Living consciously 🍜

60; 12022 H.E.

Many go and ask themselves, what is the meaning of life? Some spend their entire lifetimes to come up with an answer that they would feel good or smart about. Many spirals themselves into self-imposed depressions, worry without an end, and lock their minds into a constant state of misery. All from a question on life’s meaning. Is it impossible to answer? Some would say so. Is the answer supposed to be something grand, beautiful, and divine? That is what we can assume from the effort that goes into it. Albert Camus said - "The meaning of life is whatever prevents you from killing yourself". Franz Kafka proclaimed - "The meaning of life is that it ends". I would like to assist my dear authors with an answer that is like the finest things we have - simple.

The meaning of life is to live. To live every day, including all the sadness, all the joy, all the anger, all the happiness, all the disappointment, and all the beauty that it has to offer us every day. I mean to live. Many misunderstand the difference between living and living. Many of us find ourselves doing from day to day simply existing. Eating to live, working to pay, studying to pass, and sleeping to heal. What interests me is the drive behind all of our actions, why do we do what we do? What is the endpoint of all of this? Call this passive survival just merely existing. Oscar Wilde put it neatly - "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

This is the reason for this small piece - Living consciously. I propose a sort of living, where you do whatever you do in the moment, but with full understanding and acceptance of your own actions and treating consequences and events as simple facts of life. You can still just eat, work, study, sleep, yet if you do it consciously, knowing this is an integral part of you right now, you need it, you want it, most importantly, you accept it, then I would claim it is quite a life. Let us do what we do consciously. Sleep all day and when not sleeping watch anime? For some people, it sounds miserable. "You get no work done! It’s a day wasted!". "Well", I would say, "it might be for you and this is exactly what I feel like living right now. It is my decision".

Understanding this does not even require any great effort. No one is telling you to change your routine, climb a mountain, or start defending yourself in front of others. All you need to do is know what you do and love what your life is right now. What is given to you at this very moment? Without regretting previous actions or endlessly and futilely imagining your possible present under different circumstances. Constantly beating yourself because things are not going your way is a sure and dark way to drive yourself insane. To truly lock yourself up in the prison of the mind, where it will rot in despair. However, I am not telling you to expect less from life or lose that life force of yours. We are humans, so none of us can expect everything to go our way or demand it. Whether you are happy or not is up to you.

Financial situations, work hazards, school life, all of it weighs on our psyche. If someone is materially poor, it would be infinitely worse to be poor in the soul. The least we can do to break ourselves out of poverty of any kind is to believe in the future that is yet to come, to bring fruits, and so many things that we didn’t even know we have yet to experience. To many, this will sound naïve, simplistic, wishful thinking. Please do think that way further if you think it makes you whole. I will go on living my path, my way, and you go live your life and what is meant for you. The most human touch we can give each other is the freedom to live our own lives, without impeding nor interfering with it. This is living consciously.

I would ask myself. In our lives, as a part of society, as human beings, the general expectation of all is to study, date, marry, have kids, and million other "expectations". Why does one follow them? Is it written in the laws of the Universe that marrying someone will make you "whole"? Having kids will make you happy? Maybe at the moment, however, having kids is so much more than just "having" them come out to the world. The least is to care for them, provide security, educate them, support them, raise them, and most of all - love them. I know too many people that went speedrunning life as if they felt they are falling behind, started a family, and had kids just because they were told to. If you are a child yourself and have no interest in actually raising a human being, to later care for you, to have a chance at actually living, then why are you subjecting this person to your incompetency and disinterest as a parent?

Why would you go and date someone, just because you are scared of being alone? Being lonely and alone are two completely different realities. Why would you marry someone if you both already feel the relationship is crumbling, as this is your last-ditch effort to fix it (spoiler, this makes issues even deeper and worse, especially if you start having kids and to separate later)? If you do this because you are scared and worried about your loneliness, inability to live consciously to understand the weight of your actions on others, then I would love you as a human, who is simply lost. Lost in external expectations and never found yourself. Pitying will do no good for you. If you do it consciously and knowingly subject others to your whims, whilst making them suffer because of your selfishness and fear. You disgust me.

Being in a relationship does not guarantee happiness to you. It can definitely provide it, but what many people in them miss is the fact that it is a lot of work. Being with someone isn’t just smelling roses, it’s care, love, and humility that so many of us lack to form genuine bonds and connections with other people. It is better to be fulfilled by yourself, maybe even alone, rather than be miserable in a forced relationship, just because you had nothing else coming up. There are of course exceptions. Brave ones that stand up to the challenge and wisen up. I dare to say, out of >95% of people who fail to live, very few can get out of it and rise. If for every hundred, no, even a thousand lost people, we have one who could find themselves, then all of this might very well be worth it. ◼︎