Thoughts While On Bedrest

I’m on bed rest a lot lately. I’ve been advised to use my mind instead of my body. That means, a lot of TV, and since I don’t have cable, that means a lot of YouTube. 

Have you ever seen what the video history is for an ADD person? 

I always imagine what the face of the person who does will look like. Why someone has to do this? Well, maybe some crazy shit happens and someone has to get into my mind so they think if they watch the videos I watch then they’ll understand how I think.

They’re gonna be all wide-eyed and confused and wonder if it really is the history of only ONE person. 

I go from the late night monologues of Stephen Colbert, the Jimmys, Seth, etc. before moving on to haul videos of the newest makeup and then the BBC or PBS and once I get too much of that, I go back to brain candy and go to WatchMojo for the top 10 lists of random things I didn’t know I cared about. Then eventually, I’ll find myself on self-help/how to videos, specifically on how to be a better me or live so I’m not wasting so much time or anything that will help control my focus b/c I don’t have it.

Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of SuperSoul Sunday, Marie Forleo, TEDTalks, Motivational videos. I got familiar with names like Pema Chodron , Tony Robbins, Simon Sinek, Glennon Doyle Melton, etc.

It was a lot of homework. So many books to borrow from the library. So many quotes to write down and underline (I mostly used Evernote).

Some of them were useful like: “Pain is holy. It’s something to be felt and to be used” and others not so much like: “The way this life is designed, the only things you need are the very things that can never be taken from you.” (Just sidebar to this…da faq does this mean? For ex: I NEED Paul. I NEED my arms and legs to work. I NEED money to pay the bills. Is this some pretty sounding words to fill up air cuz it makes no sense to me. You can take away all kinds of things that you need like air or food or shelter.)

Unfortunately, those two quotes came from the same author (Melton), but that’s not to say the others don’t have useful and useless quotes as well (Tony Robbins has a lot of the latter). Maybe these people were just saying shit hoping something would stick.

And then I would go and watch videos on philosophy with heavy dollops of Rick & Morty episodes…

And now I have this argument going on in my head about when and what would ever make me happy.

But then I start to realize that trying to find happiness is utter horseshit.

B/c if there are multiverses, then there’s multiple Mes. Or if I check out that YouTube video of the map of the Universe (which by the way is only 25% complete) and see just how big the Universe is, I am wasting my time doing even that much.

Those stars are billions of years old and some are so old that I will be dead before their light reaches Earth.

And I realize my piddly ass little questions about who I am and why am I here are superfluous. Hell, I should be glad to exist at all and stop thinking I exist on purpose.

Then I started to get a little bit pissed. See these motivational speakers, they all encourage finding yourself and finding your meaning in life.  That’s their business. They make money off my need to search for my path by selling me their own maps to happiness.

Also, if you take note, as I did after I googled them, most of the pictures that come up were either white males or white females, and I can’t help but ask if it’s their privilege in this planet that makes them think the Universe would cater to their desires as well.

I did burst out laughing at this one video title called The Universe Has Your Back.

Oh, the sheer arrogance of us puny humans.  The Universe does not exist to cater to you. You were not born for a purpose; Everything does NOT happen for a reason; The Universe doesn’t even know you exist.

And then that laugh sorta died in my throat because I started to see just how meaningless my existence was in the grand scheme of things. I started to think the kinds of thoughts that keep most people up at night.

If everything is just random and without purpose, and based on the size of the Universe, we’re not even the size of ants…what is the point of it all? What is Life? Why is it special? What am I supposed to do with it?

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to remove my mind’s security blanket made up of the things I grew up hearing my mother say: We are born for a purpose; Everything happens for a reason; There is a plan out there that is in motion because the Universe cares about us.

Life is hard. If I am here by random chance, then what’s the harm of me thinking these things?

Then I remembered something Neil deGrasse Tyson said: “The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements into their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars collapsed and exploded and scattered their guts across the galaxy. Guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen: the very ingredients that make up Life itself. So, when you look up at the night sky, instead of feeling small, you should feel big because you are made up of the same things as those stars. The Universe is IN you. That’s the level of connectivity that we’re all looking for when we’re alive.” 

Maybe the Universe and I are on equal footing, not by size of course, but we are both made up of the same thing.  

Maybe it knows we exist b/c we’re a part of it, and nothing that’s part of something would be nothing to the thing.

Wait, I got lost in my own sentence. What I mean is: Nothing that is a part of itself would work against itself, the same way you wouldn’t try to destroy a part of your own body.

Unless its some weird growth or tumor then you better get that looked at ASAP.

Then I think about tumor which makes me think of cancer cells and how they came to be. Cancer is a mutation of cells and that kind of disorder in an organized system like the human body, it’s an example of entropy.

Then I think about entropy and remember that as the second law of thermodynamics it means that things will just keep breaking down more and more which is why things seem so random which means the Universe is falling apart and so is the world we live in, which is why it seems like the news reports on nothing but terrible things lately because maybe the world is ending and we’re all fighting against a force that wants us to destroy each other and why is that? Can’t we just exist in stasis? But the Universe can’t fight it so what makes us think we can?

Aaaaaannnnd, we’re back to square one.

Ugh. Now my brain hurts.

See, Mom, this is why I shouldn’t be left alone with my mind for too long. I think like a person on LSD without the super power of seeing sound in color.