I used to have this grand idea that the reason for experiencing life was so that the cosmos (harbouring some kind of “universal consciousness”) could come to learn about itself. I think that belief came from the idea that we’re all fundamentally connected to some “source,” and that we’re really just observers witnessing our lives unfold; our observer-self doesn’t even have any meaningful tie to the life it’s watching, aside from the cosmic pairing that somehow connected it to a body. The thought was that maybe the universe developed consciousness across different beings and forms as a strange mechanism for understanding itself, in the same way that we developed consciousness, and, as a consequence, became capable of understanding ourselves in ways unconscious creatures cannot.
Because of this, I thought it deeply important that people increase their awareness and self-awareness, because consciousness, specifically this interconnected, metaphysical kind, was the highest purpose one could serve. You were doing your part by allowing the universe to unfold and understand itself, and all that was ever expected of you was to fill out your particular corner of the universal map of all possible things, which would then fold back into the collective pool of conscious experience. That underlying belief played a nice role in my life for a good long time.
Lately, though, maybe because of the hedonic treadmill and the brain’s inability to ever be satisfied, I don’t find this reason to push forward into the world nearly as convincing anymore. For one, in this worldview, you must entertain the idea of the universe as a kind of deity. This is fun, but has its limits. And two, being human, I had created my god in my own image: something that places self-understanding above all else.
How exactly did I convince myself I knew what the universal consciousness wanted? Probably youthful audacity mixed with the need to funnel my religious inclinations into something other than science for a change. And honestly, I still respect my younger self for that, because I firmly believe you have to create whatever reality stirs your coffee every morning. But somewhere along the line, to my own disappointment, I think I stopped caring what the universe “wanted” from me. Or maybe I stopped believing that just because I personally value self-knowledge above most else, I can safely project that value onto reality itself. As below, so above.
Inside myself, I feel a belief forming that a good life requires both the pursuit and achievement of forward progress (or at least the illusion and hope that you are moving toward some better future, however nebulous) balanced with enough presence and mindfulness to appreciate how far you’ve already come and the many marvels of the world around you. My brain doesn’t seem capable of being happy with only one or the other. I need progress. I need hope. I need narrative. But I also can’t appreciate anything I’ve done, all the skills I’ve developed, or the extent of the person I’ve become unless I deliberately slow down and contemplate enough to really feel it. Without this, you become an endless climber who never even stops to appreciate the view.
At least with the brain I was gifted, if I’m not moving forward, upward, onward, it becomes difficult to even grasp the wonderful things happening around me that have nothing to do with achievement at all. When I’m delighted by momentum and confident in myself, it becomes much easier to appreciate the beauty of a rose, which, in turn, deepens my conviction that the universe is fundamentally a kind and beautiful place. But apparently, I have not gone through enough therapy to just smell the roses before my positive self-image is “justified”—or, perhaps, without fundamentally believing the future is going to have even prettier and smellier roses. Without “forward”, it’s easy to slide into what the young people might call a “depressive episode”.
I suppose that’s a pretty good sign that my confidence, even after all this time, still depends at least somewhat on the world around me. But I think I’m banking on this idea that if I balance forward movement and quiet contemplation for long enough, I can create a kind of self-sustaining joy and belief in my own worth, even during periods when I’m not making meaningful progress in the areas of life I care about most. Even though I’m not holding on as tightly as I used to, and even though I now carry a certain je ne sais quoi because of everything I’ve stomached, metabolized, and grown from, maintaining forward momentum in my life is still one of the best ways I know to ensure I’m continually capable of appreciating the elegance of existence all around me.
So, in the meantime, before I either achieve ultimate enlightenment and detachment or fall victim to my own fallacy, I have a survival strategy. I took inspiration for this from aging and/or deceased relatives on the Ukrainian side of my family. Many, if not all of them, developed a kind of dour intensity in old age. I once asked my father why all his relatives seemed so grumpy, and he said, “It’s a life force. It sustains them.” And… yeah. I think there’s something to that.
We are born into this universe already engaged in a fight against entropy. Some people are lucky enough to inherit lives with structure and order built in from the beginning. They learn early how to create and maintain systems that keep them suspended above the roughness of the road beneath them. For others, the baseline is much more chaotic and far less stable. But wherever you land on that spectrum, one thing remains true: you must work every single day to maintain yourself and your life. Eat, clean, exercise, plan, exert, manage, converse, haggle, spend, save, play. You cannot really take your foot off the gas, because the moment you neglect something, it has a nasty habit of dragging you further into whatever black holes the universe is already trying to slide you toward.
So what can actually, reliably keep Sisyphus from getting flattened by the boulder?
Spite, maybe. The sheer refusal to accept that the universe placed you on this path with your boulder, and that the unfair punishment for stopping is suffering by crippling stagnation: the slow erosion of your strength, your momentum, your capacity, and your ability to smell the roses. Since losing the belief that I’m somehow meant to be gathering experiential data for the universe, I can at least grit my teeth and draw strength from the knowledge that, yes, I was designed as an organism destined to eventually succumb to the entropy surrounding me, but fuck you if you think I’m going to let everything collapse without a fight.
If I can’t find permanent peace in the act of pushing the boulder uphill, then I will at least become exceptionally good at pushing it. I’m going to get stronger, and eventually the push itself is going to look effortless. I think this is the closest I’ve ever felt to touching lasting satisfaction with the human condition.
BRONZE FROG 