I don’t quite understand holistically when she says “The best thing we can do is to focus on the present and don’t lose ourselves in the past or future by constantly thinking about it.” Which is quite different on how I live my life. I operate myself by creating foundational meaning that lies in the future that is redefining my character in the present. A more sensible explanation would be how I maximize myself as a human and emulate myself how much I can bring value that exists in the future. I constantly think about the future as it gives my life a sense of meaning but also out of a coping mechanism relating to the time when my life has no meaning. I asked myself “What makes people don’t kill themselves? Is it only because they have things to look forward to and I don’t?” At that time I am completely honest when I say this, I didn’t have any reason to live. I didn’t see what’s so great about tomorrow. If anything, today and tomorrow bears more suffering that I’m really not looking forward to. Now I forcefully forge beautiful ideas that lives in land of tomorrows. Much like Dave in the story of “The Regret”.
Regret plays a foundational role in this story. I hear a lot of people saying “Time flies so fast” “It’s already about to be 2024” “I’m 30 year old now, yet I don’t feel like I have ever lived.” These quotes are so universal to the point that it’s sometimes familiar to me and sometimes its alien to me. The only way I can differentiate my condition is only when I feel a lot has happened in the previous moments. It’s almost as if the cliff of sorrow and the mountain of happiness were streched so high that I feel more alive than previous years. And I fucking love that.
Memory also plays a foundational role in this story. It’s scientifically true that high intensity emotions have a tendency to be attached in your brain than mild ones. This is true for both happiness states and sadness states. It’s almost as if after you live your life and stand at a point at the present you can see the mountain of happiness and the cliff of sadness that you’ve carved along the way. You can point out and say “Oh yeah I’ve been there! I’ve been into that peak! That was fucking amazing!
Regret will always come last. The very essence of the word is stapling the past to the present. In which a past is something that you cannot change. But without the extreme mountains of happiness and cliff of sadness, there’s simply nothing to see on the path that I’ve carved. A life of loss represented in flatlands. That’s the reason why “The Regret” story is very powerful to me. Why would David spend his life moving towards the path to least resistance not being honest to Steve and Beth about his true and honest emotions? The consequences of failing to communicate his human nature that is numbed that cries for mutual human connection and meaning in human relationships leave him in a pit of regret, regretting the past he cannot change. Had he put more weight on the future on how they together can create a sense of togetherness and belonging out of care towards each other, no one would’ve been dead out of not only alienated condition but also self-alienation. The future and the weight of the future is a staple in which the present self or David should navigate. Everyone knows this, by face value of that sentence everyone knows this. But how come there are so many quotes about regret?
What the fuck is the definition of “Life well lived”? A life with less regret? A life to be proud of to have lived?
I have lived and heard that there’s no guarantee as long as you go older you will have your life sorted out. I’ve talked to old people well older my age and still confused to the question of the meaning of life. The answer is always what you make out of it but how come he doesn’t have any weight or conviction to his answer? Well my answer as of now is “To give the most amount of value that I could possibly give.” Give value could be to human relationships or friends that i’ve made by making them happy and also for humanity as a group by providing invaluable ideas and concepts that made them think.
I had some conflict with my crush in where I think she’s under the impression that I only care about talking about philosophy. But it’s actually I saw her being so immersed with the topic when we were talking about it which greatly manifested towards my attraction towards her. Further amplified when she says she cared about me. Knowing my background in which she doesn’t know at that time. I feel I had a normal human reaction in which the sum of my self awareness in the past has driven me towards “love”. I love spending time with her. I had some of my personal conflicts in mind when it comes to her. It just came to me while I was writing “The Phantom”, the whole concept of the phantom is that alike amputees that has lost their limb, the brain can’t help but still feeling the limb is still there while it’s not physically there. The brain can’t help itself but having the same neural pathway that gives the sensation that lives in the past. I was thinking “Maybe it is the same for human emotions.” We navigate our present feelings based on our previous feelings. It snowballs into thinking my previous experiences and how she came into my life and the eccentricity of her. Why does she seem so special to me? Is all of what I want to answer. It opens backdoors of memories on how I relate things that have happened to me such as my love towards philosophy and how every time I meet her, she’s so supportive about it and how she says I reminded her about her uncle that loves writing while having a full time job. How she says “That’s very nice that you know your meaning of life and what to do about it.” How she says “I’ve never seen a person so passionate at doing the things that they believe in.” After listening to my audios. Wow, she was being really genuine. She really cared about me. I shouldn’t have discounted the value of the letter and make conflicts about it. Now she hasn’t replied to my messages.
Me and her is very different as much as we are of the same with many things. As much as I see value in her, she probably doesn’t see much value equally how I see value in her. It’s hard to determine value when operating with limited information. Though it is still very nice that she tried to explain her emotions by explaining is not that she doesn’t care about me that she only listened my audios only if I ask her to or how she forgot about her birthday present. It’s just because she doesn’t have the mental energy to talk about philosophy so It’s hard to be decisive when I ask her time when she wants to listen to my philosophical audios and it led to multiple bails. I was under the heavy impression that she’s doing the things she done out of guilt rather than out of care. Turns out I was wrong. She always cared and I was just being selfish.
I don’t really know what to do with her anymore. I have my own fuck ups and It’s completely understandable if she doesn’t want to reply to my messages as I am a quite intense human being. I need to understand that she has her own things and her own expectations towards life and if I don’t fit in the picture, then I don’t fit in the picture. Don’t love out of selfishness, love out of selflessness.
I’m really sorry that I gave an impression that I am selfish while what I was actually been doing that asked you to listen to my philosophy audios is that because I thought that’s the thing that you really liked to and may be looking forward to do it as well.
I’m really sorry that I gave you a hard time and making you think at times when you don’t want to think.
I learned so much from you as it gave birth to yet another article partially dedicated for you and how much I appreciate you.
How can something be so different and yet so alike.
I like you because you gave me reasons and arguments on how I can at least by definition understand what parts of me makes me more human and enabled me through experiences coming with you that produces beautiful line of thoughts that is not only valuable to me but also for other people that have enjoyed my art.
I’m still confused whether if it’s because I’m already intoxicated or it’s because you kept proving yourself as something of value to me.
It’s such a shame that I couldn’t prove that I am something of a great value to you at least equally how you are valuable to me.
You gave me a reason to have intense emotions both ups and downs and I enjoyed both of them. I will gladly look back at this moment and be proud of the extreme mountains and cliff that I have carved along the way.
She’s a present maximalist. She wants to live in the present as much as she could and I will disintegrate over time as the majority part of me only lives in her past.
I’m a future maximalist. I constantly live in the future as the I let the imagination that lives in the future give soul to my present self. Without constantly thinking about the future I can’t navigate my present. I will be left confused and wandering lifelessly. I need to get a grip every now and then and to think “Is this what I really want?” I’m a heavily intense person when it comes to meaning and human relationships.
She’s a present maximalist. She believes by focusing on the present she can find deeper meaning why she do the things she do.
I’m a future maximalist. I constantly intertwine my future self to my present self. I believe meaning is a function from the future that is passed down to the present in which enables me to love writing and takes time in writing. Because I know my purpose in writing is to help myself and help others. As the ultimate act being the servant of value. As how you quote yourself back in 2022: “I write this because I fucking need to. If there’s any regret that I have in my life, is that I wish I couldve write more. Life feels too short sometimes”
Regret is inevitable but by projecting myself that lives in the future I can do things that could minimize regret. Knowing that I have spent my life doing the things by making the best assumption of what I want out of the future.