Nausea

Lung Shu said to the physician Wen Chi, "Your art is subtle. I have an ailment; can you cure it?"

The physician said, "I will do as you say, but first tell me about your symtoms."

Lung Shu said, "I am not honored when the whole village praises me, nor am I ashamed when the whole county criticizes me. Gain does not make me happy, loss does not grieve me. I look upon life as death, and see wealth as like poverty. I view people as pigs, and see myself as others. At home I am as though at an inn, and I look upon my native village as like a foreign country. WIth these afflictions, rewards cannot encourage me, punishments cannot threaten me. I cannot be moved by sorrow or happiness. Thus I cannot serve the government, associate with friends, run my household, or control my servants. What sickness is this? Is there any way to cure it?"

The physician had Lung Shu stand with his back to the light while he looked into his chest. After a while he said, "Aha! I see your heart; it is empty! You are nearly a sage. Six of the apertures in your heart are open, one of them is closed. This may be why you think the wisdom of a sage is an ailment. It cannot be stopped by my shallow art."

* * * * * * * * *

Along those lines, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a book entitled "Nausea." In "Nausea," if memory serves (the exactly details are a tad fuzzy, but the concept is still there), the main character begins to feel very out of place in the world. Everything he has known starts to become foreign. Ordinary household objects and events become very strange, and day-to-day events become earth-shattering. These gradual/rapid (it happens over time, but nevertheless feels rapid) are enough to make him nauseous; hence the title of the book. But in the end, he realizes that this sense of the foreign has happened to him in accompaniment with his understanding that there is no inherent meaning to life. There is no set, default purpose. And it is a combination of that realization, that whatever presupposed meaning he had used to think belonged to life didn't exist, coupled with the awareness that he was alone in this realiztion, that made him more nauseous than ever.

There is a lot in my life that is begining to feel foreign. I am having new viewpoints about mundane things (like work, cars, tvs) as well as some important things (religion, friends, family). And I feel lost. No one, no one else in my life views life as I see it. No one else seems to realize that the only, only meaning to our lives, the only purpose God intended for us, is to live as true to ourselves as possible. Now, this doesn't mean selfishly, of course; in understanding ourselves, and our inner nature, we have an awareness that we are one with the world around us, and that we have a responsibility to take care of it and everyone in it as we would ourselves. But in order to truly accomplish that, we must stay true to who we are; make decisions based only on what we know is right for us and best for everyone around us. A gardener shouldn't run the finances for a large non-profit company any more than an accountant should be in charge of the creation of a new city park. When we violate our inner nature, when we try to make things work, we only make things worse. When we let things happen, and acknowledge who we are, then the things that need to get done, get done.

I finally realized, btw, why I dislike the "WWJD" slogan so much. It's because the concept it promotes (that we should consider what Jesus would have done in a given situation, and then do it) erases any chance for individuality. We are not Jesus, none of us. And, truth be told, although being like him is a very admirable and lofty goal, the fact of the matter is that the world would get nowhere if everyone left everything behind (family, job, etc) for the sake of preaching to others. I think a better slogan, one more suited not only to individuality but also to what God would really prefer, is "WWJWMTD: What Would Jesus Want Me To Do?" Doesn't quiet roll off the tongue as well, but it's a work in progress...

I am begining to feel very alone. I think if I had to describe it, I'd say it must be similar to Neo being "unplugged" from the Matrix. There are people around him, but he nevertheless feels alienated, and uncomfortable, and no doubt he longs to be among the countless others who remain a part of the matrix. But at the same time, he knows there is no going back. Once he's awakened, he can't go back to sleep. And he really doesn't want to, except in moments of loneliness and weakness.

I can't go back to just a regular, day-to-day life. I can't go back to dreaming about cars, or wishing I had a girlfriend (which, in all honesty, I haven't done for some time), or making things work with a girlfriend, or planning out some career path, or anything that everyone else seems perfectly content to do. When I have the time to think about things, my decisions fall under only two categories: What I should do, and what I shouldn't do. And the things I feel I should do don't seem to line up with what anyone else is doing, nor what they think I should do. And so I make myself more and more alone with every passing day, but I don't see as how I could choose to do otherwise. And to be honest with you? It's making me nauseous...