Anxiety- To party or not to party?

Does all anxiety inevitably lead to that one fundamental anxiety, the sine qua non underlying all but never disclosing itself? I am talking of existential anxiety, and although not all of us are fixated by philosophical idling in our ever shortening days, not one amongst us can escape it, implicitly if not explicitly.

What if its itself the grappling with fundamental existential questions which makes us shudder, the Unconscious weaving excuses as to avoid facing it head on; that meeting on Wednesday, those supplies to buy, the next movie to watch on Netflix; There is always a task waiting to be checked off, yet one cannot imagine the horror of checking off the last box, and stopping there, no new task, just you.

We are not living in Reality. Of course, this is no Matrix mumbo-jumbo of extreme idealism of existence being an illusion, but rather, our reality does not coincide with **The Reality**, and here I’m not even talking about the biological constraints that filter the objective world for us[^That’s another matter, for another essay] but psychologically, taking the phenomenal world in front of us as objective. We can’t anyways though, for as a species we have things to do, and to keep doing them – eating, working, romancing, marrying, shopping etc. None of these can be done if we instead just gauged on the bright colours of flowers as facts of naked existence, we make fun of potheads doing so

“Look bro! These flowers shine so radiantly, How come we’ve never looked at them?”

And that I feel, is the problem. We have gone too far, where pausing for a moment, taking a step back, and spending an entire afternoon at the park causes feelings of restlessness in just picturing it. There is so much to do. Yet, ironically, Exactly the picture of watching a flower, and I mean really watching it, like a blind person watching colour for the first time ever, is what all the poets, mystics, and even us, romanticise of, the only consolation we provide – *Someday, certainly not now, there are bills to be paid*.

We have replaced **Reality** with **concepts**, which is faster, efficient, but sacrificial. A tree out there in its naked existence is not a fact of experience with its stimuli, but rather the word, the common noun, the mental picture – “a tree”. This fact, of replacing the child-like perception of trees for concepts of trees, I assert, is the fundamental basis for the inevitable existential crisis in each of our lives. Why inevitable? Because of the one fact – I, and you, and everyone you know, on one day, will die.

This fact of our inevitable mortality, is perhaps the fundamental core of our lives. An empty word, *death* perhaps in one’s youth, of course we are not dying now, and we just take it as fact, like we just take the fact of our existence, like poverty, exists, and we might be subject to, but in some other reality perhaps, and hence escape the question. But that one day comes, if not dead by accident, that we have to go through the painful process of looking our own mortality in its actual impending reality, perhaps being diagnosed with terminal illness, or during old age, we have to make our peace with it.

But before any peace is made, yet grappling with the full reality of it, is pure anxiety. Just ask this question, “what have I really done till now?” And we are on track towards it, yet this approach will never lead to a forceful peace even, content peace is not even a question, for then one must engage with this reality throughout their lives, to keep it in their heart, everyday, like a splinter attached to one’s body leaving one in constant pain, far worse than forgetting oneself in life, which in contrast seems idyllic, and would be so too, if not for the fact that we need be aware the party is about to end. I like this analogy a lot. So the rest of the essay takes from this analogy.

> There is a Party, and we find ourselves in the Party among many others. The Party will end by morning. All of us know that the Party will end, yet some would realise that just some minutes before it actually ends, while others would always have a look on their watch to see how much time is left. In a Party, we party. Now when we party authentically, we lose the sense of time altogether, and we know that too. How does the Party follow for the various party-goers?

The time is finite. You can do a lot in this Party, but if you just keep thinking of how you can party best and remain indecisive, you have had a miserable Party, and want to extend it. Some of us do party, but it’s not an authentic party, for every moment of partying is accompanied by the awareness it will end, and so you try to do everything you can, and have a miserable party. Now let me discuss two more cases. What about that person, who doesn’t care about the time, says “fuck that”, and loses oneself in the party completely. For many, it is the ideal. The best party ever, you have never partied like this before, until the announcement is made, 20 minutes to wrap up. You feel this high, and now don’t want the party to stop, although for different reasons from the first one. Yet you lost all track of time while partying, and now have to come to terms with it. More so, this was your last Party before exams. However, you were so busy enjoying the Party, that you didn’t take time to think “Wow! I’m partying like crazy, and this Party is awesome” when it was at its peak.

