Trapped By Time

I just read this wonderful article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/21/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything

To give a brief summary of the article, it essentially talks about the idea of being "well-read" and how a person must choose between culling and surrendering the vast amount of culture that they will never be able to reach. Culling involves deciding not to do things because you deem them either unworthy or uninteresting, for example, "I do not like rap so I will not listen to rap" or more specifically "I did not like one Stephen King book, so I will never read another one of his books." Surrender involves realizing that you lack the time to find the good things, so you do not bother. You end up in the same situation with surrender as with culling, not listening to rap and not reading Stephen King, but there is a recognition that perhaps there are good parts to those that would take you too much time to find. The article makes a credible case that surrender is the preferable mindset to culling, but that culling is easier emotionally/psychologically.

Personally, I do not really care either way. Culling and surrender both amount to the same problem: lack of time. The article makes the point that it is a great thing that one person cannot consume all of creativity and intellectual efforts of humanity, otherwise we would not have accomplished much. I agree with that sentiment, but that doesn't mean that I am not angry and sad about it. I want to consume it all. I want to taste every food, read every book, watch every movie, listen to every combination of sounds. But I cannot, so where does that leave me?

It leaves me feeling the way I have felt on and off again for years now, in that I just do not care to waste my time. I have so little time with which to live my life (an unknowable amount of time for that matter, which just makes it worse), and I am angry that I have to waste some of it unnecessary things. I do not want to be nice to people I do not like, and I do not want to hold back from telling pretty girls I think they are pretty, just so I can hold true to social mores that make society function better. I understand the principle of society functioning, and I understand that lying and being nice help people coexist better, but I find it all a huge waste of time. It reminds me of another article sent to me by a friend that feels the same way I do, this one by the onion: http://www.theonion.com/articles/openminded-man-grimly-realizes-how-much-life-hes-w,19273/

Time and time again I find myself doing what is better for everyone rather than what is better for me. I understand that it might be better for me in the long run to be nice to people I do not like, but the long run is an unknowable sacrifice, similar in principle to an unknowable afterlife. Must I sacrifice my short term time (or life?) on a vague set of future circumstances that I have no logical way of approximating? It seems that that is what is expected of me (and everyone).

I do it, but I worry because I feel like I am getting increasingly bitter and angry towards people that waste my time, and towards myself for letting them waste my time. It actively makes me unhappy by making me angry, and then I feel guilty that I may not be being nice enough. And the few times when I tell someone off, I rarely feel better since I realize that I ruined their day for no little total benefit of my own, as I will just have to deal with someone else's bullshit.

I feel trapped by time. This has had positive benefits for me at times, as I find myself having romantic and passionate tendencies, since those usually involve the importance of the now, of today. To be trapped by time, means to constantly focus on maximizing your time now, whether it be in pleasure or work, whether it be procrastinating or finishing something as soon as possible, it always has an urgency to it. I want to see this episode now!, or I will lose it to time. I want to kiss you now!, or I will lose you to time. It has had its positive effects.

But I still feel trapped.

Subjectivity and Kisses

More and more I get the feeling that life and our actions in it are so very neutral. One day a kiss and hug are friendly and happy, the next loving and passionate, and the next they might be desperate and sorrowful. Have you ever kissed someone in desperation, as if you are trying to suck a little bit of their soul out to take with you as you go? I find it fascinating. I mean we have all these notions of what these things mean, but in reality they never truly mean what we think they mean because context is so important. I mean not reading this paragraph, if I were to just say the word kiss to you, your first thought might be very general and similar to other people's thoughts, but in no time at all you might go to a more personal thought that is purely your own because of your different experience. Words. Words words words. And images. They are all very personal aren't they? Kind of a stupid, obvious thought, but I find the entire notion fascinating because I do not think about it much or consistently, the subjective nature of language and experience. I mean I try to, I find myself in these conversations about subjectivity more often than not, but it still takes me a while to wrap my mind around the concept, and see how it applies in so many different places.

