Common Sense and Debauchery: A rambling dialogue with myself
So here’s what I’m thinking tonight: I’m up again when I
should be sleeping, I’m behind on my work, I’m behind on my reading, and I’m
woefully behind on my housework. I’m single, I’m male, and I’m twenty one. I’m
thinking about a few things: I’m thinking about maximizing happiness and I’m
thinking about that in economic terms, long-term and short-term financial
goals, and long-term and short term happiness goals have always equated in my mind.
My motivations are almost entirely based on maximizing happiness at a given
moment, over the span of my life, for others who I know, and for those who I
don’t, more or less in that order. I’m also thinking about Harry Potter and the
consumerist values presented therein, but that is another story, and is part of
a long-term happiness goal called education. So why am I writing this? I’m
asking myself more than any potential reader, but the reason, I think I am
writing this, is to explain my decision making process to my friends, who more
often than not think that it is sporadic or unreliable. I make choices based on
their impact on my mood: throughout my life, my ability, my motivation, and my
experience of reality as a whole, have each come down to my ability to put
myself in a positive mindset at the beginning of the day, and maintain this
mindset throughout the day. This I do in a couple of ways. Things which do not
make an exceptional difference to my mood are ignored, and whether this is
healthy or not, I’ve not yet decided, but for the most part I assume my decisions
are reasonable. I buy pasta for many of my meals, because it is cheap and helps
my financial situation, and thus my long term happiness goals are benefited,
while at the same time it doesn’t hurt any of my short term happiness goals
which would perhaps require a more varied diet. I splurge on some groceries
because I know that the benefit of an energy drink or a pudding cup to my
mental well-being is worth the extra cost. In this way I treat myself well by
buying the things that will improve my life, while skimping on the things which
will not affect my life negatively by skimping on them. This logic applies to
almost all aspects of my life, and for many reasons this logic confuses those
near to me. My education often comes first in my life because of the massive
weight it has on my long term happiness. Without a proper education I
understand that I will be unable to achieve the things I want, or experience
what I need to continue to develop as an individual. In the same breath, I
attempt to balance these long term educational goals with short term social and
economic goals: I suppose all of this is a way of saying what I have grown up
being taught: ‘everything in moderation.’ The only problem is I’ve placed my
own twist on my understanding of this. I want to live life to its fullest, as
defined by me and so ‘everything in excess’ has always made more sense to me
that everything in moderation. I may not have the same interests or values as others,
but I have a very strong motivation and ambition to persevere and excel in the
areas of life I have chosen to represent me: my writing, my friends, my family,
my education, my financial security, my physical health and my social impact. These
things are all important to me, and each is made up of dozens and dozens of
silent goals and pledges between me, and me. The problem arises, and I am
reminded of a human rights discourse from last year, when these many influences
and decision making forces in my life, conflict (as human rights sometimes do,
such as one individual’s right to water, and another’s right to land), and
sometimes it becomes unclear what living life to its fullest means: is it
better to buy the textbooks, or drink with friends? Is it better to date the
girl, or sleep with her? The tradeoff for each – and in this situation the
proper choice should be obvious – is both clear, and completely unfathomable. There
is no proper way to approach life, and the values of one individual will not
match those of another, but at the same time the benefits of each choice are
clear. You can identify the pros and cons of each choice, but there is no
metric for weighing one against the other. The pro of one situation is 5
oranges, and the pro of the other is 6 apples. This, quite recently has affected
my decision making process when pursuing relationships, and I am brought back
around to another three criticisms of my thought process. My friends claim that
I make mistakes when drunk, that I make decisions based on the whims of the
present, and that I date, understand and interact with women in a way different
than they do. I would like to start with drunken mistakes, of which I have been
accused on several occasions, the concept being that there should be regret
associated with actions made under the influence of alcohol. Why? The reason I
drink is to waylay these thoughts of wisdom, because the term wisdom is more
and more often being mistaken as a synonym for conventional intelligence.
