The beautiful nada: "the most undesirable host"

Creative Forums Creative Writing
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[size=150]The beautiful nada: “the most undesirable host”[/size]

I think it is interesting to quote a poem written by me and posted here sometime ago:

This “poem” which is not so well-written as it should be (nothing that I do is ever as good as it should be) reflects my frustration, my despair and my absolute loneliness when I am face to face with what is usually called my “destiny”, i.e, inexistence. If I repeat “over there there is…nothingness” is because I wanted to make it clear that if “over there” there is really nothingness, nothing, absolutely nothing that we do, chose or plan has any importance, the only thing that has some importance is to die, to disappear and to forget the pain.

When I asked some people here from ILP what was the reason they were living for, I wasn’t surprised that most of them slip in the area of non-reason (i.e, saying that their lives have a “meaning” which is by its own nature irrational), because that was exactly what I knew I would read: no matter how much we try to hide that, the current visions we have of life can’t make us happy at all. The idea that man is just a pre-programmed machine which has the “function” of reproducing himself in order to perpetuate his race could never and will never be accept by ANY human being: that is why a materialist or rationalist man is in trouble when he talks about happiness, optimism or joy of life: seeing life as just the result of some chemical and genetical events, nobody has a base to state why we should life, be optmistic or happy. A “happy” materialist person is a hypocritical one. Any person who believes in some form of “meaning” to human life (be this meaning predetermined or created by man) is doing something necessarily irrational and therefore has no way of defending his position through reason. The same applies to anyone who defends “optimistic” vision on life. According to his own “concepts” modern man has accepted that he is “nothing but a collection of self-reproductory genes”, therefore he has NO RIGHT to talk about things which a “collection of self-reproductory genes” isn’t supposed to talk about such as “happiness”, “optimism”, joy of life", “meaning” and so on, all irrational concepts.

This beautiful nada, this nihilism which man himself has created with his “reason” will unavoidably lead humanity to an age of despair, otherwise, it has already lead it to it: ours is a desperate time. Ours is a time of sadness, apathy, tragedy and loneliness. Ours is a time when humanity has already been declared dead while it hasn’t even begun to “live”.

That is why I usually say nihilism is always waiting for us at the end of our roads. The “most undesirable” host,as Heidegger beautifully said.

Thanks for the attention,

Fabiano, a man “who wants to be more than just an animal”, and maybe only wants.

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Your comments are somewhat scattered, but I generally agree with your deeming our age one of apathy and despair. Reason and philosophy have been tearing down the tapestry of myth and tradition for some four thousand years, and we have realised that there is nothing behind that facade; that if you rob the world of man-made meaning, there simply is nothing left. Ours is a desperate age because we cannot believe, cannot give ourselves up to generous feelings, cannot die for an abstract ideal because it is irrational. We are in need now for poets, for those creative geniuses to weave another glorious tapestry of myth, so that we may walk once again with gods, so that we may let forces other than our own self-interest guide us in our lives. Unfortunately this prospect seems an impossibility to me, and in light of that, I suppose we must simply seek out the redeeming qualities left in our paltry lives. A feeling is a feeling, regardless of whether or not it has a biological base; an impulse is an impulse regardless of its evolutionary origins. You may rationalize away in your labs, and press to explain life in terms of molecules and forces, but you will never explain how it feels to climb a mountain, or to stand at the prow of a skimming ship, the wind rustling in your hair. There are certain things in this world, magnificent in their inexplicability, and it is for these things that we must now live.

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Hi again Fabiano,

Am I so simple minded that I see love as the answer? Does that sound too insignificant to suggest? Maybe you were loved when you were younger - so you do not feel that yearning for love. Love, in itself, is enough to satisfy that question of what purpose you have here as a human. Do you, perhaps, take that for granted? Maybe I don’t because I lived my childhood searching so desperately for it, and view all of life as a search for giving and receiving love. I see God only in the realm of love. To me, they are the same word.

Also, is it too insignificant to find joy in nature’s beauty? Do you remember the scene in the movie “Dr. Zhivago” when the poet, Zhivago, and his family are escaping to Verickino on the train? He is looking out of a small opening (window?) which opens his view to the moonlit sky with the beauty of the frozen tundra beneath. He has a look on his face of wonderment and true joy. One of the other passengers scoffs at him, and laughs at his poetic nature. He makes a cynical comment leaving Zhivago in the dust of it.