And sometimes I hate it. I hate subjectivity sometimes because I do not like the other way of thinking or other ways of thinking. That happens frequently. Sometimes I don't care, like say ice cream preferences. But I find it hard to understand for example how some people don't like books. I mean forget the stories or whatever personal connection you might have with specific books. I just like the way they feel and smell. I don't spend much time in libraries, but I do walk around bookstores fairly often, even if I buy my books from Amazon, just because I like being surrounded by books and just running my fingers across the spines. I like it when an Amazon package comes and the book is wrapped in plastic because I know when I open it I will be able to experience that new book smell. And I like going to back the books my parents used to have, especially the ones that are a little mangled and stained and their covers are falling off and they are taped all over, and even though I am somewhat distraught at how they were taken care of (I'm look at you Mom and Aunt), I love how easy it is to see how much they loved those books. And I love the old book smell as well.

So anyway, books are cool, but really I was talking about how subjectivity is tricky. I mean it is easy for me to understand why someone would not like books, or does not find the smell books have pleasing. That is not hard. The hard part is accepting and respecting that choice. I mean sure, it is a relatively insignificant part of the human experience, and perhaps this person can still be pretty cool. But on some level, how can we relate when I have this pseudo spiritual experience with the feel of these objects and you do not? How can we relate to anyone? The subjective experience is so daunting.

I mean when we are little, we intuitively grasp this at a very young age. Haven't most people had the question in their mind "what if my blue isn't your blue? what if I see red when you say blue?" Little kids ask that at a certain age; at least I have met a lot of people who have had that same question that I did. And there really is no answer to that. It is perfectly possible that we do not all see the same things. The wavelength of light may be the same, but that does not mean our experience of that wavelength is going to be the same. And yet as we grow older, we ignore that fact. It is troubling when you are a kid, because it makes you question your reality at a young age, but it is sort of laughed off by adults as a silly question, and as a kids we start to view it as a silly question as well. But it is not a silly question. The question of the subjective experience is one we have to tackle every day in meaningful and meaningless situations over and over.

Think about it this way. I happen to be an atheist. You might believe in God, or a pantheon of Gods, or you might be agnostic, or a theist, or even another atheist. But all of us, including the other atheist, are probably living in different universes. Our universes are constructed in different ways with different rules and different ideas. Sure we might all occupy the same dimensions and exist in a time period and spatial sector that allows us to interact. But the way we view the universe might be cataclysmically different.

On some level, maybe all that matter are actions, right? I mean if the results are the same, who really cares what you believe in or what universe you exist in, right? I don't know. It does not seem to be the case. Our subjective experience seems to really matter, and I cannot rightfully say that it does not. Why does it matter so much? Even if it should not or objectively does not matter, even if the actions are the same, why can I still be unable to relate? Why are we all unable to relate? Is this a human fault or a virtue? I would tend to think it is a virtue, despite all of the problems that it causes. Our inability to relate makes for great stories and experiences, but the problems it causes are so enormous that liking that is a public sin. Think about that for a second. The diversity of culture that many people are so in love with is also the root of all of the tragedies that everyone hates. Without that diversity, there would be no tragedies. So liking that diversity is inherently accepting those tragedies. Most people either have not thought about this view or just do not agree with it, but I think this, and thinking this seems to make me into a comic book villain. Or maybe not. Maybe that is just the perception that I have gleaned from my subjective universe.

"So what" you might be thinking if you read this far. Well nothing I guess, I just wanted to talk a little about subjectivity. But going back to the first paragraph of this post, I wanted to talk a little bit about kissing. I find a description of kissing in desperation, as an act of sorrow and horror and desire just to survive and live, to be extremely beautiful. That part of the subjective experience is something I cherish. Those little moments of subverted expectation; moments when our experience runs contrary to our general abstract notions of what those experiences should be.

Or maybe I just like kissing like you're drowning.