Nothing Exists

I always wondered why I act in such a manic way. Constantly jumping topics, adding cynical remarks, saying stupid things, interjecting anything off the wall, ferociously arguing politics, and mediating these spurts of activity with long silent listening sessions. There is no particular reason why I act the way that I do, or at least I thought.

I recently came to the realization that nothing exists. It started with one of Zeno's paradoxes: the one that shows that movement is impossible. Here goes: To get from point a to a second point, point b, an object has to get to point c, where point c is half way in between point a and point b. But to get to point c, one has to get to point d, which is half way in between point a and point c. And so on and so on to infinity. It follows that for anything to move, it has to cross an infinite amount of points in space. This is impossible, therefore nothing is able to move. That's messed up.

But what does that mean? It means that what we can perceive is an illusion. I let that one stew for awhile. Then I read the end of Plato's dialogue, the Parmenides. It is an argument that concludes with the statement that "if the one is not, nothing is." From the best I can tell, the argument has no flaws. This is odd, it means if everything is not ultimately one thing without differentiation, then nothing exists. Incidentally, everything being one thing is impossible, at least in my view.

Let's come at it in another way, For the materialist, I suppose I'm still a materialist in some sense, all that exists is matter, energy, and nothingness. That seems right, there is absolutely no real proof for immaterial entities except nothingness itself. But, what is matter? It's frozen energy. What is the big bang? A lot of energy moving from a massive and un-caused explosion of space and time. All that really exists, then, is energy: a giant mistake of cosmic imbalance. The universe is a big mistake, it's a negatively charged void. Nothing, ultimately, exists.

But what does this mean for us? We don't exist, nothing that we know as our loved ones exist, nothing we know exists. Is that disturbing? I used to think so, but I've come to reject that conclusion. What is more special than being able to live an illusion that is real? The reason that everything seems the way it is is by an un-caused mistake. That's quite special, in fact, miraculous one might say. A hell of a lot more miraculous than being God's creation. God can kill us at any moment, and create and destroy anything God wants. How boring.

I now know why I act the way I do: I'm afraid if I stop acting the way I do, people will realize that there is nothing to me, that I don't exist. I think I've finally come to accept that conclusion, that I don't exist. What's so wrong with it, to be part of a really messy, imbalanced miracle? Nothing, I think. So here I am, in print on a blog, and I don't exist. That's pretty cool.

Until next time,
Josh

What are you holding out for?

There's always stuff I really want to do, and I almost never do anything.

I've probably always been this way, but I really started to notice it towards the end of the summer and now at the beginning of the semester as I long for all the free time I wasted.  Ever the optimist, I make these monumental plans with my friends going into every summer break and they all nod and humor me but I get the feeling they know better anymore.  

We almost never do anything.

I've got the time, and the resources, but lately I've been struggling to stray from the path of least resistance.  I get into these routines, and I just won't stray from them for anything that takes any amount of work.  Over the summer I really wanted to go out into the woods I used to roam when I was a kid with one of my oldest friends, but since it was a couple degrees warmer than we would've liked we stayed in and played Call of Duty for what would be one of many times.  

It's been a really shitty day in the way of weather up here, and I can sit down and play all the duty I want now, but I just don't feel like it.  The way I play that game has told me a lot about the way I've been living; I never really get hyped up about playing it or get attached to it, but damn it makes for a decent way to pass an hour.  Man do those wasted hours add up though.  I have friends who have played so much COD that their playtime is measured in weeks.  WEEKS.  Now, I'm not quite that bad, but it's still disturbing to think I've probably wasted the equivalent of a few days of my life on an activity I'm not passionate about, I'm not interested in half the time, and I'm not required to do.  

I've spent the last year watching my friends graduate, move away, get engaged, switch schools, and just on a whole take massive steps towards the rest of their lives.  I'm running out of time with a lot of them; our days as college kids with a world of possibilities are coming to an end and we're all going to have to get real jobs and have real responsibilities awfully soon, so I've really gotta get my ass off the couch and start seeing the people I love and will miss.  

What are you holding out for?  What's always in the way?  If you don't have a damn good answer to either of those questions (I know I don't), I'd advise rethinking how you spend your time.  So to those of you who have been a part of one of my crazy half-brained plans that never panned out, be warned.  The time has come to write and record that song together, to beat that old video game together, to take that hike in the woods together, to toss a frisbee around together, or to just catch the fuck up finally.  I hope I'll be seeing you all relatively soon, and if I don't, I'll be sure it's not for lack of my effort.  

-Kevin

Sleeping At The Wheel

Click & Listen :)

I'm at a real weird place in my life.

Through high school, I knew I was going to college.  I didn't know where until the second I decided, but I knew I'd be dorming in the fall of 2010.  My first two years of college I floated between majors, constantly telling myself I had time to make up my mind about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  There was no pressure to make a decision, so I just spent the time dabbling in different subjects and knocking out gen eds because hey, I had more than half my college career ahead of me.

And then I didn't.  Seemingly all at once, I went from being a freshman taking in everything about the college atmosphere to being a burned out upperclassman panicking about the future at every turn.  Suddenly every hour I spend enjoying the company of my friends here is an hour I'm wasting, an hour I should spend figuring out where the hell I'm going.  I spent this past weekend foregoing things I would've liked to have done in favor of staring at my computer trying to make sense of all the options in front of me, and I managed to determine that beauty school and the WNBA probably aren't realistic destinations for me.  Beyond the internet, the only advice I can seem to get from advisers and people of the sort is to take my time and wait until I stumble on a class or a subject that really interests me and ride that out.  They always advocate patience, but my extra years of tuition would help to pay their salaries so it's no wonder they see no problem with me hanging around.   I've come to the conclusion that it's time to just take a stab at getting it right on my own, and if the world kicks me in the nuts when I get out there then so be it.

The song I linked above is one of the more beautiful songs I've heard recently, although I may be biased since I'm a total MB20 fanboy.  I listened to it for the first time yesterday and was struck by how beautifully the lyrics articulate exactly how I'm feeling.  I've been sleeping at the wheel for as long as I can remember; all of my years of schooling I've done nothing but what I'm told academically, and even my extracurriculars were more a result of my desire to spend time with the people in them than my own interest in them.  Certainly the song applies to my romantic life as well, but I won't put any of you to sleep with that here; the point is that autopilot just seems to be my nature.  But no more.

Come on, come on, I can be saved.  I'm done letting people tell me how to act, how to feel, how to live the rest of my life.  It's time I take it by the horns and save myself, so that whether I lead a life I love or one I have to tweak to make it suit me, I can never kick myself for letting someone else hold the credit for what I come to accomplish.  My hands are full but my life is not, and it's time that changes.  I won't spend the rest of my time busying myself all the ways other people say I should with no idea what I'm fighting for; every day is a fresh start, and tomorrow's new beginning for me is going to be a new commitment to self fulfillment and hopefully a forgotten concern regarding what other people want for me.

As always, thanks for reading, and please comment with thoughts on the matter if you have any!  I'm sure I'm not the only one having a mid-college crisis in these parts.

-Kevin