What makes a philosopher? Interesting thoughts? (check) Borderline craziness? (check) Broken interpersonal relationships? (check) The tendency to brood over life events? (check) Theories about human behavior? (check) The ability to provide psychological support systems? (check) Past and/or present substance abuse? (check, check)
I’m a dead lock for “philosopher of the year.”
Now, onto the question of why I’m not.
As I’ve said a thousand times before, I have no attention span. I blame ecstasy. Let’s just leave it at that. Remember when people said that drugs were bad? Turns out that in many respects they were absolutely right. Long term effects of substantial and abusive drug use do, in fact, suck. Perhaps the only bonus is the ability to look at life through a completely different lens than most other people. Could I have done that without train-wrecking my head? Maybe. But probably not. (at least not in my case). Not to be redundant, but I used to be a huge asshole. In many ways, I still am, but I am now (unlike when I was younger) hyper-conscious of the world around me. I am affected by things which should have absolutely nothing to do with me, because I feel like that certain part of the collective unconscious is thumping in the back of my brain. People are people, which is why I am constantly stunned by other people’s enthusiasm for unethical things (like killing, enslavement, and obnoxious narcissism). I just don’t understand why people are such assholes.
Now, to be fair, most “philosophers” don’t talk like that. They exchange crude words for “socially conscious” words, but I simply don’t want to care. I will never be Jean Paul Sartre, because I am not … 1. French, 2. a soldier and escaped POW, 3. in love with another philosopher with whom I exchange sexual partners, or 4. cross-eyed. And since he’s my hero – well, let’s be honest, Nietzsche is my favorite crazy person – I can’t live up to the existential hype. I can live my personal angst every day and blog about it, but I have no audience. What I feel is what a million other people feel. I have nothing original to say. BUT … the fact that so many people feel lost and in crisis nowadays is probably something we ought to pay attention to. Life is not something to be taken for granted. It’s necessary to take risks and make changes and then take responsibility for the things we do.
This is where I suck. I know (and HAVE known) for quite some time that the life I’m leading is not the right one. I rationalize my current life by saying that I cannot afford to change my circumstances and I do not want to disrupt the lives of those around me with my personal issues. I willfully admit that those excuses are a total cop-out. If I really felt so strongly about the misdirection of my life, I would change it regardless of the consequences. Unfortunately, I empathize too much with other people, so I can’t screw up their lives just to make myself (potentially) happy. I will do the martyr thing and wait it out. It sounds ridiculous because it is, but I haven’t found another realistic choice yet.
Living the philosophically true life isn’t easy.
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