Sunday, August 13, 2006

The Necessity of Hedonism

Ok, since a certain Erythrocyte seems to be getting bored out here, and no one else has anything to say, and since the same Erythrocyte made me a member here, I thought I'd post something, just to break the silence. So this is my philosophy of life (forgive my pompous bullshittyness):

There are moments when it all feels gray. When you can't tell where dreaming ends and waking begins. Life feels like a hazy swirl of certain uncertainty, and one's existence is like the lonely buzzing of a fly, in the languid heat of summer. When the faces in the crowd are all the same, and you don't know your place in the world. When hours flow like the water in a river, steadily away, into the dark horizon of meaninglessness.

And you see it in the flickering light of the candle, in the endless swirling of rainclouds outside the window, in the incoherant babble of words written in books. The truth staring you in the face- YOU DON'T EXIST. The fact is, that right now, if I ceased to exist, it would change nothing. The sun would still rise, the world would still turn and the mindless rabble that calls itself humanity would still eat, sleep, and procreate like rabbits. Who am I? NO-ONE. How many lives would I change, by dissapearing forever? NONE. A few would know, fewer would care. Ten years later, my best friend will be married with children nonetheless. So I came to ask myself, "Do I really exist, or is my existence merely a function of my mind, which refuses to accept the grim truth, and drowns itself in a deluge of self-satisfying imagery. ."

People die everyday. Their mortal remains are washed into the Ganges. The particles that were once a part of their living, breathing bodies, sink down to the bottom of the sea. How much do their deaths change? Their loved ones' lives goes on.. they, laugh and joke and go back to life as all the living do..People say that great men change lives, but I ask, will the grand-children of those people whose 'lives were changed' even know that the great life-changer even existed?

The ripples of an indivigual's existence fade away into the pool of time. We are infinitessimally insignificant to the course of time. If time is infinitely long, is it not also true that any single moment in time is infinitely small?

So what then is the meaning of it all? If we don't make a damn difference to the world, why exist at all? And I answer myself- WE DO EXIST, BUT ONLY IN OURSELVES. All that matters is one thing- Oneself. Life is as temporary as a drop of water in the Sahara, so the only purpose I can see in life is pleasure. Dont bother with fame, don't bother with glory and the promise of being eternally remembered. Nothing is eternal except eternity itself. So fill your life. Fill it with as much joy as can be squeezed into the time your given. Who gives a flying rat's ass about being remembered in the minds of other men; if we are unable to reap the benefits. Man's existence is defined by himself, and there is absolutely nothing beyond the self. Solipsistic as I may sound, and selfish as this may seem, revel in yourself- 'coz nothing else matters'.. Time is short, as Edgar Allen Poe says:-

"Grains of the golden sand,
How few yet how they creep,
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep! While I weep!
Oh God, can I not grasp,
Them with a tighter clasp?
Oh God! Can I not save,
One from the piteous wave?"


So we must live for pleasure, because beyond that, and beyond oneself- is NOTHING.

Ps: I hope this kind of personal and not-too-serious ranting is allowed here? If not, please inform me, authorities.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't agree with this "People say that great men change lives, but I ask, will the grand-children of those people whose 'lives were changed' even know that the great life-changer even existed?" and the last paragraph justifying hedonism. Everything else is similar to my philosophy.


PS. I don't think the Blab is meant to be serious.

Elendil said...

Hmmm.. Let me put it this way.. even if the grandchildren of the people whose lives were changed DO know about the life changer, what the point? The guy's dead anyway.. How does it matter if someone is remembered for generations? The person will not be alive for centuries to feel good about his fame.

I agree, the last bit may be a little excessive.

Glad to know it's ok to put this up. I'm a little new.

Yours ectoplasmically,
Elendil

Unknown said...

I'm not bored, I'm net deprived :(
My router tanked. I think my motherboard has been microfried as well. am logging from the poor old laptop.
Tell me, people, why is it the young who are forever going on about death? Is this a kind of metaphysical playing with fire? until you get burned, that is?

Elendil said...

I sympathize. My old PC was a peice of junk. Got a new laptop though.

I have a vendetta against death and this was written to make some sense of it, at a time when anger was all I felt. Guess I was immature. Or maybe I'm just deluding myself now. Maybe we're all on the proverbial highway to hell, we're just blissfully unaware.

Rapid I Movement said...

@ son of Amandil - liked the bit on Time. There was this nice little one in "I'll remember you" where the Oracle tells Angel - "I like time. There's so little and so much of it".

@ Eryth - oh, death is always the "in"-thing. Looked at from a different angle, if you're not living on the edge (of life and death, ie), you're taking up too fucking much of space.

Elendil said...

Rapid: Aha! A fellow escapist and hedonist. Welcome aboard mate! Checked out your Blog. You seem to agree with my philosophy. Ps: What Oracle and what Angel are ya talking about?

Anonymous said...

@rbc: so that's why ur blog hasn't seen much of you.