Public Service Announcement
The next time you’re groaning about Mondays, mad at the asshat that just cut you off in traffic, bored, watching the evening news, or doing just about anything we humans do 99% of the time, please please please take a moment to wake up and smell the big picture. Yes, the BIG picture. Why do we so easily forget about it? It’s like the whole world is sleepwalking, so caught up in day-to-day life. Caught up in life, in general. There’s a whole lot of samsara going on. Very few of us take a moment (or enough moments) to stop the madness and wonder…. ‘…so, uh, like what the hell is going on here? Anyone? No? Oh well, back to eating my cheeseburger…’.
What the hell is going on? What the hell are we doing here? Isn’t that COOL people? Why are most of us discussing the dating habits of movie stars when we could be cogitating on this wondrousness? Luckily, I don’t suffer from any kind of existential angst. I don’t care if there’s a meaning to it all or if it’s a big cosmic accident (and I actually believe it probably is meaningless and just a big cosmic accident, but that since I’m a conscious being I get to give it whatever damned meaning I want). This kind of stuff really keeps me up at night. It’s just so darned COOL! And also profound and important. But I’m a geek, so it’s primarily cool.
My dad tells me that when I was very young I asked him some questions like ‘Why are there different kinds of birds?’, and ‘Why do all things grow?’, and to both questions he replied with quite possibly the best answer I can yet imagine: ‘I don’t know. It was like that when I got here’. I still feel like I just got here.
I started on the CR diet for numerous reasons. I really want to live a long healthy life. The world is so frigging fascinating that I just can’t wait to see what happens next. I wake up every day and while sipping my breakfast smoothy I read my e-mail and then check my daily science news sites. Just about every morning there is some brilliant or mind blowing breakthrough technology, discovery, or study. To me, the world is like a page-turning thriller. I just can’t put the book down, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Personally, I figure there’s an extremely low probability of there being any sort of afterlife (that’s my politically correct way of saying it). But if there is, it’ll still be there whether I live 102 years, 103 years, or even 10n.
Another motivation to do caloric restriction is that I am generally attracted to the ideal of overcoming primal urges. After all, that is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have the same primal urges that all animals do; those powerful drives to eat, fuck, and sleep in ever more luxurious dens. Only humans can override these urges with higher-level urges generated by reasoning about the big picture. Every moment we spend eating and sleeping and humping and carrying on shallow lives shopping and watching Fear Factor, is a moment spent being an animal. Every moment spent meditating on the big picture, reasoning, and overriding primal urges, is a moment spent being human.
Now, I’m not saying we should all run off to Tibet and become monks (as much as I admire them — those Tibetan monks are really in to being human), but it is just such a damned shame if we all waste our short lives running around sniffing each other’s asses and drinking out of the toilet. Yes, my lovely readers, do yourselves a favor and please do not forget the big picture. And in case you missed it: Check out my exciting article below, where I took a picture of my big salad and wrote about it.
From my point of view, you might as well devote your life to serving god. The fundamental motivation behind your choices seems the same to me.
Hedonsim is where it’s at.
Why do we need "separation from the rest of the animal kingdom"?
Thinking and F*ck*ng (etc) are not mutually exclusive!!! Finding balance is key. Is pondering the big picture really more *fun* for you? If so, maybe you should buy less books about philosophy and the universe, and more about how to have better sex.
If you turn to God as a way of life to deal with the death of your cat, is it really any different than turning to CRON as a way of life to deal with your high blood pressure? Do either of those choices really make your life any better? Or are you just trying to justify sacrifices required due to circumstance to yourself by concocting some higher purpose?
As a Hedonist, I *enjoy* humping and cheeseburgers and Fear Factor. I also enjoy riding my mountain bike or skating to excercise. And, on very rare occasions, I enjoy pondering Life, The Universe, and Everything. Then I go hump some more. Cuz it’s what I *want*. Hedonism does *not* provide the answers I seek about Life and the universe, but you don’t have those answers either, else you wouldn’t have to ponder any more and you could go back to humping.
You can go on denying yourself. Though, I think your daily sacrifice is even worse than wasting every Sunday in church. Maybe on your death bed, for one nanosecond you will be able to admit the regret to yourself, and realize all the perfectly good humping time you missed out on. And I think there is regret, I think it’s why you wrote this entry.
Or I could just be totally full of sh*t and pulling your leg 😉
just wish the human race could work as a team. Call me an idealistic loser, but maybe in some way that we are not yet able to perceive we are able to work as a collective truth searching intelligence. Like we’ve kind of been plugging away at this collective reality for a long time now and it isn’t working for me. Seriously, things like the economy and social heirarchy and all of the social systems that we follow, are just pretend. We were born in to believing that these systems are the only functional options, in exactly the same way that most of us were born in to believing some jumble of philosophical mythology. I hate to be the bearer of pretty dumb news but we havent really tried anything else for like thousands of years. Well, it just seems to me that the large majority of the world is unwilling to try a whole new different approach to the human experience. I am tired of pretending that the world actually works the way we a living in it. I don’t want to pretend anymore. If there is one thing that humans have proved over the last bunch of millenia, it is that we are great pretenders. We might be the the best fucking pretenders in the whole universe. If this is the legacy that my race is comfortable leaving behind, then leave me out, I’m starting my own club.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for posting your own belief system. It was interesting. Not sure if you were dissing all other belief systems though.
Personally, I try to stay away from belief systems. I find they interfere with my curiosity.
Mind you, living with a morass of hypotheses is often troubling and/or uncertain. Uncertaintly is a good thing though. Pat answers, someone wrote once, should carry a warning … "Harzardous to your health" and "Just say No (thank you) to pat, easy answers." Something like that. I wish I could remember where that quote is …. I stored it away somewhere ….
Anyway, nice rant. Loved it.
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And Samuel,
Don’t let the crap rent space in your head. Loved your rant.
And Aaron,
Loved yours too. Just loved it.