I have been in a funk for a week or so.
I have been in a funk since I was around 12 years old ... By age 16 I was telling people "Life sucks."
A couple years ago I was helping a very beautiful woman (from India) move out of her apartment. She had a 17 year old son from her first marriage and a little 2 year old from the current one that was falling apart. Her husband was a heavy drinker. I was too at the time, and I was naively surprised that this tendency to drown oneself in alcohol was cross-cultural.
Anyway, I found it hilarious the way this woman would say, "Life sucks!"
I mean, it is what the Buddha said, but coming from her, it just sounded so ... well, it was Life itself crying out.
So much of what Schopenhauer wrote struck me, resounded within me, to hear things put so honestly, the vanity of existence and all that ... and it's not just the horrors of war or the tragedy of losing a precious loved one or finding oneself homeless and stranded in a hostile uncaring universe, but even when one's life is "as together as possible," even when one has a powerful computer, a spark of passion for learning, even when one has carrot juice, plenty of tobacco and coffee and [name your vices], a cot and blankets ... or, as Liggoti put it in A Contrivance of Horror, even when one gets an A in Calculus, we can feel the sorrow or emptiness in our bones.
I had a strange sense of disgust reading a book by one of the innovators of the Kindle eReader. My mother is limited to reading large print books, so I am looking for one of those "old style" second generation Kindle DX's that have the 9.7 e-Ink screen ... bare bones and basic, but better (I think) than the iPads and other tablets. You know, a dedicated ereader with a larger screen, too expensive to make and still compete with all the multimedia phone movie crap (so they stopped making them!!!) ... yes, a wonderful device for one who needs to make the text larger ... and who, as she ages, fears the traffic she faces when going to and from the library. Anyway, I had a sense of disgust when this innovator was talking (writing) about how great it is to be able to log onto
or Twitter to discuss the books one is reading with others. I would never want a Facebook account.
The author went on and on about things with great enthusiasm. Sure, I know these devices are great. I admit this much. The thing is, as that cantankerous old curmudgeon, Kurt Vonnegut, once wrote,
all the greatest books have been about what a bummer it is to be born human.
That's the kind of awareness that seems to be missing in Jason Merkoski's "Burning The Page: The EBook Revolution and the Future of Reading". When he is writing, he does not seem to be aware of all the prisoners who don't even have access to a library, let alone an ereader that can access "any book ever written in 60 seconds". There are many different worlds in this world, and it creeps me out whenever I am exposed to someone deeply connected to only the corporate world on the cutting edge of our latest gadgets, one who does not even think of all those who end up in psychiatric wards, prisons, heavy combat, or even homeless in suburbia. It's just F&*#@ing creepy to witness those who are already living in "the Cloud" ... (((Am I a hypocrite since I am writing this on a wall in a cloud???)))
I won't be too critical of the guy. I only read a few pages, after all. I obviously appreciate the work he and other innovators like him do for us all ... I just wish ... well ... he weren't such a humanist, you know, such a cheerleader for civilization. These devices are great, but they do not make life worth living. They do not solve the riddle of our predicament. OK, ok, ok, these devices and all the great literature and music may make life more endurable and even a valuable experience in a sense - the tears and laughter and heartache and confusion and madness ... but I would appreciate it if such enthusiasts, technology evangelists, mathematicians and even spiritual gurus would find some way to pump some real life disgust, angst, and misery into the words they type.
Ah, but would that make the elegant mathematical notation less beautiful, if one were to leave a David Foster Wallace length footnote explaining how bored one has become with writing with LaTex software SHIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTT.
Whenever I write, even if I am totally psyched about the Open Source movement or the amount of great minds contributing to free mathematics software ... I understand how fragile our personal lives are, and how, when we are in a "funk" or our emotional experience of existence becomes, as you call it, a dark horror fantasy, it is difficult to be too enthusiastic about anything.
We are each very alone in this life.
So, while it is understandable one can be awe-inspired by the magic of the technological devices we have access to, it is important for me to remember what Vonnegut said about the greatest books being about what a bummer it is to have been born.
We can't allow ourselves to lose sight of the true nature of what we are caught in. Most of our lives will end in tragedy. No one is spared the being haunted by 1000 doubts per day, primal fears (of the dark?) hard-wired into our blood over millions of years of the psychic nightmare of being.
So many pretend to "have their sh!t together." I mistrust this.
While as I type these words my life and head are more "together" than in years, I also understand that the fabric of life is fragile, and the things keeping me calm and focused lately could be thrown into a whirlwind in a New York Minute ...
Life sure is not easy, even when one is blessed with the most crucial things like water, nutritious food, shelter, health, limbs that are not lame, eye-sight, one person who cares, a place to hide, freedom from institutions, a somewhat safe environment ... Even with these most important blessings, we still get into funks. It would seem to me that we are not wired to be happy for too long.