Continuing the
discussion from the previous post I will start by playing it safe and repeating
one of my favorite mantras: live in the moment. This mantra fits very well with
this discussion which I will elaborate on a little bit. Because a moment occasionally
includes other people, for sake of the argument, in a way, you can share a
moment in the sense that the person you’re with is part of that moment. But
with that said, attentive readers obviously know that it is impossible to truly
share moments since you will always experience moments differently as we are
all separate micro universes.
But moments are also a
lot different from lives and this is where my lone wolf mentality kicks in
again. A moment can be shared just as easily with a stranger as with a life
partner, perhaps even more so than the former as there are no, or at least
fewer, laws of conduct and society involved. A moment with a stranger can be a
lot more visceral because of the strangeness of the relationship and can thus
be more easily appreciated than moments spent with familiar faces which thus
over time start to mix together and lose value and importance. I have shared
many amazing experiences on my travels with strangers that I met that same day
and although I will never meet any of them again, the memory and the experience
still include them and thus they will always be part of that moment.
So my question from
the previous post remains: why do people need to be around other people, as in familiar
relationships in the form of partners, family and friends? I like to be around
people I love, and to be in a relationship. But there is a difference between
enjoying something and then having a basic need for something that you cannot
possibly live without. So an easy answer to why people NEED to be around other
people their entire life, is because they haven’t transcended far enough away
from the dancefloor of existence to see the macro patterns of the universal clockwork.
Instead they see their familiar relationships as a basic necessity to life, not
knowing that you can easily be alone and still be happy. Does recognizing these
patterns make me a cold, empathy-ridden sociopath? No, I don’t think so because
I care and love all living things. But do I necessarily value my own loved ones
over the local Filipino caretaker watching our island workplace? [At time of
writing] If faced with a real-life sadistic choice, of course. But in the pages
of this blog/thought stream: no, not really. But in that mindset I don’t really
value them both over the monitor lizard that we may or may not kill to make
‘good’ TV, or the coral we smash every morning just to get to the island. The
lizard, the coral, the caretaker, my loved ones, me, my future soulmates
(because obviously I will eventually pair up like everyone else), we are all
part of the same clockwork, or rather slaves to it, so why should one of us
outweigh the other? We are animals, all of us, all in the same boat. So I guess
people need people mostly because they are familiar faces, but if you start
expanding your mind and transcend outwards a little bit, climb other parts of
the tree of life, you will suddenly see a lot more familiar faces and will
NEVER feel alone, even if you are a lone wolf or a crazy old hermit living in
the mountains. Because even inanimate objects like mountains and the planets of
our solar systems are slaves just like us. EVERYTHING is connected in this
network of legends, this universal clockwork. So wherever you are, and whoever
you’re with you will always be surrounded by someone or something in the same
boat as you. This will be further elaborated in the following post.
So what I think is the
ideal approach to life, is to acknowledge and understand our cosmic insignificance
and accept the goings of the clockwork as they move us forward, but at the same
time work to maintain the health of your own micro-universe as well. This
dualism relates to all essential matters in our micro-universes. In this sense,
you do occasionally find yourself needing people. But the benefit of knowing
the macro side to life, is that you do not become dependent on these, you can
be a lone wolf because you know attachments may be nice, but are in no means a
requisite for a healthy existence. You accept the fact that people you love,
even yourself, will die, and could do so right now. Nothing lasts forever. Bitching,
worrying, fearing, nothing is going to change that. Just accept it as a natural
part of existence. Having just killed a Buganawa (Filipino tarantula) to ensure
a good night’s sleep in the jungle, [at another time of writing] I also accept
that I might one day be killed by an animal because it feels threatened by me,
I accept that. I do not fear death, rather I prepare for it by always
cherishing the moment and enjoying every part of it. As Mark Twain put it:
‘The fear of death follows from the fear of
life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.’
This is the nature of
micro-universes, they are extremely fleeting. Right now you might be having the
best day of your life so far, while somewhere else someone else is having his
or her worst day of his or her life. A person is born every second and a person
dies every second. Now imagine how this works for all living things on this
planet alone. Circle of life. C’est la vie! Deal with it.
What happens in between these two key moments of our existence, is like everything else fairly random, guided by small everyday events. So don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either, your choices are half-chance, so are everybody else’s. (Thanks, Baz!) So yes, you should definitely strive to make your micro-universe a happy place but at the same time never lose sight of the context in which it plays out. So don’t get too hung up on events on the micro-scale such as human relationships nor on other micro-universes around you, let the masters of those universes deal with their own cosmos. In other words, don’t let other people become your key to happiness because they will eventually disappear. Instead be aware of the bigger picture and try to absorb as much of life as you can, make your personal world as big as possible since as previously mentioned, this is the key to greater understanding anyway. Put simply: live in the moment!
