Is anything REALLY possible?

[Marshall_McDaniel]

Excellent posts all!

Kesh. hopeful clarification of one of my points.
I said

1.) And while it is true that any meaning is arbitrary, it seems, nevertheless, that meaning is somehow essential to the inner psyche and impetus of man.

(italics mine)
Silhouette said:

2.) It is an animal necessity to try and get an edge on the world around it so that it may carry out its function (to survive and reproduce) best. And the way in which most animals have managed to do this is to develop an ego to make as much sense of the chaos around it as possible so as to direct its id towards fulfilling its animal necessities (which are its desires) in a slightly more prepared, and therefore improved way. Logic has become its tool to find patterns and order to help make a loose prediction of the chaos so that it may be slightly more prepared for what may threaten its animal function and slightly more clued up for to what to do about it.

(italics mine)
Perhaps ‘meaning’ as in 1 above is a derivative of ‘ego’ as in 2 above. Perhaps, as Nietzsche said, “Truth [meaning] is the kind of error without which, a certain creature could not live.” and in his notebooks of the 1870’s …“What life does require is belief in truth, but illusion is sufficient for this.” I submit that meaning is necessary to the survival of the species. A creature must see itself as one single solitary unit in order to…
A wo/man must have an ego because…

I submit that a view from everywhere is a view from nowhere. Every perspective must of necessity disregard other perspectives (it is this that makes it a perspective), every viewpoint is a view from one point among others. Any ‘God’s eye view’ (omniscience) would be the totality of all viewpoints, or an absurdity.

Silhouette typed:

You can ‘know’ that theoretically and logically, 2+2=4 because that is the answer by its given definition. But definition just is a premise, the assumption upon which logic can be applied, all of which are made up terms designed for theoretical logic. You can know anything in theory, they are just a set of words and rules that all define and complement each other inside their own framework. But the only problem comes when you try to apply theory to practice. Ironically, the very application for which it was created.

It is an animal necessity to try and get an edge on the world around it so that it may carry out its function (to survive and reproduce) best. And the way in which most animals have managed to do this is to develop an ego to make as much sense of the chaos around it as possible so as to direct its id towards fulfilling its animal necessities (which are its desires) in a slightly more prepared, and therefore improved way. Logic has become its tool to find patterns and order to help make a loose prediction of the chaos so that it may be slightly more prepared for what may threaten its animal function and slightly more clued up for to what to do about it.

We can twist theory around until we find something that mostly fits singled out characteristics of practice which we can logically link to other characteristics. But whilst this can help us find vague connections and patterns, it doesn’t ‘prove’ anything other than our ability to fit theory and logic loosely to practice and nothing more than that. We haven’t gathered knowledge - you can only ‘know’ theory. We can ‘believe’ that we know practice because it can fit together in a way that looks right on the surface and seems to match theory. But they are different things - one that can be certain because it is ordered, one that cannot because it is chaos.

In practice, there are no seperate entities or anything that can constitute a singled out characteristic (despite what we see - that is just a convenient illusion for survival), there are no numbers, dimensions or patterns and there isn’t any sort of order. These things can be applied to it in theory. But it is chaos and cannot be understood, or ‘known’. The universe is an infinite ‘one’ and there are no true, clear divisions of it - the only thing that can understand the universe is the universe. It is not physically possible for anything else to do so…at least in theory…

Marshall McDaniel - yes, you can imagine and deduce to logically predict that which you cannot sense. But logic is a product of theory. In theory, it is only assumed that logic always applies to practice. And it is only assumed that what you logically predict is perfectly predicted in terms of accuracy and precision. To really prove something, we must compare it to a perfect source that can know everything in practice and perceive beyond logic.

That ‘in practice’ makes all the difference in the meaning of the sentence. I pretty much concur with almost all of what you have said. I don’t know that i clearly understand, “The only thing that can understand the universe is the universe.” unless you mean what i have alluded to hitherto in this post, “the totality of all viewpoints”. It is almost as if in order to totally understand the universe (to the largest extent possible) it takes all sentient beings communicating. Lacking telepathy, we have to have rules for conversing [see Kesh’s excellent Wittgenstein post], and those very rules are the thing that disallow our understanding.

again:

To really prove something, we must compare it to a perfect source that can know everything in practice and perceive beyond logic.

