Stephen Donahue
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62 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
62 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Sliding Puzzle
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date: 2026-05-15
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layout: column.njk
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tags: [column, philosophy]
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permalink: /columns/2026/sliding-puzzle/
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---
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As far as I can tell, my earliest memory: I was two years old, at my old babysitter's house. I was playing with a sliding puzzle, the kind with a 3x3 grid, one slot is empty, and you have to try getting the numbers back in order. Anyway, the puzzle broke, while I was playing with it. I was sent to the corner for a "time out", and I remember feeling so outraged. It wasn't my fault that the toy had broken. Yet here I was being punished for it.
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I don't know how to have fun. I was too sick to play with the other kids.
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I see others having fun, and get a gut punch of FOMO that just eats at me for hours.
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And the best I can do is to be skeptical, more like judgmental.
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I feel trapped in this cycle of work. Just because I'm not throwing myself at my job, doesn't mean I'm not working endlessly. Working on myself, working on my startup, working on my marriage, on my health, on my fitness. I don't know how to have fun. And I feel bitter for it.
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And all I've got is the hope, the faith - whatever, that this will eventually pay off. That I will be rewarded in "the ever-after." It's basically religion without the community.
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This is what they mean by practice gratitude. Don't succumb to the jealousy.
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But can I do that without resorting to judgment, just inflating myself? Can I just do less? Can I simply let it go, not get so caught up in the speculation?
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Control: the belief that I have agency, that I can acquire the things I want. So if I see something attractive, and I don't have it, I either blame myself, or try to write the thing off. The belief that it's just about me making the right choices, taking action.
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It feels like a con sometimes. The only real gains are what I can enjoy immediately. Everything else is just empty promise, designed to manipulate me. That's the crux of my suspicion. If it doesn't feel good right now, it's just marketing. Just a pitch to get me to dance.
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So then I max out the immediate gratification, and predictably suffer in the short to medium or long-term.
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The alternative, that feels so much like surrender: I have no control, accept the journey and what life throws at me. Just feels so passive.
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Who do you give power to? Any random encounter along the way? You forfeit so much agency to envy. And for what?
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And the grief that I have to save myself. That's what it was. There are no retries. I've aged-out.
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Gratitude - it wasn't the easy path. What was it then? What did I gain from my fierce independence?
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This is enough, but I'm still craving more. Feeling trapped, sometimes, not always. Normal aches and pains.
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And all this is the fear that in the end, I won't make peace with my mortality.
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I don't think anyone does. It's against our nature.
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We fight and struggle, it's hideous. And unavoidable.
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Is it? How do we face it with dignity?
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Live a dignified life?
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What would it look like to sacrifice some independence?
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How can I face mortality with absolute thinking? If I claim to be skeptical, to doubt? Upon what unshakable foundation do my convictions lie? I know nothing, and can expect nothing, and can only be present for whatever manifests in the immediate here and now.
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Fuck, what happens when literature becomes obsolete? When the best ideas, the sharpest insights come from the bloody machine?
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Why bother reading the old authors, or anything man-made?
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Learn to ask better questions, I suppose. At least command some order in your reading list.
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Heaven is a lot of waiting in line.
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