Thursday, February 16, 2006

A Dream, A Vacuum, A Scheme (And A Sofa)

Alok's post about John Gray's book - no, not THAT John Gray! - reminds me of "Alvy Singer" not doing his homework because the universe was constantly expanding and the world was going to come to an end ("but that's the universe, Alvy...we live in Brooklyn", Alvy's mother tells him.)

If indeed we are doomed and if all our belief systems are merely a comfort blanket, the question that naturally follows is this: what does this mean? If everything - faith, ethics, science, progress - are just illusions, what is the point of all this?

You know what rankles me about this philosophy? No, not the nihilism or the terrifying meaninglessness of our petty lives. It's being told that our samsara is phony baloney after I plonk down so much money to furnish our - what else - living room.

5 comments:

wildflower seed said...

Classic!!!

Philosophers (the academic breed) are not doom mongerers, they are concept mongerers. Like all of us, I suppose.

Tabula Rasa said...

Ouch. Watch that sofa mate -- don't let it go drifting along any fields anywhere.

Anonymous said...

We know its phony, yet we look and look and look again till we find the compromise couch and then the daughter falls sick and throws up on it. Which is when we realize, its not phony, its real and it smells. Nodi saar, navvu iradhe heege.

neha vish said...

:) Resolve the regret by spending more time sleeping on the couch.

km said...

@ph: whaddaya know, there's beer stains already. Navvu hange irativi :)

@Neha: regrets, resolve, couch....Hello, Freud?