Comfort and Familiarity

It seems life can be paradoxical at times. We're often willing to sacrifice so much in search of comfort and so eager for familiarity -- avid about re-experiencing the already experienced.

Consider a hypothetical scenario. A man visits a restaurant he knows well. The food is mediocre, unspectacular...but familiar. The waiter knows him, knows what he likes and knows he prefers to be left alone. The man visits the restaurant and avoids human interaction almost entirely. Ostensibly, the man visits for the solitude and convenience - the comfort of having to expend as little effort as possible.

How does this reflect on the man's priorities? If what's important to this man is finding a path of least resistance, what is the ultimate goal he is striving for? What is ultimately important in his life?

Now in my hypothetical scenario, you can't take an isolated incident like this and extend it to a generalization. The scenario would be interpreted very differently if the man left the restaurant to return to his position volunteering as a counselor than it would if he left to go home and watch some T.V. I'm not proposing that we completely eschew the comfortable and familiar in every area of our life.

I've long since come to the conclusion that there is no universally acceptable set of priorities, values, or beliefs. I don't begrudge someone for their opinion that life doesn't need to be about growth, happiness, or any of the values and experiences I find so important. There are people who ultimately want just comfort from life - I can accept that. I will not join their ranks.

In another sense though, I think that there are many confused people - people seeking comfort without recognizing that it's not actually what they want. Life isn't necessarily about living comfortably - we all have a variety of purposes we've found (or may never find) for living, and a life of comfort is often at odds with that. The important question to ask yourself is, "If I achieve the goals I'm working for, will it bring me closer to what I really want?" As long as the answer is yes, you can take solace in knowing that you won't reach your goals only to feel unfulfilled or unhappy. Of course, goals change. Don't forget to take that into account :).

A close friend of mine and fellow couch philosopher would be eager to point out that there's an initial question to be answered. "What do I really want?" Without knowing your destination, it's difficult to know whether or not the path you're taking is going to bring you where you want to go. How do you discover what's important to you?

To some, this question is absurd. If you fall into that category, consider yourself blessed...or foolish. It's a simultaneously difficult and easy question. It's easy because the answer has to come from you, from within. You'll find it independently of education, of studying, of research (though far be it from me to say that these won't affect your goals). Our society hasn't exactly placed a high premium on following the words of that ancient Greek inscription at the temple of Apollo - 'Know Thyself'.

Because we (as a society) don't spend a lot of time in introspection, it's simple to misinterpret or to be distracted when we try to find answers within. American society can provide a sensation overload, and if often preys on or even encourages a passive, non-introspective lifestyle. It seems the norm is to find as many ways as possible to fill our days with activities and technology; we're acting but not thinking.

At the same time, I think it can be self-defeating to attempt to find answers like this through logical deduction. How do you prove that anything we find from answers within are necessarily useful, meaningful, or true? There is a recent trend in the scientific world (well, perhaps not that recent) to discredit the senses and consciousness. It's difficult, because if we can't trust ourselves to reliably report on the world and we can't believe in the ineffable experience of consciousness and the feeling of singularity and individuality, how can we be expected to trust what comes from introspection?

I suppose the simplest answer to this question is that we can't. If we doubt our senses and the very concept of the self, progress is impossible - truly, the word itself is meaningless, for progress implies a positive and a negative experience when in the absence of a self experience can have no real positive or negative value.

David Hume once theorized that we have no understanding of causes, merely causes and effects. All our theories operate on an implicit assumption - that things will behave the way they do because that's the way they always have behaved. In other words, cause and effect, while linked, are not necessarily reliable. We can't explain the "Why's" of the natural world, we can only observe them. We can describe expected behavior reliably: we have many equations related to gravity to help us predict or calculate the behavior of two objects with X mass...but we can't state why gravity happens. Why do two objects with mass have a pull on each other? Why do positive and negative forces attract? All theories are reducible to laws that we have to accept as constants simply because it's just the way the world works.

Returning to the case of our suspect senses and consciousness...I mentioned progress was impossible if we doubt the only tools we have. Similarly, if we didn't accept that natural laws would be reliable simply because we don't understand the why, we could never make any real scientific progress - every equation would be meaningless because it was contingent upon laws that we weren't willing to accept. It's necessarily unprovable whether or not our perceptions of reality and true or unrealistic, and it's meaningless to dwell on topics that can never be solved.

Bringing things full circle, if after you find your goals you believe in self-growth as a priority, seek to avoid making a goal of comfort and familiarity. A life of comfort is a steady, moderate life. If you seek challenges and the unfamiliar your life will have many ups and downs - challenges force us to adapt, change inspires growth. In seeking self-growth, you have to abandon the predictability and familiarity of a comfortable life.

Find your goals and choose a path...and be happy in knowing that you've made your choice consciously and willingly. Don't allow yourself to live without priority or conviction.