The existence of this entity would at least go against logic (to my lights) as well as beyond logic. To know everything in practice one would have to know one’s own practices or be what some here have called a ‘disembodied consciousness’. Neither possibility seems tenable to me. I don’t know. What do you think?

[detrop]

I think what really sucks about life, which I’ve tried to say rather insufficiently in my signature, is that we are told to look for meaning, happiness and motivation, when all we are is just a random function that just ‘is’.

Sil, well, I wouldn’t have put it so abruptly, but yes. Now, look at the other side of that coin. Can this not be a relief? Does it not inspire a calm when staring into the abyss? Rememeber what Pascal said-

“Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapor, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows nothing of this.”

I find that it is both liberating and terrifying to believe myself as a pointless moment. At times my freedom is overwhelming, just to think that nothing is stopping me from cutting the next man’s throat or jumping off a building, but at the same time, if I choose not to do so, I begin a project worthy of a God. I create values, meaning, purpose. And if only for that moment do I look away from the abyss, I find reason to exist, my reason. The universe knows nothing of this, further more, it cannot stop me from doing so.

You know, Sil, as I get older I find that the little things are full of riches. I have two pet Lovebirds, and I can literally spend hours watching them in amazement. These funny little creatures hold me spellbound, there is no need for Quantum Mechanics, Tripartite Logic, Super-string theory, in these moments of contentedness. I am merely thankful to even be in a position where I can be curious, confused, uncertain and befuddled. This is the good stuff in life.

I have spent as much time teaching my birds how to whistle the Andy Griffith tune as Hobbes spent writing the Leviathan. Who’s making more progress? The dolt with the Lovebirds, I suspect.

[grin]

[Marshall_McDaniel]

I’m glad to get a good existentialist viewpoint in here.
I say existentialist because of

I find that it is both liberating and terrifying to believe myself as a pointless moment. At times my freedom is overwhelming, just to think that nothing is stopping me from cutting the next man’s throat or jumping off a building, but at the same time, if I choose not to do so, I begin a project worthy of a God. I create values, meaning, purpose. And if only for that moment do I look away from the abyss, I find reason to exist, my reason. The universe knows nothing of this, further more, it cannot stop me from doing so.

Are you trying to say that man will always be more than his knowledge? That man, as one philosopher put it, (ortega i think) is both freedom and fatality. I think the existentialist notion of freedom and authenticity is for you the same thing that the tragic sense of existence is to me, both the expanding zenith beckoning above me and the bottomless abyss that threatens to swallow me whole. We are “condemned to be free”, and it is this, in addition to our knowledge, that will enable us to realize everything that we are capable of.

[Silhouette]

@Marshall McDaniel

I’m glad to get a good existentialist viewpoint in here.
I say existentialist because of

I find that it is both liberating and terrifying to believe myself as a pointless moment. At times my freedom is overwhelming, just to think that nothing is stopping me from cutting the next man’s throat or jumping off a building, but at the same time, if I choose not to do so, I begin a project worthy of a God. I create values, meaning, purpose. And if only for that moment do I look away from the abyss, I find reason to exist, my reason. The universe knows nothing of this, further more, it cannot stop me from doing so.

Are you trying to say that man will always be more than his knowledge? That man, as one philosopher put it, (ortega i think) is both freedom and fatality. I think the existentialist notion of freedom and authenticity is for you the same thing that the tragic sense of existence is to me, both the expanding zenith beckoning above me and the bottomless abyss that threatens to swallow me whole. We are “condemned to be free”, and it is this, in addition to our knowledge, that will enable us to realize everything that we are capable of.

