I am a deeply conflicted individual. On the one hand, I feel as though I must experience a struggle in order to create and that I must suffer through these days for the purpose of coming to some deeper understanding of life and my lonely place in it. On the other, I feel as though none of it really matters at all, that I would much rather be in a state of bliss complete with minor delusions, to create based on the whims of my fleeting emotions instead of through sheer will. John Stuart Mill, a man that I most admire for his intelligence, once said in his work, Utilitarianism: "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question." My concern is that I have only this one life to live and to give. Should I extinguish satisfaction in favor of the higher form of being, the Socrates instead of the fool, even if the latter could guarantee a more emotionally fulfilling existence? I feel like I should want to be intellectually fulfilled, but I also feel like doing so may compromise my deeply rooted wish for a satisfactory lifestyle. What, ultimately, determines the factors of the "fool?" Is it like being the individual chained to the walls of Plato's cave, content with considering the playful images dancing along the wall reality instead of freeing herself to explore the wild and terrifyingly unpredictable world outside of said cave?
Every time I'm happy, I recognize it and become fearful of losing this pleasure. It's not a baser instinctive pleasure, the bodily pleasure, that Mill so condemned in favor of the higher form, the intellectual form. It's also not in the category of the stagnating contentment that so often corrupts a person's potential greatness. This happiness is one of discovering a fulfilling pleasure in life, in just being, in learning and experiencing the joys and challenges presented by circumstances. The struggles and difficulties become like a wave cresting the surface of the ocean that I meet with open arms and allow to carry me to new places. I do not overthink things. I just breathe and experience them with an active mind. I paint, I write, I play, I read, I walk, I listen, I smile, I learn, I accept new challenges, I connect with a rhythm that isn't noticed when the volume of the mind is turned up so loud, I feel a connection with everything and everyone, I let go, I relinquish my incessant need to control in favor of enjoying the ride. I do not stand still. I continue moving at a leisurely pace, pausing occasionally to appreciate the moment, and then move on again.
The problem is when this ceases. It's like I become so aware of it that it suddenly flees like a startled animal, afraid of being pinned down and caged to be studied. It's like an image that you notice in your peripheral vision that disappears when you turn to look closer at it. It defies labeling and evades the snare of analysis, both being tools of controlling the world within and around us. When I try to understand it, that's when a compulsive anxiety flaps in my chest like a frightened bird in a cage. The wonder mutates into worry, the awe shifting into this ghastly vision of fear. Problems arise where none had been before, created in my own mind out of an anxious need to understand things to death. Everything stills as I try to pin things down with my mind. The bird panics and all I can hear is the high-pitched squawking that drowns out the rhythm that was once so clear to me. I feel like I deserve this version of reality, that this is the way it should be if I am to get anywhere in life. I know this is not true. My heart stagnates when my mind is aflutter like this. Every time. I know it is wrong and that I should try to shush the incessant bleating that beats away at my calm, but it cripples me.
I don't wish to calm the waters. I only wish to swim better. This intense anxiety makes me feel like I'm trying to stand up straight and still in thrusting waves.
I wonder...do you have to be dissatisfied in order to be like Socrates?
I see no virtue in aspirations to be like Plato's Socrates. I do see a virtue in aspiring to be yourself. However, In the bigger scheme of things, to know that we don't know keeps the quest in motion as it should be. You sound perfectly human to me.
ReplyDeleteThat's all I ask to be: perfectly human. However, just to clarify, I do not have aspirations to be like Socrates specifically, but to be as one who aims to utilize intelligence over instinctual pursuits. :) Socrates, I think, was used mostly as a symbol for such a way of being by John Stuart Mill.
ReplyDeleteThat's all I ask to be: perfectly human. However, just to clarify, I do not have aspirations to be like Socrates specifically, but to be as one who aims to utilize intelligence over instinctual pursuits. :) Socrates, I think, was used mostly as a symbol for such a way of being by John Stuart Mill.
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