Qualities of form

There’s often this tendency to frame life itself as a problem to be solved. The tendency, as far as I can tell, seems born of an inner awareness of the events of our lives, the desire to control those events, and a belief in our own ability to mold our lives into some greater form. As convinced as I am that I will continue to fall prey to this line of thinking, I am nevertheless skeptical that life, whatever that means, exists in greater and lesser forms.

I understand that there are concerning implications of such a view. Does this mean that there’s no qualitative difference between life as experienced by someone who has only known starvation and disease and that of the wealthy and healthy? It depends on what we’re talking about I suppose. Certainly, the look of their lives is different. It feels offensive to say otherwise. But it also feels offensive to say that a life marked by greater misery or shorter duration is of a lesser form.

There was a moment in 2013, after my friend Shaina died, when a friend responded to her death by saying that it felt like such a waste, as if the real value of her life had yet to be realized. I likely don’t need to explain why this upset me. Obviously, her life had value to those in her life, this friend included; obviously it had value to Shaina.

This is how we talk about life though. This is how we talk about everything. We make hierarchical judgments as if qualities of form exist outside of our own subjective experiences on some continuum between best and worst. There’s no basis for such a belief though, and consensus doesn’t make it so. The probability of its existence stands side-by-side with lifeguard God and the flying spaghetti monster.

So what does that mean then? If there is no better form of life—if the quality of our lives offers nothing to be solved except for the satisfaction of subjective desires—then what the fuck do we do? Just work to satisfy our desires? Maybe that’s all we do anyways.

Maybe that such a question arises is the real problem.

Or I’m wrong.

Who knows? I guess I’ll go on a walk.