Ambition:

"Because the creator of the universe of the universe just dumped us out here in the middle of fricken nowhere, and nobody has any idea what we're supposed to be doing."

So, if you're out there God, now would be a good time for boomy god voice, or burning bush, or something. You gotta teach someone how to pilot this rusty ol' hunk of rock....






So in our little corner of the Blogosphere, folks have been talking about ambition. And it's such an interesting subject to me, that recently I've written about 60-70,000 words on the subjet. And to me, what ambition, REAL ambition is about, is trying to find some way to give life meaning.

Because, frankly, if this is just a pleasure cruise, I want my money back.

But the problem is most people can't see how life can mean anything without buying into a whole lot of nonsense that noone can possibly prove. I guess you've just gotta pick something or other to beliee in and stick with it.

For example, GOD can give your life meaning. Its easy, you just join his club, and then you try to get more people to join the club under you, and if you get enough people to sign in this life, you get a Brand New Mercedes M-class when you die. So life HERE has meaning becuase you can get level up points for the next world. Cool!

The problem is, firstly, no one actually knows what the parking is like in heaven, or how good the public transportaion is, or how the Mercedes handles on milk and honey. And secondly, if some dope tells you that killing 1000 Arabs gets a lifetime of free oil changes, you can't prove him wrong.

And there are all different kinds of road maps that people use to find meaning, not just religion and as far as I can tell, they're just all the blind leading the blind. Here are some examples:

There's the famous, "keeping up with the Joneses:" OR: I don't know what the fuck I want, but if I'm doing better than that guy down there, I must be doing ok. The problem is the guy down there is looking at the guy down the street from him, he he doesn't know what the fuck to do either.

And there's the similar: "My dick is bigger than average" roadmap. People feel ok so long as they know that %50 or so of the people are a little more fucked than they are: "Got a car, a dog, a house and a family. Hey, I'm living the american dream."

The "whose your daddy." Where people feel ok, so long as they beat there parents. Whatever that means.

But if "winning" the game doesn't make you feel like your life was meaningful, you can try to find meaning through conflict and pain. Win or lose, conflict makes life FEEL meaningful. So everyone's going around poking themselves in the eye-- if they learn to see again, "they've overcome the odds" and if they don't, then they have a damn good excuse for being miserable-- at least they've got a place that way.

My favorite is the "prodigal son" roadmap. People do their best to make their lives all shitty. IF they pull through, they become a kind of hero. If not their lives are filled with meaningful conflict for years to come! It's win/win, hooray!


then there are the ambition. It's just the same? What's the most ambitious thing you can think of? Becoming the first NObel prize/ Oscar winning/ best selling author/ President of the United States of America? Prove to me that that means anything.

What will the perfect Job, house, car get you? Happiness?

Then I have a short-cut for you. Quite a while back psychologists started studying the brain chemistry of happiness. They did a bunch of tests on a bunch of people and were able to establish the peramiters of human happiness. Then they did a test on this buddhist monk.

Holy shit! This guy must have brain damage! He's off the scale in every way-- they thought they'd found the happiest most content man in the world, and that it must have been a biological gift. But then they did some other Buddhist monks, and they found they all had the same kind of happy content brain damage!

And they don't own shit, have family or drive sweet cars.

And yet, I'm writing this novel... this meaningless novel... Why?

So what do you want, and what does it mean?




And as a final thought Touche to Scott on Complacency. In my book I call this the "belief paradox." Believing in the sort of things that can give life meaning always leads to people doing shitty things to other people. But not believing in that sort of thing makes people the weak willed tools of the people who do believe those things.

What are we to do?