Oh god, I hate this!
quad damage
No, don't worry, this isn't a flame thread, haha.
I just found myself thinking about life, and I got depressed.
I was thinking about how life can't logically exist, and thus it doesn't. But it must, as I am thinking about it.
This depresses me beyond belief, and I have been thinking this way alot recently (despite being an optimist, I do over-think everything)
It's like I am wondering if life is just a dream or something, which would suck, because things are going good right now in my life. It's confuses me so much, and it seems like life is a bit too dreamy to be happening, despite me knowing it is happening.
Just wondering,
Does anyone else ever think about such things? I think that would comfort me a little about it.
I guess it is just human nature to question what should not be questioned, but that doesn't make me any more decisive on life. I tend to think its all real, as it really must be. And to think otherwise would make my life a waste, which it certainly is not.
(No, I am not chronically depressed, haha, I am the happiest person I know)
-Andy
I just found myself thinking about life, and I got depressed.
I was thinking about how life can't logically exist, and thus it doesn't. But it must, as I am thinking about it.
This depresses me beyond belief, and I have been thinking this way alot recently (despite being an optimist, I do over-think everything)
It's like I am wondering if life is just a dream or something, which would suck, because things are going good right now in my life. It's confuses me so much, and it seems like life is a bit too dreamy to be happening, despite me knowing it is happening.
Just wondering,
Does anyone else ever think about such things? I think that would comfort me a little about it.
I guess it is just human nature to question what should not be questioned, but that doesn't make me any more decisive on life. I tend to think its all real, as it really must be. And to think otherwise would make my life a waste, which it certainly is not.
(No, I am not chronically depressed, haha, I am the happiest person I know)
-Andy
Replies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
Haha, nice one.
And if it makes you feel any better it's actually perfectly logical for life to exist. Given the huge amount of time and matter in the universe, it's bound to pop up somewhere ya know.
And what logic brought you to this conclusion?
/me passes the gravity bong
Someone must have secretly lobotomized myself along the way, because I literally just woke up one morning and didn't care so much about all of that negative and/or solipsistic shit. I knew that no matter what, no matter what anyone else thought or said or how miserable they were, I knew I was fine, that I was going to be okay. When things stopped bothering me, I started noticing how fucked up and stressful everyone else was all the time. It was sad.
Edit: existentialism remains amusing, but I've pretty much settled into a core belief that revolves around everything originating from a source of good. Hatred and unhappiness is possibly all we can claim isn't "real," if anything, because honestly, where in the natural world will you find hatred? Overall, I'm just not seeing it. Humans have it in them, but they've created it for themselves; our misery does not come from within the natural energy and origin of life, whatever you want to call it, because it is a source of life and love alone. A source of random, scientifically probable, indifferent-to-fairness, primarily silent love.
Which looms above, around, within us all, casting its enormous SHADOW of DOOM. I mean, er, golden rays. Of love.
Is it safe to assume you are saying "something cannot exist if it is not logical."
I'd be interested to hear you elaborate on this point. Maybe if you did, you wouldn't be as depressed.
In my opinion, I'd have to disagree and present the opposite of what you're saying:
Because we exist, and we are life, life does exist, and there must be a logical explaination for it. With or without understanding, truth will always be. I think therefore I am?
Furthermore, it is of my opinion that you do not have to know how to make cheese to know if it tastes good or not.
Actually, i do like a bit of cheese, ... cheese and onion crisps, which i will get now, that's real enough for me ... or ... well ... hungry
Life is in fact a dream.
So what? What the nature of existence is or is not doesn't change your situation of being in it one way or another. You may conclude its all pointless and decide to "wake up", or you can make the most of the dream by realizing your control over at least a portion of it, often more than you would like to think you have.
Just because we are all doomed does not mean we shouldn't have a good time.
I'll go away now.
It sounds like what you mean is, "I don't understand how life can exist, so it must not exist."
