Goal of the day: 1512 words. Written: 1030.
When the first life appeared many thousands (or rather millions) of years ago in the vast soup of chemical elements, it had only one desire: to transform some chemical elements into other elements.
For example, it could be the conversion of methane to carbon dioxide. Or something else. But the exact formulae don't really matter here.
The first life then began to change from time to time, naturally, or perhaps encouraged by God or by random fate. Sometimes strange events occurred in the division of these cells and amoebae, and life evolved. Changed.
And so, a few million years passed, and step by step, this life turned into a human being.
Humans are animals whose sole purpose is to replace some chemicals with other chemicals. Only most of the time we don't realise it, so we make sense of it all in terms of extending the family, pursuing personal happiness, or other activities.
Basically, everything that this life form, humans, do is pointless. Because just as life came into existence for reasons we do not know, no one has explained why we should live.
But we want to live. Oh, we want to.
And we will do everything we can to survive, to continue the family, and in doing so, to protect not only the children, but also the grandchildren, or great-grandchildren if we can, or however many we can get.
We will fight, exercise, search for the elixir of life, go on a diet, or basically do anything else to live longer and be more useful to our family.
(Not necessarily sexually transmitted, by the way. Some people don't want to extend their lineage through their genes, but they want to help people they love and respect - whether same-sex partners, puppies, or the Leader of the Nation, whatever.)
But why am I telling you this?
Well, the thing is... Everything we do is related to our death. Or rather, avoiding death.
Everything. Not just the "what will I eat", or "where will I live", or "who will take care of me in my old age", or "how do I beat that thug first so he doesn't kill me first" questions. But also in any other activity.
Here, for example, is one activity that a very large number of people hate: posts, lectures and various speeches in front of an audience.
It doesn't really matter what they look like - but if we know that there is (or will be, if we're filming for the future) an audience and that somebody will judge us, we naturally shake our shoulders.
And why? Why are we so afraid of public speaking?
The [[scientific rationale]] theory is that this happens because we naturally imagine the worst thing that could happen in scary situations.
...And what could be worse than losing your honour and trust in the eyes of others?
Well, actually, yes, you can think of a whole bunch of worse things. But to the person standing in front of the stage - to you or to me - it looks like something terrible. So horrible that a ferocious tiger will come and attack us.
[[scientific rationale]] mentions exactly this scenario - there is another theory that says we are afraid of being in front of a stage (or even a single girl/boy we meet on the street) because we believe that if we have sex, our tribe, our society, will condemn us to die alone.
And that is scary. Only people who have realised that death is inevitable are not afraid of it. And there are comparatively few such people, even among our elders. 🙂
Aha... So... Where does the Love you mentioned come in?
Yes, thank you. Love. As you should remember by now - when it comes to our wants and desires, I call the highest level of WANTING Love. Because such a desire is as indefinable as she is - infinite, incomprehensible even as to why it is desired, and almost unconquerable.
And our lives are based on Love... for Life. For survival.
We want to live as safely, comfortably and peacefully as possible for as long as possible. Only complete lunatics can refuse to do all this without any reasoning as to why it is a good thing to refuse. Who will anyway be shuffling around on their own in some abandoned house.
(It's natural to refuse, telling yourself it's better that way. But you'll see what I mean.)
I see. We like to live comfortably.
Wow, Captain Obvious!
Let me give you an example.
Imagine you are an employee of some "UAB Nobody cares about you". You earn a pittance, but enough to live on. But worst of all, you don't feel any happiness at all in that job. Every day you get up as if you were getting up for a job in a camp and so on.
You have two choices:
- Keep working for a low wage that supports you and your family, but not feel happy (but support your family!);
- Or quit your job, quit your salary, go off to do you don't know what and where and how, with no way to come back and become perhaps But without money, and first your family and then you will starve to death in a house without heating and electricity.
Hm. What two positive choices, right?
Well, but imagine you have that choice. Just like basically all the countless people in the world have that choice, but only situations change - instead of a job, it's a civil engineering degree, instead of a degree, maybe it's a bad relationship, instead of a relationship, maybe it's a horrible city, or I don't know what else.
What do you prefer?
Well, did you answer it in your head?
Okay, great. Because your answer this time was a bit worthless - after all, if you just said it out loud, I couldn't hear it through the pages of a book or computer. 🙂
But on a more serious note, the right answer is:
I choose what I have more desire and drive for.
Everything. No "wait, there's a third option" or anything else - whatever you're more willing to do wins.
What do you have the will for? Which thing did you have more desire for? A steady job or a risky fortune? To buy a baguette and a sausage for a few euros, or a book by Daniel Goriunov? To kiss your first love on a first date, or not to kiss her?
All your life choices so far, now and in the future are based on desire. Or at best, though not always possible, at that purer level - Love, Desire.
What you wanted more:
- Not to hurt your parents, or to tell them the truth that you are not a child anymore and must be given your freedom?
- Should I start reading this book or spend more time on Facebook?
- Finally, when you feel like going to the toilet later in the day, do you want to sit comfortably with your pants on, or do you want to stand up, move around, run, sit down and otherwise struggle to stay clean?
There is no of the right choice, because correct choices... Well, that's a very subjective thing (and I personally believe they don't exist, but that's another topic).
But there are choices for which you have more desire.
The desire to do A versus the desire to do B, C, D, E, F, G, H, or however many options and letters you can think of. Most of the time we have more than one choice, but we choose only one of them.
...Or if you choose "I'll wait and see", life chooses for you what you've earned by sitting around scratching your nose, or what the world wanted most. Choosing not to choose (or not to think about choices at all) is also a choice. And I can't say it's always a bad choice. 🙂
Your life is based on wishes. Love. A desire to survive and live, at best, under thunderstorms - happily ever after! Like normal people!