filling the void

it's late, and i can't sleep. i'm going on my test ride tomorrow - a max of about 75 miles, if i make it that far, tho who knows if i will...

i've got a lot of stress, mostly dealing with the trip/change in life status i'm imposing upon myself, but there are other issues weighing in, as there always are. i've been thinking about all the time i spend thinking about how i think life is generally meaningless, mostly because i'm convinced i inhabit a godless universe. it seems to lead me to an inherently depressive outlook on life, and a world outlook, too, that doesn't support my life choices, no matter what they may be. in fact, it feels like just making life choices is at odds with the idea that life has no meaning, and this is something that greatly troubles me.

it becomes obvious when i think about other people, how i'm attracted to a carefree, happy-go-lucky quality and an adventuresome spirit. the more i ruminate on life and its purposelessness the less functional i become, the less capable i am of being like the people i admire; instead, there seems to develop a sort of ongoing anxiety about the inevitability and finality of all things.

what i wish i could say is that i'm trying too hard, that i'm just searching for an answer to how i can feel good about living my life, given my understanding of the universe and all things within it. but the reality is i'm NOT trying too hard, i'm not trying at all...i'm just unable (or at least i feel unable) to stop my brain from going to these places any time i make a decision about anything (which, as it turns out, is all the time).

when i was in highschool i remember deciding that, regardless of my belief in a finite reality, no god, no afterlife, etc, i did believe in life itself, as some sort of force beyond what i or anyone, really, understood, and thinking that it permeated beyond the living beings we find it inhabiting. i don't, to this day, know very much about the evolutionary science regarding what LIFE itself actually is, and whether we understand what makes cellular structures alive and dead and create and cycle energy...these things i admit to being ignorant of. this idea that life is a greater force, it doesn't mean there's an afterlife, or reincarnation. and certainly it doesn't allow for the consciousness to continue past death. and that was somewhat troubling to me back in highschool (as it is to this day) because it meant, on the inevitability that i will (and i will) one day die, my consciousness and the only way my life has any awareness and beingness to it will certainly disappear. and this is really where i stared realizing how deeply i wanted to live forever.

but now, years from that highschool self who was realizing the finitude of her consciousness, in light of a continued, extensive, unwaivering faith in the truth of the finite nature of life, i cannot help but find a little comfort in the somewhat mystical lack of understanding that shrouds being alive, in general. if i'm stuck in a consciousness that will inevitably disappear, focusing this conciousness on the fact that it will itself dissolve into nothingness will not ever leave me free from the anxiety of death. the death and the finality and the meaninglessness are going to remain constant. the awesomeness of living and its incomprehensibility will remain, as well. being in awe is a better feeling place than holding onto anxiety.

how weird and crazy that i even have these thoughts that i can't shut off in the first place.

sooner or later i'll write about empathy, and attachements. i wish i were asleep right now.