Seeking the consistent, the experience, the authentic and the absurd
If life has taught me anything, it would definitely be that the cost of ephemerality is a toll that we paid for in exchange for our humanity. There was not a single philosopher who didn’t introspect on the absolutes of existence. Life and death occur in each of their discourses, almost as if they were emanating from the same origin. A desire to decipher these two behemoths that rival the clusters in the sky in their weight. This is a mistake. Rinsing these concepts in ambiguity and channeling your spirit with a drive to unravel a so-called truth is a war that’s already lost. Grasp life by the teeth. We are the mind of the universe and the way it tries to explain itself. Life was always simple, always direct, always as clear as the skies. The real matter on hand should be the wisest reaction to the brief statefulness that each soul observes. The question ought not be ‘what is life?’, the better and the more useful pondering has had to be ‘how to live?’
Being was never a choice, but a decision that we can take is the way we bifurcate the flow of the universe. The passage of time is a sly fellow. You can’t change what your free will grasped. You can’t restore an eye that you stabbed with a knife. You can’t take back words once they left your mouth. You can’t just rewind the heavens and the earth to nullify a debt that shackles your family. For certain people, they immediately make the link with the notion of responsibility. ‘You reap what you sow.’ I think that this line of thinking stems from a place of ignorance and apathy. No matter who you are, there was never an innate evil in you. Otherwise, we would be sentencing babies left and right. The greatest dissonance a person can commit is believing that he would change anything if he somehow warped back in time. Indeed, without the memories that you gained by going through those events, you will undoubtedly make the same decisions once again. It would not be a stretch to say that a person is a blend of his biological making and social setting. This is why you should take a step back and nullify all those variables. You’re not coherent until you start making decisions that are independent of the environment you were raised in. You’re not cogent until you make an effort to battle your biases and the prejudice that we all start with from ground zero. You’re not consistent until you are both coherent and cogent.
‘All is fair in love and war.’ Yes, this is a great counter-argument. Aren’t those who committed crimes against humanity responsible? Aren’t those who raised dysfunctional homes responsible? They indeed are, but the caveat here is that there’s always more to the picture than the mere eye can tell. There’s the fact that behind every evil figure in history a range of factors and entities enabling them. They were not but pawns to do the dirty work. Being consistent is acknowledging agents that control your decisions. Once you detach yourself from these forces acting upon you, only then can responsibility be cast upon you, and even then, a human can never objectively judge another human, let alone your very own self. The extremely complex fabric of decisions cast each second by people around you is a difficult thing to navigate. Even if you are consistent, it matters not when you lack the basic tools to make safe decisions. The only way to hone that skill is unfortunately making more decisions. The only way to get better is by making mistakes. The only way to improve is by gaining experience. The single most powerful tool a human can possess.
Talent is a very beautiful lie often repeated by the lazy. This word ignores the walls of effort those so-called talented people build each day to perfect whatever skill they are raising. That is to say that anyone, barring extreme cases, can shine in any field they choose. This is the fruit of experience. There is a big difference between the one who uses a coin to pick something randomly and the one who uses the diamond-square algorithm to procedurally generate virtual terrain. That difference is most certainly not intelligence, but a lack of information. Gathering information is one of the most critical priorities of humanity. The goal is not emulating libraries, but making better decisions. This extends to every facet of human life. Marrying the wrong person is always the outcome of insufficient information. Choosing the wrong career is always the outcome of insufficient information. Being mugged is always the outcome of insufficient information. Seek information. Seek experience.
One thing I appreciate about humanity is their unwavering pursuit of knowledge. You can notice it even in little children when you enlighten them about the world. I find it very beautiful that Islam outlawed the withholding of information. With each generation, we get better at doing things. After each decade, we find new breakthroughs. This almost genetically prescribed drive is the best evidence that experience is an essential pillar of existence. If anything, the quest to collect information is not a solitary thing. We are all in this together. The best tool to get advantage of this is to ask. Ask the surgeon how can he keep his cool while seeing live organs. Ask the lawyer how he can convince a jury despite the odds. Ask the janitor the signs he follows to predict robbers and such. Everyone learns at their own pace, and each one learns different things. Try to extract what is different.
However, there is a fine line between an acquaintance and a friend. It’s true that consistency is born from renouncing the shackles of the environment you live in; the latter will always be a constant force that subconsciously infects your psyche. The play here is changing your environment. Surround yourself with authentic people. People that genuinely have fun being around you. They’re not there for any financial or materialistic benefit whatsoever. Even if it’s just one, they are crucial to leading a good life. It’s true that we are social beings revolved around engaging with the other, but even if that wasn’t the case, authenticity was always going to be a valuable thing. No one said that you should be going through life alone. There is not a single greater decision than choosing to keep an authentic friend in your life.
Unfortunately, compatibility is a beast of its own. The first thing we need to accept is that some people were not made to be in harmony with others, and that should be fine. In this sense, the only way to find people like this is to make mistakes. Human relationships are very delicate and very complex. By focusing on becoming authentic yourself, you will certainly attract people that will see your radiance. It goes along with experience very well. Life should be a breeding ground of experience and authenticity. With time, it will certainly bloom, and the way you perceive the world will change with it. That’s the word. They will give you the drive to change.
The last thing that diverges from the idea of decisionship, but is also a key building block of a good life is maintaining the link with the fantastic. The other thing humanity has excelled at throughout the ages was art. We are not only a mind but a raging bomb of clustering feelings. We need a medium to channel all that is within us. Each person does it his own way, but the objective is the same and that is unpacking that load before it consumes us from within.
It’s absurd that we rely on the absurd to guide us through what is real. Art is by far the most beautiful thing humans have managed to make. It’s a common language that transcends the boundaries of time and location. It makes you proud to be human in a way.
