Nihilism

I wouldn't actively proclaim myself as a nihilist, but I certainly embody nihilistic ways of thinking.

We're just insignificant dots on such a grand spectrum- to view life in the bigger picture.

We're not all gonna be Galileo's or the scientist that discovers the cure for cancer and in a few hundred years time, we'll just be names on a family tree- an ancestor to our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren who will probably not be able to recall our names or anything about us. Maybe not even a name on a family tree, who knows if we'll even be remembered at all- hard to see why not given our insignificant output on a universe that is ever growing and (for what it matters) cannot exactly be measured.

Being optimistic, say I live to see a century, remove sixteen of those years that I have attended mandatory education, and another five that I have and still willingly endure. That leaves me with seventy-nine years left. Average health might see me slowing by the tie I am eighty (again, we're being optimistic) so that's another twenty gone, leaving me with fifty-nine years. Say I have children, that removes eighteen years at least- who knows, maybe obligatory education will increase and I'll be looking after them longer. This leaves me with approximately forty-one years to do whatever the fuck I want.

Forty-one years to travel, to write, to read, to love, forty-one years to make my insignificant self have a fucking ball, remembered in the moment because those great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren of mine won't know about the time I bathed with an elephant in a Vietnamese river, or the time I hiked the Na Pali Coast, but I will. I'll remember it until I'm eighty and I'll spend the remaining twenty years of my century long life reminiscing what I did, where I travelled, remember what I read, to read what I wrote, remember who I loved and who they loved and what I loved.

I might not be the guy with millions of pounds, the flashy cars and the big house, but I won't be the guy who sat in the office nearly everyday of their life to gain all of these possessions that they can't enjoy because they're sat in their office to gain such possessions.

Repetitive.

What's the point?

Sure, there's a legacy for your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren, but you didn't live and they won't either.

Internal dialogue: animals

Turmoil.

Conflict for another word.

I just fucking hate myself and the fact I eat animals. I get periods where this really plays on my mind. An animal, with as much a right to life as I, yet somehow it is lesser than I and resides upon my plate. And I fucking hate that. I love animals.

Clearly not.

It's something I can't break out of- I've tried.

But I never justify eating an animal nor would I hound (pun unintended, I found in retrospect) someone for eating for example, a dog. Just because I have dogs and love them dearly, I lost my right to claim that eating them would be wrong when I accepted eating other species. Same goes for other animals I'm particularly fond of- horses, giraffes and humpback whales. What makes these any different from chickens, cows and lambs?

Lambs.

Fucking babies. Never even had a chance of life. I fucking hate myself.

But then back to whales. Is whaling wrong? Obviously it is but am I allowed to argue that? I indirectly kill other animals, how is this different?

It breaks my heart.

But even if I didn't eat animals, the animal that would otherwise be upon my plate is still dead. Me refusing it won't bring it back to life. What's the difference? But if everyone said no, there would never be demand for the death of these animals.

But not everyone would say no.

Conflict.

Being a minority and refusing to eat animals wouldn't lessen their slaughter. Animals would still be killed whether I choose to eat them or not.

Turmoil.

Meat.

Disgusting word. It is an animal that has been killed.

An animal.

What the actual fuck?!

It isn't right.

I'm on one side of the argument mentally but my actions are polar.

The life of an animal is worth no less than my life.