We Go On Singing

 I have to apologize in advance if I’m not entirely clear in my meaning, or if my writing seems jumbled in this post. I’m not the most analytical of thinkers, being more geared towards EQ than IQ so to speak, and my attempts to philosophize frequently fall flat. But with this post, I’m trying to wrangle some complicated feelings I’ve had this past week. Long story short, but in the past few months I’ve been flip-flopping between feeling frustrated, depressed, despairing, hopeful, angry and cynical and I’m trying to make sense of that. I’m just trying to warn you that this post might ramble more than usual, it might offer insights into my personality, and it might make references to George Carlin, Diogenes, Albert Camus, Yahtzee Crowshaw, Orson Welles, and others because I'm a pretentious fuck. 

In my younger years of thinking I knew everything about the world, I really thought that the best term to describe my outlook on the world was ‘cynic,’ and in my pretension I believed that I was free from the modern, pessimistic understanding of the word and that I was merely reacting appropriately to the world around me. Through college I experienced a profound existential crisis that removed much of my positive beliefs in the world, leading me to conclude that that humanity was primarily motivated by self-interest. I didn’t trust people in general, and I didn’t see much of a purpose to life or really even think I’d have much of a future. I wouldn’t say I was a nihilist, because I was still someone in search of meaning, and I thought that I could eventually find one. But I was certainly the pretentious fuck I pretended I wasn’t. (Still am, if you couldn't tell, I just don't deny it anymore.) 

Time taught me that I didn’t understand jack fucking shit about anything, let alone myself, and that while I won’t leave the world understanding much of anything, I can still at least try to learn and act like I understand. Ironically, my current world view (I say current because these things can change quickly) is influenced by the original cynicism as espoused by Diogenes, with a little bit of Albert Camus’ concept of the absurd. 

The original cynics believed in an Asceticism and simple living that viewed harmony with nature as the highest ethical calling. The cynics rejected most societal conventions as arbitrarily invented to control feelings of “shame.” Ethically, Greek Cynics wouldn’t be relativists, they would in fact honor virtues that come from nature quite highly. Think of it as the proto-stoicism, except most of cynics would mock the Stoics for being too self-important. (I’m indebted to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy for help with the philosophical concepts I tackle here.) 

It’s not a flawless philosophy, as Diogenes himself demonstrated. For instance, its Asceticism can be seen as leeching rather than self-sufficient once taken to it’s logical extremes. Secondly, societal morays exist for a reason, and there are sociological, technological, and medical advancements that we have crated for a reason. But I do still value at least three valuable aspects of cynicism. 

First, Diogenes was fucking hilarious, and his quips and clapbacks do indeed offer insight into societal hypocrisy. Second, I believe the preference for natural virtues over societal conventions has caused me to reevaluate my view that all humans are inherently self-interested to a fault. Arguably, self-interest isn’t our natural state, but something exacerbated by our society’s ordering ourselves. Thirdly, I believe that cynicism’s tenet of questioning everything that an authority tells you to accept is extremely valuable. It grounds you, reminds you that society really is just a set of illusions that we’ve all agreed to abide by. Social compacts do exist, and you have to remind yourself that while they’re necessary and kind of beneficial, some of them pretty ridiculous and we can definitely replace them with better systems. 

This is part of the frustration, anger, despair and unbridled maniacal fear and loathing I’ve been feeling. Let’s state the perfectly obvious with the words of George Carlin. “The longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is fucked up.” Its perfectly fucking obvious what’s fucked up: society is designating right before our very eyes. War, poverty, fascism, racism, LLM’s and Generative AI, rampant consumerism, MAGA, genocide, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, climate change, rising illiteracy rate, religious intolerance and extremism, unpunished pedophilia, artlessness, the destruction of the middle class, flagrant criminal activity in the highest levels of wealth and government, and the fucking cherry on the cake, Mr. Beast. Nah I’m fucking with you. The worst of it all is indifference, both at the highest levels of power and in the general public, everything is going to hell and nobody cares. It’s almost enough to justify the cynicism of my college days. 

But I can’t go back to that. You see, from my readings of the two branches, the difference between modern cynicism and classical cynicism is that classical cynics believed life was worth living. And I find myself in agreement with that premise. Exactly why I agree is hard to articulate, but I think the simplest explanation I have comes from my understanding of the Absurd. (I’ve mentioned Camus before, I don’t know if he believed exactly what I’m about to expound, but I’ll give him the credit.) 

As I understand it, the Absurd expresses the fundamental disharmony in our existence, specifically the feeling of requiring meaning from existence, but upon looking for meaning or purpose, we can only find an indifferent, senseless, silent universe. It’s an existentially terrifying idea. And it does get to me. I imagine we all know the feeling, striving most of our lives for some kind of relevancy, some kind of purpose, some kind of basic quality of life, and then we all slowly experience having our teeth kicked in. We struggle for years in dead-end jobs and end up loosing money. We look for avenues of self-expression that are safe, that recognize our basic humanity, only for bullies and corporations and people who call themselves Christians to curb our actions, to call us inhuman. We spend years trying to perfect our arts, only for people to make machines to replace us. And beyond that pain to our material and mental worlds, we have the underlying fear that it’s all for naught, because everything will pass away. 

Orson Welles spoke of this. In his documentary F For Fake, he takes a rather somber view of the purpose of art. Grand Cathedrals, paintings, books, poetry, film, drama, all will pass away, either to the slow erosion of entropy or the fires of censorship. “Our songs will all be silenced,” Welles said. “But what of it? Go on singing.” 

This was Camus’ solution to the absurdity of life: keep living. Life isn’t beautiful because it lasts, it’s beautiful because it’s lived. Art isn’t beautiful because it’s hanging on a wall, it’s beautiful because it took effort to create. I believe art, and life is even more beautiful in the face of this adversity, because defiance is beautiful. 

Recently, one of my favorite humorists, Yahtzee, and some of his journalistic friends created a line of merch for their independent media company, Second Wind. A coffee mug takes one of Yahtzee’s quotes, and illustrates this idea of defiance being beautiful. This mug (pictured above) triggered the idea for today post. (I’m including a link to the mug I’m referring to because even though I bought one and used a picture of it for this article, it’s still not my design or quote, and I’m certain they’d appreciate being credited.) Funnily enough, this even ties back into the story of Diogenes, who is one of the earliest recorded users of the middle finger.

There is indeed no middle finger big enough for the world right now. And every word I write, every day I live, is another gigantic middle finger to consumerism, AI, homophobia, this administration, flock cameras, and indifference. And yeah, it's hard to keep writing, it's hard to keep working every single day. But I really don't have anything better to do and frankly, it's fulfilling.  

And so we go on singing.