What an intelligent question…

Where does the survival instinct come from?

…and what a bland and predictable response.

Human beings nearly always seem to find their profundity in less than desirable states – illness, pain, depression, addiction, loneliness. I can only speak personally (and perhaps pluck a few supporting examples out of past artists, philosophers, poets and scholars), but I’ve always been at my most creative when I’m in my most despairing of moods. This is the irony of inspiration – it will only grasp you when you are at your least able to execute it.

So, having stumbled across this really quite interesting question which I had (believe it or not) never really properly considered before, I found myself quite irritated with the superior compassion and conceited philanthropy of its reply. Yes, it’s not exactly a work of art – merely the musings of a human being preoccupied with their pain (as all truly self aware artists, for at least once in their lives, are). But her question interested in me, and the respondant entirely dismissed it – “yes yes dear, sit down. What you need is a nice cuddle and a cup of tea. There there there. You’re only asking these silly questions because you’re upset.”

“in your case, I have responses to your condition but not answers to your questions”
Whoopee.
“Stop with the philosophical.”
It’s true. Never think. Never question anything. Just concentrate on being normal and dealing with your human pain.

Do they just have a series of stock phrases they pick out from a long list? Was the lesson on basic philosophy not included this week? Yes yes yes, I know. Calm down dear, it’s just a support website. It’s just an online Woman’s Weakly (no, I didn’t spelly that incorrectly). I’m just annoyed because her letter made me think, and his thoughtless reflex of a gooey reply – dismissing her insight as nothing more than a symptom of her unhappiness – did nothing but irritate me.

I can’t wait to read his response to Poe or Kafka.

• This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 3:12 pm and is filed under thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.