Tag: philosophy

a monstrous and comic miming

It was as though the scene through which I had just lived had been a monstrous and comic miming for ends I could not conceive and for an audience I could not see but which I knew was leering from the shadow.

Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men

How do you reintroduce yourself to yourself after losing her for some time? This is what I have been wondering nonstop for the past three days. I am using everything I have to get back to her. I will push and I will defy whatever stupid bad cognitive habits I have fallen into until I am done with this monstrous and comic miming of this girl who is unhappy, bitter, and mean.

This moment is my worst fear, I am this awful imposter who cannot possibly deserve happiness with the love of my life because I am a ruiner. I am a saboteur. I can’t feel my heartbeat any more and I think my lungs have dived into my colon. I deserve it, because I have wrecked it. I didn’t mean to. I don’t know how this happened. My throat is constricting in on itself like a boa, like a big fat snake, like me.

I have almost everything I could want, and I am on the path to attainment. I did not work this hard just to inflict misery on myself and others. I will not do it any longer. I regret every single time I was offended, offensive, obtuse. But I can’t go back, and I never will be able to.

I have made myself into a big fat crybaby, and now I am putting her on a diet and chucking her into the sun to hang up and dry. The amount of disgust I feel is immeasurable. But when we make a mess, we clean it up.

All I can do is be better today, and be better tomorrow, and put myself fully in this moment. I will not make problems for myself any longer. I am capable of deciding and choosing to be happy, and to make others happy, and to create a sunbeam where there was once a mold.

Why does it seem so easy to become a useless, cynical being? If the opposite is to be helpful and loving, then should it not take the same amount of effort to swing from one pendulum to the other? I have decided to make it easy. It is more natural to smile than to frown, it takes the same amount of effort to make yourself awful than to be magnificent. If I put all this wasted effort into only good, I know I can turn this ship around and set myself back on the path.

I felt the currents move. The grains of sand whispered against each other. His wings were lifting. The darkness around us shimmered with clouds of his gilded blood. Beneath my feet were the bones of a thousand years. I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer.

Then, child, make another.

Madeline Miller, Circe

passionately, not reasonably

Do you really love me? Much?

Passionately, not reasonably?

Virginia Woolf, letter to Vita Sackville-West
December 29, 1928

I have been working so hard to better myself this year, in just about every way. I am working toward things I don’t want to jinx by writing out.

I’m trying to stay in the present as much as possible and not focus too much on outcomes. I want to enjoy the things that are good now, and not be impatient. I am happy, now.

I am not yet where I want to be, and I believe by the end of July I will be. I think in 6 weeks I will be much better than I am now. In 9 weeks I will be even better.

By the time I’m 24 I think my life will be a lot different, with more to balance. But more is good, it means my life is fuller.

I know it because I’m working so hard towards it all. It’s inevitable, unless something that I can’t plan against happens. If you put in the work you will get the reward, and I refuse to listen to people who say otherwise.

It is both passionate and reasonable to chase after everything I want and earn it all and love the moments in between the beginning and the goal.

warming my hands on bridges I’ve burnt, and why that’s okay according to Aristotle

I lost a couple friends this past year and I didn’t give a shit.

And I thought,
Am I sad enough about this?

I thought,
Did I really care about those friendships or did I waste my time on people who I shouldn’t have for too long?

I thought,
Am I being heartless?

I thought,
Will people think I’m a bad friend for being honest about not caring that much?

Then I remembered one of my favorite philosophy classes from college about relationships, and how different philosophers have defined them.

Aristotle said there are three types of friendships: one based on utility, one based on pleasure, and one on mutual appreciation of each other’s values.

A friendship based on utility is basically a relationship that lasts as long as you’re both getting something out of it. Like a transaction. Sort of like a coworker who you’re only work friends with for as long as you’re at that job. Once you leave, you don’t see them again and they don’t see you again but you mutually benefitted from being positive to each other while you were at work. Aristotle said this is popular with older people.

A friendship based on pleasure is more emotional and supposed to usually be the shortest relationship. You stay friends for as long as you both enjoy the same thing, and you break up as soon as one person doesn’t.

Aristotle said the pleasure friendship is more common between younger people because as we grow we tend to change our interests and values, so we grow out of pleasure friendships quicker than the other types.

The third type of friendship is based on virtues, and it has the strongest connections and lasts the longest. The best friendships should be based on appreciation of character — not on a transactional (utility or pleasure) value — and shape our lives for the better.

I think this really explains why I wasn’t sad about the friends that I lost this year.

One was a girl who I went out drinking with and talked about guys we were dating. We would meet up and both hop on dating apps and squeal about who we had matched with, who we’d met, and who we were dating for a while, but once I stopped caring about those things we ended up really not having anything else in common. We didn’t even like the same music or shows. Our friendship was a pleasure transaction, and as soon as I stopped using dating apps we stopped being friends.

I ended up not missing her at all as soon as we stopped being friends because she didn’t really add anything else to my life. Our values weren’t the same at all: we couldn’t relate about our jobs, our education level was different, and we had different political views. The death of our friendship was short-lived and unmourned. I actually felt better knowing I didn’t have to talk to her again, because I didn’t want to talk about the same things we used to.

Aristotle said that when you have a friendship based on appreciating each other’s values, the other two types of friendship naturally combine into it, too. Thing of your diehard BFFs that you’ll drive to the airport, invite over to watch 90 Day Fiancé, and help out during a hard time. They’re beneficial and pleasurable, and you also respect and care for them.

I’m extremely thankful for all of my top tier friends and I’m cool with warming my hands on the bridges I’ve burned with my limited time only buddies.