Trigger Warning: discussion of thoughts of suicide (and reasons not to commit it which were/are convincing to me)

May 2019 — Five Years Ago

In college, I had a period of deep ennui and dissociation—just a little existential crisis makes the world go ‘round, right? Things seemed so meaningless, the people I interacted with seemed so devoid of any deep purpose, originality, or freedom from the social or economic structures that prompted them to act in the ways they did. I didn’t see a reason really to go on; I wracked my brains, and was having real trouble figuring out any purpose in life that felt meaningful enough for me to keep sticking around.

At the time, the way things were going, it seemed like—and honestly, still seems like—America was descending into deep fascism. It didn’t really seem possible to steer the direction of the ship another way. Humans had really painted ourselves into a corner, from highly-developed capitalism and the destruction of collective democratic organizing, leading to the seemingly inevitable division of the world into fascist, racial, religious nationalism.

It seemed like anything I could do, apart from perhaps a rash and extreme action, would have barely any effect on this broad tendency. Obviously, I didn’t choose to go down anything like that—that kind of thought was something purely speculative, fleeting, and intrusive.

~

By that time in my life, I also had some experience in philosophy. David Hume and Albert Camus stood prominently in my thinking.

As I was searching for a reason to stick around, Humean skepticism reminded me: Who was I to think I could perfectly predict the future? There may be a route to a liberated world—liberated lives for all—even if I can’t see it from my small vantage point on the world. That skeptical reminder has not been disproven since—I see more potential routes out of permanent fascism and barbarism, even if they require precise needle-threading to get us there.

Camus’ essay on Sisyphus reminded me that people find reason and meaning in their lives by picking a goal, or finding something they enjoy, and finding rewards in the acts of pursuing those purposes. The pursuit of knowledge, sex, or developing a skill, and so on. There may not be a universe-deigned meaning or purpose to life, but that doesn’t matter because perhaps meaning comes from within ourselves.

~

What then, would my purpose be? What could I choose? I know I enjoy the act of engaging in the philosophical tradition, and doing philosophy, but that seemed largely unfruitful—even practically pointless—in a world choked by capitalism and descending into fascism. Philosophy could only gain a second wind as we develop our social systems further into socialism.

At that point, alongside my skepticism that sowed doubts in the idea that ‘a totally fascist world is inevitable’, I found a purpose for living. Back then and even now, I kind of feel like this ‘purpose’ I landed on is a bit of a cop-out. That which grounded my life in some kind of ‘meaning’ was that other people have reasons for doing things, for life, and that I could find some modicum of value in trying to help build a world wherein people can develop themselves in those ways—to develop structural freedom from the larger undemocratic structures imposing themselves on our lives. And perhaps in that process, I would develop myself and discover something with more meaning for myself. It was a stopgap of meaning to keep me going beyond that moment of existential crisis.

Over the past couple years, people have mentioned to me how much I seem to dedicate myself to organizing, how committed I am, or how much time and thought I put into organizing. I generally trace that motivation back to this point. Although, writing that down, that might not really be it—for several years before 2019, I was also deeply into organizing. Perhaps it’s the environment that I’m in which has allowed me to dedicate myself to organizing so much—I know that my actions are likely to have an effect on the world because of the comrades I have; the knowledge that our organizing is likely to have much more of an effect than anything I could achieve alone. The potential for building mass change is highly motivating to me.