Essence vs. Existance
1. From being completely happy, I have tried to live a life of Essence.
2. This goal has been rocky and difficult and I currently seek the comfort of others and physical purpose to help me (existance).
3. Ultimately, I need to admit that my chaotic quest for essence is my choice and is therefor not worth agonizing over.
Random Fact of the day:
I and Katie found a bug in my room. Apparantly its a stink bug. We named it Burp which is short for my Burning Passion. This came about as we were talking about love and an arsinist had set the fire alarms off that night.
My Freshman year I discovered pure, 100% happiness. It was weird. It seemed my entire life had culmulated to a single point of happiness. I was being challenged, I was free from my parents and stress, I had my first girlfriend, and I had amazing friends.
So I was laying in my bed in complete happiness, which lasted for about 5 minutes, and then I asked myself. Ok. What now? I mean this is boring. Even though I am living a super happy life, I am missing something.
That one experience has led me on quite a journey for the last two years. I don't persue happiness. And the persuit of happiness is quite a little journey that I decided to skip out on.
So what has taken it's place. A persuit of Essence. (Essence is purpose and passion). And that's been hard. Real hard.
And the funny part about persuing this purpose is that its always changing. Just when you think you are on track, think its all figured out, that's when you start to take another turn in your life. And its frustrating. Real frustrating.
So I will live a life of ever changing essenence. Period. But I guess that's not neccessarily what I'm seeking. I'm seeking stability in this. I would like to know, no matter where my essence is that day, there is something I can rely on.
I've started depending more on friends. I justify my existance somedays through getting my homework done. As you can tell, there is a strong urge in me to find that stable girlfriend.
And the funny thing is, I'm not going to find that stability. As I've discovered recently, I persue chaos. My previous relationships have always ended when things were getting comfortable. I have 500+ friends but know none of them real well. My academics always seem pointless.
So I guess you are right. I'm seeking something I do not internally want. So I guess I am at a path on the road and can't choose. Do I want to change my essence to live a life of security, not persuing a greater purpose? Or do I want to change my existance to better help me persue my essence?
I've already decided essence as you can probably guess. I'm sure I will continue to complain about being lonely and living a life of extreme mystery. But I need to add one thing to the end of that. I choose to live that way.
2. This goal has been rocky and difficult and I currently seek the comfort of others and physical purpose to help me (existance).
3. Ultimately, I need to admit that my chaotic quest for essence is my choice and is therefor not worth agonizing over.
Random Fact of the day:
I and Katie found a bug in my room. Apparantly its a stink bug. We named it Burp which is short for my Burning Passion. This came about as we were talking about love and an arsinist had set the fire alarms off that night.
My Freshman year I discovered pure, 100% happiness. It was weird. It seemed my entire life had culmulated to a single point of happiness. I was being challenged, I was free from my parents and stress, I had my first girlfriend, and I had amazing friends.
So I was laying in my bed in complete happiness, which lasted for about 5 minutes, and then I asked myself. Ok. What now? I mean this is boring. Even though I am living a super happy life, I am missing something.
That one experience has led me on quite a journey for the last two years. I don't persue happiness. And the persuit of happiness is quite a little journey that I decided to skip out on.
So what has taken it's place. A persuit of Essence. (Essence is purpose and passion). And that's been hard. Real hard.
And the funny part about persuing this purpose is that its always changing. Just when you think you are on track, think its all figured out, that's when you start to take another turn in your life. And its frustrating. Real frustrating.
So I will live a life of ever changing essenence. Period. But I guess that's not neccessarily what I'm seeking. I'm seeking stability in this. I would like to know, no matter where my essence is that day, there is something I can rely on.
I've started depending more on friends. I justify my existance somedays through getting my homework done. As you can tell, there is a strong urge in me to find that stable girlfriend.
And the funny thing is, I'm not going to find that stability. As I've discovered recently, I persue chaos. My previous relationships have always ended when things were getting comfortable. I have 500+ friends but know none of them real well. My academics always seem pointless.
So I guess you are right. I'm seeking something I do not internally want. So I guess I am at a path on the road and can't choose. Do I want to change my essence to live a life of security, not persuing a greater purpose? Or do I want to change my existance to better help me persue my essence?
I've already decided essence as you can probably guess. I'm sure I will continue to complain about being lonely and living a life of extreme mystery. But I need to add one thing to the end of that. I choose to live that way.
Things are chaotic, that's the way we like them. But you will find your stability and something to hold you steady when the world swirls around you. Just because you find yourself at a road that presents two obvious paths does not mean you have to take one. You can wander through the trees seperating the paths and eventually, you'll find a balance that makes you happy.
And until that day, you will always have a busy redhead.
Posted by
Anonymous |
4:48 AM
Think binary, Elliott: either 1 or 0, no in-between. You can never fully realize the one if you are always contemplating the zero, and thus you cannot contemplate either because they are extremes. You've never let yourself be an absolute, preferring instead teh safety of the valley between the jagged peaks. But what are you missing? Contemplating extremes that you cannot comprehend--and yet you ask yourself, "is this progress? have I changed? or have I milled around in limbo because I cannot bring myself into an existence that gives me essence (purpose/soul)?"
Posted by
Anonymous |
6:30 PM
Or, rather, think about entropy and energy (inverses of each other). Chaos has high entropic (by definition) and low energy (by correlation). Bringing that chaos into order requires energy. Thus, choosing a path of least resistence (low energy) leads you directly towards chaos (not the contrary!), whereas putting effort into life (a path of greater resistence) leads you towards a structured arrangement that *you* created. Which would you prefer?
Posted by
Anonymous |
6:35 PM
if you find you no longer have "essence" nor the capacity for it, does that preclude and deny your right to "existence"?
Posted by
kten_greyeminence |
12:25 PM
just remember that a bit of chaos every once in a while is necessary, or else you can end up a real asshole.
Killer blog, Elliott. Sorry you've been feeling down. If I may interject something more literary in here, it might not hurt (frankly, the scientific approach to emotions might be occaisionally accurate but gives yours truly the willies). George Eliot, in Adam Bede, says: "we are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence . . . For it is at such periods that the sense of our lives having visible and invisible relations, beyond any of which either our present or prospective self is the centre, grows like a muscle that we are obliged to lean on and exert." Sometimes purpose is found in the erasure of self-consciousness for a while--after all, aren't the most essential (namely, full of essence) moments the ones where you forget who or what you are and become something else entirely?
I personally become a majestic unicorn in those moments. But that, after all, is my purpose.
Just some worthless thoughts. Keep writing, man.
Posted by
Cameron J. |
9:27 PM