Dialogue 5

Content warning: Strong language and discussions of nihilism, existential despair, and suicide.

Supreme: There is no point to anything at all so we should all cease to exist. 

All in Unison: Naaahhhhh.

Supreme: Then what’re we doing here?

Mental Health: We’re here because I’m distraught about how directionless I am in my life. I feel like I’m running out of time, and this feeling is persistent.

Revolutionary: I’m motionless, I’m not affecting the world in any way. I’m not making an effort to inspire the change I wish to see.

Poet: I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be living life ‘beautifully’, as opposed to well. I’m not sure if thinking this way is childish or wise. 

Ubermensch: My idle hands disgust me. I lose a piece of my ultimate potential every breath I spend not bettering myself, not committing fully to the pursuit of self mastery. 

Philosopher: So I’m trying to find out what it is I truly want for my life. I’m trying to find the path that leaves me the most satisfied.

Mental Health: I feel like accomplishing this would make me more sure of myself, improve my decision making skills, and help keep me in the moment. 

Scientist: Everyone is here to defend themselves and their interests. Such that the path taken will not leave too many parts of me unfulfilled. I recently watched a YouTube video about constricting freedom in order to heighten creativity so I wish to constrict this discussion somehow but I don’t know where to begin or how to justify my choices (an example of my indecisiveness in action). I want structure so that everyone inputs what they want in life AND everyone inputs what they think is lacking or wrong with every point of view or every story for life. 

Supreme: I say Poet goes first, we all critique his story then society goes and so forth etc. Then at the end of all this jibber jabber we’ll have our purpose in life.

All in Unison: Hurrah!

Poet: I find honesty to be the most divine of prose. The structure being only that which is true and authentic, words as these sound the most beautiful, no matter the fashion. I should be a writer and live life like a poet. In this way I’m pursuing my passions, and I’m living for the experience, as I feel I should. This way I can accept every part of me, because the flaws become good. And anything that happens is welcome because everything and suffering make for fine poetry.

Revolutionary: But what are you going to write? Isn’t the pursuit of art for its own sake a selfish move? And I know it isn’t selfish conventionally *cough mental health cough*, but we have an obligation, remember? 

Mental health: That obligation may stem from a place of narcissism disguised as heroism. Why is it that you can’t live life to enjoy it? Why is it that you must sacrifice yourself for others? Where did you get this idea that this is what you’re supposed to do?

Christian: God gave me strength to protect others, he gave me wisdom to show them the way. The Lord chose me to tend to his flock --

Ego: It’s because I have a responsibility given all of my gifts. I can’t simply sit and enjoy a ‘two kids and a wife’ life, I have to use my abilities to do something. That’s why I’m here. 

Supreme: This somewhat sounds like a purpose in life.

Ego: But it’s completely without direction, which is what I believe is Revolutionary's problem with Poet’s story. What am I going to do? Is it enough that I simply try to do it? What do I have to sacrifice? Why?

Supreme: Which is why I said ‘somewhat’ jeez -- golly. 

Society: Doesn’t really sound like a purpose, it sounds like a declaration of an undesired life, which so happens to be mine. I don’t wanna just live in society, go to work and come home to my kids, but this is the path that I’m currently on. This is who I am right now. My name should be changed to Current Dan, or even scarier Daniel. 

Scientist: Couldn’t we then just add a direction to the Poet’s story and be done with it? 

Supreme: Why should the Poet’s story be the default?

Scientist: If for no other reason than it went first, why did the Poet go first? is a different question, which has an answer, but I haven’t the ability nor care to articulate it right now. But rest assured, it’s because I don’t find its articulation to be relevant. Since the Poet has gone first its story can be iterated and altered until we have one that is satisfactory. Every part can add something to it and can challenge the addition of anything by any other part. Because all that matters is sound reasoning and with that we can come to an excellent conclusion.

Philosopher: What would be considered excellent?

Scientist: Something that is well thought out, honest and authentic. ‘Well thought out’ means it considers what life would be like for me day to day, and it considers possibilities of war, disease, life tragedies and so forth. ‘Honest and authentic’ means what speaks to the depths of my soul. I won’t be deciding upon the nicest sounding story for me to enact, for me to become an actor in. I want what is pure and undeniable. I want it to be that in the ideal end, where I’ve chosen this excellent path, nothing else is more authentic. I want it to be that deviation from this path becomes the definition of inauthenticity. I want to suffer along this path and think that the pain was destined to me, that there was no other way, that I had no other choice. 

Society: But why go through all that stress? Isn’t that narcissism? What’s wrong with working hard to find a good paying job then working that job? And god willing you’ll find a wife, have some kids and enjoy everyday life. There is fulfilment in raising children, lots of it, and in loving and taking care of a woman who loves and cares for you. And you’ll be able to enjoy the countless nuggets of joy that exist in life. Modern western society is nearly bliss. Think about listening to your favourite album after grabbing Talayah’s because you deserved it reaching a new PR on the bench press. Comfortable, simple, and very sweet. 

