If you have to ask
I have to ask. I always have to ask. And what is the question?
What is the point?
The great question of philosophy, subtly re-phrased: what is the point of life? It’s just a way of asking, What should I do? What is important? How do I decide? Once I’ve decided, how do I respond? What are my options? Which option is best?
Of course there’s no certain answer. Of course the answers are subjective, and relative, and temporary. But still. The questions are constantly coming up. Every time we wake up in the morning. Every time we get home from work. Every time we have a choice, we must decide which option to take. Maybe it doesn’t matter, by your estimation, but it matters to me. The act of choosing is the result of a thought process, either impulsive and brief or lengthy and considered.
Everything starts with an impulse, but that doesn’t mean that we have to act on that impulse directly. The rational mind takes that impulse and wonders about it. Give in to it? Repress it? Sublimate it? Or perhaps the impulse is not simply to act, but is merely a memory, or a desire, or an emotion. Not every emotion immediately suggests an action.
People like to talk to me about happiness. They are happy, or say that they are, or that they want to be happy. They want to know if I’m happy, and if not, why not. At least, they want me to say that I’m happy, whether I am or not. They think that I should be happy, and that I should want to be happy. But I don’t want to be happy, not directly, not as an end in itself. Chasing after happiness is a fool’s errand. I do not wish to pursue a life dedicated to happiness, let alone pleasure, and similarly I do not wish to create a life based upon avoiding unhappiness or pain. Only animals and cowards act out of fear of pain or desire for pleasure. Moreover, it is a pointless exercise.
Pain and pleasure are by-products of living, not the purpose (or anti-purpose) of it. We must strive not to be happy, but to be effective, and to be effective, we must be moral. To be moral, we must know what we value, and behave in ways which promote what we value. There is no other means by which to successfully determine the rightness of our actions except morality, and ethics. Instinct, impulse and intuition cannot hope to do it. It is impossible. Although, I suppose if all you value is your own feelings, then, by all means, go to it. But I don’t know that many psychopaths, personally.
Besides, if all you want is to be happy, take heroin. Problem solved. But how many people do you know who think heroin is the answer? It feels better than anything, reportedly. Personally, I think it would get pretty monotonous. But I get bored easily. I need variety, to some extent. But, again, those are just feelings, and they are not the point. Feelings are guides to how to live, and no more.
Philosophy, including logic and science, provide us with tools to discern facts the outside world; what about facts about the “inside” world?
Feelings tell us what we value, what we like and dislike, but they only work in the moment, and even then, they are unreliable. They are even less useful in predicting what we will care about in the future.
Only our reason can discern that, through constant observation and comparison and careful consideration. Our wants, in facts, are themselves interpretations of our feelings. Most people forget that. You aren’t born knowing how to satisfy your longings. You learn ways, and you internalize them until they are automatic, but have you ever had those moments when you did not know what you needed to satisfy those internal disturbances in your equilibrium?
In fact, those moments probably occur more often than you realize, only they are so brief that you forget them, as you quickly defer to the first solution which presents itself in your imagination. And you write off your continuing, gnawing satisfaction as a mood thing, and forget about it. But that is the wrong way to respond. Those moments reveal something incredibly important. But you may not like to think that you don’t know what you want. You might not like the sense of uncertainty.
What do we want, as individuals? For ourselves?
We want things, but we also want abstract assurances, even certainties, about the world and the things in the world which affect the things inside of us. Moreover, we want protection for those things in the world, protection from the things in the world which threaten them, predominantly other people: our enemies. Our enemies are the people who want things which threaten the things which we value. Self-evident?
What do want for other people? Isn’t that just as important to a socialized, civilized, enlightened person? Especially, for those who come after you. For those whom you leave behind when you die. We want only, perhaps, to manipulate others to be like us. We want only to survive, to be immortal, in any way that we can. Children of the body and the mind. Children of the spirit, of the heart. Children of the soul. Not that I can tell you want spirit or soul mean. I don’t believe in them, literally.
How do you imagine yourself, in your relationships? What social role defines you? Individual, man or woman against the hostile world, struggling against the oppression of a world that only wants to put you down and make you conform? A lover, one of two, distinct together? Are you a part of a family: mother, father, child, spouse? Genetic or other similarity binding you together in your imagination? Perhaps you identify with your company, or as a member of a profession, performing your role in the economy, or a citizen, a part of a country or other political entity. Are you one of those rare people who sees yourself as a person, one in six billion lives. Where does your imagination give out and leave you at your wit’s end? How far does your so-called empathy extend beyond the container of your own skull?
Society, and the interpersonal relationships from which it is built, is the culmination of the need to influence others, to make them like us, to preserve ourselves in their minds, to inspire them to behave as we would. But we do not always act on this desire for immortality. Sometimes, we wait for it to be given to us, as though it were our destiny. If we only wanted things from other people, it would be so much easier, and life would be that much less complex, perhaps also that much less interesting.
Do you admit to yourself what you want? Not everyone has the courage. Even those who claim absolute certainty may be insincere, liars who say they want one thing because it helps them get something else, wittingly or otherwise. We don’t all know ourselves as well as we think we do. Some of us don’t know ourselves at all, though we all believe that we do.
How can you know what’s moral if you can’t even admit what you want in life?
How can you ever make sense of anything in life without first being honest with yourself?
Are our wants, our supposed wants, our quite possibly delusional or self-deceiving desires, especially our impulsive wants, really so desirable? Is desire not the road to misery, to a personally constructed hell? Whether yours wants are satisfied or not, in the short term, in the long term, you will never be satisfied if you let your wants overmaster you. Because they cannot stay satisfied forever. And that doesn’t seem like much of a life, to me.
But what’s even worse than wanting something is wishing for it. If you can’t even be bothered to work for what you want, what kind of person are you?