I find your attitude to everything really encouraging and driven by hope and challenge and fulfillment which is quite admirable really. But I can’t relate to it at all.
I find myself comparing myself with the perfect ideal that has been presented to me and defining myself on being this person else I be worthless and disgusted with myself. And rather than enjoying the challenge of trying to become that person, I lose all motivation when I realise that I will never become this person because they are a contradiction and so, unachievable. And then I become even more demoralised when I realise that this person isn’t really any more perfect than any person so all I define myself on isn’t really there. I have been taught that anything that defects from the perfect is disgusting, but I increasingly notice that the further away from this perfect person I am, the more natural and instinctive I am being, and so I become disgusted with what I am naturally.

Whatever choice I make, I will always disgust myself and feel empty and loathe that feeling. I feel like I lose all purpose.

[detrop]

Are you trying to say that man will always be more than his knowledge?

I think this question is too concise as it is, so I’ll try to stretch it out a bit. I don’t want to say that “man” is an amount of his knowledge, that part of the definition of the being of “man” includes degrees of his knowledge, or basically, that “knowledge” is a requisite for being or some sort of characteristic of a being like it’s “brown hair,” for example. I do think I get the gist of the question when you say/ask this-

That man, as one philosopher put it, (ortega i think) is both freedom and fatality.

You might mean that freedom cannot exceed the boundaries of what options one has the “knowledge” to choose from in the event of a seemingly “free” choice. That one is only free to do what one knows one can do, so there are obvious limitations to the options from which one chooses. For example, standing at the top of the mountain I can only either stay there or climb down. “Flying” down isn’t an option, therefore I am not free to fly down, therefore I am not free. My choices are determined by my competency, my ability(obviously not flying), and in this sense the degree of my knowledge is the limits of my freedom. Yes, this is a broad kind of fatalism and I accept this since to some degree we can say that sets of choices are causually determined. But look closer, this particular argument I just used doesn’t work. If there is no such thing as a flying human being(without a rocket powered backpack), how could it exist as a possibility(without going to get one) to be chosen or not, or as a proof that one cannot do anything possible at that moment? It doesn’t, it can’t, therefore to say that one can’t fly down so one is not free to do anything is a logical fallacy and doesn’t refute “freedom.” We would need something else. Let’s add a third element. One could swing down on a rope, but the rope that is there is blocked by a branch, therefore there is a third option and one isn’t free to choose it because swinging down is an impossibility at this point. Have we succeded in asserting that one’s freedom is proportionate to one’s knowledge of options?? Hmm. Unless one refrains on the making of the current decision of how to get down the mountain with what options are available and begins making decisions amongst the options for “how to get the branch out of the way,” undertaking that particular action instead of the other, “moving the branch,” that is, unless one focuses their efforts on this new project, deciphering amoung options for how to do that, of course, then “swinging down” is just as impossible as flying at that point as “an option among the current set.” Certainly it is, Marshall. One could cut the branch out of the way, as one could have a rocket-powered backpack on, but this is not the question at hand, “climbing or staying” is. The dynamic works in “twos.” The freedom has nothing to do with anything more than the indeterminate moment of deciding between at least two options of what one does know, what one is capable of doing at that time without changing projects(like getting a rocket backpack or pulling out one’s pocket knife and sawing on the branch), the fact that one cannot be determined to both climb down and stay there(the available current options) simultaneously, and the fact that one isn’t forced to make one choice instead of the other, shows that “determinsim,” as it can be applied to experience, is nullified. Since there are always at least two possibilities, there is always a “gap” in our experience of causality. We experience every moment as a confrontation with at least two possibilities, one of which we cannot know as determined unless we engage in it. No, our actions are not determined as far as we experience the event in the moment of making a choice. So, to say that one can only be free as far as they “know,” is answered yes and no. Freedom to take one of two determined options. The universe may intend on me climbing, but I can never “know” it.

as one philosopher put it, (ortega i think) is both freedom and fatality.

I like it. It will work.

I think the existentialist notion of freedom and authenticity is for you the same thing that the tragic sense of existence is to me

It’s funny, Marshall, because I’m inclined to call it comical as well. If I think that ultimately everything I ever do is utterally meaningless, it would be a folly to take even my sense of humor seriously, or my seriousness lightly. Comical is my own impotency no matter what I do. How could I be angry at this? How could I be sad because of this? Even those emotions are meaningless. A tragic comedy it is, Voltaire rightly said. I ask myself, what does it matter whether or not I’m “free?” Perhaps being authentic is just to admit this uncertainty. Consequently, I am a freedom.

