Existential Gambling

We think we are unique by virtue of the many concepts and their multifarious relation, but everything under the auspices of concepts is already ground that has been tilled before. True uniqueness lies beyond; it cannot be summarized in words or titles. At best it can only say, "come here, at this time, and see me for yourself," for there is no uniqueness outside of the nakedness of experience. Man must be experienced; to conceptualize him is to destroy him. "If you label me, you negate me." (Kierkegaard)

There needs to be some ideal, unique in itself, that thus concretizes the self in striving for it; for selfhood is actualized through nothing more than following the pathway of ideality. This constant struggling for it must necessarily involve feeling, even pain and suffering; thus passion -- meaning feeling -- is essential; without passion there either is no unique self, or a very limited one. Our age lacks passion, for passion necessarily involves self-assertion; to live aesthetically is to live without self-assertion -- to wait until the cards fall for you -- and therefore without passion. Our age is essentially composed of gamblers; the spirit of the gambler is our Zeitgeist -- the spirit of the times. To live aesthetically is to take the chance that one will be satiated with enough happiness by virtue of it falling from the sky, without the effect of breathing oneself into actuality; living by chance is to gamble existentially. Thus our age prefers the laziness involved with gambling over the pain involved with the greater and absolute happiness of self-assertion. Many a prattling individual will bemoan the futility of gamblers who waste their lives at the roulette tables, when they waste their lives at the table of immanence. Truly, you can find irony anywhere if you look hard enough.