Thursday, November 18, 2010

To be the dog

Thinking of it some more, I realized that I still felt some inner conflict over my own nature and desires. Not brought about by a conflict with the world views of another, but by my own perception of the future. I cannot, though I say this with some trepidation, see for myself a 'future'. That is, if I were asked to imagine myself in the future, say, 20 years from now, I could not. Now, not knowing what will happen in the future is quite natural, I'm sure, but I cannot just see myself in any situation, student, worker, married, single, dog, or human, at all.

Now, my issue comes from this in accordance with my desire, as I have stated before, to be a 'dog', as was termed previously. Now, to divulge into fantasy, imagining that I was able to live such a life with such a person to support me in just the way I enjoy the most, in just the way to satisfy any and every desire and Ideal I have attached to the fantasy. This fantasy being imagined, then, to its fullest Ideal, I have trouble imagining a future to it.

To put it more succinctly, supposing I had everything go my way to the utmost perfection, how could it last? How would it last? For example, the average life is to go to a university, get a girlfriend, get a degree, get a job, get a house, get a wife, get a kid or two, get old, get retired, get grandkids, get a funeral for your wife, die.

Following that pattern, the fantasy I desire lacks any sort of goal.



Yes, that's it: It lacks any goal. It is, so to speak, a slice of life novel, with no climax, no rising action. What I fear, then, is, if there is no climax, will there be, then, a falling action?

That 'fear' is likely just a result of lack of life experience, though, and isn't so pressing. I just need to study some more slice-of-life pieces of literature and other media to see how they work.

More than that, is it even possible for a human to live day after day with 'respect' without possessing a goal whatsoever? Not that I, or, I suspect, those others who read this, NEETs and leeches the majority of you may be; not that I care for the respect or even opinion of society as a whole, mind, but, in regards to the fantasy (which I have not, nor will, define exactly, as it possesses many faces), if the one person whose opinion I do care for drops, it will be of my own fault.

Perhaps I am struggling with the image of the working person that I have grown up with, having it, for lack of a better term, forced down my throat and into my heart by, literally, every human being I'd come into contact with as a child, so that, now, some part of my brain has flags and red lights shooting up at the very thought of wanting anything other than hard worker, earning your meal and so on. I lack passion for such a life, yet feel as though I'm doing something wrong, a feeling that reverberates in the deepest parts of my being, for wanting anything other than that life.

Truly, having written and reread this, I see that my issue is that I, quite simply, cannot fathom an individual who would support this 'dog'; someone who lives day to day with no outreaching goal, no desire to own a bakery, or to become a doctor, or to become a better painter, or to learn how to swim. Indeed, if I had to imagine the future, the very most I could do is say that a goal of the dog's would simply be to help its owner achieve their goals. A leech, in other words. It is, to my mind, completely unthinkable, in the literal sense of the word, that an individual exists who would willingly allow such a leech on their flesh. No goal, no desire, no future prospects other than to live one day after the other.

Indeed, the first thing that comes to my mind imagining such a leech is the unshaven, unkempt hobo, living each day searching for food and resting. If I were to imagine the life and future of a stray dog, so to speak, then perhaps I can get answers to my own feelings. What is it that hobos do when not foraging and dumpster diving? Beside standing at street corners begging for money. Oh, and beside socializing, assuming this would be an asocial hobo.Thinking about where he failed in his life? But that feeling of failure would likely be more rooted in that he has to search for food in the trash of other, more well-to-do of his kind than that he had no future. I imagine, at least. Or is it? Could it be that his feeling of failure results in that he has no power to escape his situation? Regardless of whether he would want to or not, is it that he has no choice in the matter that causes him his feelings of self-pity and self-revulsion?

I find such an answer doubtful. Though the caged bird may look at the sky, it still sings with the other birds regardless. And if the cage is spacious enough for the bird to enjoy stretching its wings while still remaining inside it, and if the cage is more cozy than outside of it, is it not rational to want to stay encaged? To say that lack of freedom causes the hobo's sadness and regret just feels as a wrong answer to me, especially since many of my day-dreams of being a dog involve the loss of privacy of my very thoughts, in one way or another.

Going on a completely different route, then, what if the regret the hobo feels is due to an issue of responsibility and reward? That is, the hobo, pitiful as his lot is in life, is responsible for a multitude of things that require an excessive amount of work to accomplish, things that are taken for granted by more well-to-do members of society. It'd be pointless to go into details, but what if this stray dog's regret comes from having to do this excessive work just to survive, while receiving for it no praise or reward? That is, a doctor has the responsibility of a hobo (survival, getting food, etc), as well as the responsibility of a tax payer, and the responsibility of a doctor, and the responsibility, perhaps, of a father, etc. And for fulfilling some of those responsibilities, the doctor is praised, paid, rewarded, or what have you. Of course, no one would praise a doctor for having made money enough to afford a meal at a fast food place, and though such a task may be daunting for a hobo, no one would praise him either. Nor should they, really, but that's neither here nor there.

In this regard, is, then, the regret toward life that the hobo feels a result of the realization that he struggles with what the rest of society does as easily as breathing? The prideful belief that, "I should be able to do this easily. I shouldn't be struggling with so simple a task as this"?

Ah, whatever. I've not read very varied philosophy doctrines or pieces of literature, but I'm beginning to harbor a hatred toward it. Every question spawns a new question, and, now, I've rambled so far away from my original intention, I've no idea where I am. If nothing else, this can be an archive, of sorts, that I can look back to in case my thinking every pulls me back to this path of reasoning. Now, though, food and Rune Factory 3 call me.

3 comments:

  1. You know, I'm a bit curious as to whether what I write even makes any sense at all to anyone who reads it. Obviously, I had began to use this blog explicitly as a blog would, and, as such, I don't write for an audience, but as an audience is there regardless, I'm curious how they read. I write to myself, and many things I refer to may not be written at all, though I know exactly what they cite.

    I don't care either way, but do any of you make sense of anything I write, despite any non sequiturs or whatnot?

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  2. An ongoing series? Formidable text walls!

    It's a state of mind. Start on a fundamental level or all is moot.

    >I don't care either way, but do any of you make sense of anything I write, despite any non sequiturs or whatnot?

    Sure, I understand some of it, but I bet there's some things that still linger in your mind, impossible to convey. Right?

    Sometimes your stuff leaves me speechless. I find it interesting in an interesting way. At the very least, you can come back after a few weeks and look at some of the stuff you've written down. I do that sometimes, and it never fails to entertain.

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  3. It's less a series, and more an ongoing issue I'm struggling to deal with and rationalize in my mind.

    As I tried to convey, my issue with myself is that, on one hand, I want to be 'the dog', yet on the other, hold no respect for a person who would want such a thing. It is, to my mind, completely unthinkable, in the literal sense of the word, that an individual exists who would respect such a person of such desires.

    It's really quite frustrating trying to figure it all out.

    ReplyDelete