A Universal Human Experience
Waking up with having no memory of how we got there
Sometimes I wake up from a nap and have no recollection of where I am or what I am doing which dawned on me that it’s something everyone has experienced. How did we end up on earth? In a hospital bed with no memory on how we got here. I myself don’t know how waking up with bright lights in a sterile environment was like but tracing back to photos, it should have had happened, right? I find it sort of interesting yet weird that when we are pushed out of the womb, we are here present on Earth and all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence. What makes up of life then?
Even more interesting is that life doesn’t start but does not end there either. While most are brought up with parents who took a heroine-like pleasure for two seconds in order for to be born, we are still conditioned into environments to flourish, to try, to fail and to find ourselves. To really find whether we’re the time wasters, the pineapple on pizza discriminators, the Valley nerds, the horoscope readers, the fashion obsessives, the religious fanatics, the vegans, the sports watchers, the creationists, the smokers, the scientifically literate, the homeopaths and anything in between. We use these traits to produce value — economically, intellectually and purposefully. This is part of the human experience and if it’s as easy as that, why is living hard? How do people know the difference between what they want to do and should be doing? What if you don’t have passion in your work? What’s the purpose?the meaning? Do we work to be in pursuit of comfort or to find a meaning grander than ourselves?
But even if we do get close to an answer, what’s the point anyways?
Although unsatisfying, it is my hope that until you and me find the answer, you are ceaselessly striving in delightful and strange experiences. While it has taken a cliche turn, our finite time on earth means that we must remember we will be dead soon. In the face of death, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure will leave what is truly important. Social friendships that arouses you personally, an activity that kindles a refusal to accept complacency, and a life that fulfils you creatively, spiritually and literally.
Take pleasure in the things that you do. Have many interests, if you want, and explore them all. You can never really tell whether they’ll be helpful for you going forwards, but you can only tell that it is looking backward (Steve Jobs was into typography way before Apple started and before typography had a climax — yet it was the very thing that made Apple stand out). Find your raison d’etre, even if it’s useless, unpopular, and looked down upon in the now (who knew that programming would be such a boom? who knew cryptocurrency wasn’t just a bubble?). Those are the debris of our culture, the ideas that are ignored, the search for a rekindling passion, it’s the very thought that your interests/ work may not succeed and provide for you financially is so freeing and boundless that it lets you to wilfully explore shamelessly. It’s a handshake to spontaneity, finding beauty and solace in ambiguity and ultimately, being wedded to living. Who wouldn’t want to live that way?
In the end, there is nothing to lose. The foreknowledge that you will soon face death, you are already naked.
Our answer to the questions above does not exist in asking or meditation but in our work. Whatever our work may be, do your tasks diligently and with sincerity, unapologetically take conviction in your interests, and aspire to make the world a better place.
The latter makes me unbelievably excited.
