filling the void

i went home this weekend for my parents 'holiday' party. i dreaded it a bit, because of the tension i've been feeling with my mom lately over my life choices, and the fact that i would have to go to a party (something i generally don't enjoy), and if that wasn't bad enough, of course it was made worse by the fact that i wouldn't be able to eat the food or drink anything but water. it was ok. interesting run in with my parents' neighbor, who apparently has a drinking problem...but no one got hurt. party's over, i'm back home again.

what i wanted to write down was my thoughts re: the conversation i had with erik and his friend andy at night after the party. we went to andy's house and hung out in the hot tub for quite a while, then layed down in front of the fire place and talked for a while longer.

we talked about our jobs and our living situations. we talked about our previous romances. we talked about ocd, and compuslive behavior. we talked about food. we talked about existential crises. we talked about extreme minimalism, and hedonism. erik, of course, doesn't understand why i would ever do this crazy diet thing.

his point, simply put was this:

it doesn't matter.

more elaborately, if you can recognize that in the end nothing really matters, then what you can focus on is what makes you happy, not in the end, but in the now. do what makes you happy, for yourself, because ultimately no other motivation is real. i say, 'yes, of course, even selflessness is selfish in that it makes you feel good about doing the right thing,' and andy says, 'altruism is the greatest high there is.'

i believe it on an intellectual level (after all it is somewhat the definition of an existential crisis, that nothing matters), or i wouldn't be the atheist i am, going through the existential crisis i'm going through. but it is also obvious to me that on some level i simply don't accept it. i don't actually want to live in a world where nothing matters, because personal happiness, the living in the moment, feels like a terrible path to pursue, when i realize it isn't going to go anywhere, or add up to anything, in the ultimate end. i guess that might just be the caveat of self-awareness, and the bullet i have to bite so long as i remain in this life. generally speaking the solution to this problem is just to ignore it, unless i want to find religion, or enlightenment, neither of which i'm apt to do. ignoring it is what i do most of the time. like wikihow suggests, 'use a cleaning product,' and get up off your mopey depressive ass and do something other than think about it. it's never going to go away.

i will add, tho, that because of my naturally high level of empathy i cannot accept quite so simply the concept that personal happiness is the absolute only element of this life worth pursuing. sure, as a self-aware being, i realize that ultimately the only thing that can give me meaning is the present moment and what choices i make to govern my own happiness therein. but beyond that, there is a level of oweingness that belongs to the rest of the world. we each, every person and every other living being, have this same struggle and this same ultimate right: to find contenment/happiness in the current moment, and to be able to pursue this happiness for each successive moment in the future.

and so, i guess, what i feel is lacking from erik's method is perhaps that in addition to the personal pursuit of happiness and beingness in the moment, is a requiset understanding of how our actions effect other beings, and being mindful of not harming others or inhibiting intentionally or not) their ability to pursue their own contenment. for all people present and future. for other beings present and future. and herein ties my personal feelings about environmentalism and global sustainability, human rights and veganism, all via a general sense of empathetic kindness.

i'm feeling so good right now. wow. what a good weekend. how wonderful to finally come out the other side of a crisis, and having done so with a feeling of accomplishment, not simply compromise.

tonight we added sweet potato, and finished our schedule to the end of the game, one food a day for a total of 63 more days. notable exceptions are citrus fruits, which we add as a complete bundle on jan. 20th in celebration of obama's inauguration, and nightshades, which we add as a bundle because they were the original impetus for the project and we're sort of kind of still testing for a sensitivity to them. our diet will continue to be restricted through march 15th. after that, the opportunities are limitless, and i'm pretty sure i'll be hitting up yoma for some delicious burmese food.