We tend to overthink the everyday, as it is truly the simple things that matter most.

Darren gets it

I have so much thought bursting forth from my metaphysical self, and yet so little energy to fully fathom it. With that said, I think it’s going to have to be a much shorter (and more simply written) Words of Wisdom this day, as truth be told, I am feeling like absolute dog shit at the moment. However, I figure I’ve kept a good streak going of posting wisdom every Monday, so why not lay bare a morsel in a moment of celebratory truth, no matter how unbearable it may be.

Awhile back, when I was pondering about reality at large, and I was kind of just considering concepts and what keeps people going in the every day, just as a thought exercise. I stumbled upon an idea that now seems overwhelmingly obvious, but for some reason I had never really truly held in focus in my mind, and that was that context was key, in this case, in how people survive their everyday, and what allows them to not just crumple up into existential piles of sadness and tears by days end.

That is when I realized the insane life saving power that systems of thought have, whether it be ideology, faith, science, philosophy, art, disciplines of all kinds etc, just as long as on some level, they have some identifiable level of systematization to them. This is a vital lifeline for arguably, every last mind in the world, as without these abstractions helping to dictate the metaphysical, humanity would not be able to bear the tragedies of the everyday.

And, I get it, for someone who doesn’t even possess faith in a higher power, rails against the evils of ideology, and decries the notion of group think at every turn, how can I so blindly advocate for one to just give themselves to one of these wholesale? That’s the thing, I don’t think someone should just give themselves to one of these larger ideas so freely, though I think any one of them will choose any given person in time, which is for the best, as people are in chronic need of saving.

Another curve ball to the insanity I propose is that one must lose one’s mind before it can truly come into its own self, kind of a personal ego destruction and a rebirthing process, even a conceptual one, a miniature death to stave off the actual inevitable one. And even though I don’t believe in fate or determinism, and don’t have the energy to dive into the ideas behind whether or not nature or nurture takes greater root at dictating why these things occur, I do think that any given person will be chosen by one of these systems, and that belief, in a loose sense of the word, will allow them to perform that all mighty leap of faith into something deeply irrational, to continue to give them a chance at living a rationale life, however paradoxically that may end up looking like.

I think this line of thought continued to spring to my own mind, in my own internal struggles against nihilism on my worst days, knowing if I turned my back on everything I hold dear, I would simply be lost and floating adrift, at extreme danger of losing my own mind without a system to cling to, as humanity seems doomed to do on a regular basis. Though I think reality and existence is so grand, without that sense of direction, purpose, and belonging, we simply lose our minds without cause and reason, and that is simply the end of that. Ultimately, we will lose our minds either way, to replace it with something as worthy as a cause and reason helps to at least fill the vacuum that insanity would easily take root in, and the full frailty of man’s follies thusly exposing themselves for the weak shames they truly always were: a lie in fleshy form.

So, my Words of Wisdom today, however ludicrous they may sound coming from a rational empiricist, is simply this: let the insanity of belief ensnare you, or be prepared to lose your mind in the process.

As always, take care of yourself, and others.

-Pashford