Ethical Nihilism
Barbarism
Nihilism is Natural
Primal
It'll Put the Fear of God in You, Boy
Why Can't Everyone Be Rich?
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Human Neuroses
The Two Freedoms
GET A LIFE
February 14, 2010
Ever had someone tell you to get a life?
Do you know what it means? It's just another example of convenient speech, and convenient speech is abbreviated speech. Whenever convenient speech is used (quite a bit when you start looking for it), you usually find a veritable horde of words that are left unsaid, because they are more or less implied. That's why they call it convenient speech. It's just assumed that everyone knows what you're talking about, like when you say that sunrise is at such and such a time. Everyone knows that the sun is not really rising (or setting), but who wants to go to the trouble to say what's really happening? It's the same with this popular phrase.
So, what does it mean? Simply that you should get a real life. The word real is the operative term that is being left out, because, like I said, it's just a given that you understand that it's implied.
I didn't have to think too long about this one. It's practically a no-brainer. A real life is precisely what the phrase suggests: it is solidly grounded in the real, as opposed to the imaginary.
Surely the best example of a real life is offered by the Paleolithics, the first real people. It is hard to imagine that anyone would disagree that the life of Stone Age humans was a hell of a lot more real than our artsy-fartsy, technologically superfluous, contemporary existences.
Yes, I do mean existences, because we do not so much live in technological societies as we merely exist in them. Technology has a way of removing us from the hardships of reality. (Isn't that the sole reason we developed it in the first place?)
Reality is hard. It is not easy. Food does not grow on trees. Well, it does, yes, but we still have to work to get it. Have you seen those clips of the guy climbing up a coconut tree without a ladder? And what about the coconut itself? Ever tried to crack one—without a hammer? Do fish just jump into your net? And speaking of nets, do they grow on trees?
Mother Nature is Real
And the real question is whether you're living with it or away from it?
I would venture to bet that, just by virtue of the fact that you are visiting this website, you are most definitely living away from Nature. I would also suggest that the farther away from Nature you live, the farther from reality you are, and your distance from reality is the precise measure of how far away you are from living a real life.
Here's another no-brainer: Nearly everyone on the planet is living an imaginary (or contrived) life, i.e., not a real one. And I'm reasonably certain that the vast majority of those people would say, "Thank God." Think about it. Do you really want to live a real life?
I'm not so sure that I do, and I flat out stated as much in the essay Fantasy, where I unabashedly declared that the very purpose of reality is to turn it into fantasy, going so far as to suggest that reality is being wasted if it is not somehow being shaped into artifacts of our own design.
And yet, at the same time, it feels as if I'm cheating by embracing such a soft position, as if, deep down, I somehow feel morally obligated to take on the vigors of a real life, as opposed to so shamelessly (and gracelessly) accepting this namby pamby, super-cush existence that I have merely fallen into, that I did not make myself through the sweat of my brow, that I did not fashion or craft with my own hands.
I feel very strongly that something is missing, and I think it might be challenge. We evolved in response to real challenges, not super-easy circumstances. It makes me wonder what kind of beings we will eventually become as the result of generations of living such comfortable lives.
There is also the element of pride (as silly as that may sound). Are we proud of ourselves because we are able to negotiate a TV remote, or master the learning curve of a computer program? We are, I suppose. But how does that pride compare to that of being able to catch a fish, and do so without the help of a super-tech rod and reel, with all the angling hardware that goes along with it? How skilled do we really feel simply because we are ever learning how to manipulate the techno-toys that we are endlessly inundated with? Yes, it undoubtedly feels as if something is missing.
And that something is the challenge of Mother Nature. Try as I might, I cannot get away from it. Mother Nature is REAL. I'm not going to try to fool myself by rationalizing about it. There is no squirming away from this harsh reality. And yet, I do not have the courage to face it.
Courage. I didn't see it coming. Honestly. I began this essay with an attitude that was little less than glib. But now, quite suddenly, without my anticipating it, I've stumbled into the daunting aspect of courage. Yes, I said it, and there it is, facing me squarely, as it surely would. That is what we are most unequivocally lacking in this modern techno-glam world.
Courage. It is difficult even to say it. It sounds old-fashioned, outdated, almost even as if it were embarassing to say it. We feel somehow that the word belongs in the pages of the Iliad, not on a present-day website. But we cannot deny it. We want to dismiss its terrible aspect, with every atom of our being, but we cannot.
Let us face the music here, and at least try to be men about it, try to make some sort of effort. (If there is even a shred of that commodity left in us, the least we can do is admit it.) We have no courage. Who even talks about it any more? But its absence yet lingers in the deepest well of our soul, oozing like a festering malignant sore. It irks us. It prods us. We ignore it, turn a deaf ear. But its pain will not go away. We do not have courage, yet desire it more than anything else in our miserable lives. We do not even have the courage to admit that we desire it.