Giving ourselves a break from ourselves is the biggest endeavor that everyone undertakes, some use substances, some relationships, some work, some games, some go on bike tours, etc.
We sometimes term it as escape and look down upon it. But as creatures with so little to do in life as their purpose and capable of seemingly infinite energy in comparison, we are like young dogs who by the end of the day have to expend their energy so as to not explode. Like it or not, we will inevitably end up doing some or the other tasks which to our core is totally unnecessary.
Most of the things that we engage in, right from frivolous social media, to what David Graeber calls 'Bullshit Jobs' are nothing but ways to get away from ourselves. A self that is empty and meaningless subjected to a boredom that has been created by the time expanse that is forced upon us to live with.
Faced with this boredom and the increasing lifespan that we keep gifting ourselves we invent systems (or believe in existing ones) and make ourselves a part of it. We give ourselves an identity and we fight tooth and nail for it. We create differences, feuds, religions, politics, businesses of inequality and wars to feel on top of things. We try to give ourselves unattainable long term goals, most of them that stretch beyond our lifespan and make ourselves part of projects that are extremely challenging.
An illusion of our future, to rule the systems that we are part of (or keep going ahead in the hierarchy) keeps us away from the living. In our fear of noticing that we are dying everyday we subject ourselves to an eternal death that resides in our minds in the form of plans for a future that doesn't exist.
This is not to say that these plans don't work or we have to be single-mindedly focused on death and be paralyzed. This is only to say that the plans of the future are to serve living in the present. Just by themselves, they belong not, to the living.
Every endeavor is a game that we invent (or be a part of), they don't necessarily exist beyond the entertainment of our mind. To be cautious, that these games allow us a present that is loving, harmonious and joyful is to live wisely.
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