Poet: But it’s mundane. I want the excitement of struggling towards something. 

Ubermensch: Such a plain life negates me entirely.

Mental Health: But what is wrong with living life comfortably?

Poet: It’s because I desire more. Why I’m like this is justified by the fact that I am. I crave adventure, I live for the awe, for the beauty, for the thrill. 

Society: Working a 9-5 is beneath you.

Ubermensch: It would be cowardly.

Mental Health: You’ll find it inauthentic?

Poet: I wouldn’t be free. 

Philosopher: Perhaps the thought that you ‘couldn’t’ be free in society is ill-formed. In any case we recognize that there is a desire for freedom, whatever that means. Best we discover what that means. 

Nihilist: I feel like it’s necessary that I speak.

Philosopher: Oh my ‘there is no God’. Uhm everyone, this is my son.

Nihilist: Fuck you, you’re a bum. Anyways. Does it matter that I don’t consider there to be a point to anything? To me it kind of seems like existence is just a bunch of chaos with no rhyme to it, which is fine. But in the end everything pretty much dies so I don’t see what the point is. Why should I work a 9-5? Why should I even write? Why do anything? What’s the point? What am I aiming at? What am I doing? If I say I should write to pursue my passions, why pursue my passions? 

Poet: You can’t be serious.

Nihilist: Humour me.

Poet: Passion is the catalyst to life, it’s needed to make the most of this gift of experience.

Nihilist: But why is it that we need to even cherish this ‘gift’? I don’t really see why I should try so hard, in the end, if I fail, I’ll die. Then it’s not that I’ll forget about it, it’s that I won’t exist, I won’t even be able to cry. It doesn’t matter, nothing matters. If I live passionately, nice. If not, oh well. It’ll all be nothing in the end, and it will remain nothing forever. 

Anxiety: But what if you’re wrong and it does mean something? Then it’ll be too late.

Philosopher: Pascal’s wager kinda. If nothing matters then why not 'live life to the fullest'. I know it doesn’t matter if you do, but it also doesn’t matter if you don’t, so why not -- just in case?

Nihilist: Because you live in a bubble my friend. Life is a wicked beast. ‘What if it does mean something?’ really means ‘what if I change my mind?’ I’m scared I’ll change my mind and later decide to make the most of my life. Then I’ll look at now, and I’ll look at me (my Nihilist self) and I’ll utter the most vile curses. But why go through the suffering? Why should I suffer for this life I didn’t ask for?

Philosopher: Who are you asking?

Nihilist: Myself. I can’t seem to justify any motive for living. None of them feel like enough. The best one I have is laziness. I have to commit a powerful act to end my life which I don’t wish to do, now. But I don’t see the problem with killing yourself once the suffering gets too great. Why endure? What’s the point? Enduring is like a pro-social kinky sex thing. I see it like you get hard when you whip yourself because at the same time you’re saying ‘I’ll go to heaven’, ‘I’ll become great’, ‘I’ll be virtuous’, ‘I’ll live beautifully’, ‘I’ll save my people’, take your pick. Any will do. In the end all that happened is that you went through pain and chose a story to take your mind off of it, and you didn’t have to. None of it matters in the end. You don’t get a cookie and you’re no better for doing it. 

Supreme: What’re you even advocating we should do?

Nihilist: I’m saying don’t worry, don’t sweat a thing. It doesn’t matter if you work out or not. It doesn’t matter if everyone, or anyone, loves you or not. It doesn’t matter if you die homeless on the streets. It doesn’t matter if you spend your whole life climbing a mountain, the peak is smooth, pointless. It doesn’t matter if you kill yourself if you want to. If you find the suffering to be too great, the pain of life too unbearable, then taking your own life is fine. You aren’t better for fighting through it. Because that’s just an arbitrary gay thing society jerks itself off to. 

Society: Pussy niggah.

Nihilist: Relax bruv, not you. I’m just saying it’s a universal assumption that it’s better to be alive than to be dead. Disclaimer! I am not saying I should kill myself right now. I’m just saying I can coast through life, see where it takes me. If it’s beautiful, fine. If it isn’t, oh well. I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to feel sadness if my life doesn’t turn out to be some typa way. Nothing matters anyways. But then again there’s times where I feel like there is no point to doing anything. I don’t have to get out of bed, I don’t have to sign up for classes, I don’t have to pass. I don’t have to conquer my fears, I don’t have to fall in love. I don’t have to strive to live life beautifully in case she brings me to my knees, then I won’t cry. Thinking that it ‘wasn’t supposed to be like this’ and weeping that I lived wrong. I can’t live wrong. There is no rhyme or reason to anything. I can die tomorrow by tripping on a banana peel. My family will mourn, move on, then they will die too. And everything will follow suit, just like everything preceding it did. 

