Here I am, I exist! I am here.

“It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Hello fellow LinkedIn connections,

In my time as a somewhat quasi-active LinkedIn user, I never really made any content of my own. Merely curating and sharing interesting posts. This was due to my fears of them not ever being good enough, or me actually not being a Subject Matter Expert (SME) on most subjects (perhaps seemingly my low self-esteem fears of actually being a rambling boring ape!).

As of this time of writing this and from recent weeks, in a time when my life is beginning to go faster and my career pace is (starting, I hope) picking up.. life has made me realized that its in these crucial moments, I needed to take this very pause to gather myself and center my resolve. There will be time to better myself, my life and career once I've centered myself.

So, I decided to write this article on a public platform, as genuinely as I could. A form of catharsis and letting go. Don't worry, I promise this is very relatable and you'll get a lot out of it!

The topics are thoughts about career ambition, existence, the fleeting life of a human being, the nature of being a man, self-worth via work, the conceptualization of life, parallel realities and the unconscious universal fears of being human (not in any direct order). Full of reflection and ramblings (I'm a self-proclaimed master at this, I greatly assure you. Quotes too, lots of them!!). Plus, insights from my years of reading philosophy, meaning of life and lots of random fluff.

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I spent the past weekend contemplating and thinking. As someone who recently began my career as a Software Engineer, I harboured immense (perceived) guilt and anxiety about not being good enough or thinking I am not picking things up fast enough (if you're reading this K.H. by chance, I'll get to doing my thing, promise!). Classic imposter syndrome at a glance, but it was rooted in something much deeper.

Naturally, I put more effort into it, without realizing its consequences. Yet.. "what price victory" as they say?

It's in these recent weeks, that I have almost suffered breakdowns that I thought I left long ago. They weren't truly left behind. I thought they remained buried so deep, and yet they emerged so swiftly.. so visceral, so alive like the day I first experienced them firsthand.. I was truly overwhelmed.

One great pillar that held me up as a person, which I strived to build and cherish over long years.. It almost collapsed over the recent weeks. It was so.. failable. Almost a black swan event.

As a result, I felt that life wasn't worth living without that great pillar.

Why carry on? What was the point of all this if its gone? Why live? Why, why, why?

(I am unapologetic about this and what I express. Because if not now, when? If not here, where? This intensity is very disarming and shocking I am sure, and yet here I continue onwards.)

So, I had to take a step back. To think. To grief. To be a person. To have quiet moments.

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Let me give context.

Here we are. It is the year 2022. Human society is still traumatized, reeling and even now experiencing the bleakness, despair of everything going utterly wrong in our world, as we endure this pandemic. But its not a clear cut case of just.. a pandemic. We suffer our time's own "Great Depression" literally and figuratively. The faint light of hope.. flickering amidst a backdrop of uncertainty, instability and misery.. whether it be socially, economically and more.

Honestly? It was not the pandemic that brought us to where we are. It was our response to it predicated in our nature, whether it be something instinctive or learned.

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Most people derived a sense of identity and being in what they do. This then naturally extends to our career. By an estimate, a person's career (on average) could last between 20 years to 40+ years. You'd think that since we do spend an enormous amounts of time on career, we should derive our self-worth mostly from our career?

I'd proposed the unconventional, unorthodox and unpopular stance.

No, we shouldn't.

Let's use an analogy. Imagine your favourite cake. If your work was a piece of the cake, would you throw away ever other part of the cake, just to save your career alone? No, of course you wouldn't do that? What are the other parts of the cake? Your individual self, family, friends, passions, dear beloved person, perceived contribution to society etc.

So in relation, many people unconsciously or consciously realized that they were sacrificing so much for one part of the cake and, this sparked "The Great Resignation"..

Yet, this doesn't change the fact that careers play an important role in our lives, to the point of obsession and idealization.

And so.. most people (either by accident of circumstances or conscious reflection) never pause to examine the narrative of human society as a whole, of their own lives, of human existence itself. Regardless of our stature in life, we as individuals and collectives.. continuously play our roles on this grand theater, amused and immersed in our own theatrics, not truly realizing why.