This will mean nothing to you if you haven’t seen it, but if you have you will get a picture of what I am suggesting. I loved Alfonso’s sentiment of, " how it feels to climb a mountain, or to stand at the prow of a skimming ship, the wind rustling in your hair." The beauty around us is spectacular. The opportunity for loving another when you least expect it is there for the taking. I am fully aware that along with this beauty is suffering, cynicism, hate, jealousy, and despair. I feel that if you lead a life that gives you even one opportunity to change this world then it is your place to do it. Don’t sit in a dark room waxing poetic about nihilism when there is so much joy around you. Don’t ignore the joy and drown in what is painful. If it bothers you so much, spend a purposeful lifetime trying to change it. And be sure to take some time away from dwelling on your own despair and change someone else’s life because ultimately THAT may make a transformation in your own philosophy towards humanity. Just a thought.

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Bessy, Alfonso, thanks for the replies.

TO WHOM IT MAT CONCERN:

I am going away from ILP, don’t know if I ever will come back (we never know, our futures are not “determined” no matter what slave-minded determinists may say). It must be clear that the reason why I am leaving is that I am both very busy and frustrated: won’t have time enough to spend here and don’t really know if it’d be worthwhile to spend my time here. Nothing to do with Ben’s idea creating this site or the general level of the forums (which is good), but sometimes I have the strong feeling of not belong here. I found interesting, good friends among ILP members, but 90% of people here belong to the kind of people I simply can’t relate (i.e, the mechanicist conformists who are the responsible for us to live in the world we live in). I simply can’t relate and don’t want to discuss with them. So, why to post? And I won’t have the time enough to spend here, so my little spare time will be used another way. Good luck for all of you, I hope (?) you may have good discussions. You surely won’t miss me, but I will miss some of you.

Goodbye,

Fabiano P. Lourenço

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Fabiano, my friend…

We will miss you, but don’t forget what I said to you, and check in from time to time to let us know how you are doing. After all, I expect great things from you. Good luck in all that you do…

I wish you peace.

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Having just read Camus’s “The Stranger” today, I can seriously understand what you mean. But I must protest with a purely rational response: you cannot take an “is” and make it an “ought.” On that basis, I deny your statement that we have “no right” to embrace such concepts.

Secondly, is a human being supposed to be purely rational? According to whom? You? We are much more than our reason (which itself is not perfect), hence, there is more to being human than being rational. What progammed machine can be artistic? Why does the West exclude the other side of our nature – and why do they think that by reducing down emotion (or anything else) to an evolutionary genesis, it becomes any less valuable or distinguished? Before one truly comes face to face with what we all are condemned to come face to face with, one sometimes forgets that one is still alive.

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Nonsense. Despair and happiness are equally flawed…equally unjustified. Happy is a silly, sloppy, poetic word like God and love. It loses it’s use in deep conversations. You have to set new premises. Happiness just means satisfaction, lack of pain, flourishing. These things feel good so we CAN’T HELP be attracted to them. Being happy is not hypocritical. Waxing omniscient about what we should be or have a right to be is hypocritical.
Maybe emptiness is truly empty. Maybe it matters, maybe it needn’t. “Maybe” is the word you need Fabiano. Utilize maybe and you’ll be right about the universe. Then figure out how you want to live given these unknowns. Your choice seems weak. I know it well. We are all weak before we are strong. And the strongest have been weak in the way you are being weak. You are destined for greatness. And I know you are reading this even though you claim to have left. Don’t be a fool. Continue this discourse with all of us, even the conformists who also grow; to leave is to turn your back on yourself, to call off the game on a rainy day. Fuck rain.

It was Camus, in a moment of clarity, who said of Sisyphus that he must be happy. It is my contention that happier still he’d be with rock pushers alongside him. Telling a happy person that happy is an illusion is like telling ANY person that time is an illusion. They’re still going to eat the ice cream lest it melt. Idea 2: go have some ice cream. You’ll feel better. Pure despair is not yours to own. You are not a God. You are human. The ice cream is yours. Use it to tickle your taste buds and cool your soul, or use it to trap flies and paint sticky tears of negative graffiti on your soul – these are your only choices, and in the end, this Choice is all there is of you. Choose one (like many), choose both (like few), choose wisely (like I know you will. You must.)

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Damn that was good, Gamer!