Suffering

My uncle said it was after his first divorce that he turned to philosophy. After being single for a while, I can see where he’s coming from. Though it’s rather vain to say that falling out of love has kindled my interest in philosophy, it does put in perspective where its place is in our lives.

It was the great Socrates who said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Couldn’t be truer. But, there is a time when philosophy enters our lives at an opportune moment – when we are not merely interested, but compelled to examine our thinking and way of doing things. For me, as well as my uncle, it was the moment when I suffered.

I won’t be one to bemoan my station, as everyone has had his or her share of difficulty this year. But I had expectations. At 25, I was gonna be somebody. I was going to have the girlfriend, the job, the career. And it didn’t happen. I thought I was going to marry my last girlfriend and have babies and the whole nine yards. And it was a great feeling. I was comfortable, satisfied – until things started to sour. I found myself envying other relationships, and was strongly dissatisfied the one I currently had. I reexamined my life and found that I was not in the right frame of mind for my current relationship, and decided I needed change. So, knowing that I was going to be lonely for a while, I broke it off.

Now, though this isn’t the best example of applying philosophical thought to my everyday life, it was the start. The months following were difficult. I had no confidence with women, and no job. And I suffered, and suffered some more. I began to cultivate interests in things I didn’t care about when I was comfortable. I turned to music, learned to cook a great steak, and further along, gained some confidence to talk to women (still working on that one). I had to ask myself what made me happy, and why I was doing the things I did. And though there ended up being more questions than there were answers, at least I was asking the questions.

It could be argued that philosophy’s primary goal is to justify suffering. Our great staples of thought – from religion to law – have been established to give some meaning to the imperfections in our world. We don’t want to die, but we have to. The same can be said of taxes, work, disease, cruelty done to us by others and so on. And while we can say that the burdens we take up are more easily weighed when we know there’s some meaning to their existence, we can say that their understanding allows for them to be overcome.

I think of all those days when I was comfortable, and the lack of thinking I did at the time. I wasn’t writing this blog, I wasn’t playing music, and certainly wasn’t asking myself why I was doing the things I did. And it was all because I didn’t suffer. What am I doing now? The same. Constant employment is still elusive, and women are plentiful, but still a mystery. And when I ask if there is meaning to any of my pursuits, if my suffering has meaning, I can only come to one conclusion: love.

My love for music, and its ability to bring people together. My love for film, and the way it can change peoples’ way of thinking. And my love for this fucking whacky existence we call life. For what is the point of examining anything if we don’t love it? I will never learn to love suffering. But at least I can love the ways by which I may alleviate it. 

The Vanity of Time

“And you are young and life is long

And there is time to kill today.

But then one day you find,

Ten years have got behind you –

No one told you when to run,

You missed the starting gun.”

 - Pink Floyd, Time

            When I first heard Dark side of The Moon, I was a little underwhelmed. People had always said it was one of the great albums – the experience it created was life changing. At the time it sounded good, but life changing was a bit of stretch, especially at the age of seventeen when life was just beginning.

            I’ve aged some, and find myself coming back to it more and more, its wisdom a little more concrete now that I’ve had the experience to understand it. Dark Side of The Moon is about life itself, from birth to death and everything in between. But the chief aspect of life Dark Side addresses is the thing that ties all this together: time.

            Time is something we know well yet we don’t know at all. We use it to plan meetings, decide how to organize our day. Beyond this, though, what function does time really serve?

            For me, time is a reminder. It’s the only thing that you don’t want allotted in large amounts, for the more of it you’ve spent, the less of it there is to use. I mean, if I had all the time in the world, why do anything? Why try to become a writer now when I could very well do it twenty, thirty years later? If I miss an appointment, I can make another one. But where’s the fun in that?

            The biggest reminder time gives us is our closeness to death. This has given me comfort and disdain, for death reminds us that nothing lasts forever. Love, money and friends all have an expiration date. That doesn’t mean only good things aren’t born to last. Poverty doesn’t last forever, neither does an unfair mortgage, or credit card bills. Any normalcy we have in our lives might be absent at any given moment, and the same goes for any hardship. If everything lasted forever, no one would take a loan, or default on their credit. That’s a long time to go without buying a television.

            But then you may say, “if everything is born to die, why take up anything?” Look at those hair metal bands from the eighties. Two to three years is plenty of time to snort enough coke off groupies to keep you satisfied for life – but there’s always more coke and more groupies, and we can’t help but want more of that. It’s human nature to amass things, including life itself.

            Ask yourself when the last time you appreciated taking a breath of air was. It’s easy to take it for granted. It’s always there, it will always be there, and as long as we have it, we can live and flourish and snort as much coke off as many groupies as we want. What if air was finite? If you knew, how would your day be different?

There’s a reason for this: any thing that has a set amount makes it valuable. When you realize how much time you have left, you begin to realize the crime of wasting it. Unlike air, time is something that is permanently gone. You’re only young once can similarly be said about being old. In the grand scheme of things, time makes every day valuable. Lest we forget, a day only happens once, and it should be something you’ll always want to remember.

Wisdom

The Merriam Webster definition(s) of wisdom are as follows:

a : accumulated philosophic or scientific learning : knowledge 

b : ability to discern inner qualities and relationships : insight

c : good sense : judgement

d : generally accepted belief 

2: a wise attitude, belief, or course of action

3: the teachings of the ancient wise men

While Merriam Webster is not the deepest partner in the world to discuss such a complicated term with, it does illustrate a particular misconception people carry about: it is possible to know what wisdom is without knowing exactly what it means to be wise.

