a ruminative polymath.

I lied awake.

The consequences of that were typical. It meant I was probably tossing and turning, unable to find an optimal sleeping position. It meant that I was going to wake up feeling tired. It meant that I’d beging falling asleep in the middle of doing work tomorrow. (Or today, since it’ll technically be today) It meant that I was probably mentally fixated on something. It probably meant something was bothering me.

Yes, that seems right.

So I was faced with this dilemma: I could continue to attempt sleeping or I could remain thinking. I had been doing both, and that wasn’t working.

I looked around. My eyes had yet to adjust to the darkness, so I was blind to my surroundings. I could hear, but I was surprised by the quietude. I suddenly started imagining that I was encapsulated by a dark fog that swallowed all light and sound.

“Hello,” I whispered.

As quickly as I had made the sound, it disappeared. I failed to dissipate the quietude. That was disappointing. So I tried again, snapping my fingers. I heard the short snap under my sheets, but it was only a temporary break from the quiet.

Wait, why am I doing this?

I didn’t want to wake anyone up with my loud thoughts. Or perhaps I did. I sat up, feeling the cold carpet under my toes. I stood up. Surprisingly, the floor creaked with each step I made. I hadn’t noticed that before. It inspired me to tip toe out of the room, taking my time to open and close the door. I walked though the hallway and into the living room. There was a rectangle of yellow light on the floor, whose origin was the windows that faced the street. I sat down on a sofa and inspected this phenomenon, focusing on it and closing my eyes. I tried for a third option; clearing my mind.

After a while, it seemed, I heard a tapping approaching. The steady tapping closed in, ending right in front of me. I opened my eyes. The figure before me was breathing slowly. I turned around and saw that the yellow now lighted the figure’s face.

“Are you alright?” a familiar voice said, emmitting from the figure.

I looked at the voice, but I didn’t respond. I felt paralyzed. The thoughts that had plagued me all night left my mind, leaving only the negative feelings. I wanted to communicate at least this, but the words escaped me. The numbness had overtaken me.

“Come here,” the voice whispered.

I noticed that the figure had outstretched its arms. Though my mouth was unable to form words, the rest of my body was responsive. I stood up steadily. I let out a sigh, closing my eyes and leaning towards the figured.

Instead, I felt a hard force pushing against me. I opened my eyes. The familiarity had suddenly gone away. The room became dark. The surface I lied on as solid. A frigidity started to set in. The darkness seemed to go on for miles. I felt incredibly in this bleakness. There was a swooshing sound, but no wind to accompany it. I knew this feeling. It was fear. I felt my heart beat faster, faster, louder, stronger, cruder, farther, longer, swifter, deeper, quicker, tougher, and stop.

I awoke to find myself breathing rapidly. I turned to look up, noticing I was home. I took a deep breath and tried to collect myself. I looked out the window, noticing that it displayed the grey of the sky.

I remembered what had been bothering me.

A bulb of light emanated from the lantern on the ground. The wind blew softly, but the lantern’s light remained fixated in its spherical shape. The flames seemed to dance like snakes, following the rhythm of the wind. The light was fierce; the heat was lacking. I withdrew my hands into my sleeves and crossed my arms in defense against the cold.

“It’s oddly refreshing, isn’t it?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure what she was referring to. Was it the oddness of a cold day destroying a sequence of tepid days? Was it that we finally found time to spend with each other? Was it the hike to this scenic view of the town? Maybe it was the scene itself. After all, the lights of the city penetrated our view more strongly than the light of stars. I somehow found it beautiful.

I sensed the satisfaction in her tone, so I turned to see if I could discern a smile on her face. The lantern sat between us. There was a slight twinkle in her eyes as she looked at the view. She hugged her legs and rested her chin on her knees, giving her a child-like appearance. I couldn’t help but wonder if she looked on with the same incredulity that I did. In fact, I couldn’t discern whether she was smiling or not. The lantern created a shadow with her knee that blocked the lower half of her face.

“Are you happy?” I asked.

She chuckled.

I turned back to the scene. I could anticipate her delayed response. While I waited, I noticed that the clouds were moving slowly away from us. I hadn’t noticed that before. I had known that the clouds moved, I had just never noticed them move. What was most odd about this realization was that the clouds never seemed mobile. They were almost always there, simply forming a facade for daily occurrences. Yet, that’s probably why I hadn’t noticed their movement before. With something so prevalent in everyday life, it’s easy to pay less attention to it.

“Are you?” she asked.

In spirit of the conversation, I responded with silence. In the corner of my eye, I noticed her head turn in my direction. I looked on, statue-like. Looking at the clouds remained a peaceful activity.

