Friday Night Philosophy

I had a conversation with a man on Friday night. We stood at the fridge clutching beers. I stood side on to him so that I could hold my ear close to his mouth. The music was loud, the talking was loud.

He was talking about chance. He told me stories about moments where people he had not spoken to in months or years, he thought about randomly, and who then contacted him that day.

‘I’m like that’, he said. I think outside the box a lot. ‘What’s it called again? Those conspiracy theories? About planes and chemicals....Do you know what I am talking about?’

Yes I do.

I did not mention to him that someone had mentioned that to me, a few hours ago, it was the first I had heard of it. And here I was talking to him about it again. For the first time, twice in one day. That would have corroborated his argument. But I wanted him to substantiate it himself.

‘There’s more going on than what we see’, he says.

We talked about solipsism. And birds eye views.

He had an interesting tone. As if these stories of chance, proved that there was no point to the world. Somehow.

I responded with my usual quasi-socratic, quasi-existentialist ideas...

Does asking questions about the meaning of life, the purpose of life.... how can that alone convince you that life has no purpose?

Cant your own individual purpose of life be to ask these questions. To examine life.

Can that be your ‘eudaimonia’, your ultimate design and end of flourishing: A worthy life of examination.

Cant you be whole in your seeking of answers. Cant that process of seeking itself be what fills you with purpose?

And if there is no purpose of life, no collective order running through all things, that can be a premise, that gives you freedom to create your own purpose.

He did not seem to have much patience to consider my questions. I think that he decided my questions meant that I did not understand what he was saying. ‘no, let me explain to you again’ he said ‘this one time someone i had not spoken to in years, i thought about randomly and they contacted me that same day’. Yes I understand, I said, don’t fret sir. I just want you to think more about what you are saying. If you believe something like this, and then draw conclusions from that belief that mean that life has no purpose... ask questions. Substantiate it. Be able to have a discussion with me about it and answer my questions. Questions don’t invalidate your argument, they just fill in the colours.

I asked him if this ‘something more’ that was going on, which was evidenced by these moments of random chance, if he believed they were caused by something internal or external to us. If it comes from us, was through our volition, the fact that he had thought about someone caused them to then contact him. Or if it was the world responding to his thought. Or if it was all the way the world moves around us. This idea of ‘fate’ that we cannot control, presenting itself to us.

It was an odd conversation, but it is something I have been thinking about. It is in the back of my mind, these grand questions of fate. of how we interact with the world around us. what dynamic forces or interaction exists between people and the physical and metaphysical world around us.