Coming to grips with the realization that you’re a loser

(or at least not as successful as you’d thought you’d be)

            If you’re like me, and statistically speaking you probably are, you’re not quite living life the way your 5 year old self had imagined. I don’t just mean that in that you’re not an astronaut, or a cowboy, or a professional wrestler, but that you’re maybe starting to realize just how many “you”s there are. For the early part of your life, the most important thing you’ve ever heard about was you. The vast majority of young children don’t think about the “big picture”.

Interestingly, a parallel is seen with early humanity. From the dawn of consciousness to roughly the 16^th century when Copernicus revealed his famous heliocentric theory, it was thought that the Earth was the center of the universe, similar to how young you thought you were the center of the world. As you grow your perception changes, and you realize that there are a LOT of people in the world, all of whom also assumedly think that their experience is of primary concern for the world. Likewise, as humanity grew and learned more about the world, people realized that despite this 3^rd rock from the sun being the only known habitat of life in the universe, we were far from the center of it.

So, here you are, thinking about your life and how it measures up to what you thought it might have been. And you’re probably a little unimpressed! Studies have shown that the average person considers themselves to be of above average intelligence, which of course statistics tells us cannot be true. It would be fair to assume that the average person also thinks that their lot in life isn’t quite measuring up to what they “deserve”, but of course that can’t be true either.

If you’re neither very poor or very rich, very stupid or very intelligent, very ugly or very attractive, odds are you’re just like me (relatively speaking). Humanity can be represented by a bell curve; there are far more “average” people than ones at the extremes of the spectrum. So what do we do now?

Let’s assume for a moment that there is no afterlife. No heaven or hell, just eternal nothingness once your brain has turned off for good. That leaves you with a very short amount of time on Earth in which to accomplish your goals. Does it matter? Should you chase goals? If it’s all going to disappear in an instant someday, what’s the incentive to work hard while you’re alive? Some people think that a lack of belief in an afterlife is counter-productive, that if people don’t have a goal (reach heaven) that they’ll not have any motivation to “do well”.

I couldn’t disagree more. Assuming that I have a finite amount of time left on Earth to grow, learn, discover, love, teach, feel, travel, and share; I feel an immense urge to go and DO IT. If you have a deadline at work do you scrap the project or do you hustle twice as hard to ensure that you finish on time? If your boss says, “Get it done whenever”, will you really have a fire lit under you? I am very motivated by the concept of my own mortality, and I think that subconsciously every other human does as well. This is what separates us from the rest of the beasts of the Earth, we alone have the curse of realizing that we will die someday, and that knowledge has spurred us to become to top species on the planet.

Why do we follow celebrity culture? Why do we idolize the movie stars, musicians, the financiers? Because we see that they are fully realizing the life that we always thought we deserved. When you see a picture of George Clooney at a party, some part of you recognizes that the difference between him and you is so minute that had a few minor occurrences in the past gone differently, that could be you rubbing elbows with “the elite”. They are really no different than you or I, they are subject to the same insecurities, the same doubts, the same physical and mental problems.

So maybe you can’t act like George Clooney, or sing like Adele, or predict the stock market like Warren Buffet. You can still enjoy life just as passionately as they can, and the key to that enjoyment is understanding that the meaning of life is not acquiring wealth and status, it is to feel strong emotions and maintain bonds with other people. If you make your goal to get rich or to get a ton of Instagram followers, the odds are you’re going to be disappointed (you’re just average, remember?). However, if you set the goal of finding beauty and meaning in the everyday occurrences of life, you will NEVER miss your goal.

I think I’m rambling a bit here, so I’ll try to summarize this as best I can. We’re all more or less the same, and we’re all going to die someday. Don’t compare yourself to others, because this can only breed negative feelings like jealousy, regret, or bitterness. Instead look at your life and marvel at the beautiful intricacy of it all. The fact that life flourished on this planet at all, despite the harsh conditions throughout much of Earth’s history is amazing. That your consciousness was able to come into being in a body is truly lucky. That you’re able to read this on a computer, probably from a great distance away, would blow the minds of anyone that died before 1950 or so.

Like Louis CK said, “Everything is amazing and no one is happy.” Why is that? We are living at the most privileged point in human history, we are statistically safer, healthier, and better educated than people were at any other point in human history, yet most of us aren’t happy. Instead of worrying about what you don’t have, be grateful for what you do have, because otherwise you’ll never measure up. 

On the nature of existence

What cruel japes the gods do play, on mortal men doomed to die.

How unfair it seems, that we alone (that we know of) in the universe possess a fully realized consciousness. We are the stewards of our planet not only because we are the most highly evolved life form, but also because we alone are cognizant of the dangers it faces, albeit through our own actions. All other life forms on our globe are base creatures, concerned only with their immediate survival. None but us concern themselves with our physical appearance, the opinions of people we will never meet, or the true nature of existence.

And by this I mean we are cursed. Would that we could forget that which separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Would that we could resign from our position on the intellectual throne, for the burden of the crown can weigh heavy on our heads.  How nice it must be to wake up each day unencumbered by the events of the previous or the impending problems of the next.

There must be a reason why we are the species to which this responsibility has been given. We have already hurdled at least one gigantic mental roadblock in that we understand the idea of mortality, what is the next obstacle that will block our path? Time is the 4th dimension, at some point in human history we recognized the concept of time and used it to organize our existence and that of everything around us. Will we at some point discover the 5th, and from that point make a further leap in human development?

Will future persons of our species (or more highly evolved creatures than our current Homo Sapiens) look back at our struggles in the 21st century and laugh? How simple we must seem to them, to be confined to 3 dimensional space, aware of the 4th but unable to manipulate it. Or will our increasing technological ability destroy our advancements before we are able to reach that point? There are theories, and not unreasonable ones, that suggest that once we reach the singularity, where technology is capable of increasing its own intelligence, humanity will be unnecessary.

Of course, this is a cold thought. This is the result of pure logic without accounting for emotion. If we’re to believe that there is more to the universe than meets the eye, it seems that humanity will always have a place in the universe. For as smart as an AI robot may be, could it ever experience the bliss of young love? Feel the awe of a gorgeous sunrise?

The human eye can only see a portion of the color spectrum. The ear can only hear a small range of the possible frequencies. There is an entire world underneath our feet, above our heads, and even inside of us that we will never be able to detect.  We still don’t really know what dark energy or dark matter are. It’s possible that we are in but one universe among many multiverses.  It’s possible that there are beings that operate in higher dimensions than us, which we will never recognize because of our human limitations. And it seems cruel to me that we have the power to imagine these things, to tease ourselves with the possibilities, knowing full well that we will never get to understand or experience them.