brainwidth

jamiek:

Sometimes you hear about a guy who everyone in your office knew who died this weekend at age 50 from liver failure.

Then you start thinking about your liver enzymes and how they’re still consistently elevated.

Then you start dreading dying at age 50—that’s so young.

Then you start wondering about your funeral.

Then you decide that’s too morbid.

Then you think about your recent choices re health and realize that if, God forbid, you were to die at 50, it would be pretty much entirely your fault.

Then you decide something needs to change (again).

Then you think “Maybe I’ll start tomorrow,” because, let’s face it, you’re kind of lazy and if there’s one thing you hate it’s people being earnest and is there anything more earnest that the zeal of the recently converted?

Earnestness is an issue for me. It’s partly cultural, we prize detachment & irony, the marks of a savvy person. Earnestness and engagement are for the naive or the brainwashed, people who can be duped.

It’s also a convenient defensive mechanism. If you are detached and ironic then any failings are just because you didn’t commit, not because you couldn’t do it. Earnest actions touch emotion and make us uncomfortable.

In the end, though, I think that the earnestness we hate is really a caricature. There is a level or earnestness and commitment that doesn’t require preaching from the street corner your new found choice. It can exist without being gullible - some of the most earnest people I’ve ever met were the least bullshit-able. But it can’t exist with being jaded, and being jaded is both prized and safe.

Source: jamiek