Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious

We like to have a “point” to everything we do. We are goal-driven. We worship having goals and goal-driven people and goals themselves.

Even when it comes to living. Which is why we ask ridiculous questions like “What is the purpose of my life?” or “Why must we go on living, if our lives are without purpose?” over and over and over and over again.

The amusing thing is that none of the other organisms on this planet care enough to ask these questions, because they are too busy seeking out the next meal. The human race is unique in that though it is biologically and fundamentally just a species of animal, it is dissatisfied with the answer an elephant or a mosquito might give as the purpose of its life: “N/A.” We demand our own existence to be rationally justified and understood, while none of the other organisms (even the ones that live in way worse living conditions, like penguins, camels, or cacti) do. But maybe we are “better” than penguins or bacteria (although I personally beg to differ) so it’s crucial that we ask “meaningful” questions like these (that those “dumb” animals don’t bother with).

But let’s look at the bigger picture here for a minute. We (the brightest of us, no less) have been asking these questions for ages and all we have come up with was a fictitious and/or hypothetical supreme being who can magically give us a purpose, with a divine (unquestionable and unverifiable) plan that is bigger than and incomprehensible to everyone.

And here is my humble suggestion in the face of these things: Let’s quit. Let’s stop belaboring these questions, because asking it over and over again isn’t going to lead to better answers. Maybe more answers, but they won’t be better. Instead, I think we should try our best to convert people to hardcore biophilia (love of life), courtesy of penguins and fruit flies. We should occupy ourselves with the daunting task of giving everyone enough reasons to fall hopelessly in love with and lust for life, rather than excuses for staying alive in spite of all the suffering. There is no purpose to human suffering. It doesn’t mean there is no such thing as human suffering, because whoever made this universe is not as goal-driven and point-obsessed as us. So shitty things happen, and when they do, it’s shitty – there is no way around it. Less suffering is always better.

So we can’t sit around wondering about (and writing books about and drawing pictures about and arguing with people about) why we are put on this earth (to become America’s Next Top Model? To be the next A-MER-ican Idol? the possibilities are endless) and what our afterlife (which may or may not exist) would look like, because people are suffering and miserable now. So many people (no matter what race, age, sex, income, occupation, lifestyle, etc.) hate their lives now and they decide to escape it, discard it, waste it, or do nothing with it. They find life unbearable and treat it like crap.

And that’s awful! That’s what needs to be fixed, not this apparent lack of meaning in our existence. We should not need a purpose outside of life itself. We should be able to want life while smiling. Not in spite of everything, but because of everything. We should be all given a chance at being happy. The real tragedy is not a life without a purpose, but a life that needs a purpose in order to sustain itself.

As for me: Sure, a life unexamined is life not worth living. But now that I have, I decided that although examining it is pretty fun (in philosophy classes and at bars with your philosophy majoring friends) I don’t really care at the end of the night. Even if someone listed me a million excellent and logical reasons to kill myself, I could never be convinced because I am an insane evangelical fangirl of my life.

And now I am going to go and drink my Iced Cappucino and munch on dried blueberries (I freaking love food).

Just Remember Who Raised Them

To have your faith in humanity and its future completely obliterated, take a look at this, this, and this.

Is this our zeitgeist? Are these what we consider to be the highlight of our culture? What are we doing and thinking? Is this how we express ourselves as a generation? Is this what we want to talk about? Is this it?

Because if it is, I might seriously cry. I totally consider myself to be an advocate and defender of the milennials. I even write about my faith in the millenials (here and here) in lengths to convince people (and myself ) that we are not in total shit. So I feel like I was just kicked in the teeth. I’m being laughed at. Would you think of me naive if I told you that I knew of the disturbing idiocy out there that effectively overwhelms the sanity out there twenty to one, but that I never thought it would be this bad? That I never thought MTV — the one that killed the radio star, the forerunner of visual culture, the cultural icon, the tastemaker of the youths — would give a fantastic blowjob to Twilight and High School Musical (both with shockingly mistaken, questionable, and even dangerous views on life, love, and people)? That I thought in spite of everything, an emotionally complex and truly sophisticated film like Up wouldn’t lose to a cheap and repetitive one-trick pony of a movie? That I hoped a shitty no-name movie (it’s not even like the film has Zac Efron in it) like Mall Cop wouldn’t “overperform”?

