I stand up, I look out my window at the big city. I think 'how is any of this real, and why do I have to age and eventually die?'
I wake up in the morning in my weird little flat. I wonder to myself, 'so this is it, huh? I just do this until my body fails?'
I cook myself a meal. I find out how a museum works behind the scenes. I get a tour of an office. I see my friends go out. I book a movie ticket. I work out. I watch a comedian. I listen to a podcast. All of these things just make me ponder what the point of it all is. Am I doing it wrong? Am I doing it pretty well? Why should I accumulate all this knowledge if I'm just going to die? What's the point in watching my stupid obscure movies that I can't even talk to people about? Am I missing out on the human experience?
Realistically I'm a happy ape. All my needs are satisfied. But I am a sad human.
I think it's all linked to graduating. The pressures on to do well, the workload is racking up, and then once that's all done I just get thrown into the real world. That's it. Then it truly is just doing the same thing over and over. Then it really is a question of survival. Would it be better to just be a dumb neolithic huntsman who is grateful for his bed of fur in his cave? What the fuck did those guys even think of when they took psychedelics? Well, spirits, I know, but wow, the things in their head must've been so original. If I do them, most of my thoughts are just about the garbage I've watched, and my modern worries that are worrisome but relatively tame.
Is this just a normal thing to go through, and then you get on with it and accept that this is just how things are?
Maybe life is simply starting to get to me, and time will tell if I crack under pressure.
Yes, it's an ancient anxiety that has birthed many religions and philosophies over the ages. Everyone is susceptible to this, but thankfully there are ways to cope with it out there, just take your pick.
It's also probably related to hitting certain milestones in life. Physically, emotionally, and socially there is a turning point in your 20s or so, and you will probably also find someone you love and care for to settle down with. If things work out, life itself will distract you for a while. Otherwise, you might make a decision like young Siddhartha Gautama or Che Guevara to set out into the world and figure out why everything seems to suck and how to fix it.
This might be really sad to some people, but it's interesting to me. Sometimes I go over to my cat's urn and just stare at it, and I feel some kind of primitive, ancient voice talking to me, urging me to get into ancestor worship. Some part of my brain really wants my cat to still be around somehow, but he's not, so the psychological coping conclusion seems to be that I should venerate his memory for the rest of my life. I should believe he's somehow still around.
I'm not exaggerating when I say I loved that cat more than anything else I've ever had, or anyone else. And that's tugging at some vestigial impulse to go become a shaman.
I don't think there's anything sad or weird about it. It depends on how you approach the topic of why humans behave in what some people might call "irrational" ways.
For example an atheist might still say "thank god!" when they feel relief, even though it doesn't imply anything more than that they feel relief. It's more an expressive or descriptive matter for me.
People and society are complicated, and it reflects in the older "irrational" religious and spiritual worldviews. But even "objective, rational" modern science and philosophical frameworks like Marxism hesitatingly admit that there is complexity in human behavior that shouldn't be dismissed so quickly.
You're good comrade, whatever your beliefs/practices end up being, your cat left his mark on the world and yourself in a form, and that's all the truth of the matter you should keep in mind whenever you remember him. RIP your good boy