Rise Above the Influence

I’m tired of the constant need and drive for improvement.  What does it mean to be a better person?  To make my presence and pleasant experience for others?  To make more money?  To be slimmer and have bigger muscles?  I’m tired of hearing millions of others shout their advice at me and proclaim that their path is objective and “You HAVE to do this!”.  We are making ourselves needlessly miserable.  And it’s a quiet misery, a subtle misery that stems from simple creatures trying to fit into a complex world. 

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I have no purpose except to pass my genetic profile into the next generation.  Even then that does not rest on one particular individual but humanity at large.  It brute forces its existence into the succeeding years.  A pyrrhic march in which the only thing that matters is to keep marching.  And so, without direction, I am free to do as I please.  Consequences exist, of course, but my actions are my own.  That begs the question, the one question above all others: what do I want to do?  Perform actions that decrease misery.  Cultivate a mindset of gratitude for my existence.  Honestly, I could keep it to just the former: perform actions that decrease misery.  From there, we can get into the nitty-gritty.  (Is this just another way of saying “do what makes you happy”?  I think so, but there may be some nuance that we can explore in a separate blog post).

But now, when you look around you at the millions and billions of people telling you how to live a better life (and not just people but books, movies, TV, blogs, social media, school, church, government, etc.) you can view what they are saying with detachment because you know the truth: there is no such thing as a better life. How YOU feel about YOUR existence is the only thing that matters.  For me, studying and practicing philosophy is one of those things that “decreases misery” because it’s a vehicle for me to think deeply and peek behind the curtain.  I feel that through philosophy, I am unplugging myself from the matrix and can rise above the influence of the externals.  Philosophy also changes your mindset about what has control or power to decrease misery – the externals will try to take that power away from you every chance they get.  People’s admiration, money, material goods, etc.  You are at the mercy of things you can’t control when externals dictate your level of misery and how you feel about your existence.  But philosophy seizes control.  It says: these externals hold no power over me.