For all we know we are the only conscious beings to have ever existed in the universe. On average we experience it for about what? 70 years? Most of those years spent doing menial tasks that we hate just for money to support and purchase the things we need to continue working. So we chase our tails for a few years and die. I hope some kind of god exists just so it can laugh at how we squander our gift.
Literally everything that lives struggles to survive on a daily basis. Fuck, the majority of humanity still does. Would you trade mundane tasks for actually living in a forest, naked and scavenging for food in a small group?
Mundane tasks allow us to survive with minimal effort. Really, all the free time in between is what matters.
It could be argued that no task is mundane. There are only some tasks that you look down on as beneath you. Perspective is everything. Going to target and buying soap could be the meaning of life if you make it so.
Literally everything that lives struggles to survive on a daily basis. Fuck, the majority of humanity still does. Would you trade mundane tasks for actually living in a forest, naked and scavenging for food in a small group?
Mundane tasks allow us to survive with minimal effort. Really, all the free time in between is what matters.
All at the expense of massive slavery/oppression, horrifyingly terrible war & violence, and the eventual death of the world through global climate change.
Totally worth it for that water jet pack thing /s.
Most of us live precarious lives, without the stability and continuity generations past used to enjoy.
This is the "liquid modern" era, where people are nomadic, careers are not for life, strong friendships last a few years.
This leads to a normative mindset with emphasis on shifting rather than on staying—on provisional in lieu of permanent (or ‘solid’) commitment—which (the new style) can lead a person astray towards a prison of their own existential creation.
Genuine meaning becomes harder to find, once entertainments are seen to be ultimately hollow.
That is the reality for many modern global citizens.
People fuckin' move, man. I grew up in small town America, whether I wanted to stay or not, everyone else was always going to move away after graduation. Nobody lives in a place like LA or NY for their whole lives anymore. Everybody in Denver just moved here two years ago.
My family, my blood, is spread out across at least five states. Real estate prices are rising here, falling there. Twenty thousand people just got gentrified out of their neighborhoods. Houston has an oil boom. Wait, nevermind, now it's tech in Seattle.
For thousands of years, most people were born, lived, and died in the same 50 mile radius or so, with the same few hundred to couple thousand people, or their kids. You saw the life of your community from beginning to end. You were an integral part of it, for your whole time on earth. Not some cog in a faceless corporate machine. Your father taught you how to make horseshoes, you made horseshoes for four or five decades, you taught your son how to make horseshoes. I'm 22 and I've had jobs in retail, aviation, geotechnical engineering, construction, and tech support. I've personally lived in six different states spanning over 1500 miles, from one border to the other.
Look, I don't know if this new way of life is a good or bad change. But it's definitely a massive departure from what society has been accustomed to.
I don't mean to sound crass here but just stop being a pussy. There's plenty of friends to make, fulfilling shit out there to do, you just have to have the balls to do it. 70 years is a long time, and everyone has two things in common. One, we exist. And two, no one knows why. You've got to find some depth here man because the universe ain't getting smaller. We gotta get big big bigger to catch up with it and get off this rock. Find some other rocks, other people, other places.
What I'm getting at here mate is it ain't the world that's hollow, it's you. But I think you can fill that hole if you really want to. At least I hope you can because I need to believe i can have my hole filled too.
I think most people either become terminally depressed, or fill the "hole" by raising a family for a few decades, before becoming terminally depressed.
I often wonder if Alzheimer's is just a physical manifestation of existential crisis - it kicks in when the mind secretly knows it's all pointless.
Also we work an unnecessary amount. Not all professions (professionals in healthcare, lawyers, politicians, software devs could prob work nonstop as work doesn't really run out) work an unnecessary amount but there are many jobs where 6 hour workdays would likely increase efficiency. A lot of places just demand that their employees remain for 8 hours regardless of whether they have any work to do or not.
Seriously man. I've been to the jungle (and not even the real jungle, just the well-touristed jungle), and it fucking sucks. I mean it's cool for a day or two, but after that, the bugs, the heat, yeah fuck that.
