Just a bit of a ramble today...

I find it really interesting noticing what is important -vs- unimportant to me now.  I know this is probably an obvious observation by someone my age, but as the observer, I note it anyway.  There are very few things I "geek" over anymore.  It's so strange because there are actually very few things that I feel deeply connected to at all anymore.

That sounds awful, yet it's entirely true, and frankly, completely un-awful.  It's not apathy.  Its not some ennui or malaise.  It's different.  It's like internally my priorities either have been--or are being--reset.  Sometimes I wonder if it's happening "against my will".

Then I question the validity of the concept of "will".

For a long time, I studied the idea of "passion".  I now have a grasp of how errant that effort was.  It's not a sad thing: it simply is what it is.  Doesn't mean Kierkegaard was a douche for leading me astray.  I can't blame Johannes Climacus for the state of reality.  He put the work in.  He gave it the old kollegium anstrengelse, but at the end of the day, you won't get the right answer asking the wrong question.

It's actually rather fascinating to me how much more valid people like Camus, Sartre and Nietzsche are than people like Kierkegaard and Kant.  You really do have to kill off God to get down to brass tacks and do the good work of the Lord.

I really want to run away and build a little village of yurts for people to retreat to.  $50 a night, and I'll make you breakfast.  I'll even let you help in the garden...

2 comments:

Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple said...

Is your diminishing of geeking out that things in general are less interesting or is that *everything* is interesting.

Btw, as much as I like Soren's fears and trembles, I've always been a Sartre and de Beauvoir guy myself.

Zen Trixter said...

I think more than anything, my prioritization of interests is more in line with reality. I think that's where I'm at. AKA "Knowing what really matters", I guess. It's hard to invest so much energy in things that don't get me further down the path. "Do not waste your time by night or day".

As to your choice of philosophers, I was a hard-core apologist for a goodly long while, so that informed a lot of my philosophical predilections. I have always been an Existentialist, though, even though it's a pretty Socratic-colored one... ;)