[detrop]

Whatever choice I make, I will always disgust myself and feel empty and loathe that feeling. I feel like I lose all purpose.

I must admit, Sil, you do a far better job at griping than I ever have. I haven’t read something so condensed with despair since Kierkegaard vetoed his marriage with Regina and kept notes. This is a darker shade of existentialism, you’re gonna need some work, pal.

Tell me a bit about yourself. How old are you? Are there any activities that you like, hobbies perhaps? Ya know, there are plenty of distractions out there to get involved in. Talk to me, chief, I feel like I’m loosin’ ya’.

[Silhouette]

I wouldn’t worry De’trop, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I’m a pretty good ‘griper’, I had lots of practice. But I think its justified. The other side of my train of thought is that whilst I find life completely not worth it, I find death equally not worth it. So there’s no reason why I should choose one over the other, and in my present state, I think its easier to carry on living.
If you really wanna know, I’m a nice, moral, intelligent 19 year old guy, 20 next march. And my main hobby is music. All I do all day is play my guitar/bass, listen to music (I love funeral doom metal - my favourite band is Shape of Despair ), think about philosophical/psychological stuff, play a computer game or 2 and talk to my loving g/f (my sole reason to be) on msn or be with her when she comes around. I can get on with ppl that want to get on with me if I have to, although I don’t like socialising. Probably because I don’t like people (due to unpleasent experiences with them for most of my childhood). You might feel the need to classify my as a goth if you so please. And in between all this, I go to lectures at my uni + occastionally do some work. In fact I have pretty much everything I want with no desire for anything more or less. I have a very nicely balanced standard of living and quality of life - never had or asked for too much or too little. Some might call me ungreatful for what I have and they’re right.
But I’m sure, as a fellow philosopher, you understand my existential angst and ‘bad’ attitude and see how it is justified, despite the materialistic evidence that my life is good. Feel free to be disgusted about me too if it so pleases you.

[Marshall_McDaniel]

Silhouette:

I find your attitude to everything really encouraging and driven by hope and challenge and fulfillment which is quite admirable really. But I can’t relate to it at all.
I find myself comparing myself with the perfect ideal that has been presented to me and defining myself on being this person else I be worthless and disgusted with myself. And rather than enjoying the challenge of trying to become that person, I lose all motivation when I realise that I will never become this person because they are a contradiction and so, unachievable. And then I become even more demoralised when I realise that this person isn’t really any more perfect than any person so all I define myself on isn’t really there. I have been taught that anything that defects from the perfect is disgusting, but I increasingly notice that the further away from this perfect person I am, the more natural and instinctive I am being, and so I become disgusted with what I am naturally.

Whatever choice I make, I will always disgust myself and feel empty and loathe that feeling. I feel like I lose all purpose.

I know what it’s like to be 19 and full of angst. I can understand and appreciate your attitude. I am just curious as to why you ‘compare yourself to the perfect ideal’ instead of trying to become yourself.

De’trop:
Thank you for not allowing me to get off easily. Your useful comments and challenges are great.

Are you trying to say that man will always be more than his knowledge?

I think this question is too concise as it is, so I’ll try to stretch it out a bit. I don’t want to say that “man” is an amount of his knowledge, that part of the definition of the being of “man” includes degrees of his knowledge, or basically, that “knowledge” is a requisite for being or some sort of characteristic of a being like it’s “brown hair,” for example. I do think I get the gist of the question when you say/ask this-

Where would knowledge be without passion? But i am glad that you choose to see this question from within the context.

That man, as one philosopher put it, (ortega i think) is both freedom and fatality.