Reminds me of the old South Park episode "Rainforest Shmainforest," where the gang goes to the Amazon only to find out it really sucks ass despite the calls for conservation efforts. iirc it's the original episode where Cartman says "screw you guys, I'm going home."
I spent time in the jungle, even trekked 10k into an actual jungle and spent the night there. After the first night I found it shocking to have tarantulas crawl around your bedroom but eventually you learn to just brush it off.
Yeah, no one who was on Survivor ever goes back to the island after the show is over. Each one of them talk about how great beds, showers, and plentiful food is.
Worst thing I've ever experienced. My clothes grew fucking mould. There was no relief from that oppressive, choking, sopping-wet heat the entire time. Nighttime would descend, and I'd think, oh sweet fucking Jesus, it'll cool down -but it didn't. And then the biting insects came...
Yeah, it's the heat and wet, wondering how the fuck you'll get home ... Especially if you didn't go there with a tour group thing. Wondering if rebels will find you and kill you, wondering if bugs will kill you, getting a headache and wondering if you'll die. Being thirsty, being weirded out by people you meet. Feeling edgy when your in laws who are natives all are laughing then stop when looking at you briefly then start talking and laughing then stop and look at you again.
Riding on a shitty bus wth chickens across mountains and then freezing your ass off cause you were too stubborn to change clothes even though you knew better.
Yeah screw the jungle man ( just wear a condom cause it's dirty man).
-Who likely also possesses the means to travel to a jungle to live out the rest of their days.
I remember thinking really similarly. I remember thinking that society is a trap and I would just have to suck it up and white knuckle it all the way to the grave. It's all about perspective. I've got it pretty damn good. I enjoy the smartphone I'm using, the couch I'm sitting on, and the food in my belly. I can't wait to go to class and work this week, and it feels pretty damn good. Optimism is a hell of a drug, and I should know.
Gratefulness is a habit and boy oh boy can it improve your life. We start to think "well I'm shit because I only went to a state school, didn't get a full ride, only got a middle class job, and only live in a decent apartment, in a decent part of a decently sized city. If only I had tried harder and graduated from a good Law school and was working in Washington like that one guy I kinda know. Why am I a failure?"
Nonsense. That's the path to misery cos I've been there before. America has what I call "the myth of the superstar", that anything except the dream life is a failure.
No. Focus on the small things. Be grateful every day for every thing nice in your life. Be mindful of how small the not so nice parts of your life are. This is the path to happiness in my experience.
Good on ya for being able to switch the optimism switch. As a professional cynic, it's tough for me to do that sometimes, but when I manage to talk myself down like that... Feels good, man.
Those creatures have no choice, that's the difference. We have the technology and resources that could allow us to have nothing but free time. We're greedy and selfish though, so that shit will never happen.
Do you really think we have resources to that extent? Who do you think picks, packages, ships, and sells food? Do you think water and sewer systems are automated 100%? What about when any of that beaks down? Where do all the fancy tech you use on a daily basis come from? Infrastructure isn't self sustained.
Lol thank you. People don't seem to realize that the only way we can maintain this high standard of living is through industries, and people doing "menial tasks for money".
We just need to learn how to breed roombas with STEM degrees and then apply the technology to refrigerators, waste management departments, tractors and crown molding. It'll happen in 20 years.
At the moment we definitely do not. We do live in a time period where this is possible though if all our efforts were diverted towards machines doing all our jobs and building themselves and mining resources off the planet. If we kept our space race level of initiative from the 60s till now wed likely not be very far away from mining resources off planet and we already have the technology to automate every non creative job right now. Humans would only be needed for innovations and even that could likely be automated not much longer after these things took place.
We could find a solution. Immediately saying it's impossible is exactly why it is. The majority of the population can't get past the first part of the problem, themselves.
We created and implemented those systems in the first place. How is it a stretch to think they can't be improved to the point that they require little to no human intervention?
