A short introduction to the life and philosophy of Samuel Bird

Car lights from the small road next to my house beamed through my window and danced across my dilapidated ceiling. The room was cold with frost across the window, dirty with dust all around, and uninviting. Still, my six-year-old mind was somewhere else than where I was sometime late into the night. My life seemed to be shrouded in fear. Fear of never feeling loved, fear of not finding my next meal, fear of my father going further than he ever had. I tried to follow the fear in my mind. I had learned that thoughts had patterns and lead from one to another. I had since learned I could control it and make it more precise. What did all of my fears have in common? Whether monsters, drowning or starvation, they all tied back to my painful death.

Being as young as I was, I had all the fears of that which my mind warned me was hiding in the closet, but I knew what I really feared. No matter what I did or how hard I fought, I was going to die. I could put it off as long as I wanted but it was inevitable and I felt powerless. Maybe I could wander into the street and have it be over with now rather than suffering with anticipation for nearly a century or having it transpire by some random and unforeseen horror. Not only would I die, but it was going to be painful. Pain was not a stranger to me and had told me its secrets from time to time, but I still felt to refuse it. It was clear that was not what I feared the most about that which was the root of all my fears. Time kept marching to its beat whether I was ready for it or not. Even being so young and having such a small world, it was clear that there were things I hadn’t experienced or done up until now that I will never have because I can’t go back. My future to come will then become another past I can’t change as time rages in its finality.

It became clear in the late-night darkness that existing was high stakes. If there was meaning or some way I should live my life, then I didn’t know what it was. I knew I liked space, dinosaurs, and cowboys, but none of those tracked on to any final answer. There seemed to be some things that were clearly wrong, or at least I didn’t like them. I knew the way my father treated us, especially me, was something I would never allow. Perhaps this was a small slice of what it was I should do; avoid what I thought to be evil. No, that didn’t seem to be enough. Father never felt bad or apologized after he hurt me, so to him it wasn’t wrong no matter how much I didn’t like it. It was clear I couldn’t leave goodness up to random will. This is if I knew anything was true.

I went back to a thought exercise I had since I first could think. Perhaps this life I knew was nothing more than a dream and a coma and I was another type of life form. This made everything I thought and perceived about the world potentially false. Maybe I was a blue alien that didn’t have to eat and I had abilities I didn’t think I did in this earth life. Perhaps I had a loving family who waited for me to wake up and loved me. More than just the hopeful wishings of a broken child, it was an illustration of how little I knew. I had heard enough fights between mother and father where they could argue, both convincingly, that opposing things were true. So, what was true, and how could I know it?

The darkness around me seemed as unknowable as it was unseeable. This didn’t answer my first big question and deep worry. I was going to die and it was going to hurt no matter what I did. So, what? Should I fight it and slow it down? Should I find a divine being I can trust to keep safe a life after? Should I get lost in what felt good? In a tender and near divine moment, it became clear to me that whether there were answers or not, I wasn’t going to know them with any surety anytime soon. I vowed in the quiet and still darkness of our ramshackle cold home that the merit of my life would be the commitment to which I sought after the questions I fought with in the dark: Who was I? What is there? What do I do about it?

Every moment since that faithful night has been an exploration and a seeking for answers as much as it was me deciding which answer was best. I clung to these ideas as my father became more violent and my mother withdrew. I stayed true to my thoughts when I was pushed away and unloved. I tried to understand myself as I went from barns, garages, backyards, and abandoned houses trying to survive. I tried to figure out what I should do as I tried to stay alive by dumpster-diving, stealing food, and trying to justify limited violence to protect myself. I tried to think of the world as good as I had every reason not to. I started to become lost and blame my experiences. I fell into cheap social molds like gangs to tell me who I was. I forget the world was bigger than the cell I resided in and the one I built in my mind. I forgot the one thing I chose to know. I did until I remembered.

On July 27th, 2017, I remembered what I had set out to do. My distractions fell to the side as the same clarity of a dark winter night in a cold room now graced me on a bright summer morning. I recalled what I sought to know. Who was I? What is there? What do I do about it? I had now been reminded how high stakes existing was. Nineteen years I had done so, and I had lost track of what I had sought to do. The daunting and towering objective before me loomed higher than ever, still hazy from all I didn’t know. I swore in sacred silence to commit myself once again to this endeavor again.

To not only achieve the impossible but know what it was, I achieved smaller impossible goals. I began to turn my heart outwards and learn from others despite being a nearly feral farm kid. I began to practice reading late into the night, out loud to rid myself of my extreme impediments. I signed up for local classes and began to learn despite only having a third, fifth, and half on ninth-grade education. I was just as lost as I ever was, but I remembered what I committed to authentically: To be engaged in seeking after the three questions.

The story is long and wonderful enough to fill a small book (currently on page 280), but this will suffice to make my point. I am as of now, a very satisfied person. I have a life for which I cry tears of gratitude often. I have people I love, and who love me back. I have found tremendous healing and forgiveness. I have become a person I enjoy being. I have memories and resources I can call on to bring me joy and help me overcome. I still have many years before that day comes of which I used to dread, but now am prepared, but when it comes I have my thoughts. I know I’ll probably want to recount my successes and the things I overcame, or maybe talk to the people I love, but I know at that moment I will look on it all, the painful beginning, the wonderful middle, and the mysterious end, and choose to feel a sense of deep honor and gratitude that I ever got to exist.

This is where my sentimental heart turns outward. I feel for the children who need thoughts to think that gives them hope. I worry for the troubled youth who just want to build a tiny corner of security and belonging for themselves. I yearn for answers for young people seeking to live a good life and not knowing where to find it. I am concerned about those that will soon graduate mortality and seek to assess their life and find some meaning in their experience. I know too much to think I have the answer, but I have developed a skill for looking at the questions and engaging in a conversation around these. At the very least, I care enough to try.

How do I intend on doing this? Esse Maxim. Esse Maxim is the doctrine I have labored all my years between thinking on horseback, talking to strangers, or responding to my own existential dread. It seeks to make sense of the three questions in a way you can control and make sense of. Every essay penned, book I wrote, or conversation I have is pointed back to it, and the simplicity it attacks the process of existing in the world. Simply put, it makes existing intentional by allowing you to choose and try your most basic assumption that undergirds all your thought and experience. In doing so, it gives a grounding for the epistemological (what is true), the existential (what does it mean), and the ethical (what is true). In doing so, it allows the self to define the self as well as make sense of what it is before.

I will spend the rest of my life and every deliberate thought toward this goal that outside of what it gives me, I have fallen in love with. Any good endeavor has metrics or measurements for success, so what is mine? I want to touch and aid people in their process of existing deliberately such that when they are on their death bed when they face the last great mortal question, they can look back on their life and say: “Whatever all this was or wasn’t, I am sure glad I was here for it. Whether right or wrong in how I did it, or what I did, I was committed to the very best I knew. I leave something good behind me. I am glad I existed.”