SUICIDE NOTE OF A RATIONALIST PHILOSOPHR

                                     

SUICIDE NOTE OF A RATIONALIST PHILOSOPHER

                                                                                         

“Where are we going? And why am I in this handbasket?"

                                                                                                - (Anonymous bumper sticker)

                                                                                                                       

FACT:

    Rationalist Philosophy: is the optimistic belief that we can find certainty in, and better understand our world through logical argument and reasoning. It gained wide acceptance from René Descartes’ whole “I think therefore I am” theory in the 17th century, and has continued to grow in popularity since.

    Its optimism while looking at the world is attractive, when there are so many negative theories out there proposing that everything we perceive to be real is not, and that the world and people are inherently evil by their nature. There are even those who believe that we’re all hooked up to some big bloody alien computer program being harvested as some renewable energy source on a post apocalyptic earth. They’re always fun.

      I also shared this rationalist perspective on the universe. I saw the beautiful things in the world. The blues, the greens, the high and deep places of earth; and, as everyone else I marvelled at them, at the miracles of creation. And much like everyone, I found myself so busy gawking and drooling about the place, that I often missed that which was right in front of me.

    I traveled to far-off places and talked with far-off people sharing their far-off adventures, and I rarely ever found myself at home. Even when I was home, I would often find myself drifting off into a far-off place of my own creation.

    “ED!” I loved my girlfriend. Yet, for all her shortcomings, she possessed an incredible talent for producing incredible volumes from an incredibly deceptive pair of thin, elegant lips; frightfully handy at sporting events, or any other time you had need of  a message to be sent across vast distances for the cheap price of a few cough drops. She was a lawyer by trade, and had had plenty of practice in both speaking, and making sure her stand on things were understood, unquestionably.

        “ I can’t see, how you could find it that taxing, to lift the seat, so you don’t piss all over it!”  The truth was, I didn’t. I just forgot to flush every now and then. It was the stupid dog’s fault for drinking out of it and dribbling it all over the place. Think she’d believe me ? Then you see my situation.

        Another situation of mine you may not have seen, was the kind of situation that consisted of a more financial nature. As you know I enjoyed travelling, which, once requiring nothing but a large wooden boat, now seemed to require an awful lot of coloured paper that, when one is unemployed, is generally difficult to come by.

    Often when one is in need of something, they look for a means to acquire that which they are lacking. A very wealthy girlfriend for example, is a means. The problem with money however, is that it’s often hard to remember how much you ( or your “means”) had in the first place.

                                                                                                               

FACT:

                                                       

My name is Edward Lowe. I am your rationalist philosopher, and I, have been dumped.

         

          The most frustrating problems are often those that cause us a great deal of grief while revealing very little of themselves. It is difficult to solve a problem when we don’t know what it is. And we ask ourselves “Do we even have a problem?” The answer could be no, but it could also be yes.

      Perhaps our problem is that we are looking for a problem that ceases to exist. Often times, we are the only ones who can be blamed for our problems, as we are their creators, their caregivers.

      We nurture them like the pet alligator who, once a cute little creature who’d snap at your ankles, has since become awfully large and hungry. You can no longer afford to feed him, and you are running out of excuses as to why your neighbours’ cats have inexplicably disappeared. So you flush it down the drain or drop it into the sewer, and you believe that is the end of it, until you hear rumours of sewer workers who have gone missing on the news. You don’t know if it is your alligator who is causing all this trouble, and the chances that he has even survived the sewers are astronomical. You can’t sleep, you sit there in the quiet dark in a cold sweat, wondering, it can’t possibly, even plausibly be, can it? Until it turns out that the allegedly missing workers have been safe at home all along. Well that was a waste now wasn’t it? How much time did you waste, sleep did you lose, worrying about nothing? I imagine you feel rather silly now don‘t you?

      Now I, had a problem. And this was my problem. It wasn’t the fact that I had now been dumped, nor that my “means” happened to own the house and everything in it (minus a few personal affects of mine, including both a blue rubber duck, and a straw hat I “found” in a dumpster in Portugal), nor was it even the fact I neglected to grab my shoes as I was thrown out the door(and subsequently locked out). My real problem, was that as I sat on the steps down which I was so unceremoniously tossed mere moments ago, I realized: “I, don’t know who I am anymore”.

      It’s a troubling realization, when you are unable to define your existence. When you cannot say “Why, hello there. I’m Bill, and I am a photographer” or “ Hi, Ginger here calling from Dr. Powkmiowch’s office, your appointment has been cancelled due to an unfortunate family emergency, are you available for Friday two weeks from now?”, or “ I’m David, a heavily medicated individual with a taste for human flesh, care for dinner tomorrow evening?”

      I was Edward Lowe, and I was…homeless, would have been a nice word. However, seeing the current state of things I figured it wouldn’t do much good for me. Besides, what was home anyway? How do we know that the place we go to sleep at night, is where we truly belong? Through my travels I have found many homes, home had become a very fluid concept for me.