Just because you don't understand something, it doesn't mean that thing doesn't exist.
I don't understand the elaborate workings of massive particle accelerators. Does that mean they don't exist?
lol, sounds like someone should have taken the blue pill.
usually there's a delay of about 0.1 seconds or so between reality, and you perceiving that reality.
and there's also the thing about memory.
as you get older, your brain stores less of the information that you experience during life, and they also have less of an emotional impact.
so you get the feeling that life just races past, and everything feels very dreamy and unreal, as if you don't exist.
anyways, check to see if you have any nutritional deficiencies, as it lowers your perception of reality. there's also a range of diseases that can lead to depression, or a mushy mind.
"Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size"
Read into it what you will...
So anyway, Slums point about the particle accelerator is good, but not COMPLETELY relevant, as someone knows how it works in this world. No one truly knows whether our reality is real beyond our own perceptions of it.
So anyway, I'm done thinking about that right now, and I think it's safe to assume that everything is real.
By the way, Zeitgeist and Esoteric Agenda just make it worse, haha
Fully agreed...
Both zeitgeist movies have very good spiritual stuff to listen to and how to look at life..
www.zeitgeistmovie.com
Do what makes you happy and try not to hurt other people, that's about it...
And the Green Mile!
And... uhm... I said Schindler's List, didn't I.
...
Zeitgeist? Watch out for those RFID chips, everyone!
there are a whole slew of painful snags if you want to wake up, and when you ask for help like this on a forum like this, you'll get a whole bunch of solutions from people about THEIR snags. where you are is about you. in order to give you any sort of reasonable advice you'd need to talk a LOT more about what you're feeling so that we can get a sense for who you are, how you think, and what your world looks like. if you want to chat about you in more depth i'd be happy to. johnny_warner@hotmail.com is my msn.
don't listen to the people who tell you you're wasting your time, or that this is nonsense.. some people live in a tiny bubble and never press against the sides of it. doubt is an important thing, but it can be painful. good for you for walking that path! you've got a set of balls on you.
on reality..
no, you can't take certainty that anything is real. in fact, you can't even be sure that your body is real, because after all, this could be the matrix. however, you can be certain that you are. there is consciousness. your thoughts might not even be real, but theres absolutely no reason what so ever to doubt consciousness. in fact, you can't. doubt is happening IN consciousness.
if you're going to doubt, you've got to doubt the doubter. is the doubter part of the dream? this voice dialog that is doubting. is it real?
the truith of the matter is, that consciousness is real, and even if this is all part of a dream, it's here and happening. so it really doesn't matter if it's fundementally real, but that gets back to YOU:
what does it matter if it's real or not? for example, do you need to know the world is concretely real in order to feel motivated to do something? it would be worth looking at that. what about this makes you depressed?
I think you got too much time of your hands, get busy and do some art
If you want to read a very cool book, check out "The Language of God". It was written by Francis Scott Collins, the head scientist in charge of the Human Genome project. It argues why religion and science should be able to coexist, and how it is a mathematical impossibility, given what we know about the history of the universe and evolution, that it all happened by accident. * As a note, he is a former atheist who converted to religion after gaining monumental insight while unraveling human DNA. It's a good book for both religious and scientific minds alike.
A good example of something that, logically, is likely to exist, though we can't even begin to imagine how or what it is
[ame]
I find going out and talking friends, getting into arguments in pubs with friends, talking to new friends and generally just interacting and attending as many friends meet ups as possible gets you out of depression fucking fast.
Then you can bounce your ideas of non-existence etc off them.
sounds like damn good advice to me baby.
Just because you've lost touch with reality, doesn't mean you should question its existence. Your more welcomed to question your beliefs, and how they influence your life.
Going through life questioning its purpose and existence will do you no favor. When it's over, what have you got?
Damn, I miss him...
Spoiler:
wow. i thought i was arrogant. we should hang out.
