No... but joy

Did you order some armchair philosophy? No? Well... here you go anyway.

Dear Writer,

Many years ago, while watching the television show Angel after my first run through Buffy left me with a bereft feeling of “not enough,” I tripped over the most powerful single line of philosophy I’ve ever encountered. I think about this single line of dialogue frequently; at least once a week for the last fifteen years or so. I’ve used this line of dialogue when talking to my kids about death, religion, the meaning of life. I’ve used it when talking to friends going through hard times. I’ve used it for myself, when things looked so bleak I could not imagine a time where I was not in constant pain, every minute of every day.

That line is this: If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

The line happened toward the end of the 16th episode of the 2nd season, an episode called “Epiphany” written by Tim Minear, and it’s a great episode, but it’s not going to make any of the Greatest Episodes of Television Ever lists. I don’t think any Angel episodes would make that list, with the possible exception, if it’s a long list, of the 5th season masterpiece “Smile Time.”

Come on. That’s a vampire with a soul in muppet form leading his team into battle. Fucking genius.

Angel is a good show, but it’s not… well… it’s not great.¹ It has some impressive highs, but also, some lamentable lows. Most of the people who still talk about Angel only do so because of its adjacency to Buffy.

But I’m not here to talk about the show.

I’m here to talk about the line.

If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

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Ian is writing his script for his “Epiphany” video right now², and we've been doing a Buffy/Angel rewatch where we just finished watching “Reprise,” the Angel episode right before “Epiphany,” and so between watching this part of the show again and talking through Ian’s thoughts with him, I’ve been thinking even more frequently about this one transcendent line in a show that’s, honestly, kind of forgettable most of the time.

If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

As Ian was taking a jaunty stroll through the nihilist territory in his thoughts—nothing matters, human existence is meaningless, we’re all going to die anyway—my response to everything he walked through was, “No… but joy.”

I don’t think he understood what I was saying, and honestly, I knew what I meant to say, but I couldn’t express it fully, so it came out like pretty much everything I say when I can’t quite express the entirety of what I mean.

It came out… chipperish.

Here’s the thing; I’m kind of a positive Penny. The name of my media company, Chipperish Media, is a portmanteau of “chipper” and “gibberish” and that is about as accurate a description of me as ever there was. I will see the bright side in almost any situation, and while the last five or six years have included as series of debilitating kidney punches from both Darkness and Despair, I have found myself returning to my natural state of chipperish, which results in most of the people in my life giving me loving pats on my naïve little noggin when I say things like, “I think it’s gonna be okay.”

And I get that. I see their side of it; things are pretty dire. Except… really… they’ve always been dire, it was just that many of us didn’t know just how dire they are. And the reason things are dire is because the insidious power structures of the past are toppling, and power doesn’t go down quietly; it sucks as many people into its gaping maw as possible, to make sure that if anyone’s left to remember this victory, they will label it Pyrrhic at best.

So… I get it. Things are going to be okay maybe for the future of humanity as a whole—maybe—but from a very real perspective, things are already not okay. Lives have been tragically lost, people have been left behind in droves to starve, suffer, drown, freeze, or just die when they might have been fine had they not had the audacity to be poor in a society that does not give a fuck³.

But here’s the reality; we are all going to die. One day, you and I and everyone reading this newsletter right now will be dead. Everyone we love will be dead. Eventually, the Earth will no longer be able to sustain life, and then sometime after that, the sun will consume the world, and there won’t even be anything to remind any future life forms that we were ever here.

It is all… nothing.

No argument. Except…

If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

This is what I love about nihilism; it’s the way that if you continue to follow it through, it brings you to the understanding that the miracle has already happened. It is happening, every minute, every day.

We are here now.

Consciousness is the only thing capable of knowing there is a future, of being able to imagine and predict that future, of being able to remember the past. So we, with our magical consciousness, often think that our importance is rooted in our permanence, in leaving a legacy behind through great works of art, or incredible feats of engineering and technology, or at least through our progeny and the passing on of our genes. We are so brainwashed by this false ideal of permanence that we forget the mind-blowing miracle that is our existence in this very moment.

Right now, the fact that we exist at all means that the deal is done. Every imprint you leave on the lives of the people around you is your permanent imprint. Nothing that ever happens in the future will make any of your life un-happen.

You exist. You are here. In this now, for this moment, and that means that you’ve already done the most miraculous thing any consciousness can do.

You existed.

Being remembered isn’t what it’s about; being is all that you need to accomplish, and you already accomplished it.

So in that knowledge—that everything you need to do is already done, that the very fact that you ever had a now means that you will never un-have that now—it’s time to decide what “If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do,” even means.

I think it means that the most precious thing in the universe is right now, and we have a choice as to what we’re going to do with our Right Now. And maybe we’re going to use your Right Now a this moment for something mundane. You’re gonna eat a burrito. I’m going to scratch my butt. That’s okay; we have already performed the miracle. I can butt scratch all I want, and that miracle will not be undone.

Taking this line of reasoning one step further, if all that matters is what we do, then everything we do matters. Because we had this series of moments, this series of nows, with which to do something, it matters.

There are more Right Nows coming, and with them, you might make someone laugh. You might hug someone who needs it. You might rescue a dog. You might be kind to a cashier who’s had a rough day. Or, you might lie to someone who loves and trusts you. You might kick a puppy. You might say something shitty to a friend.

And let’s say… all of these are of the same importance. Let’s remove the moral question behind any of these choices; they all create meaning, and meaning is the currency of the universe, so let’s say, they all have equal value. All meaning is equal, but you get to choose the kind of meaning you create. You can create meaning through suffering, either your own or that of others; that’s your choice.

But you can choose, right? Some of your choices in the past, which by this line of philosophical meandering, are just as permanent as anything ever can be, were certainly not always creating meaning that resulted in joy. And not all of the choices that the people around you made, that affected you, were chosen for the sake of joy. Sometimes, joy isn’t possible, and that’s okay. Like I said, your job in the universe is to exist here and create meaning, which you do without even trying.

But, most of the time, you can choose, and if joy, love, or kindness are an option…

You get what I’m saying?

I think that’s what I meant by, “No… but joy.” It wasn’t eloquent, and it wasn’t clear, and if Ian didn't get what I was getting at, it was through no fault of his own. But if you knew that there was no moral attribution to the kind of meaning you created—no punishment for evil, no prizes for good—and you knew that your job was simply to create meaning, which was going to happen no matter what you did, but on occasion, you could choose joy, love, and kindness then… why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t all of us, when joy was available, choose it?

So, while what is awesome about this line is the way you can ride its helix shape for days and always be delivered right back to the place where you started, when I run through that loop enough, I find that one word subtly changes.

If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do slowly becomes, If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we choose.

Everything,

L

1. If this lukewarm recommendation is enticing to you, I recommend doing your watch after you’ve watched all of Buffy, and alongside my podcast, Still Dead, where me and my best friend Dr. Kelly Jones will tell you which episodes you can reasonably skip.

2. For excellent Buffy/Angel commentary, check out Passion of the Nerd on YouTube. He’s amazing.

3. I’m speaking of the U.S., because it’s the dystopia I know. Your dystopia may vary.