Meaningless Introduction

Introduction

Wow, I’m here. After such a long time of wanting to write, I’ve actually made it back here. I’ve wanted to reflect about my life in writing, because the thoughts in my head are changing too fast and I cannot remember all the things I’ve thought about a year, a month, a week or even a day ago. Writing my thoughts down helps with sorting them out and lets them influence reality in their own way. Maybe these words will influence the reality of others. Maybe they will influence you.

I’ve also wanted to hear your thoughts. I was touched when I was writing my blog about living in The Netherlands and people came up to me to say that they like my writing or that it got them thinking further about whichever topic at hand. During the last year I only wrote one piece of text for another Estonian blog kept by three friends of mine. The text was about my experiences in civil service. Almost nine months after writing that particular text I went to a cheese store while talking to my friend about my last days of civil service. A young guy behind the counter overheard our conversation and asked me: “Hey, was it you who wrote a post about civil service somewhere? It was really interesting, I’m thinking about opting for civil service myself.” This sort of feedback is greatly appreciated. Even more so with this series of posts since it will be quite bleak at times. The topics I’ve explored with great interest over the last one and a half years have sometimes brought me to moments of awe and at other times left me in confusion, even despair, about life and how to exist in it.

Meaninglessness

I want to start with the revelation I had at some point while living and studying in The Netherlands. I realised that there is no meaning to life. At least not in the long run. Noone knows why everything started to exist, why we are here now nor what comes ahead. Noone could choose the moment of time in history in which they exist, the genes they are born with nor the environment or situation they’re born into. Things just happen with no reason, meaning or point to any of it.

I found this idea to be the most amazing thing in the world. No big meaning or point to anything, and yet, despite all of that, I am here. There is something inside me that can be aware of being here, whatever this is and however well I can grasp its reality. There is something that can have sensations. Something that can feel emotions. There is something.

This revelation gave me freedom to be at peace with whatever comes in my way. If there’s no grand meaning to life then life has exactly the meaning I give to it. Whatever job or project or study I have ended up in at whichever phase of my life is exactly the right thing to do, because if I couldn’t choose the reality I am born into and the environment that has shaped me up to any specific moment in time then I am not really responsible for it. The same way I found it easier to cope with the negative behaviors of other people. The positive ones I was just happy about anyway, but if other people acted negatively towards me or towards themselves, then it was easier for me to accept and even understand them based on what I knew about them. They didn’t choose themselves into this moment, with this brain and body, so why blame them for it. Finally, even when I did blame someone, or myself, because of some negative behaviours, then that was absolutely fine as well. Because that’s how my nervous system had developed to react to the situation at hand, and that’s amazing as well.

Optimistic Nihilism 

(video about how meaningless, yet amazing life is)

Thus, I was more then happy to return to Estonia for at least a year to do my civil service after studying for three years in The Netherlands. It seemed like a year off to me after going through the education system directly from high school to university. Especially since university life did not just include my regular programme, but also taking some extra courses, having an instructor’s position and working in a kitchen during weekends to finance my life as a student.

For those who don’t know about it, military service is mandatory for men in Estonia. Normally it lasts for either 11 months or 8 months of living in the barracks somewhere in Estonia and learning about shooting, tactics, discipline etc. You can also opt for civil service, which entails some sort of social work for 12 months. However, during these 12 months you work from 9-5 from Mondays to Fridays and you can have a total of five weeks off as holidays. Plus you get minimum wage. For someone like me with a fresh Bachelor’s degree from psychology, it was an opportunity to have a one year long paid internship.

Back home

I came back to my home country, but I didn’t want to go back to living with my parents. We started looking for a place to share with some friends and I was generally asking around from people for tips about where I could live. At one point I talked about it with Johannes, a friend of mine that had just finished the same high school I used to go to.

“Hey man, where are you going to live now that you’re starting university?”
“Mm, I’m not sure, why?”
“I’m looking for a place.”
“Well, my grandparents have an apartment 15 minutes away from the centre. They live at the countryside most of the time, so I’ll ask them if we can move there.”
“Uhm, oh. Nice. Okay, let me know.”

The next day he tells me that his grandparents agreed and we can move there. It turned out that I only had to pay 100€ a month for the rent and communal costs and that was it. Shit, not bad.

That summer I also had a chat with Johannes about the meaninglessness of life. It turned out that he thought life is pointless as well. Whilst I had come to the conclusion through a mixture of things I had learned in psychology or just my own life experiences, Johannes came to it from the side of philosophy and was the one who made me aware about the fact that the idea of life being meaningless is pretty much nihilism.

tickle tickle

From good friends with a slight age gap we quickly became very close friends while living together. Decent apartment, cooking good food, watching films and TV-shows, going to parties together and laughing all along about the meaninglessness of life. Good shit, man.

It seemed like we will have a good year ahead of us. On the 1st of September, 2016, Johannes started his life in the world of film with his studies in film production, and I started my adventurous civil service in a place called Juks.

To be continued...