Nihilist Monk

I like to keep a little edge on. I don't feel comfortable being totally comfortable. Even when I'm relaxed, I'm ready for Armageddon.

As I age, I feel an almost perfect balance of contempt and pity for most people (myself included), most of the time. We are all wretched creatures striving for grace. Clever apes who glimpse an infrequent glimmer of genius, wading through a sea of wasted potential for consciousness and understanding. Burdened with brains big enough to be painfully aware of our own foolishness and impending doom.

I think that's why we have such a deep need for fantasy, in the forms of religion, drugs, media, drama, order, and ritual. Anything to distract us from the crushing pain of a chaotic reality we are just smart enough to know we will never understand. That's why the word disillusioned is used negatively. We need illusion or we lose our fucking minds.

But I tolerate high levels of reality, despite my frequent drug use, because I love a tragedy. I find beauty in ugliness. I find meaning in uselessness. I'm ok with the idea that there is no god, no heaven, no hell, no karma, no life after death, no guarantees, and no possibility of ever really knowing Truth. I like the idea of pure random chaos coalescing into subjective experience.

That won't stop me from trying to understand quantum interference in the microtubules of the neurons that calculate our subjective experience of reality. And it won't stop me from observing religious rituals with an open mind, however skeptically. And isn't my empathy and love meaningful despite any fear of punishment by a high power? Kindness motivated by fear is the ape inside, reminding us how near are the trees from which we descended.

The dictionary definition of nihilism is a hateful, destructive one. Not my style. I practice a more benign sort of nihilism, a simple acceptance of the limitations of my own understanding. I guess if I were really good at it, I'd be a Taoist. But who can be a Taoist in 21st century urban America? Who can be a Taoist at work or in traffic? Benign nihilism is the closest I can get. And it certainly doesn't preclude a sense of humor. It's easier to laugh when you're not looking over your shoulder for god.