There is no escaping the party anxiety because, as self-conscious beings, there is an inescapable need for us to weave experiences of life into a narrative or a story, although its false continuity stems from discrete important events chained together into a coherent story of your life. Without this model of reality, how can we fit experiences? We can live in naked experience, and it is the best if we can, with the caveat then if we don’t delay the inevitable of suddenly waking up from the dream, to know that now it’s time to go to school. But if we did think “wow, this Party is so good” then you have already escaped from authentic experience where the Party and to party have become concepts which has negated at least some part of the actual Reality of the Party and your partying a few moments back. And the tragedy all too real is this – Once you have had thought this thought, you have to now party at this level for the rest of this Party, never fully involved, with some aspect of time always there, infected you like a virus so that in no way can you expect to party like the way you did for the remainder. And then it goes downhill.

As partying beings, who once partied in full authenticity that we were THE PARTY itself, and were by default lost, this rude sudden jolt is the first initiation for many of us into this phenomenon of anxiety, mostly in our early adulthood. We see others partying, some like us who sooner or later had this jolt, suddenly started noticing the Party and the partying people, and asking questions for the first time – as if a new lens had be placed on your head when everything familiar suddenly was not, and the later you woke up, the ruder the jolt. I like to think of it this way –

> You live in your room and don’t pay much attention to it when living there for years. The fan, the cupboards, the floor – all just a fuzzy background. But one day, you find your room completely reorganised, the bed’s orientation reversed, the cupboard shifted, and a new fan. Or perhaps when you visit your bedroom after months of living in the hostel, the first few moments of how alien this all too familiar room, that feeling is the first foray of the rude awakening.

This brings me to that final way of partying, which although the second-best, yet the only practical option for a Party which inevitably ends.(the authentic losing-one-self in the infinite Party being the theoretical best)

This is after that jolt, which is a necessary medicine, to realise the nature of the Party is essentially what the Buddha taught through his Four-Noble-Truths and his Eightfold Path. Where now it’s time to apply the Eightfold path. How to minimise the pain now that you know that you can never party the same way again? Historically, many antidotes have been given- broadly under two schools of thought.

• To reject partying, and the Party altogether, so as it doesn’t even matter when it ends.
• To party as hard as possible, with the maxim “Fake it till you Make it”.

The Eastern Party Association would tell you this –

> Why are you bothered? You are not a party-man. This Party will end, but there will be many other Parties, even if you don’t remember this one because you got so drunk. Also, all this Party is an illusion, the Real World is WHERE the Party is taking place( even though you have never seen anything outside the Party) , because this Party is YOUR notion of Everything. After the Party ends, you will for the first time see how Insignificant the Party is, for There is something known as the World and that’s the biggest Party. In fact the better you do there, the grander and elite would the Parties you’ll land up in. How do I know this? because If there is a Party, there is something as not-a-Party(since Party ends), and where both Party and non Party happen should be in one place? No? So just see yourself not as the party-goer, not even this Party, but the biggest Party of it all, And sonnyboy, you ARE that Party, It is in you, through you, outside you. It is all there is.

And this new jolt of awareness? And that it will end? and that you can’t lose yourself?

> Why are you taking it as a splinter full of pain? Haven’t you seen that unlike others, you have seen and questioned yourself partying? Now you know what is a genuine fact. This Party will end. And why does one NEED to party in the Party? If you’re in the Party, you are partying, as much as anyone else. Now that you have questioned and sought me, and we are having this conversation, isn’t this Party more than mere dancing and singing? Don’t you feel lighter, of a burden you had always carried but couldn’t give a name? Haven’t you lost yourself in this conversation? Aren’t you looking at this Party with a deeper appreciation for what you took for granted? Unlike that fellow who’s looking at his watch, doing nothing but wanting to party, aren’t you at peace, for now you know you are partying, and that to party is to not only dance, but the fact that you are here, in this Party. This moment, is all you need, all such moments then are enough, there is no chain. The end of the Party is the default mode of Life, you just don’t know that, this is but a mere moment, You don’t remember because you were piss drunk at the last Party and blacked out. And suddenly you woke up thrown into this Party, but now that you are in peace, you don’t need to get piss-drunk anymore, you’re free. So come, lets drink some beer and play Darts, I’ll beat you.