Socrates made possibly the greatest statement on wisdom I can recall in The Apology, “the only thing I know is that I know nothing.” For those of you who haven’t read the five dialogues, Socrates was on trial for corrupting the local youth with his “knowledge.” The truth of the matter was, if his accusers had been more attuned to what he was saying, they would have found they were trying him for nothing (literally).

The beauty of Socrates was he didn’t tell students what to think but to simply ask WHY they thought the way they did.  In other words, Socrates perhaps accomplished the cardinal goal of philosophy: he didn’t instill knowledge in his students, but a love for it, and he said it eloquently to his accusers with this quote: “the only thing I know is that I know nothing.” (They still sentenced him to death. Go Greek justice.)

I would love to say this to everyone I met, but then I would constantly be out of a job, and no one would take me seriously. The unfortunate thing about the age we live in is we ask ourselves to make claims to wisdom. And who’s to say it’s such a terrible thing? I mean, in order to have credibility in your chosen field, you must invariably gain knowledge, and in gaining such knowledge you have gained wisdom, or, as Merriam Webster said, “a wise attitude.” But does that indeed make you wise?

I can very well tell you that I have wisdom when it comes to film editing. If you ask me why, I’ll say that I get paid for it. Not a very good claim, but something most people will buy (hardy har). Getting paid for a certain task simply means you possess a greater degree of knowledge than another “less qualified” person. If financial gain should be a gauge for wisdom, then Lady Gaga is the single wisest person on the earth when it comes to music. (God help us all if this is true.)

Even as I write this entry, I am unfortunately making a claim that I have something wise to tell you (presumably about wisdom). I can’t say what it is to be wise, for in so doing I would be claiming to be wise, which I am indeed not. I would, however, liken wisdom to another word people of our vast and learned world haven’t practiced enough: silence.

Silence is an amazing word, in that merely stating it destroys the meaning of its very existence. Wisdom is the very same, in that people who claim to have it do not. It’s like a director (like Kevin Smith) claiming to be an auteur. It is a quality one cannot claim, but is bestowed by others, just as only an outside observer of a particular scenario can say it is silent, for if one of the players were to make such a statement, they would be overstating the obvious and destroy the atmosphere of the scene.

Now note that throughout this entire entry I have managed to talk a lot about wisdom without saying what wisdom actually is.  And while I still won’t make any claims to such knowledge, I will ask: if we can’t claim to have it, nor define it (save for a brief discussion with Merriam Webster), then what the hell is the point of wisdom? It is indeed a great quality, and, in my vainer moments, something I wish I could be labeled with.

However, this, I think, is the most important thing about wisdom: while it is not immediately given or claimed, or easily defined, it something to be aspired to, like becoming a sensei, or auteur.  It is not the end, but the means to get there. For those who are truly “wise” were not said to be wise because they practiced and learned to gain such a title, but loved what they did. Like Socrates, they claimed to know nothing and gained everything.

So, what is it to be wise? I don’t know. If anyone tells me I am, I will respond with what I consider to be the wisest thing anyone has ever said, “the only thing I know is that I know nothing.” It’ll get me executed in a Greek court, and surely destroy any chances I have of getting a job, but it will be a good start to becoming like someone I consider to be wise. And if things don’t work out, I can always ask Lady Gaga what I did wrong. According to many sources, she’s one of the wisest people anyone knows . . .

Promises

I, and a great many people, live their lives based on promises. It's a promise that gets us through the longest hour; it's why we put up with bullshit from assholes we meet on a day to day basis. Even as I write this blog, I think about the screenplay I'm working on, and the promise that, if I have a good idea and execute it well enough, it will get made into a movie. And then I think about college, and everything before that. I went to high school, as boring and shitty as it was, with the promise that I could go to a good college. And I went to a good college with the promise I could be closer to getting a good job. And afterward, like a faithful servant, I waited for that promise to come to fruition. And I waited. And I waited . . .

If life were a lover, it would get laid a lot, but it would never have a lasting relationship (because it's so good at fucking people). But, thinking on it, it's those among us who make good promises but don't necessarily keep them who benefit the most. (Look at politicians if you want a good example.) So, what am I left with, at twenty five, the dream still elusive, the girl and job nowhere to be found? The truth of the matter is, I don't know. And I'm certainly not going to promise anything, but . . .

There is one promise that life holds for us: no promise we are made is ever binding. Doesn't make it much of a promise then, does it? But, the Merriam Webster truth is that nothing is truly given in this life. Commercials and institutions have done a good job making us believe this isn't true - but it is. Disappointment is as much a part of success as success is, just as a truth is not truthful if it doesn't exist with an equally good lie. Promises are there for us to believe in something. Even when a man goes and prays to God, he doesn't think, but knows, there is something better for him around the corner. And, if and when he does get there to find the promise is absent, at least he turned the corner.

And yet, there is still one thing that can be absolute: a promise you make to yourself. This is possibly the most difficult thing any of us can do. You'll get to see your credibility as a person, and what worth you take in yourself as a human being. Try it once, just once. Make it something easy. Say you're going to brush your teeth before bed - see how it makes you feel. It's something I haven't done enough of in my life, and have only started recently. And because its your word and no one else's, you know you can make it come true. I mean, if you can't put trust in yourself, then what can you put your trust in? Who knows? Maybe, unlike me, you'll get a good lay out of it . . .