filling the void

i stayed in tonight. i was thinking about going dancing, but the rain, cooking vegan shepherd's pie, and trying to save money all conspired against me, and alas, i listen to moby dick on my computer instead of practicing my blues moves.

i've been thinking about what it means to live a life without meaning.

it isn't hard for me to accept that my life has no meaning. i believe it as a matter of course, it's the religion i put my faith in, i know it in my very core. i don't believe in god, i don't believe in a grand design, certainly not a higher purpose. and, perhaps because i was born and raised american, i believe the closest i can get to fulfillment out of this life is to pursue my own happiness with abandon and ferocity. i have been made free, and my freedom wants me to do no other thing; there can be no other nobler activity. yes, this is my american dream.

but the trouble with this mindset is that happiness is at once fulfilling and wholly unsatisfying. as i am convinced that i am damned to a life in which there is no grander purpose, no higher goal to attain, the happiness i acheive at any moment is as fleeting and meaningless as the emptiness i feel in its absence. in their turn each moment will pass, be i happy within it or not, and ultimately i will be rendered back into the earth from whence i arose. such is the fate of the atheist, such is the fate of the existential man.

i find myself ever more acutely aware that each element of my life does little to take my mind away from this somber truth. surely i have been of this belief for the better part of my life. my memory does not afford me a time in which i felt there might perhaps be a higher calling. i have never believed in a meaning to this life. however, historically i have, as most people i suppose do, the ability to distract my mind from the knowledge of this void. i have activities i enjoy, people i love, goals i pursue, even aesthetics that i strive towards. these things give me joy, and this happiness builds the framework for successful living. distracted living. filling the void.

lately, i feel the void is growing. slowly, these momentary pleasures begin to lose their power to distract me from this self awareness. where does this path lead? i can't imagine it's anywhere good. i'm afraid if i lose too much functionality i will be a lost cause...

i think pretty soon i'm going to have to either check myself into a mental institution, or hermitize myself in the wilderness somewhere.