Existential Musings

Every once in awhile, when I’m left alone with my thoughts, they scare the heck out of me. Especially when I start thinking about existence, the nature of being. I’m not a philosophy major, and I haven’t read a lot about it, but when I think about the fact the somehow a consciousness exists within what essentially amounts to a bag of flesh, bones, sinews, nerves, blood and a lot of other junk, my mind is blown. What is my body apart from the “person” that exists in it? I am it, or am I in it? Who is Michael La Farge of Roseville, CA apart from the body that forms the limits of his existence? And likewise, who is God, the God of the Bible, who exists outside the constraints of a physical form? When I think about that I realize just how incredibly low Jesus stooped in the Incarnation. Honestly, it’s easier to think about football.

So my mind is already melting a little, and then I think about my girlfriend being a similar collection of molecules and atoms (granted they are very well put together) and I wonder, who is she in relation to me? How is it that me, what ever that is, loves, whatever that is, her, whatever she is? Something about her existence causes me in my isolated, individual consciousness to care more about what happens to her then to me, at least some of the time that’s the case. And there are 7 billion other individual people who are separated from me by their bodily existence, but connected to me via our status as God’s creation. Once again, mind blown out the back of my head. It’s like listening to Coldplay live; it’s making me question everything.

And the result is, when I really get into one of these existential funks, an incredible amount of humility. I’m getting smarter all the time. I learn new things every day and I realize I’m pretty good at what I do intellectually. Not great, but not bad either. But when I think about the fact that I’m alive, and that there is assumedly some reason for me to be here, I’m just humbled by the absurdity and complexity of it. When I dwell on it for too long I think, “Crap, now I might have to write about this.” Or get PhD in philosophy. But for now I’ll settle for being amazed by it.


On: May 17, 2012
At: Home
Listening to: Coldplay Pandora Station