This is what the stop-motion bullet dodging in the Matrix must feel like

So thanks to a nifty little Internet feature called social networking sites, I've discovered that my ex-girlfriend is engaged to be married.

I thought for a moment and tried to understand what I was feeling. I was feeling... relief. And then surprise, because I realized how much I've changed.

Even a year ago, this kind of news would have made me sad. Perhaps even regretful. But why? Probably because I had never fully applied philosophy to my life.

Now I look at the unexamined emotional quagmire that this marriage will inevitably become and feel relieved that I haven't sold myself into such a bondage. Perhaps they will be happy for the most part, but I've no doubt their psychological scars will be inflicted on their children. If I'd stayed with this woman it would certainly be my children inheriting my psychological scars. Unsettling, eh?

I propose a toast to Socrates, who said "the unexamined life is not worth living." Had the power of truth not pulled me out of the abyss that was my own unexamined life, then my existence would have been miserable. I would have been wrapped in a web of mythology and manipulation, forever avoiding conflict. Forever obeying the whims of a sexual tyrant until death came as a welcome release.

Is that an exaggeration? I'd like to think so, but I've yet to find more than a handful of human beings that can blissfully coexist. I think this pattern of life is all to common.

There is so much worth living for. Why punish ourselves with a living death? Biology be damned. I own this body and I will not submit.

YOU CAN BE HAPPY!

Years ago, there was a bullet being loaded into a chamber that would determine the rest of my life. It would be driven deep and become more painful to remove everyday. It is the metaphor for the damage that would have been caused by my psychological inertia, or my unwillingness to take self-ownership.

Not only have I managed to dodge a bullet, I can take a step back and observe its trajectory. And here's the really twisted part where the metaphor gets so convoluted that it becomes literal. The gunman was me.

I know. WTF. My poetic license should be revoked.