One idea is from "Flow" by author "Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi".. where in his book, he asserts that human cultures and norms were a shield against the malady of existential dread and the loss of sanity in an uncaring, indifferent universe.

For its own sakes, human society and norms becomes its own assertion, some bulwark of certainty that we human beings, mattered in the grand cosmos of the universe, and that we are not truly alone. That what we do has great existential meaning and value. That everything is all not for nought. Not meaningless and pointless. That there is point to all of this. Some destination in the herculean journey of life. For when we give meaning to our lives, we can then endure any form of suffering as highlighted by Viktor Frankl and Nietzsche.

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Having said.. that and all, I am like you. I am another human being too. We all are. No different from another person, trying to make their way in the modern world of career towards success and freedom. I was determined and dedicated, even over-idealizing my self-worth via a career.

Yet, recent events have made me re-evaluate myself.

The great pillar of love for me, almost collapsed.

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I was overwhelmed. Feeling a sense of hurt, pain, sadness and loss. I descended into a mania of sorts, a defensive coping mechanism in preserving my psyche. "See how hard I worked? Shouldn't that matter? Doesn't the attitude and effort matter? I did it for us? Why now? Why this?"

I was terribly upset, angry.. but.. sad.

So. Very. Sad.

Sad...

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"It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.

It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.

But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.

We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on."?~ Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

I spent days beating myself up.. that I couldn't be better. Regretful. All my fears, my hurts, my sense of loneliness.. just overtook me in a couple of days.

Realizing.. that I made so many mistakes without me realizing (whether intentionally or unconsciously). I hoped that my dedication towards work, would give me leeway, a get-out-of-jail card. But for nought.

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I wallowed in misery and tears for a while.

I thought.. why? Why again? Why me again?

And I thought.. maybe I'll be stalwart to just leave all behind? Maybe I'll lash out, and protect myself? Maybe I'll try harder..

Those didn't work at all.

No matter what I did at first, nothing worked. Thinking.. why am I so unlovable?

I was in a pit of self-pity and sorry-ness.. for a long while.

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All of that shifted when I was thinking (sub-consciously, I'm not really sure) about the stars.. the universe..

I think I was reminded subconsciously by this picture of the moon seen from the view of this lone astronaut.

Pause at it. Really see it. How does it make you feel? Imagine yourself as that lone astronaut, peering into space.. seeing our home, so very far away. It makes feel utterly.. small in the vastness of the cosmos.

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth.” ― Neil Armstrong.

Another one.

"I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small." ― Neil Armstrong.

And another..

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty.” ― Edgar Mitchell

And one last one..

"When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.” ― Alan Shepard.

Carl Sagan's phrase.. the pale blue dot, played a huge part too.

There we are. That tiny dot. Earth. That is us. The only home we will ever known. Its.. all we got.

Whenever I gaze up at the moon, I feel like I'm on a time machine. I am back to that precious pinpoint of time, standing on the foreboding - yet beautiful - Sea of Tranquility. I could see our shining blue planet Earth poised in the darkness of space. ~ Buzz Aldrin

I'm currently 29 years old, almost 3 decades. The average human being lives up to about 80 years (plus minus). I'm slightly a decade plus away from reaching the half-mark.

How old is the universe? By some fair estimate (taken randomly from Google to give a rough figure), the universe is 13.7 billion years old.

My eighty years, vs 13.7 billion years old. Its a tiny drop in the tapestry of the universe and stars.

It has made me realize the fleeting, fragile and finite nature of my own life.. given the accident and grace of experiencing the human condition (and by shared universal experience, the rest of any other human being on this planet).

How so very small, I felt.. just like Neil Armstrong.

Doesn't it make you feel so small, and all our problems infinitesimally tiny in the grand scale of the universe?

That we do not really matter in the grand scale and scheme of the cosmos.