And I refuse to believe that this is what a real postmodernist society (that I argue the millenials are born into) looks like, because it isn’t. This is called quasi-religious fanaticism thinly veiled as fangirlism, love of cheap release, insanity, banal escapism, and lack of meaningful culture — not postmodernism. Postmodernism is vibrant and complex. It thinks and talks about everything without assumptions, leaving nothing and no one out. That’s what a member of the Y generation living in the 21st century is supposed to be about: thoughtfulness and worldliness. Not “I like to watch you sleep”, myths of abstinence, fanaticism, dogma, narrow-mindedness, extreme and all-harrowing selfishness, and copious amounts of sexism and racism.

I want to quit. I’m exhausted. But of course I will find evidence that we are not totally in shit, eventually. I think after a while, I might even sort of figure out why this is happening, why 21st century North American youth culture is vomit-inducing — and maybe then I might be able to forgive and move on. At the moment, though, I just want to shut my windows and sit in my room and play WoW.

Fanaticism Obliterates Feelings

Disjointed thoughts Re: this article in Good magazine (<3!)

I think what happened is that these young people, who originally had no direction (as pointed out in the article) and no real identity to call their own, treated Obama like Jesus, and the entire campaign like a religious cult. They sought to find a kind of identity in their fervor for Obama and they did, for a while — but being an Obama freak doesn’t pay the bills or move them forward into adulthood. And totally unlike Christianity that spans literally centuries and therefore easily many lifetimes down the generations, this campaign was freaking short. And once they got their happy ending and Obama was elected, it’s over — and it’s not like they’re waiting anything else, either. It’s like actually having an armageddon and every Christian being saved and all the nonbelievers annhilated. When it actually happens, it would be amazing and all the good Christians would celebrate and enjoy the festivities!

But then what?

People have certainly been saying something like this all throughout that campaign. Anyway I still think it’s ridiculous that some people take this and go a step further, comparing Obama and his young fans to Hitler who bred Nazi Youths, etc. because he is an impeachable politician and not a fascist butcher. And I don’t think Obama intentionally create myths about his abilities as the president. Just as Christianity (and all its shocking misdeeds) wasn’t Jesus’s fault, the fault here lies mainly on the youths themselves. Their incredible dedication to Obama campaign was a copout and an escapist’s pretension of courage. They wanted to feel like they had dreams and ideals and a sense that they are in charge of their own future — but of course that’s all a joke, when they aren’t really willing to work to take charge of anything.

They just said Obama will make it all good again and bet all their money on him. The whole point of Obama was that he wanted America to work again, do the stuff people don’t like to do because stuff like that has to be done. But instead of doing that, studying hard and rolling up their sleeves, his young followers (who are clearly obssessed with easy fame and success — the number of YouTube videos of guitar-playing people and “amateurs” who apply to be the next top model, next American idol, next this, next that is devastatingly large and getting larger) just decided to put all their energy towards getting this guy elected — and it’s fun, because the whole process feels a lot like a popularity contest at their high schools or a cool party full of people similar to them or a club that is larger than life. In their fanaticism and euphoria, they wholeheartedly believed that Obama in the White House would solve everything, and that he will make sure of their future happiness (kinda like God will make sure of their future happiness, if you just believe in him, make your love for him your life’s work, and doing nothing else to really help yourself).

But of course that doesn’t happen, because Obama isn’t God. And he doesn’t claim to be! At all. He repeatedly says: we all have to work. I’m not a saviour. It’s not just me who can bring this country out of the deep shit it is in now.

But no one wants to hear that. They don’t even take it seriously. They think he says that because he is humble and generally a nice cool guy who says nice cool things like that. They just think it’s one of those inconsequential and meaningless pep talks motivational speakers give: work hard, guys!

The consequences of interrupting their lives for the campaign is that when they are done, they have to get back to their everyday lives, which is made very difficult. They suddenly have to do work — real work — and they have to do more work than their peers who did not spend a year on the trail. They fell behind and they have to work harder than others, which isn’t as fun as handing out buttons and chanting and rallying (which is practically a cheering party). As a result, they feel hopeless and sad and hallower than they already were once they face the harshness of real, adult life. It’s their own fault though. They set themselves up for it.

Obama, on the other hand, was trying to get elected President of the United States as a black man with little aside from his intellect. He needed the hype be elected. He exploited the hype — which I guess could be ethically questionable, but then what route to winning isn’t? — and let the fanatics exploit themselves for him, because otherwise he wouldn’t have won. I think him winning was more important (not only to him, but also for everyone else) than making sure that none of his volunteers were crazy kids in an identity crisis, because losers get nothing. Losers really lose and there was just too much at stake.

