I don't believe that human beings strive for a static sense of peace, but instead want a vivid life, even if that involves a fair amount of discomfort. The opposite of a vivid adventure would be a tortuous and dull monotony, one where things are predictable, but which leave the people involved totally indifferent. There is no mystery, no genuinely memorable events, just a string of things to conform to, and meaningless "problems" to solve.
The effect of living this way for an extended period of time is that people stop looking and believing in mysteries and adventures, and merely become problem solvers and planners. For instance, treating relationships as an input-ouput problem — what do I need to tell her so that I can fuck her? — or approaching holidays as a list of places to add a check mark to, or making very meticulous plans for the next years of your life as if you could control those closely, or treating various experiences as phenomenons that need to be explained away — rainbows occur because of the refraction of light when the following conditions occurs ... — as opposed to be enjoyed for their own sake, on and on.
Problem solvers are very useful for the system, which would ideally only consist of dull, lifeless automatons working for its growth. Adventures on the other hand? Not so much. But because we aren't lifeless automatons, such a monotony is utterly maddening for us. I believe that Dostoesvky was right when he said that Man, being given every earthly thing he wants, would still rebel just to show at least to himself, that he has agency in his life. 2
I'm not exactly in a state where I could give advice on how to get in touch with the vivid however, and anyway it's not the type of stuff you can rigidly plan by its very nature. I think a good direction is to simply expose oneself to different experiences, on the inside that is, even if they don't seem all that grand from the outside.
For instance, talking to a stranger on a bus is more radical than traveling to an exotic country but doing the same predictable stuff you would usually do. Or what about spending a few days without a screen so you can get to read this book you've been putting off? Or if you're going to be staring at a screen all day, at least you could watch some really weird stuff that really knocks you out of the comma of repetitions, such as …
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2024-05-13