INTERNALIZING THE FACT THAT LIVING COMES DOWN TO A SERIES OF DECISIONS
31st July 2024
It turns out living comes down to a collection of decisions. You know there are the everyday decisions we make like when to wake up, what to wear, where to eat etc. Then there are the big decisions like where to live, where to work, who to marry etc. Then there are the even bigger decisions like how to show up in the world, how to interact with others, what to value etc. It's crazy to think that a person’s life is a sum total of all the decisions they made. I don’t know about you, but up until recently, the fact that life and living comes down to a series of decisions is a simple fact I hadn’t internalized. I had been existing like somewhere in some corner, there existed a blueprint for how life ought to be lived, and figuring out how to live meant uncovering said blueprint. Despite all my nihilism, somewhere within I held the belief that there are dos and don’ts of life, shoulds and shouldn’t, oughts and ought not to. When I couldn’t find anything to ground said beliefs in, I turned to others. I became utterly dependent on others' opinions perhaps to a debilitating extent. Every step I took, every word I uttered, and just about anything I did, I eagerly turned to others, desperate for their validation. More than anything I wanted, no, I needed those around me to assure me that I was saying the right thing, doing the right thing, or taking the right step. I needed others to validate my existence, a validation without which I did not know how to exist. But now I find myself wondering why I would depend on others to that extent when everyone is just as lost as me, when everyone is too preoccupied with themselves to be invested in my well-being, when no one knows me better than I know myself. How silly it all feels now.
I think I used to have a very low opinion of myself which led to me valuing other's perspective more than my own. When I put on an outfit the question on my mind wasn’t if I liked it, the only question on my mind was if others would like it. When I did something the thought on my mind wasn’t if what I did was what I wanted to do, the only thought on my mind was how what I did was perceived by others. When I said something I was not concerned with whether it was what I wanted to convey instead I was more concerned with how what I said was received by others. I just did not feel like my wants, preferences, or feelings mattered. I can see how that can be frustrating for anyone who may have been interested in getting to know me. I mean how do you get to know someone who has no idea who they are, someone who does not feel like they are worth getting to know, or someone who just does not feel like their feelings matter? I don’t think it is possible, I suppose that is why I never really believed anyone who has ever told me they “like me” especially in a romantic sense. I think for you to say you like someone or even hate them and for that to mean anything you have to know them. Otherwise, those are nothing more than empty words. If you do not know the person then what exactly do you hate or like.
Personally, I have never felt like anyone really knows me which is why I don't feel like anyone has ever loved me. I am sure people have, my mom, my brothers, maybe my friends, but no one ever has in a way that I understand or in the way that I want. Last year was the first time I dated anyone. I broke up with him sometime in May of this year. At some point when we were dating he told me he loved me. I told him I did not think he did and he said it did not matter if I believed him he simply did. I still don’t think he did because although I allowed him to get to know me more than I had allowed anyone to get to know me up until that point, he still barely knew me. How can you love someone you barely know in any real way? Again, I don’t think you can, so sure perhaps he loved someone, but it just wasn’t me. I definitely did not love him, I barely knew him and as I got to know him over the course of our relationship, I was not even sure I liked him. I was never really crazy about him to begin with, I think we just happened to meet at a time when I was open to a relationship which is why we ended up in one. Don't get me wrong he is a great guy. I did like how straightforward he was, there were no games. He said what he meant and meant what he said, there was just an honesty to how he was that I found attractive, I think it's a quality that has been present in everyone I have ever been attracted to. It's a quality that makes me trust a person. Anyway, right now I find myself thinking of the first couple of pages of the book Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe where he wrote the following lines-
. . . a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten face
Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother's face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.
Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?
O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again - Thomas Wolfe
I love those lines, they express everything I am feeling in this moment, but can’t seem to articulate as clearly as I wish I could. You know, the feeling of being the only one experiencing life from your standpoint and the isolation that comes with it. The knowledge that you can not really know what it is like to be another person unless you were them, but knowing that because of the limitations that come with being a human being you can not be anyone but yourself, a fact which implies that others' experience of the world is fundamentally inaccessible to us. Sure experiences can be similar, people can be similar, but similar is not equivalent to the same. We are therefore left with the realization that although we can get glimpses of each other, impressions maybe, attempting to know another person, like really know them, is an almost impossible endeavor. But maybe it's all much simpler than I am making it out to be. I think it was Sally Rooney in her book Normal People who said People are a lot more knowable than they think they are Perhaps she is right.