Convention dictates that drinking is foolish, that making out with girls on a
whim is foolish, and thus the experience as a whole is foolish and worthy of
regret. It isn’t. The visceral, which is often ignored, especially in
university circles, in favor of the cerebral, is important not only to your
enjoyment, but if life is based on maximizing enjoyment, literally to life
itself. Thus the decision to drink is an intentional relief from intelligent
and logical decision making meant to encourage exactly the situation which I am
told I should regret. If I did not mean to hit on women, run around with my
friends, and make ‘poor decisions,’ then, quite honestly, I wouldn’t drink. On
the second thought: I do make decisions based on the present, because that is
where I exist most clearly to myself. Whether it is a weakness or strength, I
am not sure, but it bothers me that it could be perceived as either, and is perceived
as both, simultaneously, quite often. Constantly thinking to the past has
weaknesses: reluctance to repeat past mistakes, fears of commitment, and a host
of others, and tends to maximize long term enjoyment. Existing in the future
complicates enjoyment of the moment; forces decisions which seem to benefit you
in the long term, but in reality do such in no reliable or tangible way: again
it fosters long term enjoyment. Studying for a test to excess is my favorite
example of this, as is the emphasis which is placed on marks at the university
level. Though education is an investment in future happiness, it is not at all
a sure investment, and should not be considered such: like every aspect of
life, in the end, education is a gamble, and investing more heavily in this
gamble amplifies the loss which can be experienced. More importantly, it is not
a diverse investment. There is an assumption at the university level, that a
skill should be refined, that an individual should become extremely good at one
task, and that diverse abilities serve to reduce time spent mastering a single
ability: this leads to the degree specialization, the masters specialization,
and the thesis until an individual is able to focus on only a single element of
reality, often to the exclusion of other elements. This lack of diversity in investment
of time is not only dangerous, but harmful to the mental health of the individual
who is offering the investment. In short, and I understand that my argument is
not an original one, but I hope it has been presented in a new light: making
fundamental and life changing decisions based on your present opinion of the
state of affairs is a method of thought which reduces both the positive and the
negative impacts of thinking from a futurist or historical mindset. Thinking in
the now has advantages that, though overlooked, are no less real. The decision
to chase that girl, or take that train cross-country, or climb that mountain,
or get that tattoo, though dangerous because of their possible impact on future
you, are also the events in your life most likely to make a difference, for
better or worse. Spontaneity is the highest stakes game which you can play with
your personality, but because every decision is a risk with the possibility for
reward or punishment, it is not unadvisable to make at least some decisions for
the ‘you of now;’ not for later, not using experiences from the past, not
asking others. Finally – and now we are moving into a topic which is more
relevant to my present life, and thus I am more nervous to talk about – I have
a problem with relationships and the social construction which has made them
dangerous via the past and future modes of thinking discussed above. If you are
thinking, when entering a relationship, ‘I want to have sex,’ then the
relationship will be tainted by this futuristic mindset for the relationship:
the goal of the relationship is thus not mutual happiness, but rather the
sexual satisfaction of a single party. Entering the relationship with the
biased historical voice is similarly troubling, because conventional wisdom is
allowed the reigns and problems crop up: a fear of being ‘hurt again,’ a fear
of commitment, of disappointment, or God forbid, or being judged for your
choice of partner. This past voice is both literally and figuratively outdated.
The instructions of your parents and your priest and your grandmother, and all
of your friends: the wisdom passed down for generations from man to man, and
woman to woman, about how relationships work, and what to expect, though often
accurate, are not designed in the present day, and are not without flaws
created by referencing a previous era. Why do guys ignore texts when a girl is
interested and they are not? Why is it easier to hold a woman in suspense
rather than let her down easily, or start a relationship that isn’t about sex?
Why is a relationship ending somehow a reason for the two individuals involved
to go their separate ways? Why are social contracts cut short when the interest
in sex is destroyed? Some may offer that it is a matter of control: that
feeling in control is enjoyable and thus the man keeping the woman in suspense
is somehow entertaining or evocative for him. Some may argue that
evolutionarily there is a natural drive to pursue sexual relations, and no
similar drive to pursue platonic relationships. My understanding, and the
conclusion I have come to touches on neither of these, though to a limited
extent I consider both valid points. My conclusion is that the constructed
narrative of a romance dictates that when it ends it is over: the relationship
dies when the sex stops. I would love to be told the reason for this, why my
friends, whose opinions on most subjects I respect greatly, differ from mine on
this core concept. Is my attempt to maintain these relationships after they
have ended somehow abnormal? Is my emphasis on maintaining contact with those I
find approachable, pleasant, or intelligent: is that rooted in my past moving
from state to state and province to province? I’d like to think maybe it is,
and I’d like to think that maybe my upbringing is also responsible for my
almost famous reluctance to accept, and willingness to challenge authority and
especially authority figures. I’d like to think too, that this essay is a
challenge to the authority of conventional wisdom, the type of wisdom that
tells us we can’t be friends after we break up, and we can’t be happy in our
own bones, and we need to be thinner, or buy more, or any other number of
compulsions placed on us by our upbringings. Perhaps it is selfish, perhaps it
is my almost famous ego speaking, but I would love to believe that I am
different because I was raised to be different, and that the difference which I
have can benefit those raised in other ways. The compulsion placed on me to
challenge authority, though no less a compulsion that the girl raised to be a ‘good
Christian,’ or the boy raised to ‘sow his wild oats,’ is more unique that
either of those. I would love to think that my upbringing has had benefits
which others simply can’t understand, without ignoring that it has also had its
weaknesses. I would like to, and I will, because it is late and I can only
sacrifice so much sleep in pursuit of excess, conclude that my upbringing is
valuable to those who did not have it, in the same way that theirs is valuable
to me. Spontaneity and a willingness to challenge normalcy, which is so highly
valued in some ways, and so looked down upon in others, I think, is my
contribution to those around me. With any luck they’ll talk some sense into me,
and I hope I can talk some sense out of them. Goodnight.
