18/3/2022

Why bother?

I often ask myself this question. The problem with it, is that its answer is arbitrary. After every reasoning, as to why one should bother with anything, you can ask why bother with that and so on. Hence, the reason one takes for doing anything, has already been decided, not by them, but by their surrounding, upbringing, and everything else one takes up subconsciously. Once you realize this, the "why bother?" becomes not a question of interest, but of despair. If I can't come up with an objective reason to enjoy something, I cannot partake in it, for such an action would deplete the enjoyment and fulfillment from the thing. Hence, nothing may bring joy, only partial relievment.

But is then such a judgement also not free from any inherent bias? The observation inherently assumes the division of good and bad, which cannot be an inherent concept. So we may neither partake in activities, nor refuse them. How can this be? Now, all of human progress seems like an accident done without purpose. But such a consequence is so big, that it eludes the mind of how can that be. So what is going on here?

Man can neither refuse pleasures or pains, nor partake in them, fully. To go the first road one attains nirvana; yet I'd bet that a buddha would feel and react to a face punch. Men are not lead by truths they create, but by the existing state of things, which happened as accident of the division of labour during our evolution and has lead us since then. Men are conscious to partake in the existing state of things, and even improve upon them, play with them, understand them, yet they cannot avoid them. We are lead towards a future where we can resolve the question above, in a future where the movement of history is abolished and only philosophy is left.

So bother to struggle and survive, to build camaraderie among men, and to improve upon something each day.