Being indifferent, but in a good way

Hello, my name is Yahav and I’m 27 years old, living in Givaayaim, Israel. In the following short story, I’ll try to explain to you the fight some of us may feel inside of us and how I assume we should recruit our demons related to the subject.

For most of my life, I was an active player- Trying my best to overachieve, put myself into a process, and understand what society considers a ‘Success’.

I’ve been an awarded combat officer in the armored corps, a straight-A student, now accomplishing my first BSc in Industrial Engineering, and have an amazing partner in life who (probably) loves me.

But as time travels, sometimes it seems that less and less that any of this matters. While writing those lines I assume some may feel offended and maybe even personally offended with thoughts like ‘This white privileged man’ and so, but still- bare with me.

I’m not writing this in order to complain, It’s just a frightening final realization I’ve come to realize- non of anything matters, and not in a depressed or unhealthy kind of way but in the best way. Learning that nothing really, actually, fundamentally matters is probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

Try to imagen it with me, if nothing really matters nothing can really get under your skin, nothing really shakes the living hell out of you and nothing has true power over you, nothing besides what you choose to focus on.

So after sorting out that I’m not a hobo living in the forest and talking about FREE LOVE please try to connect to the deepest darkest question inside of you- If life is meaningless, what does it matter if and how I live?

Try to wake up one morning and just go undermining anything you give meaning to and just focus on what you choose to love or appreciate not because it has meaning but because you give it meaning.

My short lesson in this subject started during one of the Covid-19 quarantines, staying home and talking to my friends about how none of this feels real and that I do not want to be a part of this game (Not the illness but all the politics related and all the Election rounds in Israel at that time).

When pushed to the corner to ‘make up my mind’ and have an opinion on what I’ve found as apps, staring at the TV and deciding what is considered Good and Bad regarding politics and further nonsense, I argued with a good friend the following way:

Friend: Why do you always have to make it so hard, who do you support?

Me: I don’t know, I never knew and honestly I don’t believe anyone or anything can give you an objective perspective without the influence of money or agenda.

Friend: Why do you make it so complicated? sometimes not making a decision is as awful as being wrong.

Me: OK, but still I just don’t what to play the game- follow the news, learning who’s against who.

Friend: You are just too afraid to focus on the problems.

Me: problems? focusing on problems? All I do is focus on the problems, the bad, the unfair- it’s everywhere, it’s always, all around us. Sometimes I just want to care less to feel less for all the evil and unclarity of this world.

*With inner rage outbursts from the pain of thinking about how stupid and relevant our lives are.

Then It hit me, all the Good and all the Bad exist. I can choose within my life to act by it as I did all those short years of living, or I can choose to understand- when everything matters, nothing really matters.

Now that you got a glimpse of the general idea, try it at work, try it when people talk about vaccines or politics or any stupid other subject they choose to give a relative importance to and just say fuck it (Not to your boss but definitely in your mind).

When questioned about this subject it’s usually something like- If you believe that nothing matters, why do you work and study? why not fly off partying till you die from an overdose in an airplane in space?

To those questions I reply:

1. I don’t have that much money.
2. It’s not that kind of meaningless.

I don’t think you should quit your job, I don’t think you should be overwhelmed constantly by how insignificant we are and how life is meaningless. It’s something to have in the back of your head, not in front of your eyes. wondering about it for too long as a loved one told me once “It’s like playing with a ball of fire, no one has the answers and nothing can come out of wondering constantly”. Don’t play too much with this ball of fire, just remember it exists and that the question is never resolved.

Try waking up one day and trying it, it happens in a blink of a moment and from then you start a journey of how to act normal, go with everyone and everything because it’s all nothing and it’s all everything– because it exists in your life, in this specific timeline, you can choose to give it a relative meaning.

Live because you choose to give it meaning, otherwise nothing has meaning, And it’s wonderful.

#shenkar #shortstory #Iusedthewordglimpse