Roma, epilogue

I don't usually hope for anything, much in the same way I avoid promising anything. I'm afraid of disappointment and of disappointing others. So I don't take any chances, and I pretty much avoid anything that might set anyone up for disappointment. However, when I decided to go on my first vacation, I think I harboured a small seed of hope.

My life is devoid of meaning, simply due to how I perceive the Universe. My existence is completely random and will by its finite definition not amount to anything. I'm getting tired of that. When I try to talk to people about it, they think I'm depressed. Maybe I am, but it doesn't feel like it. It doesn't feel like anything at all. In fact, I would like to feel something.

Some of the most memorable moments in my life was when I was in pain. Years ago, I was bitten by a pet rodent and found myself revelling in actually feeling something. I realized in that moment that it had been a long time since I had last experienced pain, and I was glad to feel again, which I suppose also means that I usually don't feel anything in between moments of pain.

Having thought about that for a while, I agreed to go to Rome, in the hopes of feeling something. My secret hope, even half secret to myself, was that it would hold some kind of turning point in my life, that the experience could alter my perspective and force me out of my rut. Even after coming home, I denied to myself that I had had any hopes on the outset, but then I remembered that at every turn during the trip I seemed to be looking for something.

The plane took off, and I hoped that the fear, and my conquering it, would turn me into a stronger person. Maybe even alleviate my fear of death.

I saw the Colloseum, and I hoped that the perspective of history would bring meaning to my own existence.

Marvelling at St Peter's basilica, hearing the angelic choir that just happened to be singing when we entered, I actually hoped that I would find God.

Riding the Metro, I hoped that I would fall in love with a random girl, even if only for a heartbeat.

Nothing at all happened. Everything was very mundane, almost to the point of seeming quite ordinary. Nothing really left a lasting impression. It was my first disappointment in a very long time, and I really don't feel it was for lack of trying or a lack of openmindedness.

The end result is, if anything, that I'm now even more the person I already was. Next time, I simply won't hope for anything. I won't take a chance.

Time flies

Hört på tunnelbanan idag, lite förenklat:

A: Japp, onsdag imorgon då!
B: Ja - ha! - mitt i veckan!
A: Jomen det går fort.

Ja, tänkte jag, det går fort, och funderade på hur vissa verkar behandla livets stadiga lunk som något nödvändigt ont. Det är nästan som om de bara försöker ta sig förbi livet, som om det bara är ett hinder på vägen. Vart de nu är på väg.

Jag undrar hur de kan klara sig undan ångesten och depressionen. För den finns väl där för alla, bara man känner efter? De kanske bara stretar enträget framåt, knuffar sig förbi och fyller upp varje tyst minut med prat om lägenhetspriser och busslinjer och renovering bara för att slippa höra sina egna tankar. Har de faktiskt någonting att se fram emot på helgerna, eller är det bara ett till tidsfördriv? Varför vill man egentligen fördriva tiden, är inte det något man vill behålla?

Nu låter det här inlägget kanske depressivt och tungt, men det beror nog på att jag har suttit och läst igenom hela Johan Rheborgs blogg. Den är både deprimerande och inspirerande, till exempel fick den ju mig att prova på svenska för en gångs skull. Det är väl positivt?

You can safely claim that death will never happen to you, because death is not an event in your life.

Death is the ultimate non-event. Death doesn't happen to you; it unhappens everything that's ever happened to you.

Thoughts, a recap

Here are a few thoughts I've had in the past, collected and summarized for your reading pleasure.

Existance

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound?" My interpration: The tree is a symbol of life. Someone hearing it come crashing down is proof that it was alive; it's affecting its surroundings. In other words, if you live your life without changing the world, did you ever live at all?

"Your days are numbered" supposedly means that you don't have a long time left to live, but all it actually says is that each of your days has a number associated with it. So your days are countable, but so are everyone's; simply increment an integer value by 1 for each day that passes. In theory, the days don't even have to be a finite number. So if someone tells you that your days are numbered, tell them "Gee, really? Good work discovering the almanac, bozo." On the other hand, then it might turn out that your days really were a finite number.

Finally, here's a life-related saying of my own making: "Life is like a box of shit. You always know you're gonna get shit, just not which flavour."

Co-existence

Discrimination is inherent in democracy.

Democracy = majority rules, minority loses

No matter how much the majority might mean well, it's still a fact that whenever a majority and minority disagree, the minority is discriminated against. So "working against discrimination and towards democracy" is a contradiction in terms.

Pets

What do our pets think of lamps? Even if they don't actually think actively or cognitively or whatever, they must have some concept of lamps. When I walk into a room where my cat is sitting in the dark, and I turn on the light, what has just happened in the cat's mind?

It might think that I unblocked something. Cats and dogs understand doors pretty well, and they can grasp the fact that windows are transparent hard stuff. Maybe a lamp is a window to a light source; a window that's blockable. Now, what's a good lightsource? The sun?

So, pets might think that lamps are blockable windows to the sun. In that case, they're absolutely right. It's a great way to explain what a lamp is while using really simple terms, because all energy on the Earth originally comes from the sun.

The bigger question is whether our pets have ingeniously simple concepts for all of the unnecessarily complicated facets of our lives. I'm gonna go with "yes."