Poet: I don’t get it, what’s wrong with making the most of existence?

Nihilist: The effort could be treacherous. And to strive for it properly I have to accept that it’s possible that I don’t get anything I want in my life. I could be whipping myself in such a way that it may yield positive results in the future, but it may not. Then in the end I’ve just whipped myself. Best not to try too hard and go with the flow. Don’t take any of it too seriously. 

Mental health: You say there’s no point to striving for a good life because you might fail?

Nihilist: There’s no point in striving for anything.

Poet: What if the very act of striving towards beauty is the essence of your self expression? Wouldn’t that be enough of a point?

Ubermensch: To take this futile and temporary existence to carve a God out of man, means nothing?

Revolutionary: Your words are fresh from the womb of ignorance. You write this on a computer in the safety of your home. Free from tyranny, free from hunger, free from slavery and free from the cold. And as you do this your fellow man suffers greatly, but his suffering means nothing so it’s best you remain idle? Coward.

Nihilist: How am I to tell him how to live? I don’t know either. And I may help, I may not. I won’t cry if I fail to ever be of a charitable disposition. It doesn’t matter if I am or if I’m not. To me all of you are just offspring of anxiety. To embrace the chaos is to accept that anything can happen, and nothing is no better or no worse for those things happening. Nothing is an aberration, nothing is from God, nothing is profound. I don’t like using the word ‘just’ -- ancient relic from when I saw everything as beautiful, but I don’t think we live in a story, so I feel like my tone sounds like I’m ‘just’ing life. I feel like the word ‘just’ in the context of “love is ‘just’ chemicals in the brain” is a declaration that love being chemicals in the brain is somehow a lower interpretation of love than the one where it’s ethereal and of heavenly origin. And I think my tone sounds like I’m saying life isn’t as important or beautiful because it doesn’t matter, I’m simply recognizing that it doesn’t. But I think this is the ideology that gets me to accept everything. When I deviate from nihilism I’m rejecting some part of life, I’m declaring this part to not be beautiful, I’m stating that it’s unacceptable. There’s no point in striving for anything, but I can still strive. 

Scientist: But how do you know what to do? 

Nihilist: I don’t. And I don’t know how I’ll begin to know. But I feel like maybe the answer is Bukowski, I don't know man, that’s what it feels like it’s calling for. I shouldn’t try and whatever naturally draws forth my lust, I should fuck ironcladly. And it isn’t that the Universe declares that I should do it. It’s that I wish to do it because that’s how the chemicals in my brain align for some reason. So I’ll attempt to do it. If I fail it could be for a number of factors: societal, internal, metaphysical, theological. And all of them would be ok because I don’t identify with any story. I’m weeping for the whole of life, whatever that means.

Scientist: But what does not trying even mean? Are you going to continue on in Eng? Why? Are you going to get married? Would you fight if a war broke out? How’re you going to live day to day? How are you going to structure your life long term?

Mental health: You’ll need to know yourself in order to answer these questions. And doing so contains an element of ‘striving’.

Philosopher: And answering these questions would involve, or imply a value system that would have no basis given your beliefs.

Nihilist: I’m not sure that’s necessarily true. 

Scientist: But it’s a problem that you’re unsure. I’m uncomfortable leading us down a path like this because I don’t think it’s been properly flushed out.

Supreme: Buddy I’m in charge.

Scientist: Buddy it doesn’t matter.

Nihilist: You can say that again brother.

Philosopher: So it appears we should also attempt to discover what it is we consider meaningful and why, if anything at all. Because I don’t feel as if this matter has been settled. 

Supreme: We do not have a purpose in life, instead we’ve got three more questions, which I will state explicitly to satisfy Scientist’s affinity for structure.

Scientist: Pluh!

Philosopher: This isn’t necessarily the end of our discussion.

Poet: Nah let’s wrap this up.

Society: That doesn’t rhyme.

Corny Poet: Buttercup. Truffle-buttercup.

Mental health: Lool, y'all play too much.

Supreme: What does freedom mean? What is meaningful to me? And what is the problem with Nihilism’s story?

Nihilist: It’s not a story, that’s the whole idea.

Philosopher: We don’t know for sure yet.

Poet: I’ll call my next set of discussions ‘The Solutions’ or ‘Solutions’. And I’ll have them with the different parts of myself.

Scientist: But how will you structure them to achieve the best results?

Poet: By following the thought stream of beauty, and by consulting my authentic compass.

Scientist: My ideas appear to have fallen so far out of touch with science.