Existence and Uncertainty

“All he’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? ”

Rick Deckard from Blade Runner

Lately there’s been quite a lot of chatter in the philosophical blogosphere over basic questions of human existence. In this emerging era of socio-techno discombobulation, it seems that now more than ever, philosophizing laypersons are struggling to understand what our existence is really all about. But I would ask; why can’t we just exist for the hell of it? I don’t need to know why I’m here in order to know what to do with my life.

First, what I’m going to try to do with my life is avoid misery. If I can crack that one open then the next step will be to avoid ennui. If that works out, then from that point on, I expect pretty smooth sailing. If there is a reason for our existence, it’s a safe bet that the reasoning lies far beyond the grasp of our human intellect. Can an ant know the mind of the entomologist?

It’s easy to see how one might become discombobulated over never being able to know why this or why that with respect to the titillating details of human existence but look at it this way; you could just as easily become discombobulated over knowing that you might die a horrible death sometime in the next forty-five minutes. We all know that it’s possible so why aren’t we all jumping up and down and having a big shit-fit? Simple. Because the human mind has filters, that’s why. Unfortunately, these filters sometimes fail to perform as advertised and that’s a real problem.

Why do we exist as we do?  is really not an interesting philosophical question, it only seems interesting when your filters aren’t working properly. Faulty brain wiring; the genesis of many uninteresting philosophical questions and concomitant anxiety attacks. The question we really need to ask is, what do we do about faulty wiring? Fortunately for humankind, the answer is simple and it’s called bourbon.

“All he’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? ”

Are those the questions that meander through the purple canyons of your mind, late at night, as you lie in bed with your little Popeye light on, staring at the fungal infection on your big toe, wondering if medical science will ever find a cure?

Sadly, we must accept that those questions are bound to go unanswered. As Paul Simon put it in Slip Sliding Away (his dippy radio hit from the 70’s), “the information is unavailable to the mortal man”. So after all the analysis, soul-searching, cogitating, contemplating, hypothesizing, speculating, hand wringing and fretting, it seems that the best we can do is simply try to keep those mental filters working.

Don’t forget the bourbon.