      Once it was the dwelling of a brutish Australian woman and her pig farm; she smelt terrible, which could be forgiven seeing as the only facility that could be called a bathroom lay outside, and consisted mainly of a mirror hung from the branch of a leafless red wood, as well as a thick yellow rope over which was thrown a frilly, hot pink shower curtain(for privacy). She also baked the most incredible pies, which I was told were made from wild fruits that grew in the area ( although I could have sworn I found bits of a small hoof in one of them).

      Home, that familiar place where comfort and security , gone. A cold, cruel world lay before me, the same cold, cruel world I had encountered at 18. It is an uncaring, and merciless place, whose sole agenda has always seemed to be to smother hope, and humble the ambitious. Looking out into this place, I envisioned all its victims. Goals hung by their necks off the streetlamps, and the shattered bottles that lined the sidewalk, now shared concrete with  dreams of a similar state. Hope, lay in the street like roadkill, a fitting end I found, seeing as I had none at the moment. Yet, in spite of all, there remained a small feeling of foreshadowed optimism: It could only get better from here.



                                                                                                                     

FACT:

                                                                                       

My name is Edward Lowe, and I, am depressed.

      Optimism: a senseless belief in the goodness and reason of man and world. The problem with optimism, is that it is built on the assumption that the universe is inherently good, as are the majority of the people who inhabit it. That good will always (or at least has a convenient tendency to) prevail. This is wrong. At least, this is what I believe. And if you find yourself in such opposition to anything I have said, that you have thrown down the book in disgust and/or found yourself in need to leave the room and go out for a nice long walk, well then you can write your own damn book then can’t you? Anyways, back to how incredibly stupid optimists are.

      Now before you paint lovely picket signs with catchy slogans and riot in the streets in protest (mind you, you’d probably be the only one) you must remember that I too was an optimist, and still catch myself falling for its charms. Optimism is a very alluring concept; we are quick to embrace it, and weak in so doing, for it is a seemingly inescapable fact that the world is sadly not, a perfect place. Optimists have to learn this the hard way, as I had to learn. In fact, I have such pity for the optimistic among us, that I have decided to form a charity “Bucks For The Reality-Blind,” to aid in the cause of optimists (who at any time could hit rock bottom). Any contribution, ranging from monetary donations, to prescription medications are welcome (remember: every little bit helps).

      As an optimist, this was my rock bottom, my conversion. All  titles, possessions, pride, I found myself now stripped of; synched tightly in the fetal position drowning in wet sobs, nothing remaining but the piercing cold bedrock of my life below (a generally unpleasant feeling all-round).

      I awoke next morning on the rose granite steps of my former suburban home, a pattern of kinks twisted into my spine like a mangled slinky; even the dog had slept inside. But, I guess this is what I had been lowered to, my existence less significant now than a furry, four-legged vacuum cleaner’s.     

      From behind the frosted glass in the French-style doors of the house came the unmistakeable shuffle of feet as attempts are made to hastily don footwear in the background. A distorted brown glob could be seen in place of a head, for only a moment; before a familiar face atop an admirable figure stood in the doorway. “Ed, my God! Have you never heard of a taxi?” For once, she seemed sincere. Her eyes, like hypodermic needles to the soul of any man, were painted with the unmistakeable signs of grief and fatigue, which I couldn’t for the life of me understand; we both knew it was coming to this, we’d spent more time screaming and dodging flying objects in the past few months than talking; guess she was a little too optimistic about our situation. She left for work shortly after, and I was never to be entranced by those piercing green eyes, again.

            This was it. The apex. The climax to the downward spiral of my poorly constructed existence. God had truly broken the mold when he made me, but none for the better. My life has always, since my first breath been plagued with what I would come to call ‘inescapable mediocrity’. Good at everything, great at nothing, Edward Lowe, I‘ll be here all week. No greater evidence of this truth could be found outside of the three months leading up to what had just occurred. No job, no social life, no motivation toward anything at all now that I come to think of it. It’s a most curious thing. My desire to live my life most fully has crippled me, left me drowning in the darkness that has taken up the empty space in my heart, begrudgingly void of the love it once housed, of the radiant  guardian that had made such a hasty vacation. My fondness for this world has lead me to this tired state; I wanted to learn everything to travel the world; my lack of direction, focus, has ruined me.

      Now I find myself in an extraordinary position. I find myself quite literally staring down the barrel of the smoking gun. Driven to madness by the realization that my life has been ruined by my attempts to live more fully; I dabbled here and there, discovering the world city by city, conversation by conversation, page by page; and that inability to develop worthwhile skills, purposeful knowledge, work ethic, has left me without hope of making any significant contribution with this life. I have spoiled the universe’s greatest gift, degraded its structure, its serviceability. My life has been ruined by my attempts to live more fully; and now, in the ironic aftermath of consequence, it has given me reason, to end my life.