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. 

uncertainty

Sophie and I had a great conversation about freedom and fate, and whether they are mutually exclusive concepts. It was challenging and inspiring and exciting.The kind of excitement that only learning with and through other people can give me. We picked through eachother's thoughts and offered alternative thoughts and drew on the thoughts of important and smart people.

Sophie had such clear and thrilling ideas about fate. I just had to read it over and over again. they were sublime, i wanted to gild them to my windows.

it got me thinking about something else though. I have been thinking about this a lot.... How I feel about uncertainty.

A few years ago I was so certain about this. About how I felt about freedom. There was no room for doubt. doubt was weakness.
But now i am just in the process of asking questions. It frightens me to be asking questions. I long for certainty that i lost. But I am sure I'll find my way back to certainty, but i’ll have a much stronger foundation for those questions.

I envy past Fiona and her unexamined certainty. There were, still are, so many things that i believed were implacable. This is what i feel, this is who i am. There is no scope for error. For mistake or uncertainty.

There were these things that i believed were so foundational to me. Never being less than free. Never doing something that i doesn't fill me with joy. Never having sex with someone i am not completely physically enthralled by. Never doing something without understanding what my motivation was, or without being comfortable with that motivation. I thought it was conceptually impossible. Physically, fundamentally impossible. My body would not engage. My heart would not negotiate. My soul would resist.

I am in this place now where... i need to know its ok to be asking questions about what i thought was non negotiable. I need to know that its ok to have feet of clay sometimes. (here’s a random bit of poetry I always remember - from the bible, of all places - ‘This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.’) I need to know that there is strength in identifying weakness. That i don’t have to be stoic and strong 100 % of the time. That there are parts of me that are uncertain and uncovered and thats ok because life is about learning. That doesn’t frighten me anymore, that thrills me.

There is a penumbra around these things. Around certainty of values. There is scope for mistake. There is always scope for learning. Its ok that i am not fully formed (got that one from clare bowditch) Its ok that I am relative (sophie got that one from Anais Nin)

Or maybe it is about identifying what you want to be a foundational concept. And then you work hard to make it that way. Is a belief less valuable because it was cultivated over time and determination rather than something that has always been there? Now that i think about it, i think there is much more value in identifying what i want to grow in me and growing it myself. Maybe it all comes back to that idea of accidents vs autonomy. There is value in choice and hard work.

I worry i have tainted this idea of freedom for me. That the very fact that i doubt its implacability means that it is not a part of me. But there is value in me choosing freedom. And actively seeking it for myself.

when i did something that i did not understand why i was doing it, which is a big deal for me... it frightened me. Because i thought it was a fundamental value. Unshakable. Inherent. But now i think... its ok that i have learnt that through trial and mistake and questions and decisions. Its ok that i will spend time deliberately entrenching this as a chosen value in me. It has more strength for it.

So i don’t really envy past Fiona so much. Because she didnt ask questions. because she was afraid of learning. And I think asking questions is brave. I think examining life is brave. Was it Socrates that said an unexamined life is not worth living? A very strong thing to say. Im not sure how i feel about it for anyone else, but for me it rings true.

So this is the context that I am thinking about fate and freedom in. The context of... asking questions about things i once accepted was certain and being ok about that.

And also... finding a balance. I find myself charging ahead with such certainty about what i think, and then life stops me and challenges me and i have to re assess. I have to consider alternatives and soften my iron clad views. I have to balance the elements.

Like, for example - I am learning to be ok with the fact that i cant be for myself every thing that i need, that i might need something outside of myself. I need to balance, i need to soften.

Certainty in freedom.....For as long as i can remember I have felt these words to be so true. That i am free. That I was never less than free. So when people challenged that, when i let people challenge that and in turn challenged it myself, it is super frightening. But I am balancing. I am asking questions and considering and exploring the penumbra bravely and when I do come to a conclusion it will be stitched under my skin with all of these background colours and textures. 

I am dusting off my feet of clay and continuing to march along.

and celebrating wondering.