Upon Finding a Reason

One way to tell the story of a person is developmentally, through the events that have shaped their life. And although it would be endlessly interesting to tell this story in an absolute sense to someone who was unfamiliar with the common tenets of human behavioral and social development, it is more reasonable to tell the story of the aberrations.

It is impossible to talk about developmental aberrations without talking about childhood, because our early development informs so much of our ingrained behavioral stock. In many cases, we will carry these behaviors with us our entire lives. And usually, the best we can hope to do with an unwanted behavior is to bury it beneath newer and more 'mature' behavioral patterns. Long and winding is the path that leads us 'home'. But which is the greater illusion?

I believe that mystery adds to our existence to a profound degree. Understanding through the existence of strong theoretical frameworks and the rigor of inferential deduction is inspiring and powerful, but it removes the mystery from the world. Mystery is the source of awe and wonder, and what do we pursue besides these things? Perhaps pleasure; enjoyment. How much of these feelings do the average person receive from the ego and not the id? Maybe today's learning machines can penetrate to the meaning of the universe through one-dimensional accomplishments. I grew bored with such games long ago, but perhaps I am in the minority to count existential awe as the greatest goal.

Buffett has said, "It's not greed that runs the world; it's envy." Perhaps therein is the answer. It is so much easier to envy things that appear to us to be objective: money, possessions. Much more difficult to envy a mental state or a belief system.

I have always remembered that the locus of reality for a living creature is the perception the creature possesses for the world around it, NOT the ultimate objective reality of the living world (is such a thing even knowable, except as a belief?). In other words, I have always believed in the absoluteness of subjectivity. The universe as we know it begins at conception, and ceases at death; it does not persist. To quote Huxley:

"We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."

Subjective insight has always strangely held lower currency, perhaps for the simple reason that it is non-transferable. I value it highly enough to devote myself to it, regardless. It has pained me for as long as I can remember that this conversation is necessarily solitary. Who would relate to me, and for what, anyways? What could another person offer me? What existential insight can ever release a person from isolation?

What do two people ever offer each other? Amusement, love, time, money? A relationship is a transaction, whether the currency is subjective or not. And it is surely easy to desire shallow things. Hell, if for no other reason than that they can be found. The true nature of existence is personal and unrelatable.

Let's call this an incomplete thought.