A crack formed in the clouds, revealing part of the moon. It looked larger than usual. It’s incredible that something I could cover from sight with my thumb was so imposing. It was part of the Earth, theorized to have formed when a rogue body struck it back when the Earth was still young. The Earth is now billions of years old, but the moon looms over as a reminder of the cataclysmic event. I appreciated that the consequence was so magnificent. This appreciation seemed funny to me. If anything had been alive at the time, it would probably have had the opposite feeling toward the moon.

I peered at her crossing her legs and staring at them. I took the opportunity to turn and get a glimpse of her face. The lantern shone with the same luminosity. Her lips were now hidden behind her drooping hair, but I could see her cheeks now. I saw that her eyes were not the only things that twinkled.

I found the answer I sought.

“It’s late. Let’s get going.” I said.

I stood and picked up the lantern, turning to the path that went downhill, expecting to hear her stand up behind me. She remained sitting. I had an inkling of how she felt, but I decided to let it go. Instead, I held the lantern in front of me, shining light on the path.

I knew where I had to go.

Human Constructions

Think of most things you value: love, morals, family, etc. Now, how many of those things would exist without humans? In other words, can you conceive of any of these things existing without humans being a necessary condition?
While realizing that many of things require humans is not surprising, what seems surprising is how many of them would cease to exist without humans. The significance of this is realizing where our values are placed relative to what exists in the universe. For instance, it’s become clear that most of the things we value lack some sort of material manifestation. I don’t mean that the thing we value is itself not material, but that there the thing we value leaves no material trace of its existence. Sure, it exists in our minds, the minds of many different people, but it doesn’t have a defining material trait. As such, what sort of justification do we have for their existence?
It’s an odd predicament, isn’t it? I can’t doubt the existence of the chair I sit on because it’s physical manifestation is obvious; I am sitting on it, it is taking up room, etc. Yet, what sort of justification do I have for the existence of something like happiness? See, even some sort of effect of these things wouldn’t be able to prove their existence; such a thing would be a fallacy called begging the question. This is because, in lieu of a conditional, I can’t prove the antecedent from the consequent. There’s no need to be esoteric with such an error: if I tell you I’m smiling because I’m happy, do you have any good reason to believe that I am happy?
This can be drastically extended for a powerful effect. Does money have value? Well, it has the power to be traded because it has value, but just because I am able to trade it, does it follow that it has value? Of course not, I can only merely believe that it has value. I would even contend that similar reasoning can be used to undermine most things that require humans as a necessary condition.
Yet, there’s little reason to be worried. Many a constant thinker desire to fall into hedonism upon the realization that things like “value,” “meaning,” and “truth” in themselves have no justification. That’s why it’s important to remember that we are all human.
For instance, I am currently seeing red. Any basic physics class will teach that the color “red” is the effect of a lightwave of ~650 mm being reflected on an object that is interpreted by the human eye. In short, “red” doesn’t exist. The “red” is merely an interpretation of a human eye, nothing that manifests itself physically without humans. As such, I am thoroughly convinced of the ontological status of “red.” It only exists because humans exists. Yet, upon this realization, I do no stop seeing red. In fact, as powerfully as I will myself to stop seeing red, I still see it in front of me. As such, it is real enough for me, so real that I cannot will it out of existence from my mind.
What does this mean for many other human constructions? Simply that we must maneuver through them and find those that are so fundamental that it is seemingly impossible to remove them from our minds. In this quest it is that we could find the link between the existence of humans and their relation to the universe.

The Sun Will Rise Tomorrow

An infamous objection to this reasoning is David Hume’s argument in “Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding.”² He divides all knowledge into Matters of Fact and Relations of Ideas. The negation of the former would not be a contradiction, while the negation of latter would be a contradiction. Another feature of each of these is that Matters of Fact rely on observation to be true, while Relations of Ideas rely on deductive reasoning. Hume points out that our understanding holds ideas about the unobserved, such as that the sun will rise
tomorrow. That the sun does not rise tomorrow is not a contradiction, so it is not a Relation of Ideas. Moreover, it is not yet observed, so it isn’t a Matter of Fact. Since these types of ideas do not seem to fit in either classification, it is necessary to see how we reach them. Hume points out that we know that every A observed so far has been accompanied by a B, so we conclude from that that the next A will be accompanied by a B. The missing premise here is to say that every A is accompanied by a B. But that would be circular, as the conclusion we are trying to make is already captured in that premise. In other words, to say that every A is accompanied by a B would depend on the event that the next A will be accompanied by a B, and that would be circular.