By that I mean, I used to get extreme emotional and personal meaning from it. Reading, discussing, writing, thinking about anything related to philosophical ideas would put me into a kind of euphoria. This lasted about 15 years or so, a period of intense and emotional-pleasurable philosophical love.
Now, I don’t really experience that. My emotions have somewhat reduced or reclined away from this euphoric peak of thinking. I still enjoy and value philosophy, but the actual emotional pleasure is all but gone.
I am not sure why this is. There are several possibilities:
A natural decline over time due to getting older
Over-saturation or desensitization over time
Too many negative and depressing encounters with idiots, trolls, pseudo-thinkers causing my positive feelings to fade
No one on my level to discuss and share in philosophy with
Moving on from philosophy to other things of importance
Excess alcohol drinking over most of that same 15 year period, leading to some kind of brain damage
Or it could be that all of these are impacting it in their own ways. Whatever the reasons are, I miss that euphoric thrill of meaning that occurs simply from actively pursuing truth for its own sake. And now that I don’t feel this as much anymore I can understand why most people don’t care about pursuing truth for its own sake. They get no reward, no benefit, it doesn’t even make them feel happy or good. So why would they do it? Maybe they do it a bit out of some kind of sense of obligation or responsibility to know truths from falsehoods, but beyond that it can’t become a driving force in their lives.
I have my own inertia from it, I still pursue this active engagement with the truth as such even if the pleasurable and psychological-personal rewards are less intense and stimulating than they used to be. But I do miss the “highs” I used to get from it. And I wonder why most people seemingly never feel that way about it. Engaging in philosophy, pursuing ideas for their own sake, discovering truth in abstract thought, debating an issue to find out which side or aspects are true or not, how can most people not get high from that? It must be a rare thing, genuine philosophical love. I can recall lots of times I would be in company of others and an interesting philosophical topic would come up, and I would get super excited only to realize no one else there gives a shit about it, other than maybe to spout a few cliches or try to us the discussion to prop their ego or validate some pre-existing ideological stance they have. It’s quite depressing to realize how no one I know IRL or online is like me, has philosophical love. I’ve met a few people over the years who did have it, but they are gone now.
I’m subscribed to a few, but my recent current time has been taken up with political and educational/vocational viewing/discussional material, but from this week onwards I’m back to Philosophy-heavy input again… yea, I missed it.
Well, why do you? Have you really pursued truth and ideas for their own sake? Or was it for the sake, if not of the euphoric thrill, then at least of the sense of meaning? Why is it meaningful, anyway?
Meaning = how everything interconnects.
The cosmos is full of meaning.
What conventional minds mean by ‘meaning’ is ‘purpose’.
They want to find a purpose for a philosophy, in this case…an application, a use.
When philosophy is abstract, using words to detach from reality and construct fantastic alternatives - they call them metaphysical - then they must also invent applications, utilities, purposes …to justify their fantasies.
This is when extraordinary claims are made. Philosophy is now a power, a force that can connect the fool with the supernatural, the extraordinary, the fantastic.
The philosophy itself is the means through which to exploit and manipulate others.
Like the Van Clan…that cult of charlatanism.
Convoluted words, beautiful imagery painted in creative use of words, triggering specific emotions…and all of it nonsense.
Whereas philosophy is simply the recognition of the feasible - wisdom - the attainable…and the rejection of the superfluous…the useless…the nonsesical…the unattainable…the false…all the crap of the human mind corrupted by need/desire.
It is a streamlining of objectivity. Making the mind efficient…and perhaps more effective.
Sophrosyne.
The basic reason is when charlatans convince gullible minds that their philosophies offer great rewards…when all they offer is convoluted nonsense, completely void of any references to existence.
How can you find a purpose in philosophies that are built on metaphysis that contradict physis, i.e, nature?
Instead of starting from physis they begin from what, they claim, goes beyond physis…or precedes and underlies physis.
Metaphysis must be anchored to physis…otherwise it offers an impossible escape, full of grandiose claims and seductive rhetoric.
Meaningless in that it does not connect to anything in the experienced world.
A tool for exploiting and manipulating humans - political…the art of marketing, of selling a product…of gaining power through the exploitation of powerlessness.
