[1359] in Depressing_Thoughts
Futility
whycare@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (whycare@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Aug 8 16:40:06 1990
I have no motivation to do anything because everything I do, including my
posting of this article, reminds me of the futility of my existence.
Studying, writing, creating in general can keep my mind occupied momentarily,
but the uselessness and emptiness of these actions are apparent to
me when I step back and look at them. It is too easy to say that the obvious
solution to my problems is to not step back and look at what I am doing.
The problem with this `remedy' is that it is simply not possible for me
to not think about the general emptiness in things when I am, say, eating,
drinking, taking a shower, or walking across the street. (Luckily I
don't regularly think of the futility of breathing yet, since that would
render me inoperative...(or is this what I really want?))
Unhappily, I am not one of those human beings who had been `brainwashed'
(`imprinted' is the more proper term) before their realization of
consciousness to love doing a particular thing for the sake of doing it.
(I do believe that an individual's general personality is shaped by forces
uncontrollable by the individual himself. There are several experiments
in psychology on human subjects, infants in particular, and personal
observation that lead me to believe this.) Examples of such loves I have
noticed in other people are studying a particular subject, being obsessed
with a particular musical instrument, collecting certain objects, or
supporting some cause fervently. I can point out probable causes (my life
history) for the manifestation of this personality, this lack of initiative.
I can say and have said that I wish I had some real obsession. However,
these utterances will do little if anything to alleviate my present condition:
the condition of being unobsessed, the condition of living as if I were
to die tomorrow. And I believe that I may only be truly `happy' and
fulfilled if I were endowed with some continuous inner flame. (Perhaps
a continuous drug therapy will alter my mind in such a fashion. Perhaps
I am deficient in the neurotransmitters which enhance neuronal firings or
am endowed with too many receptors for neurotransmitters which
suppress neuronal firing because of the chance formation of my genetic
makeup.)
These days I hope that by some lucky state of affairs, I will
`accidently' be run over by a speeding vehicle, be knifed unexpectedly
as I walk aimlessly through the streets, be poisoned by someone whom I have
annoyed sufficiently, or be sentenced to death for carrying out a sufficiently
amoral act as judged by this society at large, such as murdering defenseless
babies in incubators at a pediatric ward or gunning down random pedestrians.
