Why do people get angry about things that have no genuine consequence? What is at the root of all this worthless anger?

Life is meaningless.

We are but the tiniest speck of a speck of a speck in a mind-bogglingly vast universe, and whether we are born or live or die is of no consequence. Imagine if you had a pinprick-sized birthmark between your second and third toe on your left foot. Now imagine you didn’t. That is how much of a difference our existence makes.

Okay. So how do we live?

Something inside of us desires meaning, but since there is no true meaning we can only be disappointed. What we want more than anything we can never truly have. Our options are: physical suicide, philosophical suicide, acceptance, or avoidance. Some people avoid the issue by using drugs or alcohol to shut their brains down completely, a few people commit suicide, even fewer struggle with acceptance, and the rest choose some form of philosophical suicide. When I say “philosophical suicide,” I’m referring to the (generally unconscious) decision to infuse elements of your surroundings with undue meaning, and then clinging to said surroundings as one would a life raft in the middle of an empty ocean.

Examples: religion, politics, and entertainment. These are the primary carriers of worthless anger.

In the face of a meaningless existence, the easiest way out is give everything over to “God’s plan.” Everything that happens is God’s plan, and you don’t have to understand it, because someone else is understanding it for you, and everything is going to be okay, because the plan is perfect. Problem solved. But when someone else has a different interpretation of God, and these interpretations seem incompatible, that’s when the anger starts. Someone is trying to take away your life raft and leave you treading water! And if you keep pushing in this direction for a while then, you know, there’s usually a war or something. Then no one’s happy.

That’s the most extreme type of philosophical suicide, but at its core it’s the same as all the others.

“Tea partiers” have their rallies, and express their worthless anger at the ruling party because they disagree with them on issues neither side fully understands. Politics is like sports, where you pick a team and root for them no matter what. Rally-goers are just the sports fans who paint their faces and openly wish the opposing quarterback would be seriously injured and forced to retire. There is no room for nuance or shades of gray. It doesn’t matter what’s actually in the health care reform bill (or any other bill), because whatever the opposing team is doing must be wrong, because the opposing team are the “bad guys” who are trying to steal my life raft. I use Republicans as an example only because they’re the angriest right now. When the cycle comes around again and they’re back in power, it will be the Democrats’ turn to have pointless rallies. No one has a monopoly on pointless, uninformed outrage.

And finally, some of us try to fill the void with what we think of as “art.” Despite the pretension of intellectual refinement, art aficionados are as prone to impotent fury as anyone else. Look at any internet comment board after a magazine posts yet another list of “The Top 100 Albums of All Time” (for example), and view the righteous indignation that Blonde on Blonde came two spots after Pet Sounds or that Otis Redding wasn’t in the Top 10 but Al Green was. Once the aficionado decides some particular work of art has meaning for them, then any disagreement, however slight, secretly carries with it the “life is meaningless” subtext.

So, if life is meaningless, then why bother even writing out this mini-essay? Because I’ve decided I want to have as much fun as I can before I inevitably die, since as far as I can tell nothing else can possibly matter, and everyone constantly arguing about stupid bullshit is seriously harshing my mellow. Please cut it out.

Thank you.