Life's Simple Pleasures and Your Life as a "Thinker" and "Writer"

Life's Simple Pleasures and Your Life as a "Thinker" and "Writer"

Life is "good" and supposed to be "fun", too. That is what people have told you all these years, but you never believed them until now. You were too stupid, too wrapped up with your own little miseries to know any better. Until very recently. Humor helped you see the light. It opened your eyes. You were blessed with a sense of humor. It was dumb of you not to use it. You see, if you learn to laugh at certain people, you would not be that mad at them. 

People are often very funny, unwittingly funny. They take themselves too seriously while they are full of shit. They think they are better than they actually are. They think the world pays them attention and takes note of whatever they do, but the reality is that the world is supremely indifferent about them.  Everybody is busy to survive and to be free from pain. You used to be trusting and gullible, but are not anymore, hence no longer disappointed. To really love somebody means you must trust and respect the person, otherwise it is just empty words and wet dreams and complex signs and gestures of literature. 

Life has a lot to offer in terms of pleasures: food, sex, friendship, humor, nature, dogs as pets, music, reading, writing, singing, and physical exercises. Please note you don't mention fame or "power". You think only stupid assholes would be after power. They may not know by hankering and lusting after power, they make enemies and may actually die in the pursuit of what they set their myopic sights on. In addition, most of "powerful" people are not really happy. They know some people hate them, actually want to kill them, so they worry most of the time, even after they lose power. 

As a self-declared "thinker" and "philosopher", you always grapple with these basic existential questions: Why are you here? Where will you go after you die? What makes you happy and why? What do you want to do with your life? By confronting these questions and coming up with the answers you can't help but think poorly of those noise-makers who have no real talents, despite their having advanced degrees and have a certain status in society simply because they have not achieved anything that is momentous and earth-shaking. Somebody is really somebody when he revolutionizes the thinking of mankind about certain subject or comes up with a piece of artistic creation that is lasting in impact. An engineer is nobody unless he is an Eiffel; a physicist will be an unknown unless he is a Newton, Einstein, or a Hawking; an architect means shit unless he is a Corbusier; a painter is crap unless he is a Van Gogh; a doctor is just an ordinary prescription drug writer unless he is a Pasteur; a lawyer is just a glorified legal clerk unless he is a Warren or a Marshall; a philosopher is just a crabby dreamer unless he is a Kant, a Nietzsche, a Hegel, a Marx, or a Heidegger; and a writer is miserable unless he is a Nobel Prize winner. Most bestseller writers in pop fiction who make tons of money but receive no attention from literary critics and establishment know they just prostitute themselves because they dare not or cannot go for high fiction. Nobody will ever read them in college literature classrooms. Your point is that the world is full of ordinary, untalented clerks and professionals but these assholes think they are really somebodies just because they can read and put words together. They are clogging the Internet with their stupid nonsense. 

Back to the existential questions, here are your answers:

1. You are here because of a gratuitous event and chance encounter of an egg and a sperm. Luckily for you, the egg and the sperm were of good source, and their possessors were decent folks and took care of you. You were an accident and a choice. 

2. After you die, your body will swell up with gas as a result of decomposition and you will be eaten by bugs, animals (if not properly buried),and bacteria. The elements that made up of you will be absorbed into these organisms or into the ground. You will not go to heaven or descend to hell or reincarnate as some stupid religions say so. And you don't believe in God, and definitely think those who do so are very stupid or brainwashed. 

3. What makes you happy is when you are able to sleep well, write cogently on a subject, compose a good poem or short story, able to laugh at the follies and stupidities and ignorance of yourself and others, look at yourself in the mirror and think you are still good-looking and sexy, read a good book, and are loved by a caring, unselfish, pretty woman.

4. As long as you live, you want to improve your mind, acquire knowledge, and try to write memorable poems and short stories. 

You have high standards. Most humans you encounter in real life and on the Internet are assholes and don't impress you at all, not a bit. So why do you have to show them respect? Why, Why, Why??? Oh, you get it!  Because society, common sense and decorum, "civilization" and "culture",  wisdom, cleverness, and "you get what you dish out" say so. 

But you are stopping short. You have not really declared who you are, what you have accomplished, and who are the influences on your "thinking".

You repeat, none of the people you have met either in real life or on the Internet really impress you. Some are decent, caring, even knowledgeable individuals, and worthy of your respect. But that's about it. They don't make your eyes glaze over and you want to rush over and bow to them and ask them to accept you as a pupil. 

You always ask yourself what is your contribution to mankind in terms of ideas and art. The answer is none in ideas and insignificant in art. 

You cannot really think of an idea that you have is really original and revolutionary. All you have is what you learned from others. So, what are they? Okay, let's hear them.

1. You are an accident, a gratuitous event in a world that has no meaning by itself. You were born, grow up, and die, and will not live again. Those who think differently are stupid simpletons and slaves of religious charlatans. What do you want to do with your life is up to you. Most humans are stupid so they chose to go after money, security, fame and power. You go after knowledge and the arts. You maintain that life is a process to become who you are.

2. You hold that most humans are scumbags and deserve to be exterminated. They have no decency, no sense of honor, no loyalty, no compassion and feelings for other forms of life besides themselves. They are animals so they do whatever necessary to survive. They are born shameless liars and hypocrites. They are the opposites of whatever they present themselves. Societal rules and laws were designed to control and keep these animals in check because to kill them outright is an impractical and impossible matter.

3. Human life is always a tension between self-preservation and self-destruction.

4. Love between two humans does exist, but it is rare. If you love somebody, but that person does not love you back, don't blame that person. You may not be good enough for him or her. Nobody,  in his right mind, throws away a good thing. Most unhappiness in love pursuit occurs when we aim too high. Yet if we aim too low, we get bored and dissatisfied. Most divorces take place because the people involved didn't wait long enough for the right partner. They were scared and impatient, so they settled for second, third, or fourth best. They really had no confidence in themselves. 

5. Social life operates on the principles of power. The sooner you understand that, the less unhappy and angry you become.

6. No matter what, and how tempting the urge is, you must fight against injustice and unfairness. You only hurt those who have hurt you. Spare innocent bystanders. Hitler was wrong in ordering Paris be burned to the ground. And the Shabaah terrorists were wrong in shooting at women and children in the mall in Kenya. 

7. Buddha was a wise psychologist, Muhammad was the most rounded individual compared to Buddha and Jesus, though still ignorant of causes of things. Jesus was delusional and power-hungry. His early death was no surprise. Dying then and dying now for your political and religious beliefs is not a smart thing to do because there's always a possibility that you are wrong. Most humans who become politicized are angry people. Anger is an energizer, but often is a lousy teacher. 

8. It is a stupid thing for the Vietnamese to keep fighting among themselves Their enemy is the Chinese, not the other Vietnamese. Not finding a common ground with your fellow countrymen in the midst of a foreign invasion does nothing good to your cause, but everything good for the invaders. 

9. Thinkers who have exerted an intellectual influence on you are many, but Nietzsche and Sartre are the most pronounced. From N you learned to become who you are and to live life dangerously. From S you find the ideas of authenticity and existence preceding essence attractive. 

10. In spite of your whining and crying, you have been blessed. You believe in second chances, in starting over and over again until you die, in persistence, and in redemption. 

As for the arts, you have written some good poems and amateurish short stories. 

Wissai
September 23, 2013