First off, I’m very passive. Almost masochistic. I dont try to make things happen in life. Even if I do try, I only put in half an effort because of this passive underpinning. Now, I’ve noticed that a lot of you like Nietzche and his POWER pledge to life. I tend to champon the weak, thus, I cant really suscribe to the whole boot stomping the face brutality of power grabbers. This is not to say that I’m a pussy. Trap me in a corner, and I’ll lash out like any manly man. I think I just like the morally superior stance of the underdog. You can insult me, punch me, kick me into the dirt, and still I walk away thinking I’m better on principle. Whether that is true, is another matter altogether
But my question to you thinkiers is this: Is it wrong to just let life happen, rather than taking the bull by the horns? Should I be more active about my life on this planet. Is it wrong to lead less than a life? Does it matter in the end?
I don’t think you can measure activity in a life. Determinism may cause we to be a little biased, but I don’t even think there is such a think as “taking life by the horns.”
I don’t see that as relevant to morality. One can be just as moral/immoral by being passive as one could by being active.
There seems to be something absurd about the idea that one can “let life pass you by”. I mean, we’re always choosing to do what we do whethers that’s active or passive. If you come up to be and assault me or harass me or push me around in some way, I can choose to retaliate or I can choose to not retaliate. Either way, it is my choice to make. Nothing’s making it for me.
Yet active enough to tell us emphatically that you’re ‘very passive’. A walking contradiction, you might say. A human being, you might say.
Now let’s not turn this into a psychoanalytical wang-waving championship.
I dunno, a lot of people here seem to like quoting Nietzsche when forced into a backtrack in an argument, as a sort of crutch in conversation if you like. I can’t answer you, so I’ll throw some Nietzsche at you. Quoting two lines of Nietzsche is almost invariably so ambiguous that the point of the argument will be lost.
I think that only a few people here really appreciate Nietzsche, and none of them bang on about him. But of course, that’s largely because I disagree with a lot of people’s readings of him.
Become a Christian. Or at least get into the whole charitable vibe Christianity has going for it. Even if you don’t like the God epistemology and commandment moral philosophy, that’s no reason to reject the whole kit, kaboodle, baby and bathwater.
Are you English? I think you’ve told me before but I cannot remember. Rooting for the underdog is an English/British mentality (not solely, obviously), found in the long-standing traditions of socialism, Christianity and football. Probably as a broad reaction to the aristocratic economy and political system.
You a bad-ass mofo from tha block!
Depends who you ask.
In the end of what? Your life? Yes, probably. The end of the lifespan of the sun? I’m not sure, unless you’re going to find a way to reignite the sun (this is the topic of the latest Danny Boyle movie but it’s estimated to not be a pressing issue for at least 2 billion years yet so we’ve got a while to work something out, preferably something more interesting than nuking the sun) or transport us to another solar system, I don’t think your passivity is problematic with regard to that.
The end of civilisation as we know it? S’already happened.
The end of the use-by period on the cheese in your fridge? Definitely. Wasting things is ridiculous. If it’s your own potential, well, that’s really up to you. If it’s food or other basic resources, it’s a matter of general politics, relations between people.
If you want my advice, you seem to feel that you should be achieving more. So achieve more, or at least try to. You write, so find writing competitions and enter them, or force yourself to complete a publishable piece of work and publish it. Or take some other route, like sending scripts to the BBC (what I’m doing, shortly). Or do something else, but make yourself achieve it. Set goals, try to accomplish them.
Haha, a lot of what you said was hilarious. But you’re spot on in most cases. Here I go pumping you up. Well, no, I just think you really tell it like it is. Sometimes I’m scared to read your posts. Maybe that’s why i voted ILP a dictatorship in another thread. Thanks for that last piece of advice. I’m contending with an ambitious brain, and acheiving nothing yet. Writing competitions sound like the best bet.
Oh, and I’m not from england. I just like most things english related. underdog included. weather excluded.
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