I am the absolute center of the world - default human setting.
Where is water?
I went through the keynote address by David foster Wallace, yet again. As, it is eye opening and life changing to many. Yet, one thing I do not understand is the strange behavior of the mind. It seems David had gained a thorough knowledge about life through his thinking and writing about life the way he sees it. Yet he had ended his life with suicide at age 46, it seem paradoxical. Not only him, many creative people with deep understanding about themselves have taken a similar route in life. Probably these are just exaggerated versions of tragic stories that my own mind creates. This time after listening to his lecture, I gathered the core idea of his speech, "Where is water" And this article is about my views about that.
Default human setting.
In his speech, Wallace discusses about "Default human setting" which is to consider themselves as the center of the world. It seems not only humans but this is the default setting of all living things. Consider a tree. It seems a tree also has a subjective experience of the world that it also engages in a battle and a race against other trees for sunlight and air. And it is obvious trees, use tactics, some are cunning and brutal, like parasite trees living on other trees and carnivorous adaptations to kill animals for their own benefit. So, "I am the absolute center of the world is the default human setting". And that is good for survival. That is even good for human species. Imagine all of us were self-aware and we turned off our default setting. And we started caring for shit around the world than ourselves. We cared for the environment, we cared for our children more than us, we cared for plants and animals. Then, who is going to build us cars, and AC and phones, and rockets? We do need selfish greed and default setting to flourish as a society. Otherwise, we would just be a peaceful group of individuals who die, without ever reproducing.
Turning off the default setting. - I am not the absolute center of the world
So, the turning off the default setting of the mind is not for everyone. As it can have deadly consequences, as given by example by Wallace himself. It is okay to ignore the reality of things and not to consider the other persons perspective (ignorance is a bliss), or the universal perspective of things and just interact with your own deluded version of the world, if that is what it means to live a happy and healthy life filled with years of joy and stressful work. However, Ludwig Borne once quoted "Sometimes losing an illusion is the price of gaining truth". I do not want to think that illusion is my own reality. Maybe I will reconsider other people's perspectives when I have lived a happy and perfect prosperous life, during my 7th decade, so I have nothing to lose anyway. Then I will turn off my default setting before nature gets to it first.
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