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“There are many, many, many worlds branching out at each moment you become aware of your environment and then make a choice.” ~ Kevin Michel, Moving Through Parallel Worlds To Achieve Your Dreams

To interject, I once read the ideas of parallel universes (yes, you Marvel fans, I heard you!!).

All possibilities could and would exist in their own parallel universes.

For me and now, all that matters is to exist as how I best want my life to be. There is no other reality except the here and now. All future decisions.. sometimes are not within our control to affect, and life is a chaotic conflux of the meetings of decisions. Oftentimes.. a sheer occurrence of coincidences bring us to where we are today.

I know, I am where I am today from my decisions and these forces. Still, I think of all the possibilities.

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And mundanely.. watching some seemingly random YouTube video called "Our conception of love is messed up" by oliSUNvia @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcbEiZQ9B7o

Note: One of the best videos on love that I have watched in my time as a upsty millennial.

Olivia, made a point that because we live in an increasingly capitalistic society, our definition of love has even been encapsulated, defined by it.

She ascribes that we fit our personalities and types to different "markets" or people. Not realizing that we try to be as lovable as possible, rather than learning to love, the act of loving. She gave a great example of a couple, a disabled man and a lady who have been together in earnest, even if society doesn't approve of them by conventional capitalistic norms.

I never realized that my love was in many ways.. transactional. And that made me utterly sad, but at the same time.. earnest that I realized this now.

Moreover, we have begun to treat our relationships like items.

If something doesn't work, its not you, its the item that is faulty. Throw it away, and buy a new one. Get a trendier product.

Sadly, we have long ago already decided to treat relationships like any type of product. "My guy isn't working anymore like how I wanted, so let me get a new one".. or something like that.

It doesn't help that popular media have poisoned us, giving us illusions of hyper-real situations of what love should be.

That's utterly despicable, immature and sad..

We have mostly being indoctrinated to forget that love is not a adjective, it is a verb. It is not a passive state of being, it is an earnest committed form of action.

In the relative time that I've learned to be loving towards another special human being, I have understood that it is not just in terms of compatibility.. it is the effort and meaning that we imbue into a relationship.. ala "The Little Prince".. (thanks, V.) that makes it all worthwhile. The "Unbearable Lightness of Being" is negated by living life oppositely. Instead of meaninglessness of life, life becomes more bearable, tolerable and even worthwhile to live for.

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What does this all mean?

I have been prioritizing and over-idealizing my career.. because I was so very scared and afraid.

• That I wasn't good enough, or wouldn't be able to get good.
• That if I didn't reach or aspire to be amazing in my career, I would be a colossal failure.
• That.. no one would ever want me... in my life.
• That I would be casted aside.. in favour of someone better than me.
• That was how lonely.. desperate.. sad.. I was.

I am sure, this behaviour and attitude is not unique to me. Most of us in life experience this. Yet, I think this is naively people's innate instinct, desire or longing to feel superior over something or someone, to have great social or economic value.. as a coping mechanism (approved by society) for life and staying sane.

But its all the more rooted in the fact.. we are so scared..

Scared of being unloved.

Worried that we would be abandoned.

Afraid to die alone.

Invalidated for just being us.

It is my fear.. of not being worthy or enough.. and like a product or item that has run its course.. eventually discarded to be alone and abandoned.. in some horrible forlorn place.

Note: This is not a cause to discard self-improvement. We should aspire to be the best version of ourselves, yet validate and acknowledge own existence.

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All of the above.. It all ties in together.

A really amazing friend (thanks, W.) told me that I was idealizing my work too much, that I was worried that'd be no other work for me (I have so little experience). That was how utterly terrified and scared I was.

When he psycho-analyzed me and I shared myself openly, we figured it out. I was now so very self-aware of my fears and their origins. But it didn't make it any easier to confront my pain and give self-forgiveness (there is even some deeper underlying roots in my childhood trauma and pain that were initially left unexpressed, but I'll leave that unsaid for now).

