Life is a strange combination of incredible experiences and serious moments of monotomous repetitions. Between these extremes, one finds oneself sitting in a bar drinking beer, smelling the embers of freshly died fires, and embracing the incredible beauty of mundane everyday-ness. A familiar song is playing on the sound system, the table is sticky from the previous drunken night's party, and the patrons across you smoke their cigarettes whilst you breathe in secondhand smoke. The winter sun warms you and you just smile at the thought of all of this: life is good.
And this might lead to an interesting question:
My dad constantly reminds me, don't just do what you do but enjoy what you do. This is something so so profound yet so simple. We always try to do extraordinary things (extra, going beyond the ordinary) to feel alive. We dive from bridges, jump out of planes, watch scary movies, and so on. We go to live shows and run into each other. Yet, we do not live. We do these things so that we might feel alive, as if life is worth living when we do these things. We are constantly reminded on social media that we are never enough. You need to experience XYZ so that you can feel alive! You need to drink XYZ drink at ABC club so that you can experience the real life, as if there is a life beyond the one you are currently living.
But are we not wholly stuck in this life we are living and by chasing these strange pleasures which are extra-ordinary we are fleeing the one we are stuck in?
In simple terms, in chasing these things beyond me and my current life, I am not living my current life. I am, so to speak, trying to get away from what is in front of me.
Let me at this stage introduce a strange new idea I am working with but one that has been used by many philosophers for many years now. Call this mythical figure the HABITUS NOMAD. Two different ideas are linked here. Let me explain.
The nomad is a figure who lives a nomadic lifestyle. That is, the nomad is a person who does not have a fixed home. However, this idea does not capture the richness of the concept. The main idea is: the nomad creates her home where she lives. That is, she does not have a fixed dwelling, rather, there where she dwells, she lives. The simple idea I want to keep: The nomad is happy wherever she is because she does not rely on things being there, rather she makes the things she finds important to her.
Habitus is a strange word, but the meaning is simple: one's habits, mode of living, way of being in the world. I merely use it because it sounds better than stating "nomadic way of living". The idea is simple: it is about one's disposition.
Linking the two ideas in this way merely symbolizes the idea of the nomadic lifestyle but situated in the everydayness and the seeming strangeness of this very fact.
What does this all have to do with the preceding?
The idea is rather simple, but I am working on it in the background:
The Habitus Nomad finds herself in the world, and in finding herself in this world, she adopts to its workings by making everything at her disposal useful. She does not require anything beforehand; instead, she takes what she gets and turns it into the most valuable thing ever: enjoying the present for what it is.
It might lead to nothing, but I think that we are living in a strange era where people are disregarding this fact. We are constantly fleeing this aspect in order to reach ever greater heights. We are constantly seeking newness (just think about all of the social media platforms preferencing newness over and above chronology). The everydayness and the strangeness of that are pushed to the side so that we can conform to the new ideal of ever-increasing novelty.
In any case, these are just raw ideas I have been working on within my mind for a while. I wanted to get them down on paper. I shouted them into the void now. Maybe they will flower into something productive. Maybe they are merely so-called weeds that prepare the ground for something new. Time will tell.
I hope you enjoyed the musings at least. The musings are my own, albeit somewhat a product of the beer I am drinking and the weight of everyday strangeness pressing on me. The photographs are also my own, taken with my iPhone.
Happy reading, and stay well.