However, in case Sally Rooney isn’t right, I find myself wondering how one can have meaningful relationships with people despite not being able to know them. It must be possible because I see people doing it all the time. I think this is a question Sally Rooney explores in her book Normal People, I don’t know if she intended to, but she did. If you haven’t read the book, I recommend you do, it is one of my personal favorites. In the meantime, I will give you a general overview without any spoilers in case you decide to read it or in case it is already on your reading list. The book essentially follows the relationship between its two main characters, Marianne and Cornell. Throughout the book, we follow their individual journeys as people struggling to figure out how to exist in the world. We see how they support each other, how they fall short repeatedly, and also how they forgive each other over and over again. What I envy most is the friendship that exists between them. How easy it is between them even when it is not. How certain Marrianne is about how she feels about Cornell even when she has no idea how he feels about her and how certain Cornell is that he cares about Marianne even when he is uncertain about everything else. It's not possessive between them, they don’t belong to each other, but they and everyone around them know they are each other's person. I like that their relationship is not grounded in unreal ideas of what the other person is like- Marrianne is not just invested in Cornell as the person he appears to be, but rather is invested in him as an individual always changing as he stumbles through life and Cornell is invested in Marianne in the same way. It's just simple between them. Now, at no point does Marianne or Cornell claim to know each other, in fact quite the opposite, but when Cornell told Marriene he loved her and Marriane told Cornell she loved him, I did not doubt it for a second.
Naturally, I found myself wondering why I believed Marianne and Cornell given my belief that you can not love someone unless you really knew them. Well after much thought, I arrived at the realization that perhaps I believed them because witnessing their relationship made me realize relationships have never really been about knowing another person. No, Perhaps it's about being wherever they are with them, existing next to them, experiencing the world alongside them, and when you can’t, sharing your individual experiences of the world with each other. It's about being there for another person, comforting and consoling each other even when you don’t understand. It is something much more subtle. I think in some ways it is a decision one makes at some point to be invested in another. Apparently, it is that simple.
I have met people who I have wanted to make the decision to be invested in, especially in college. But for whatever reason I never did. I suppose I have been preoccupied with other things. That being said, it is a decision I have made exactly once. It was sometime during my high school days. I was a tenth grader taking this precalculus class. There was this guy who sat a few desks from me with whom I found myself making eye contact with quite often. So one day after class, I asked him if he wanted to go on a walk with me and he said yes. After that day we hung out almost every day after school and sometimes before school. I remember spending hours at the National Mall in DC, the place with all the free museums, just wandering around, talking about things I don’t remember now. Sometimes we would walk to this park that was by our school, sit in the shade somewhere and just talk for hours. Some mornings we will meet at Panera and have breakfast together before class. He and I were both in robotics club so some days after school we will do that. We also had a couple of mutual friends with whom we sometimes played tennis, oh and we also started a philosophy club together at our high school. When we weren’t spending all of our time together, we would spend all day texting. Everyone thought we were dating, but we never did. We just enjoyed each other's company, at least I enjoyed his. I don’t think I really spoke to anyone before meeting him, like I engaged in conversations with other people, but with him it was different. These days, we unfortunately do not talk as often as we used to or as I would like, but I think about him often. I will say the following, mainly because I have no reason to think he will ever see this post, but if I got to a point in my life where the idea of joining households with another suddenly seemed appealing, if he was down, I’d be down. I really wouldn’t mind doing laundry and taxes with him. Huh, so this is what it feels like to be sure about someone, interesting.
Anyway, internalizing the fact that everything comes down to a decision is definitely liberating, it feels fucking amazing not relying on others' validation to feel like a person. I definitely am enjoying doing whatever the hell I want and feeling good about it instead of being riddled with doubt and dread. But at the same time, internalizing the fact that everything comes down to a decision is also disorienting, confusing, *throw in a few more -ing words here* because now I find myself wondering what is one supposed to go off on when deciding to settle for one thing over another. I feel like that is a question I have wrestled with for a really long time. I have invested a lot of time and energy trying to figure out underlying reasons to do things. In the past dwelling on all that led to nihilism, but these days, dwelling on all that... still leads to nihilism, except now for whatever reason, it feels like there is something immaterial to life and living, something that makes it feel like there is more to all this than can ever be explained through logic and reason. If there really is more to life and living than can ever be explained through logic and reason is yet to be determined.
My point is these days, realizing that everything comes down to a decision does not make me want to jump off a really tall something as Taylor Swift phrased it in that one song, no it makes me want to put in the time and effort to craft a life that is worth something to me and that is definitely a start.