I find truth inherently fascinating, and it is weird to me that others don’t. The thrill and joy I get from it is because of that inherent meaning I glean and see in the act of truth-seeking and truth-finding.
You want to ask why is truth meaningful? I suppose that is a good question, although to me it seems like a pretty stupid question. Since the answer is obviously that truth=meaning=you=reality. Everything is true and everything is reality, and meaning flows from the overabundance of these things. Lots of truths and reality shoved together in a relatively small space and time, ready to burst …that’s meaning. Children know this without even trying, every moment in a child’s life is packed full of so much meaning it literally colors their experiences more vibrantly than those of adults. Sad how we age out of this as our minds expand and the relative largeness of the world and our experiences decreases. This is why philosophy should be pursued and why it keeps meaning alive, by compensating for that decrease. You can keep pace with the loss of meaning-pressure that naturally occurs with aging. Also this sort of meaningfulness is something that, in my experience at least, helps other things be even more meaningful. Like I would find it funny when people say stuff like how thinking takes away from feeling, or how these are opposites… no, for me the uplift of one leads to the uplift of the other. Sure there is a sense in which you allow one to pause or take a break or wane a bit in order to let the other shine in its own nature, fill your phenomenological moment completely. But deeper down they’re joined together.
Anyway what was I saying? What was your question? “Have you really pursued truth and ideas for their own sake?” Yes I do. “Or was it for the sake, if not of the euphoric thrill, then at least of the sense of meaning?” Common mistake on your part. Things feel good because it is good to do those things, not because we do those things just to feel good. Your morality is backwards, like that of lots of people these days. Materialist scientism-worship lacking philosophy and authenticity in our consumer narcissism world today, it’s easy to reverse the basic operation and become drug-addicted or simply see everything in terms of an addict. “Oh why did you do that, it was just because you wanted the good feels”. Not even realizing that the REASON it feels good is because it IS GOOD, and this reason is the causa sui of the act. God and nature have set things up such that when we do something good we feel good, and when we do something bad we feel bad. Granted these are exceptions and the system can be hacked in various ways, but this is the rule. Exceptions only prove rules by being exceptions. And you better get your morality back in straight order and un-reverse it, otherwise you’re going to go through life with all the goodness slowly slipping away while you sink into a diminishing returns of feelings’ immediacy-worship. Extroversion is the enemy, get it? No? Well ok then, we all got our paths to walk.
Well, maybe you shouldn’t necessarily draw conclusions about me on the basis of questions I put to you. Other than that, though, your reply was very illuminating, thanks.
What does this MEAN, though? Good for WHAT?
True dat. That’s indeed what the saying means: if the rule wasn’t a rule, the exception(s) wouldn’t be an exception.
Now here is an even more obscure (weirdly, because this is so obvious) confusion that most people seem to fall into. “What is good?” What do you mean, define your context and situation. Good is relative to its proper context. Good for whom, and how, and why? “Good” itself is already self-defined, a proper tautological truism and causa sui. You just need to set the context you’re talking about. So, …regarding your question “Good for what?”, give me the context you are referring to and I’ll be able to give you an answer.
The context I’m interested in is still this: “pursuing truth for its own sake. […] Engaging in philosophy, pursuing ideas for their own sake, discovering truth in abstract thought, debating an issue to find out which side or aspects are true or not”.
Let’s narrow it down to pursuing truth and discovering truth. How and why are these things good for you?
I honestly feel embarrassed for you. Like, deeply so.
How can you actually, authentically ask a question like that and expect to get a real response? If you don’t already know, or AT THE VERY LEAST STRONGLY INTUIT the answer to such a question then, …why are you even here? What even is philosophy to you?
Oh yes, that’s right. A trollish game, a nonsense nothing, a whatever memeish stupid silly nothing fat troll stupid insultfactory lazy boredomhood shitshow nothing. Because that is what you are if you even think that asking something like what you just asked even merits a response.
Yes I could respond and it would be the easiest thing in the world. But the fact that you would even ask the question, proves no one on earth should even reply to it.
Go back to Sesame Street. Grover is waiting for you to spell words A B C for the childviewers. Cmon, you can do it. I know this is your wheelhouse, at least based on anything you’ve offered up so far.
