Philosophical Moorings of a Restless Soul
There’s so much going on isn’t it? This would be one the strangest times in most people’s lives. There are some things worth pondering on a philosophical level to make sense of all that’s going on around us.
Existential Dread and Sense of being Alone
Everyone suffers from an existential dread, a stifling feeling of time slipping and a sense of emptiness like a whirlwind in the center of our being and pushing us inwards. Most people wade through this whirlwind through loss, pain, a search for a sense of belonging, bits and pieces of happy moments and mostly emptiness.
Companionship, Friendship, Family
Companionship, Friendships and family are humans way of finding a sense of belonging, a way to stifle or slow the whirlwind from sucking us in. It also comforts us from the continuous quest and search for meaning and fundamental questions of existence. Love and emotions according to me are overrated but you might differ, it just might be my subjective experience.
Some People Lie to Themselves!
Some people keep lying to themselves, I have never quite understood the utility of this but maybe it works for some people. Complete honest truth makes them very uncomfortable, they have no idea how to react when the truth is presented to them, they try to become defensive and try to play down the truth that is being presented and go back to lying to themselves to feel better.
Loss
Loss is a part of life. We keep loosing things while navigating through life, people, relationships, things, our sense of belonging, our sanity sometimes. The interesting bit is that loosing comes along with finding. We loose and find people, passions, material things.
But wait, its all too weird isn't it?
The great Absurdist philosopher Albert Camus explored the idea of “absurdism” which mainly arises from an individual’s search for meaning and purpose and the inherent meaninglessness of the universe. Human’s tend to keep searching for meaning or their significance in the larger scheme of things which is met by indifference and silence of the universe to human life. This leads to an ever lingering perpetual question of “What does all this mean?”
Visualize this!
You are sitting on a table and having dinner with your family. An absurdist reasoning would go something like this “A bunch of people coming together, sitting on a table which is made by cutting trees which produces oxygen which is essential for the existence of those people, located on planet earth which is a big ball, rotating around its axis and circling around the sun on which a process of nuclear fusion produces energy which powers the planet, these two balls are a part of an expanding universe which is mostly made of nothing. These bunch of people eat some things to keep themselves alive. They live together to produce more of themselves!”
Isn't this weird?
It absolutely is!
