Rebuttal

A recent comment to an old post reads:

The problem I see in leading a life based on impacting the life of another is this: our impact on another can never fully be gauged as positive or negative. In my experience (which I fear is the only lens I can see fully through) the positive impact I thought I was having on others was guided largely by false beliefs I held at the time, and I may, in hindsight, have done more harm than good. I shudder to think of the way my life has weaved through the lives of others. Makes me never want to leave my house.

Unfortunately, life is never so clear cut. In my fantasy world, the pieces of the puzzle come together in the last moments before death and we see what our true impact on our life and the lives of others has been. In the meantime, we are all stumbling in the dark, paving the road to Hell with our good intentions.

But hey, that's just me. Can't say this view makes me happy but I can afford no further delusions.

Here's my rebuttal:

First, this person would need to immediately stop blogging as this person (and from here we'll say "he") cannot possibly know what kind of effect his words have had or are having on those that read them. If he shudders to think how his life has weaved through the lives of others, then stop blogging now as you can see, your words have already had an affect on me.

Second, let's discern from "intentional" impact on other's lives and "unintentional".

Here's an earlier comment on the same blog entry:

<why life? because we have the ability to make an impact on another- that's what I believe...>

And my response:

<I agree, it's all about impact on the world around you, however far out the ripples roll. I thought originally about linking to this book; The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. In the end, he writes:

"Who knows what form the forward momentum of life will take in the time ahead or what use it will make of our anguished searching. The most that any one of us can seem to do is fashion something--an object or ourselves--and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force.">

We have the ability to impact the lives around us both intentionally and unintentionally. None of us is an island unto himself no matter how hard we try...we are biologically a social species; even alone, we are with a group as we cannot think of ourselves without thinking in terms of others. Thus, we cannot possibly know or control nor be responsible for our unintended impacts.

Now, our commenter, feels that he was making impacts based on false beliefs. Ok, to err is human. I certainly do not hold the same beliefs now as I did at age 20, that's called growing older and maturing. It's also called being human. Nor are impacts a one way street. Whatever impact I may have had on someone, I'm sure they had some impact on me as well. What if they held false beliefs? Does that put us both into a cesspool of hellish impacts? No, otherwise every human would be in our cesspool with us and so...if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the road to null void is paved with those who opt out and do nothing, afraid they may cause damage. I'll take hell, at least I'd know I'd lived--right or wrong. Malice is the only form of intentional negative impact and I think we can agree our commenter does not appear malicious. Our commenter thinks, in hindsight (and we all know the value of hindsight), he may have done more harm than good.

Thinks he may have done more harm than good. Well, without any empirical data to support that, our commenter is living a delusion. What if he has done more good than harm and has now stopped?

Of course, our commenter wrote, "Makes me want to never leave the house." But I bet he does leave the house....not just for needs either. He wants to be "in" the world, be a part of it. Our commenter says he cannot afford further delusions, but he's living in one...thinking he can avoid having any kind of impact on others. To interact is to have impact. Otherwise the only solution is to live as a hermit, a true hermit, cut off all physical and non-physical communication with the human race, the only problem with that is there will be an impact, probably both positive and negative.

If we feel like a bull in a china shop and that everyone would be better of without my actions, well, that seems self-nihilistic and the only forgone conclusion to that would be suicide, but of course, this would also have an impact, positive and negative.

Damn, it seems there's no way out of impacting others--that's because there's no way out of being human. Your only decision is to act or sit on the sidelines, both having impacts.

Now, what about those impacts? Well, most people I know more than casually interact with me of their own free will and don't mind being impacted by me (as for those who don't want to but "have" to--co-workers mostly and ultimately, they have a choice--there are other jobs out there). They can take my actions/words, etc... and decide to be impacted or not, at least to some degree because, just as we cannot control our subconscious from seeing everything, we cannot control our "selves" from being completely impacted. And vice versa, I have some control over the impact of others and I can make a conscious decision to be impacted or not. Of course, I could be under false beliefs, but in this life, I can keep looking for the truth or, in my personal case, I now believe that I make it what I want it to be.

Yes, life is never so clear cut, nor will it ever be, nor will any religion or philosophy make it so. Even my making it what I choose to make it will make it clear cut. It's not supposed to be clear cut. Of course love hurts, it wouldn't be what it is if it didn't.

In the end, this all smacks of cop-out. I haven't liked the results or I haven't found the "right" way to act so I'm not going to. I'm going to sit around and contemplate what it all means.

We are human, we have no choice but to make an offering, of some sort, to the life force. Attitude is everything, we must choose the positive and let the world take care of itself from there.

A Life Philosophy

In the end, we are all just trying to figure out what our lives mean. From the kindest, gentlest soul to the shallowest person to the meanest son of a bitch; we're all just trying to make sense of life before we die.

There are many philosophies, psychologies and religions to go by--(the three fields being related). How to make sense and decide which to follow, which gives us our own peace of mind. Because in the end, it's all about peace of mind. Can I really be sure of anything outside of my belief in it?

I've spent a lot of time thinking about it--too much time, I'm sure. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle, but you don't have all the pieces and you don't know what the picture is--you're trying to figure it out by seeing what pieces fit together. You find some pieces in psychology, some in religion, some in sociology, some in philosophy, some in sports, some in science, some in everyday life. You try to put them together; some fit, some don't and sometimes you find later that pieces you thought fit, don't really but you never get enough pieces to see the whole picture.

For some, it's easy: all your answers are in the Bible (or Koran or Talmud, etc...). For others, it's not.

And while I won't stop trying to put the pieces together, I've boiled it down to one simple outlook: I'll be dead.

I want this one simple truth to be my guiding light throughout the rest of my years but have not yet been able to fully live by it. A simple truth hard to implement.

I'm 44 years old, I'll die at some point during the next 44 years (most likely) and for a number of these years I'll be as helpless as when I was a kid. So, life, why...or why not?

Fate

The infamous "they" say, "everything happens for a reason" and "if it's meant to be, it's meant to be".

I know many people prescribe to these two "philosophies".  

Here's what I think:

First the "reason" idea: As long as we are using the word reason to mean "cause" then, yes, everything does happen for a reason--everything is caused by something, even if we do not know the root.  Thus, to sate that "everything happens for a reason" is merely stating the obvious.  For those who think that there is often no known possible causes beyond some "other-ly power"--I refer you to the chaos theory (or for those less inclined you can watch Ashton Kutcher in The Butterfly Effect).

Then the "meant to be": I guess since my first marriage did not last, it wasn't "meant to be" but if it had, it "was meant to be".  It's what we tell ourselves when things don't go the way we thought or wanted--it's a consolation.

For those who may feel I'm being too rational or taking away the mystery, I don't feel my views of these "sayings" by any means takes away the awe, wonder and mystery of life.