You might mean that freedom cannot exceed the boundaries of what options one has the “knowledge” to choose from in the event of a seemingly “free” choice. That one is only free to do what one knows one can do, so there are obvious limitations to the options from which one chooses. For example, standing at the top of the mountain I can only either stay there or climb down. “Flying” down isn’t an option, therefore I am not free to fly down, therefore I am not free. My choices are determined by my competency, my ability(obviously not flying), and in this sense the degree of my knowledge is the limits of my freedom. Yes, this is a broad kind of fatalism and I accept this since to some degree we can say that sets of choices are causually determined. But look closer, this particular argument I just used doesn’t work. If there is no such thing as a flying human being(without a rocket powered backpack), how could it exist as a possibility(without going to get one) to be chosen or not, or as a proof that one cannot do anything possible at that moment? It doesn’t, it can’t, therefore to say that one can’t fly down so one is not free to do anything is a logical fallacy and doesn’t refute “freedom.” We would need something else. Let’s add a third element. One could swing down on a rope, but the rope that is there is blocked by a branch, therefore there is a third option and one isn’t free to choose it because swinging down is an impossibility at this point. Have we succeded in asserting that one’s freedom is proportionate to one’s knowledge of options?? Hmm. Unless one refrains on the making of the current decision of how to get down the mountain with what options are available and begins making decisions amongst the options for “how to get the branch out of the way,” undertaking that particular action instead of the other, “moving the branch,” that is, unless one focuses their efforts on this new project, deciphering amoung options for how to do that, of course, then “swinging down” is just as impossible as flying at that point as “an option among the current set.” Certainly it is, Marshall. One could cut the branch out of the way, as one could have a rocket-powered backpack on, but this is not the question at hand, “climbing or staying” is. The dynamic works in “twos.” The freedom has nothing to do with anything more than the indeterminate moment of deciding between at least two options of what one does know, what one is capable of doing at that time without changing projects(like getting a rocket backpack or pulling out one’s pocket knife and sawing on the branch), the fact that one cannot be determined to both climb down and stay there(the available current options) simultaneously, and the fact that one isn’t forced to make one choice instead of the other, shows that “determinsim,” as it can be applied to experience, is nullified. Since there are always at least two possibilities, there is always a “gap” in our experience of causality. We experience every moment as a confrontation with at least two possibilities, one of which we cannot know as determined unless we engage in it. No, our actions are not determined as far as we experience the event in the moment of making a choice. So, to say that one can only be free as far as they “know,” is answered yes and no. Freedom to take one of two determined options. The universe may intend on me climbing, but I can never “know” it.

Maybe i am completely off base. I have to accept that as a possibility else i lose the ability to propound any thesis. I wasn’t looking so much at the intersection of freedom and fatality as i was looking at them as binary opposites (is not every man a combination of opposites?). Life (freedom), death(fatality), etc. I was also thinking of freedom both in a negative and positive sense (-isn’t bad faith in Sartre an example of denying the fact that you are free?)(+isn’t an authentic life the consequence of exercising one’s freedom). I know i speak as an artist would speak to a philosopher, sacrificing clarity for beauty (perhaps that is my fatality), but albert Camus, reviewing La Nausee said, “A novel is never anything but a philosophy expressed in images. And in a good novel the philosophy has disappeared into the images.” Once again i’m reminded of the final scene in Forest gump, when, as the feather floats down, the protagonist asks whether we make our own way, or get blown around in a flux, and answers, “I think it’s a little of both.”

you go on to say of the same quote:

as one philosopher put it, (ortega i think) is both freedom and fatality.

I like it. It will work.

It works for me.

I think the existentialist notion of freedom and authenticity is for you the same thing that the tragic sense of existence is to me

It’s funny, Marshall, because I’m inclined to call it comical as well. If I think that ultimately everything I ever do is utterally meaningless, it would be a folly to take even my sense of humor seriously, or my seriousness lightly. Comical is my own impotency no matter what I do. How could I be angry at this? How could I be sad because of this? Even those emotions are meaningless. A tragic comedy it is, Voltaire rightly said. I ask myself, what does it matter whether or not I’m “free?” Perhaps being authentic is just to admit this uncertainty. Consequently, I am a freedom.

