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Complex Numbers #969015 added November 5, 2019 at 12:01am
Restrictions: None
Suite Emotions
Just one? Damn. Usually I'd snark on most of them.
2. Liberosis:
(n) The desire to care less about things.
To loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone—rather to hold your life loosely and playfully, like a volleyball, keeping it in the air, with only quick fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.
I've been working toward this for most of my life. I mean, not the playful volleyball metaphor - I hate sports - but caring gets you nowhere, so I actively try not to. You know how pedants are always like "It's not 'I could care less' but 'I couldn't care less,' because 'I could care less' means you do care somewhat?" (Okay, I'm one of those pedants.) Well, I could care less. No, really, it is theoretically possible for me to care less. It's like one of those mathematical functions that approach but never quite reach zero and you're skipping this sentence, aren't you?
I actively try to care less.
It helps to know that no matter what we do, no matter what we as individuals or a species or the greater community of living things achieve, no matter how we spread into the universe, no matter to what heights of art, science, engineering, or something we currently have no word for we reach... regardless of any of that, the universe continues to race in the direction of higher entropy, and eventually, it will fade into oblivion. All of the energy transfer that could have taken place will have taken place, and every point in the universe will have reached an equilibrium, the same temperature. This is known as the "heat death of the universe," and "temperature" will have no meaning because there's no way to measure it, no one to measure it. Spacetime itself will cease to have any meaning. No process of life or anything else will be able to proceed, because any such process requires energy transfer, and I just said that that will wind down to nothing.
This is absolutely inevitable, and not only is there no way to stop it, but any attempt to do so will only hasten it because that's how entropy works. In fact, I've come to the realization that the purpose of life is to accelerate entropy, almost as if the Universe itself wants to end its own pointless existence.
In short, nothing matters and that's the big cosmic joke.
I'm aware that this sort of thing could cause an existential crisis for some people. At the very least, it can trigger the classic Five Stages of Grief, starting with denial. Deny all you want; that doesn't change the Second Law of Thermodynamics. But remember, the solution is to stop caring and laugh in the face of Fate.
In that vein, then, as per the linked article, I, too, can propose made-up words for emotions that don't really exist and it wouldn't matter if they did:
1. Zeppelinalgia
That feeling you get when you look to the west and your spirit is crying for leaving.
2. Grinchestia
The sadistic joy that can only be achieved through ruining someone's winter holiday.
3. Wonkanastia
The satisfaction of providing children with important life lessons by fitting their punishments to their misdeeds.
4. Johnwickitude
When someone wrongs you and you retaliate utterly disproportionately to the situation, and damn but it feels great.
5. Entropoeia
Per the above discussion, the moment of absolute darkness that envelops you when you realize that, in the end, nothing matters at all, followed by the relief you feel when snatch yourself back from the abyss in time to laugh about it. I mean, you did do that, right? Right? Hello?...
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