Losing My Moorings

9/27/01  

I have lost my moorings and see only a horizon, and don’t have a clue where I am going or why. 

When I was younger, my life had two anchors.  The first was my set of objectives in life: my career, religious goals, etc.  Second was my structure of meaning, the way I ordered my world, religiously or otherwise.  These two anchors were crucial in keeping me motivated and sane, but now I fear they are slipping away.

The first to go has been the “structure of meaning” anchor.  When I contracted that God-awful disease in college (which they call “philosophy”), my assumptions about the world began first to shift from one place to another, and after that to disintegrate as if by old age.  I am like a piece of metal that is severed because it has been bent too many times in the same place.  My disease has so progressed that now I believe in bad faith, as a way to cope, but not in any deep or complete way.  My beliefs do not permeate me anymore; they are out on the surface; they are thin and fragile. 

The next to go was the “objectives” anchor.  I am no longer certain of what I want to accomplish in my life.  My greatest fear—that I will wake up one day near the end of my life and discover that it had all been quite ordinary—is beginning to come true, if no other reason than that my destiny is slipping away from me, leaving me behind with “the masses in mediocrity.”  I have no destiny anymore.

My destiny is gone because it can find no purchase: I have a bifurcated mind.  On one side there is a chaotic mind that has given up on the hope of finding any real meaning in the world, or order, or reason to exist and go on.  This mind sees only the “booming buzzing confusion” and, because it is ruled by nothing but doubt, cynicism and disappointment with all of its previous attempts at ordering the world, it wants to do nothing and would become nothing if it had not been coupled with the other side of my mind.  The other side of my mind is the fantasy that I choose to accept.  It is my ostensible reality, framed not out of conviction but out of…what?...my need to survive, to cope, to at least enjoy life a little? 

The two sides are at war and I am detecting a trendline that is forecasting the winner.  It says that the chaotic mind will ultimately be the victor, that I will lose that last bit of conviction that keeps me from throwing in the towel.  Sometimes I feel like writing off the world—the whole damn thing, the whole, stupid damn thing—as one big absurdity.

What is better, lady piety?  to be honest with myself and give in to nihilism, or to squelch the chaos with lies about meaning and order, and gratify my thirst for pleasure? 

Nietzsche makes my wine taste bad. 

I suppose one should say that, in this case, it is wiser to be the hedonist; at least it promotes survival.