Exactly what i mean’t upon saying, (in addition to ascribing freedom and fatality to man)

both the expanding zenith beckoning above me and the bottomless abyss that threatens to swallow me whole.

Although you carry the analysis a bit further.

Sometimes i find it useful to listen to what is speaking rather than what is being said. I don’t know. What do you think?

[Silhouette]

@Marshall McDaniel

I know what it’s like to be 19 and full of angst. I can understand and appreciate your attitude. I am just curious as to why you ‘compare yourself to the perfect ideal’ instead of trying to become yourself.

I’m sure that didn’t mean to come out as patronising
Its not the same as teen angst. Although I’m still a teen and anxious lol. Teen angst is more to do with day to day things and hormones and adapting to them. I’m well past that. Mine is just the same as any mature adult philosopher. Logical reasoning that is as objective as I can get it and with as little subjectivity as I can manage.

And I am ‘myself’. I’m sure of it. I don’t succumb to any sort of peer pressure or fashions and I don’t try to be like anyone else or like things because other ppl do. And whilst I’m secure being me as opposed to anyone else, I’m just insecure about what being me means - I know its best to be me and I know being someone else doesn’t work. But being me still isn’t that great. So I want to make me better. And I can aspire to perfection, but in doing so I realise thats a physical impossibility and shows me how I was even less perfect than I thought. It shows me that all that I’ve been told and programmed to do has no meaning when I expected there to be and I was also taught to be disappointed and not tolerate lack of meaning. And so my conditioning has scarred my thinking even when I know reason.

I sound so teen angsty haha. ‘Everything I been taught was a lie I tell ya!’

It just annoys me a lot. I can still lead a normal mature life and be happy and sad or whatever just like anyone else. People even confuse me for being a really cheery person who’s older than they look and act.

[Marshall_McDaniel]

I didn’t think it patronizing when i wrote it, oh well…

I’m twice 19, a bit more mellow, but still the same effervescent bottle of wine ready to blow it’s cork. They all lie. Establish your own ideals.

[Silhouette]

@Marshall McDaniel

Establish your own ideals.

@Silhouette

And I can aspire to perfection, but in doing so I realise thats a physical impossibility and shows me how I was even less perfect than I thought. It shows me that all that I’ve been told and programmed to do has no meaning when I expected there to be and I was also taught to be disappointed and not tolerate lack of meaning. And so my conditioning has scarred my thinking even when I know reason.

I’m well aware that I could aspire to any ideal and attain self-gratification from progressing towards it, but fundamentally they are all meaningless selfish time-fillers that can be fun while ur around. I just see an aspiration towards perfection as the most relevant one to causing minimum bother and trouble to everyone else while I’m around, the further I get. Rather than concentrating on gratifying myself, I am choosing an approach that tries to be more geared towards preventing myself from hindering other people from self-gratification.
Which in turn, causing acute disappointment and frustration for the sake of others, makes me feel fulfilled for being less selfish and so more perfect.
Which in turn, makes me feel more self-gratification which makes the approach a selfish act, thus making me selfish for choosing it and less perfect. Thus never achieving anything accept validation of my perception that perfection is a contradiction.

Oh well Not long before I die

[detrop]

You misunderstand, Sil. You are supposed to be selfish, you are supposed to be the image of mankind as you think it should be, you are supposed to set an example and here, my friend, you are obligated to act. Unless you resign completely from life, that is, shoot yourself in the face, then every moment you spend existing is an existence as you think it should be. You don’t pull the trigger, you choose life. Get busy living or dying. Nobody said you couldn’t think that life as we know it is terribly wrong and could use some major improvements, hell, become a left-wing radicalist and picket city hall for some outrageous ideology, whatever you have to do to feel effective. But you can’t just drift through passively, pal, come on. You seem intelligent enough to pick out what practical problems in life might be fixable, and which ones are not. You just seem like you want to dwell on the unfixables instead of making some effort to fix anything at all. You want to start a revolution? Let’s do it, I can get us CNN coverage in one week. I’ll pull some strings downtown.

