Am I A Slave?

I read these stunning sentences from Seneca just now:

'I haven't got a master,' you say. You're young yet; there's always the chance that you'll have one.

Have you forgotten the age at which Hecuba became a slave, or Croesus, or the mother of Darius, or Plato, or Diogenes?

…

Show me a man who isn't a slave; one is a slave to sex, another money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear.

– Seneca, Letter XLVII

And the only two questions I must ask is, "Am I a slave? If so, to what?"

Indeed, I do feel this internal thing within my soul, this aching place, really, that inexplicably reveals me to be shackled to something. It really is the ache of a man dying for direction, for a tangible thing to progress towards, knowing it exists. But no matter how much he tries to grasp that map, it slips from his fingers, but he feels the tangential graze each time. Something that he knows that has always been there and always will be there, but it will never manifest into his hands. It is nearer than my own breath, yet forever beyond my grasp. I may describe this as being haunted by phantoms.

I feel a compulsion to write, and, in a way, doing so is the futile attempt to commune with those phantoms. I'm not sure that I would say I feel pleasure from writing, only that I must do it. I was reflecting today that if I were sufficiently skilled at painting I would probably find myself attempting to paint the ethereal.

I think something that seems to be critical to our humanity is the pursuit of meaning-making. In the strict sense, this is the creation of a higher purpose of living, an orientation for your life and effort to spend. And for nearly everyone, meaning-making also is pleasurable and comforting. Like the man who resolves to become a CTO, or the mother who longs to raise a large family, meaning-making breathes a reason to exist into their lives.

It's fair to consider that not everyone pursues this higher purpose to life. Many live to rest, to play games or drink alcohol without a unified reason to exist. Society declares these people to be inferior to those with a higher purpose. In this, the former are enslaved to their immediate goals, like Seneca's examples of sex, and the latter enslaved to meaning-making. Unfortunately for me, I only see humans.

Where do I belong?

I do not believe in meaning-making. My rational mind cannot. I concede that I am an irrational being, contrary to what Seneca believes, so maybe there exists a small section of me that wants purpose. But even so, with what my brain allows me to see, how could any meaning be satisfying? I could become an amazing engineer, a promising CTO, an adored author, but for what? Ultimately all results and actions from those results are hollow.

An obvious objection is that I should live life as if my created purpose did matter. That the integrity of these paths is in action, not outcome, and purposes worked towards with integrity could never be hollow. And maybe that's true. Maybe a purpose pursued with integrity could never be hollow, only the desire for permanence makes it so. But what of great architecture like the aqueducts in Rome? Created both to address need and glory, they still remain today, revered two millennia later. Is that not permanence achieved? Is that not purpose made stone?

But those same aqueducts are just chiseled stone. Like the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, what once observed empires can be destroyed at any moment. And eventual destruction is the ultimate equalizer across the human condition: slaves and engineers alike that labored on the aqueducts are all long dead. From nothing to nothing, from something to dust. What remains in the form of aqueducts is chance, only made possible by their actions.

Actions are above outcomes.

I would like to say that I don't live for smaller, constrained purposes like sex, rest, or joy. The phantoms whip me into painting my world in words, and when I resist, their lash only waits for me tomorrow. A restless energy that must be expended, only to find it there the next day.

This leaves me in a feeling that I may only describe a confused soul waiting for God.

I don't really have a higher meaning, but I feel compelled to create. For who? For what? I find myself here at 9:36 PM with the lights turned off, feeling the tug of invisible chains by something I will never see, only tangentially feel.

The only question I must ask is, "What am I?"

Am I a slave?

Is a slave who sees his masters as friends really a slave? Probably so. But I should accept those phantoms as friends, for they are simply my lot in this life and my nature.

If I am indeed enslaved to something, I should fulfill my actions with a smile and with integrity.

I cry of shackles, but I'm sure I put on most of them myself.