I Love Philosophy

Typical Angst (written 6/3/16 9:26pm)

I've been dealing with a lot of angst lately. One instance that sticks out, in particular, was when I was out with a friend at Perkins, eating lunch. I looked around, and I saw a bunch of humans settled at square and rectangular seating while eating portions of food that were much more than what's necessary for a healthy serving. I, myself, had absent-mindedly ordered a "Wrappin Granny", without realizing that it was a breakfast burrito with tater tots in the center.

While my friend vented about one of our professors at school, I scanned the room. I watched as people formed a perfect line along the door and waited patiently to be seated. I began to ask myself what the meaning of our existence was. We were no longer hunters or gatherers, exhausting our energies in order to sustain ourselves. We have evolved to a point where we merely look at a piece of paper with symbols. Point. And our means of sustenance is delivered to us.

With all of our modern conveniences, it's left us with so much time and seemingly not enough imagination for what to do with it. We find ourselves filling our days with television, social media, and other mindless forms of entertainment to mask the anguish of knowing we are not immortal. Our time is limited and fleeting, and one day... we will all die.

We use these things to distract ourselves from confronting the known truth.

Well, today I was driving home from work and saw a 40-something-year-old man rocking out to some music in his car. It made me smile. As we became parallel at the stop light, I was able to make out that he was listening to Green Day. I chuckled to myself. I quickly realized that although I'm not a huge fan of Green Day, their music was making this man's day at the moment.

Again, I started to ponder the reason for our existence, and today I came up with this... it's to create beauty. The mediocre food that I ate at Perkins served as a means to bring me and my friend together, where we could share our life experiences, relate to each other, and participate in the beautiful experience of human connection.

*... and I've lost my train of thought. It's hard to find the exact words that would allow me to best communicate this... to be continued*