Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash
One of the most fascinating characteristics of human beings is that they are on the one hand absurdly self-aware and yet on the other hand absurdly oblivious to the real existence of others. It is well understood that only human beings possess the capability for real cruelty because they understand 1) that and how they can suffer and die, and 2) that other people are just as real as they are and have the same basic characteristics that make them suffer and die in the same way.
Road Rage and Metaphysical Solipsim
Now think of an average day on the road. It’s the same everywhere in the West, with hilarious cultural differences of course. There’s a guy. Guy drives down the road. An old lady cuts him off. He screams at her, honks his horn and wishes her a timely death that – considering her age – is overdue anyway.
Would he have done that in a supermarket line? Probably not; although there are cases like that. Road rage is stupid; everybody knows this. If you have to die in an heroic fight, you’d preferably like it to be on the battlefield or protecting your family or others. If you were to die because you instigated a road rage incident that wouldn’t read as well in the eulogy. Fine, everybody knows this too.
What I find more interesting is another phenomenon that we can illustrate by using the road. You know that the old lady is a real person who lives and lived a real life. She is just as real as you are. When you pass some guy on the road, he is also just as real as you are. This is banal.
It is also quite a profound observation, for we tend to forget this simple truth in daily life. When people are in a traffic jam, they whine about their tragic fate, namely that they will arrive at their destination half an hour later than they would have otherwise. They have stuff to do, don’t you know. They don’t think about the poor sod whose arm was amputated and whose skull was crushed in the accident that caused the traffic jam. I’d say his fate that day was somewhat worse.
You are Just Some Guy and You Will be Forgotten
This is because people are selfish and don’t care that much about what happens to other people. Although the line between good and evil runs through every man’s hard, as Solschenizyn has it, most civilized people aren’t all that evil and callous either. They just forget the simple fact that the other people they meet in their lives live actual lives too.
There are rather eccentric philosophical positions that are based on the observation that we can’t really understand other people. We can’t even really be sure that they actually exist – thus the idea of solipsism.
Now, let’s assume that metaphysical solipsism is wrong and other people do actually, independently exist. What that means is that you are not very important. This seems to me to be one of the main reasons why people forget this simple fact all the time. If you die today, very few people will notice to begin with. Chances are that in a thousand years, nobody will remember you at all; not even a little bit. In another 20 million years or so, there might not be anybody to remember anyone else at all. Even Caesar and Cicero, Goethe and Goliath, Churchill and Cleopatra will all be forgotten, for ever.
What Should We Do Then?
This all is rather bleak, so people don’t like to think about it much. What I think we should take from it, however, is the positive truth that life is short; it will mean nothing in a billion years, but, crucially, we can make it mean something now, while it actually lasts. So don’t waste time.
We could use this insight, in a stoic way, to not be so annoyed by little things all the time. People also always go on about compassion. Well, when you are stuck in a traffic jam, you could first think about the poor people who actually are in an accident and maybe were hurt bad or died. And then you could use the extra downtime productively, to reflect on what you believe, to make plans – or to do one of my favourite things: indulge in some language learning.
And do remember that to everybody else, you are the random guy whom you pass by on the road.