Strange Shores

The exhaustion that weighs on me like a ton of rocks can hardly be described. I sit in front of the computer and words get stuck inside my head. One would say 'I need a holiday', but all that only serves to remind me of is the fakeness of life in general.

Everything about living in society seems contrived, artificial, and based on giving off a certain appearance or other. We're all playing roles with one another constantly, trying too hard sometimes to second guess hidden motives, condemned as we are to only ever be able to grasp one subjective perspective of reality at a time.Yet at the same time as I write this, I don't see how this could be avoided since that seems to be the way we're intrinsically wired.

Religion, for instance, is an incredibly powerful artifice. Its main strength resides in the way it is taught from the youngest age. Individuals barely get to realise that it only takes a seed planted within the mind at an early age for it to awake at some point later in life. Like a dormant seed, that of religion emerges in full force at least later down the line, when, for one reason or other, the weight of meaninglessness or pain and confusion in general become too much to bear. I almost feel like saying religion is like THE Joker or 'get out of jail' card that embodies Man's ultimate capitulation when it comes to logical thought and reasoning - the individual hits a wall at some point and for some reason can no longer see a way past that wall, so ends up falling back on religion as a better answer than none at all.

The counter argument of this would be the exact opposite perspective I followed in the previous paragraph, meaning that I chose to see this notion of a 'seed' as one planted by Man into his fellow Man's brain from early on, which then leads to a society full of people falling back on that seed at some point when they don't readily embrace it from the start. But the opposite argument could well be that we always had this 'seed' within, this... trace within that invariably leads Man back to seeking 'God'. Even though the argument is just as valid due to the unknown factor (ie. I can't prove that God exists, but I can't disprove his existence either kind of thing) the lunacy of religions and their manipulative aspects linked to the fact that Man himself is responsible for producing 'dogmas' in the first place is the one fact that prevails, at least to me. The notion of 'God' or higher power is the possibility, religion is a man-made fabrication that leads people to fight one another and shed blood never truly in the name of some higher entity as they would like to believe but to be proved right on an individual level.

I realised fairly recently that I've reached a stage in my life where most of my contemporaries are now either married or in long-term relationships. Not only that, but now the time has come for my contemporaries to start reproducing, too. The strange thing is that all the friends I actually made and kept in touch with over the years happen to fall outside that trend (meaning they are mostly single and childless, still), whereas all the people I once knew in the past but with whom I no longer interact with or have no real contact with have all proceeded to enter mainstream relationships and reproduce. If anything, it tends to show that we naturally stick to our 'own' kind, so to speak, and perhaps the universe has a way of dictating which passengers on the train of Life are better suited to sit next to you for longer before it's time to get off and part ways.

Another realisation was bestowed on me not long ago that also added to my growing cynicism when it comes to the ideal of Love. I was meeting with the one childhood friend I managed to stay in touch with all these years, and she was telling me about this common friend we used to have back in high school. I had heard that the girl had recently got married and just assumed she had been lucky enough to find her 'love'. My friend sneered at my naivety at once, telling me she had met with the girl shortly before the wedding and that she had told her that she didn't love the man, but she needed to settle down and the guy was nice enough and suitable. Fast forward a year later, and the couple has now produced their first child.

It seems to fit the pattern, doesn't it? We have youth to idealise and dream about unattainable things like love, but then as we mature we realise the cold and practical nature of reality, and we slowly learn to accept that life isn't so much about love, but about pairing up with a 'suitable' candidate, someone we can get used to, someone we can put up with, someone who shares the same goals etc... The practicalities of Life then keep piling up to the point where it often becomes too much of a hassle to try and change our condition, and in that light it no longer comes as a surprise that couples may remain together till old age. The counter argument to this would simply be that it is in fact what Love is all about in reality - the ability to stick around long enough to the point where what we first saw as 'suitable' has transformed into a deeper feeling. Or something. Still, there's another word for is - habit. And as it happens, we are creatures of habit.

It makes me wish sometimes that I wasn't able to see all these things so clearly and in such a cold, factual light, because I'm sure most people never dwell on these and just go with the flow instead - so yes, maybe the more oblivious and ignorant one is, the happier they can hope to be.

Perhaps this notion of happiness everyone seems so obsessed about comes at a price - the price of thought quality or even human intellect. Only a simpleton or a non-human entity could have a shot at 'happiness', it seems. Ironic, is it not? If that line of thought happens to be right, then we live in a society intent on making us strive for this cleverness that actually ends up removing us further away from that equally obsessive need for 'happiness'.