What is the point of your first comment? should we... not... talk about this? does it scare you? you actually have the audacity to say he's "more welcomed to question your beliefs.." like, who do you think you are, to give someone permission to explore something that they're interested in? that's isnane dude. what has he violated in you? ooh. good question.
furthermore, he is exploring his beliefs. he's exploring his beliefs about what constitutes reality. i guess it's okay then!
In my personal experience -- When someone is actually interested in exploring what reality is, such questions don't go away. you can't go back to work on pixel art when you've spotted some sort of meaninglessness. it must be delt with. if you had looked at the foundations of your worldview you might have found this already. also - he might not be in a state of clinical depression, but he clearly asked for help with a depressing thought. let us be and let us discuss it.
same to you per. you guys don't understand something so you insult it? like how unconscious is that? most of us geeks were bullied around when we were young... and now you're fucking doing the same thing! common, for fucks sake.
So. Elysium -- to answer the question. what does one get out of questioning one's existance?
well lets see. i'll go point form on this one. because there's a-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha lot.
1. one recognizes that he is not what he or she thinks she is, and that those things that one thought that they WERE.. are just objects. stuff! not me. one gains the ability to look at their ego as a tool. this does not remove being insulted from one's life, but it usually removes the desire to smash someone's head in with a rock over some ego-bruising. biiiig deal.
2. one's worldview begins to shift to something more embracing. you begin to appreciate other people's values, as see other people's worldviews. you understand that the reality we live in is based on the values that we have.
3. you realize that there is no inherent meaning in anything. while this is at first a painful realization, it begins to dawn on you that MEANINGLESSNESS it's SELF has no meaning -- that you were putting meaning on it the whole time yourself. in other words, ALL MEANING IS SELF CREATED. this is a fantasitic liberation that COMES FROM NIHILISM.
4. one goes into the world with his abiliy to create meaning and starts consciously constructing meaning and value. you get to decide what has value for yourself, not something that's a given based on your unconscious upbringing. you become someone who can actually affect some sort of change, if even on a small level.
5. your interpersonal abiliyt shoots through the roof as you realize that your entire sense of self is just a mask- a story that you had in your head. it dawns on you that you could begin to learn to wear a different mask as is situationally appropriate, of course if in alignment with a higher self.
6. speaking of a higher self, once you see that your sense of self is an illusion, you begin to actually identify not with the body mind, but with the space in which the body is arising. but i'll stop there, because i've got one foot in that one still.
i could go on for a long time. a loonggg time.
haha no. me too.
that was pretty insightful, especially the bit about meaning being self-created. It definitely got me thinking in a more reasonable way. thanks
Also, not sure if it matters (though someone mentioned questioning gods existance), but that ship has sailed, since I have been an atheist for 2 or 3 years now (i'm 16 now)
thanks for replying seriously, by the way
-Andy
(If I'm lucky, yeah, a nice waffle machine, haha)
heh no man, but that's is a pretty beautiful thing you said. in fact, i wonder if you're just goating me on. are you? i'll bite, anyway.
you realize that those things that you thought had value only have value because you put energy in them. you get to choose. do i want more money? well that's cool, if so how do i get it? money is no longer something that looms over your head as if it's some sort of pre-requisite to self worth. not that i'm suggesting that you experience that, don't get me wrong.
Thankfully not everyone has shared that pragmatic approach to life. I guess its all perspective...
For the few people who have gotten it and shared it not only has it changed their lives but ours as well. Even people who don't know them or their legacies have benefited from their efforts. I venture a guess that you probably are one of those people yourself.
But lets not get caught up in all that, lets worry about who's going to die with the biggest hard on for the stupid shit we distract ourselves with. We won't be the first and we won't be the last. But hopefully someone will bare the burden of carrying on. Even if it spans large gaps of people too concerned with much smaller, fragile goals that ultimately don't mean anything at all.
"When you make the finding yourself, even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light, you'll never forget it." - Carl Sagan.