[Smooth]

Everytime I read this thread I am reminded on the last scene of Men In Black. The camara zooms out of earth into the solar system, into the galazy and into feilds of dozens of thousands of galatic systems, and then all into a marble where aliens are playing some game with these universes.

[Lithium]

@Silhouette

I just see an aspiration towards perfection as the most relevant one to causing minimum bother and trouble to everyone else while I’m around,

Dont be the person you think you ought to be, aiming for perfection doesnt make you perfect. Being who you really are is what makes you perfect … be true to yourself : )

[Silhouette]

@De'trop

You misunderstand, Sil. You are supposed to be selfish

You misunderstand, De. Whilst you are selfish anyway, you are supposed to not be selfish. Humans at the moment are somewhere in between being animals and trying to be some social ideal that we’ve made up. Two completely opposite terms by definition. How can you be one when you’re another. Its the ultimate paralysis of conflict and confusion when you’re told you should be one by others and another by yourself.

@De'trop

you are supposed to be the image of mankind as you think it should be

I think mankind should not be. I think life was a horrible accident. Or some god’s idea of fun, by introducing an innately non-peaceful contradiction into a previously completely peaceful environment. Whatever. Either way, life is always an inevitable struggle against nature’s equilibrium and entropy on top of everything else yet all it strives for lack of struggle. Another source of conflict from trying to be one thing when ur surroundings only let you be the opposite.

@De'trop

you are supposed to set an example and here, my friend, you are obligated to act. Unless you resign completely from life, that is, shoot yourself in the face, then every moment you spend existing is an existence as you think it should be. You don’t pull the trigger, you choose life. Get busy living or dying. Nobody said you couldn’t think that life as we know it is terribly wrong and could use some major improvements, hell, become a left-wing radicalist and picket city hall for some outrageous ideology, whatever you have to do to feel effective. But you can’t just drift through passively, pal, come on.

Life isn’t about assigning yourself a purpose. Thats what you’re lead to believe from ur education and ppl’s expectations. A tramp is choosing life, despite doing even less than I do. Nobody said I couldn’t think that life as we know it is terribly wrong and could use some major improvements, yes, but no-one ever said that you had to do anything about it, or even if there was anything that could be done about it. As far as I’m concerned, any change is just a compensation - a rearrangement of how things are bad and good. Nothing actually improves on the whole. Nothing can get rid of the fundamental problem that life is. Being given motivation and meaning when you’re young can make ppl happier, but it can make ppl worse if they realise its all made up and all the things they’re trying to ultimately achieve aren’t attainable when thats what they and everyone else has defined them on.

@De'trop

You seem intelligent enough to pick out what practical problems in life might be fixable, and which ones are not. You just seem like you want to dwell on the unfixables instead of making some effort to fix anything at all. You want to start a revolution? Let’s do it, I can get us CNN coverage in one week. I’ll pull some strings downtown.

I believe no problems that life has are fixable. Just manipulable. You make one thing better and another thing gets worse. Much like anything u do in life - you’re just a bunch of infinitely small ‘things’ that make u up which are constantly being exchanged with the surroundings. It doesn’t matter what u do - it will just make this forever changing combination of infinitely small ‘things’ change in a slightly different, negligible and meaningless way.

@Lithium

@Silhouette

I just see an aspiration towards perfection as the most relevant one to causing minimum bother and trouble to everyone else while I’m around,

Dont be the person you think you ought to be, aiming for perfection doesnt make you perfect. Being who you really are is what makes you perfect … be true to yourself : )

I can already be myself perfectly. I know its the only thing I can do and will make me least unhappy. But I still find this unsatisfying and wrong and disgusting in accordance to what I have been told as wrong and disgusting. I have been told lack of motivation and meaning makes u worthless. I have been told that being animal is disgusting and that I should be something that I am not, or else be useless and a reject.

But anyway. Despite all this, I find that if I don’t think about it, I’m ok. Its best to just absorb feelings and actions as they happen and enjoy the sensations they give u if u can and if u can’t, avoid it in future. I find the taoist way of looking at things a very good way to look at things. Just let things happen and see good in everything and live with and tolerate everything, not against it and enjoy and appreciate what it does to u.