By Vincent Ramos
Graduating Staff Writer
PHOTO/ Mars Wang
My descent into madness began the summer of 2023. Every week I would visit my grandma’s pool—a prime environment for philosophical thought. Hearing the serene wind chimes while sitting on the curb of the pool with my feet buried in the water was pure bliss. Throughout those weeks I contemplated what consciousness was, specifically in connection to the body, and I realized how I feel isn’t how I think. For example, even though my body felt on the top of the world during those hours by the pool, I could easily have the most morbid thoughts, leading me to believe that the mind and body are unequally separate. This epiphany became the foundation for my philosophy.
Based on the concepts of anti-conformity, mind-body dualism and out of body experiences, in Vincent-ism, there is one main truth; consciousness lies beyond the illusionary veil of physical reality.
So, the life I’m living is fake. Although I’m walking, talking and feeling, it’s solely my body’s experience through its brain. Knowing my consciousness doesn’t lie within this realm, I’m detached from everything. Existence is such a drag. I go about my days as an empty husk, fighting through each grueling second waiting for the next thing to happen.
Paradoxically, I’ve come to love every passing moment and embrace the duality of life, for the nature of existence is absolutely beautiful. The fact that everything is fake is liberating. All consequences are attached to this pointless world. My life is merely a blip in time, and death is just like turning off the game console.
My high school days are coming to an end. However, these social transitions are meaningless as I’ve already forsaken my time in society. All I’m waiting for is my big break—the day where I leave all the nonsense behind and fall into reclusion. Though, I’m not entirely sure when I will commit social suicide. I know I’m not ready for it now, it’s far too early. There’s still much to think about when it comes to consciousness. It is philosophy’s greatest mystery, and to an extent, it is inexplicable.
Thinking is also too much fun to stop. At the end of the day, philosophy is a game. Interpretations of consciousness and reality are baseless, and seeing as there are no true right or wrongs, it’s a very open concept.
Obviously, consciousness isn’t really disconnected from reality. I’m just an eccentric teen who’s obsessed with postmodern thinkers like Gilles Deleuze and Nick Land, seeking for the most absurd understanding of reality. I love living like I’m the main character of a Philip K. Dick novel because there are no rules in life. I can create my own reality if I want to. And my philosophy is not meant for others to follow because not only is it my unique and personal interpretation, it is essentially anti-philosophy. In a way, I’m playing a satirical performance, only acting as a philosopher. Rather than something taken literally, my philosophy is more of a metaphor for the transcendence of worldly constraints like emotions, social constructs and thought.
An important distinction is that thought is not consciousness. It is a product of society. Philosophy is the discourse of thoughts; thoughts are a combination of words formed from a language and language is a social construct made up in order to communicate thoughts. The meaning of words are superficial. Society only agrees that words have meaning. In relation to nature and the realm beyond physical reality where consciousness lies, philosophy is nonexistent. However, it is a tool meant to help free individuals from worldly constraints for it gives the power to question. Philosophy is the spoon you hide when the guards come by, allowing you to dig out of the prison.
Eventually I’ll escape the prison, leaving no more need for the spoon. Although philosophy has liberated me from the constraints of the flesh and society, it itself is a product of those constraints. I must throw it away, for it is as meaningless as the rest in the end.