Complaining of the Present, Fearing Future.

Read this article, in which some people (but not all) complain about “too much hugging” among the youths.

People complain about everything. Like, seriously. Everything. There is no stopping them. Too many choices? They complain about it. Too much freedom? They whine. Too much convenience? That’s worth bitching about too. Too much information? Too much technology?  Too much communication? What do you want, then? Tell us how much of these things is just enough, not too much and not too little, and we might be able to work on that. So stop complaining unless you have a real solution.

But look, I even sort of understand all the fuss over these things. I sympathize and empathize with the overwhelming feeling that it’s all just too much. The world moves incredibly fast, way faster than we can handle, so there ought to be people who complain about it.

And there are arguments to be made against too many choices, too much freedom, too much technology. I don’t know what kind of arguments you can possibly make about too much convenience, too much information, or too much communication, but I have the patience to hear it out and discuss it.  There are negative consequences that inevitably follow all of these things.

But hugs? Now we are complaining about too many hugs? That is like saying too much fun is problematic. Or that too much awesomeness is problematic.

Hugs are good. Very good. And here is why:

Words can fail. And especially for those of us not old enough to express ourselves in an eloquent and vibrant way — like the early teenagers this article is targeting — language has its limitations. Some of these complicated and strange things we feel can be challenging to express even for Tolstoy — and we are not Tolstoy. In emotionally significant relationships, non-verbal communication is, without a doubt, just as important as the verbal kind.

The most prominent way to communicate non-verbally is through physical means.  Hugs (or any other kind of skinship and intimacy) are a method of communication, a way we empathize with each other. We use it to express things we have difficult time expressing in words, because it is either too subtle or too overwhelming.

And it never hurt anyone. So why would you want to ban or stigmatize something something so useful and harmless? (Oh, right — because your parents never hugged you and you now feel uncomfortable with physical expression, so you use that spiteful energy and authority against these kids that are openly sharing intimacy.)

And besides, hugs are good for your health.

The fact that the millennials are hugging so much is an incredibly positive thing. Way more than some of these doomsayers — who think everything new is automatically awful — seem to realize. We worry so much about this generation, talking about how they’re always on the internet, so detached from each other and the real world, texting rather than having real conversations. But all this worrying I think is a load of bullshit that old people (I’m not talking about physically old people here) think up out of fear. They make it up, because these kids grow up so quickly with all this information and experience at the tip of their fingertips. Their kids are moving at light speed along with the world, and that scares them way more than they will admit.

So instead of talking about real problems with the youths today — like their powerlessness or masochism — they just complain about too much this and too much that. They mumble some crap about “back in the day…” or “all these unnecessary things…”

Anyway, I think we the milennials are perfectly capable of figuring it all out ourselves. We get little to no credit, even though we are definitely more worldly (if not necessarily smarter) compared to the previous generations as a result of growing up with the World Wide Web.

I think most of us do understand that there is a difference between the internet and reality, and that we must tread carefully with everything moving so fast. We understand that there are many different methods we can use to communicate with each other, from twitter to msn to cell phone texts to skype — and so we have no problem discovering and adding another to the list of communication devices that are available to us: the physical expression. We love to communicate, and hugs are a very effective (and free!) communicative device, so we use it a lot. Because we are so open to open communication, we embrace each other with open arms often and don’t think twice about it.

And that is a good thing. It really is. For these young people, hugging is pedestrian, an everyday thing, something they do all the time — and that’s not something to fuss over and bitch and whine about. It’s a very good thing! Because, why can’t touching be something we do all the time? Why does it have to be “saved” for “special occasions”? What the hell is a “special occasion” anyway? And that girl who said something about how hugs used to be “meaningful” is just full of shit. Hugs aren’t a rare commodity that you must hoard and give to only the “special” few on “special occasions”. There is nothing wrong with being generous with it, and if you are going to be stingy about it, forget it. I don’t want your hugs anyway. Hugs are good, pure and simple, and more is always better — and it’s something you can give your friends and acquaintances and even strangers without costing yourself a dime, so why not? Generosity is a virtue. It always has been.

And even if you don’t agree with me and still think too much hugging is problematic, cheapens the human experience and emotions for the lost and miserable generation Y, or whatever — just don’t hug anyone. No one is making you and we don’t want your hug anyway.