"Is it just me or is everything shit?" Discuss.

"Is it just me or is everything shit?" Discuss.

When I was 14/15 I bought a good friend of mine a book with this title. At the time it was funny, playing ironically on her cynical personality. Now though; I can't help but remember this and recognize the frightfully resounding truth of this statement.

 You're likely to disagree with me...of course EVERYTHING isn't shit; there is so much good in the world which we persistently aspire to increase. This is exactly why everything IS shit. Assuming evil (or shit, essentially) is an absence of Good, in the same way dark is an absence of light and so on, then with every ounce of goodness (assuming we can weigh it) comes an ounce of shit, some way in which life manages to backfire drastically in our faces when we least expect it.

Let's take an example; childbirth. One of nature's most miraculous (or gruesome, depending on how you look at it) events, which comes with the most pain you will ever experience. Oh it's still worth it of course, until your child grows older and begins to occupy your capacity to inflict stress and pain on others. Your child is, as a result, the main recipient of every bad decision you make thereon, and can be deeply scarred by your own methods of self-preservation. Ok, I realise that having a child can be the best thing you ever do in life, so I'm not going to down this too much...but in context of course we'd feel that way; fundamentally being animals with a strong drive to reproduce and dominate.

Looking elsewhere in life then; success. What is success? This is a difficult one - is a humble person of little education and money but a well functioning family and happy relationships successful? Or a single businessman/woman with no children or friends but their own million-pound corporation the epitome of success? The latter answer is what we are conditioned to aspire to. The wealthy, traditional view of being successful is apparently everything but. We are conversely taught that "Money is not happiness" and simultaneously "You'll find life hard without money". Misery then, whichever path we take.

A final major part of our lives: knowledge. Surely this infinite metaphysical concept is neutral, indifferent to our suffering? It's true that knowledge itself has no preference, this one at least is not something we've constructed for ourselves - it's an absolute - unless of course it's not (in which case you and I may as well just stop bothering to know anything). But for argument's sake let's assume knowledge is based on being aware of what is "true"  (don't worry, I'm not even going to get into truth as an absolute concept).

Although knowledge is indifferent; possession of it can be powerful, it can aid us in inflicting misery on each other in most ways imaginable; from ruining a relationship to creating weapons capable of destroying our world.

Being too knowledgeable can lead to our own self-destroying thinking habits; recall another happy piece of dogma we are indoctrinated into: "ignorance is bliss". Despite the merit one can attain by being knowledgeable, it gives us hugely destructive capabilities, and generally we are better off remaining in ignorance.

Many a philosophical discussion of this has resulted in my being asked; would you rather be ignorant, and have no painful experiences to learn from? If being ignorant entails not worrying about anything but oneself, not seeing the world in turmoil every time I read the news, not being having painful memories, or not having to rectify the situations that painful emotions lead to - then yes. Why wouldn't I want to be ignorant?! If we had the option not to experience pain and despair, then what's the motivation for choosing this? Perhaps you could argue that we would then not recognize good when we see it; following our previous argument. Does this matter? Good is clearly one side of a double-edged sword, and ignorance seems to be some blissful purgatory in-between; perhaps the handle.

I guess if I hear a thorough argument to counter all of this then I can gladly accept not everything is shit. I welcome anyone who wants to take this challenge because I'm sure it can only better my perspective. The argument that being positive or just not looking at the "shit" won't cut it I'm afraid, I'm aware that thinking positive makes one positive, but this is no different to turning a blind eye, or saying God doesn't exist until you believe in him.

As a final thought, if we could weigh good and evil, would they balance a pair of scales? Is there the same amount of each - as the light/dark analogy would have it? I guess this takes us to asking what good is in the first place...but I'll leave that to you to tell me; I give up on this one.