomfortable. First of all, I do not appreciate her friends. They have a bad influence on her which make her behave less like a lady. They practice activities such as smoking and getting intoxicated that are simply disgusting to my gentle soul. It's a shame really, because Y is a smart girl full of potential. Another thing that is bothering me is that individuals A, B, E and F know about this girl's interests (me). They often like to point that out and make fun of her for not being very discrete about her whole thing. I made the mistake of laughing the first time and now it's too late to change anything. If I do get interested in Y, my prediction is a fair amount of mocking and a difficult relationship because of very different interests. What am I saying, all of my relationships were difficult because of different interests. They all ended the same way too. I don't want to hurt her too, so I'll be keeping my distances for now.
That being said, I'm clearly turning into a Sith. Their ideology (in red) is starting to make sense...
For now, I've only completed the understanding of the first clause. There will never be peace within me, there is only a growing passion for the things I like and the people I love. It has not yet played to my advantage.
