Purpose

In my heart of hearts, I am a deeply lazy person. I sometimes think that talking smart and smooth can give off the perception that I'm well-read and therefore not a lazy motherfucker who stares at my phone rotting my brain for hours every day. When I get confronted with having to address my laziness it frequently causes existential crises. Just recently I told my professor about my first blog post and he asked me to send it to him so he could read it. So I took out the part of elderly Jewish men liking the sound of their own voice and I sent it to him. I prefaced the email saying "please don't take this too seriously, I just wrote this for fun". It didn't go well. At the start of the next class he said in front of everyone "Gabe I read what you wrote. I think that if we disagree on this fundamental level of seeing skepticism as the ultimate form of understanding reality, then maybe you should drop this class". I just looked back at him with stunned Pikachu face. I said "I'm engaged with the material, I think what I wrote is indicative of that. I am just skeptical of skepticism. I have no interest in dropping the class". 

After that, we went about our class and didn't address it any further which was fine by me. However, at the moment I have to write the biggest paper I have ever written for this class, and I was honestly considering dropping the class. Part of the reason was I would need to be faithful to my own beliefs if I was writing a 15-page paper, and I couldn't do that if he rejected my whole perception of reality and method of deciphering human existence. Another part of it is, I need some assurance of passing this course as I don't have very much wiggle room as I'm trying to graduate in the fall. But sadly a really big part is I just didn't really want to put in the work. I'm worried about not having enough alone time, and sacrificing my rotting time. Which is really retarded. I want to want to work. I have this belief that purpose is something I can strive for and I will find it eventually and it will be like a switch being flipped in my mind and body. I hope that's not naive. I don't know how I could go on if that wasn't the case.

I just read this book Bread and Wine by Ignazio Silone which is about a communist, Pietro Spina, who has to go into hiding in Fascist Italy in the 30's, and the way he does that is by putting on the collar to avoid suspicion. There was a very moving chapter where Spina is talking to an old comrade of his who is extremely jaded and has given up on the possibilities of a revolution. He tells Spina "you were a revolutionary out of fear. You forced yourself to believe in progress, you forced yourself to be an optimist, you forced yourself to believe in the freedom of the will only because the opposite terrified you...I'm not the least resigned, I'm not afraid of life, but I'm still less afraid of death. In the face of this pseudo-life stifled by pitiless laws the only weapon left to man's free choice is anti-life, the destruction of life itself". Spina responds by saying "I'm afraid I understand". This conversation that they had really rattled me, I felt very called out. I have always believed in the power of positive change and the indomitable power of the will of man, but recently I have had to come to terms with accepting of the current realities and the bravery that is that acceptance. I always thought bravery comes from revolutionaries, but I think real bravery comes from those who take reality how it is, in all of its horrors, rather than what they want it to be.

That may seem unrelated to the paragraph before, but I think I take one step closer to finding my purpose when I accept reality as it is. I think I had a false sense of purpose a few years ago when I thought I was saving the world by buying local produce and meat from the farmers market, which is what modern liberalism has allowed me to think. However, this false belief was poisoning me. Only true understanding of reality and the infinite can give you the peace one needs to function presently within the world.