Related-able, we being adults are this mess of sadness and phobias. Another interpretation (I remember reading) is where adults are people who have surrounded their inner child with idiosyncrasies of adulthood, trying to make sense of the world we live in, making it up as we go along. That was me, and I think most people too if we cared to search deeply inside.

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Now, I understood everything, the root causes of my anguish.. there was one more thing important to address.. suppose..

If one of my great pillars, or even all my great pillars were to collapse (by another super black swan event, supposing the worse possibility), what do I then?

The very question that underlines human existence was posed by Albert Camus, the founder and philosopher of Absurdism.

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.” ~ Albert Camus

One cannot answer this without addressing our (my) innate fear of death. All other fears and wants (eg: the need for acceptance, love and fear of abandonment, not being worthy enough etc.) are all sub-sets of the great fear of death. The entire dissolution of one's own physical existence and consciousness.

Ultimately, no matter what we believe.. whether it be a non-secular or secular view, we are finite and will one day die. No matter how we derive our meanings, it boils down to this one premise (at least in my opinion).

Absurdism is one of the best possible conclusions (based on Hegel's concept when a thesis and antithesis form a synthesis), when existentialism and nihilism clash and create a middle point, a merging of sorts.

Absurdism is the belief and recognition that while life maybe fully absurd.. in that perhaps there is no inherent meaning in the universe, that doesn't mean that it is pointless to live, rather it gives us the immense infinity freedom.. to give meaning towards our struggles of living.. that make life worthwhile to live.

So, with the knowledge that we will eventually die, that we can fail.. that we are unworthy to even sometimes live up to our own ideals..

What can I (and we) take solace in if all is said and done? We take a page from the Myth of Sisyphus, the man condemned to roll a boulder up and down a hill, only for it to roll down back.. and to be repeated for all eternity.

"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." ~ Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus?

So, what if death stares at you so earnestly, waiting for its due? Do we give up in the immense ultimate fear of existence itself?

Absolutely not. No matter what happens, we should endeavour to live my life as best as we can, as an Absurdist hero. Recognizing that we do exist, the absurd circumstances in which we live exists too and yet we laugh along to its humour, and live our lives. As a human being, given life and consciousness by a mere whim of an accident, doing what we can.. even if the individual end for us all is actual death, a defeat of sorts. Yet, it is only in the face of horrible unwinnable loss and defeat, does the act of living.. loving.. matter even more, making the best of everything that we have. Like a player playing the best with cards he has on hand, to win unimaginable wins.

This means.. doing our best.. and even though we might fall short, who knows? We might reach destinations that we'd thought impossible.

So, the answer is to stare death in defiance and continue living life, even if we all should fall short, by giving our own life.. meaning of our own.

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live --moreover, the only one.” ―?E. M. Cioran

Cause our time is finite and we are all so failable. That makes me appreciate the greatness of my life and existence, to not be utterly trapped by the norm of overidealizing career.

All these and more.. gave me the courage to not tie my self worth to work (I'm hoping this isn't interpreted the wrong way. I'm utterly grateful for my opportunity..) and create a new pillar out of the almost broken remains of one.

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I leave this quote here, because while I have not been the first to articulate my fears, neither am I the best, my thoughts still deserve to be recognized for existing..

"Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person." ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

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Coming back to Earth and back to my individual life, here we are.

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.” ~ Gilda Radner

All in all, I validate myself that I matter.

"You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself." ~ Albert Camus

I love.. because that's what I do.. for its own beautiful sakes, and that is no failing of any sort. Because I live.. I am alive on this planet in this span of time.

Thank you, H.W. for teaching me to love and be loved.

So.. here I am, I exist! I am here.

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Thank you, all for reading, and hope you've gleamed some wisdom from my "venting / insights / young man screaming at universe" article!

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Note: This article will be updated from time to time, until I deem it right.

Disclaimer: All media belong to their respective owners, and I merely use them to make points in my explanations.

Update: 2/8/2022 - Missed out some words. Grammar and spellchecks too.

Update: 28/7/2022 - Grammar and spellchecks. Added a few things.