When I first gave up the idea of objective morality I also plummeted into a weird sort of ambivalence. It lasted for a few years. Finally, I confronted the question of why I even bothered continuing to exist. I decided I wanted to live. I then decided I needed an arbitrary guiding principle in life to help me maintain that desire. I decided I wanted to live as interesting a life as possible. That was my only goal in life, and it was only there to keep me wanting to live.
I pursued that goal for a few years, rather half-heartedly. It was enough to keep me going, but not much more. Then, one day, rather suddenly, I fell completely in love. Really, blubberingly, stupidly in love. I was completely consumed and couldn’t have cared less if it was objectively meaningless. A week later, I found out the girl was also in love with me, and I promptly stopped loving her.
Meditating on the whole thing afterwards, I realized I hadn’t been in love, but had experienced some other, probably quite disgusting emotion. I had been pulled up from the abyss of subjectivity by the worst kind of garbage! It felt like the punchline of a zen koan. I realized that wallowing in ambivalence was just as worthless as embracing the stupidest purpose, and became ambivalent to the lack of objectivity itself.
After that I began rediscovering and embracing my natural desires. A few years of that and I finally settled down into what I consider a healthy person. But, to this day, I still occasionally feel the fuzzy awareness at the edge of my consciousness that everything is meaningless. And, when I do, I just don’t care. So what if everything I love is objectively worthless? Meaninglessness itself is meaningless, so screw it!
I realize this whole story is probably bereft of any sort of rational take away, but I thought I’d share anyway, in the hopes of at least giving you some hope. Failing that, it was at least nice to take a break from rationality to write about something totally irrational.
When I first gave up the idea of objective morality I also plummeted into a weird sort of ambivalence. It lasted for a few years. Finally, I confronted the question of why I even bothered continuing to exist. I decided I wanted to live. I then decided I needed an arbitrary guiding principle in life to help me maintain that desire. I decided I wanted to live as interesting a life as possible. That was my only goal in life, and it was only there to keep me wanting to live.
I pursued that goal for a few years, rather half-heartedly. It was enough to keep me going, but not much more. Then, one day, rather suddenly, I fell completely in love. Really, blubberingly, stupidly in love. I was completely consumed and couldn’t have cared less if it was objectively meaningless. A week later, I found out the girl was also in love with me, and I promptly stopped loving her.
Meditating on the whole thing afterwards, I realized I hadn’t been in love, but had experienced some other, probably quite disgusting emotion. I had been pulled up from the abyss of subjectivity by the worst kind of garbage! It felt like the punchline of a zen koan. I realized that wallowing in ambivalence was just as worthless as embracing the stupidest purpose, and became ambivalent to the lack of objectivity itself.
After that I began rediscovering and embracing my natural desires. A few years of that and I finally settled down into what I consider a healthy person. But, to this day, I still occasionally feel the fuzzy awareness at the edge of my consciousness that everything is meaningless. And, when I do, I just don’t care. So what if everything I love is objectively worthless? Meaninglessness itself is meaningless, so screw it!
I realize this whole story is probably bereft of any sort of rational take away, but I thought I’d share anyway, in the hopes of at least giving you some hope. Failing that, it was at least nice to take a break from rationality to write about something totally irrational.