The beginning.

In a way it seems a very narcissistic thing to do to create a blog. I place in a public space my thoughts and in so doing afford them some kind of importance. In opposition to that notion, I begin this Blog with some kind of disclaimer; I blog not because I believe that my ideas have any real importance (nor do I think them unimportant), rather I do this for my own self discipline to try to collect the various strands of my life and my thinking and to play with making some kind of sense of it,(yeah right!!) And if someone finds even a fraction of this interesting then it makes the sharing of it worthwhile.

I named this blog the existence project because I am. That sounds weird that last sentence but I am interested in the fact that I am here at all percieving this mad world, that I am, that I exist. I don´t expect you necessarily to be interested in my existence but funnily enough I am. I like too this idea of project. I think of life as something to be worked on, not necessarily mastered, it is an ongoing project. The whole being thing is one weird paradox. I know nothing of my beginnings and I know nothing of where ultimately I maybe going (if anywhere.) All I really know with some kind of certainty is that I am here, and that it is a temporary state of affairs. Of course this situation is one we all share. Sometimes I find having so much of the puzzle representing an unknown amusing and at other times frightening. What kind of affect does that have on our sense of place in the world? I suppose we all create strategies for dealing with it. It certainly is a bizarre place to find oneself. If I were to design an existence project from scratch I would get rid of those pesky unknowns. I'd make us conscious from start to finish. How secure we would be with the knowledge of where we came from and where we are going and probably, in doing so, ruin it for everyone. Perhaps the mystery is what keeps the thing interesting. Perhaps we would take the whole thing even more for granted if we were dealt a more certain hand.

I am interested in how other people deal with this conundrum and anything I find of worth, any thought gems, I will post here.

I will start with one idea a friend shared with me. She described existence as being one of value assignment. What is important in one's life is merely what we choose to be important. And it can be anything and so the selection process itself seems maddeningly arbitrary. Though of course there are a myriad of possibilities that are arrayed before us that are societal, biological, political, historical. Anything with an "-ical" at the end is probably a potential pressure of value assignment, advertisingical, familiaogical!). I suppose what is important to determine for oneself is that whatever we choose to value we feel somehow we have come to choose it for ourselves and not what someone else considers valuable. Easier said than done, (and presuming we are of course free to choose.) I could select anything to be of value. Personally I love meeting people who place value on something I haven´t at least not yet, people who get exited by crazy things and devote their entire lives to it, infusing their life with passion. like a friend of mine who gets excited by fossilised rock and ends up getting me into it also.

To conclude this post I wish you good luck on your "value" assignment, your existence project and please feel free to share something of it with me, maybe you will help me with mine as I hope I might with yours.