A Quick Splurge of Honesty

So much of politics seems to be pretending to know what you're talking about when you really know nothing. So much of philosophy seems to be pretending you don't believe what you really do. Science is science: it describes and predicts the universe and informs our conceptions of people but still cannot handle the infinite complexities of even a single thinking human being. Mathematics is correct because it says it is and, moreover, it seems to track reality as exactly as any language or system of thought, but it too is limited in its application to the average person's day to day life. Anthropology is much more flexible but mainly applies to a small subset of academics, though it also informs popular literature that makes a lot of difference (as all these things do). Business gets food to mouths and clothes to bodies but it's as dull and unsatisfying as uncooked oatmeal. Medicine is supremely important but bodies are disgusting. Journalism is essential but almost meaningless in the drowning rush of infotainment and propaganda. Literature is almost perfect but nobody reads. So what am I to do?

I'm reading as much as possible and writing the best novels I can. I'm going to school to study languages and literature, which are the enduring passions of my life. I'm being as good as I can to my fellow human beings and exercising empathy to the best of my abilities. Today I ate a strawberry and finished a Faulkner novel and read a month's worth of Facebook posts of a person I cannot comprehend and am inclined to despise. Maybe some day I'll understand him and I won't have to feel the bitterness I do at his exemplification of all I find wasteful, repugnant, harmful, and dishonest. This morning I got up at seven and wrote 1571 words of what I feel to be the best work I've done yet. I petted a kitten at its behest and stood outside and inhaled the wind and sent a message to a person whom I love and respect. I don't know what I'm doing but I'm doing it as best I can, and I guess it's pretty good. The world seems to be going to hell except that it seems it's always been there and I haven't a clue how to fix it or even understand it. But the small slice that is my life, by chance or inevitability or simple hard reality, whatever it is that can be said to be responsible for the features of my existence, seems to be so much better than the violence and despair that surrounds it, and I'm doing my best to exemplify that goodness and breathe it as I do the oxygen ungiven and unasked as it swirls around the globe, which is to say only that I love life and am doing my best, though I have no clue where I'm headed. Do you?