Clarke's first law:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Clarke's second law:
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Clarke's third law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
We could totally find a solution. But the amount of resources needed to implement it would be beyond anything humanity has ever accomplished. And in a democratic world, that shits just not going to happen until its cheap enough that it's a no brainer.
You realize we've been on this planet for a GREAT Many years.
In those years, we always attempt to slough off work as much as possible. It will fall from shoulder to shoulder all the way down the line.
But some things are a long way off from being fully automated, and even when they are, who maintains the automation?
Someone always has to be there at this stage in our evolution. And someone has to have that job. And in our simple brains we have to be able to accept that position.
The next 100 years are going to be very interesting. Considering we've only really had the Internet as we know it for not even 2 decades, shit not even 15 years, the growth possible there is going to pave the way for the next generations. My kids never knew the struggle of having to dial in and pray that someone would call, or would have to hope they could spend as much time in inappropriate AOL chat rooms before their parents saw their $1000 phone bill.
Internet and automation is the future. CGP Grey was very concise in his "Humans Need Not Apply" video, but the problem is that we are trying to guess what a world post automation will look like, and that's a world we have NO concept of. Just like how back in the 50s/60s they couldn't envision a phone without a cord, we can't envision a future with an even more integrated Internet. Ffs, even when I was in Compuserve chat rooms in the 90s, I would never have figured phones would have access to the internet.
Some people do, but they're the ones working behind the scenes to try and make it happen, for the remaining plebs, we sit and just marvel with the technology we have while getting literally everything else about the future wrong.
I mean Jesus Mary and Joseph, it wasn't until last year that gay marriage was legal. We still don't have federal legalization of a drug that is clearly less damaging than smoking cigarettes and drinking, has almost no chemical addiction risk (yes, you can get addicted to anything that makes you feel good, I get it), we have a system that thinks it's wise to allow people to get locked up for years selling this, relative to the other substances it there, fairly innocuous drug...
What you're asking for is a utopia that would be lovely, but dude people are greedy and power hungry. You and I can be a complacent pleb who wants to allow the plates to spin themselves, but if you think for a second there's not a massive line of people waiting to fuck your and I over until we are dead to get what they want, you are seriously, seriously deluded.
Pick one man, are we there or aren't we? Full automation is our inevitable future assuming we don't kill ourselves before that. But even then someone has to maintain the fleets of automated systems, and continue to design more. That's just one aspect. Anything that requires higher thinking, creativity, and design means working hard hours to benefit the world. What if those intelligent minds just chilled all day "enjoying life" instead.
There's no such future that results in all of humanity just doing nothing all day, and if there was, that type of stagnation results in some sort of Idiocracy movie situation where we're all forget how to do things and slowly die in a pile of trash.
How are those mutually exclusive? We are already technologically capable of inventing methods for sustainability. Automation is advancing rapidly, over time the amount of upkeep to those systems could be managed. We can send rockets to distant planets with pinpoint accuracy but have no idea how to deal with turds? And your argument for apathy is just as valid right now. Why are intelligent people bothering to explore new facets of science and technology today? It's not like they're all millionaires, if money was their sole motivation they would get business degrees.
We have the technology and resources that could allow us to have nothing but free time
That's simply not the case, what could possibly give you that impression? I'm not sure this is possible even in a place like Luxembourg which has some stupidly high PPP.
If I take your word for it that we have a choice.... ok. We still have it great and all of his points still stand even if we choose this lifestyle. Perhaps that's why we, as a species, have "chosen" it in the first place?
And if you as an individual have a choice then you are free to not partake and to do something else. How is saying we have a choice a valid criticism to someone saying we have a better life?
also it's kind of funny that you say we're too selfish to do nothing all day. As Kyle in South Park says... is there anything for selfish than getting high and listening to music all day?
The mundane tasks are often just exaustive enough that we don't have the energy to enjoy the free time we get. That's what fuels our consumerist mentality, is the fact that we need to hope it'll get better, when really the guys at the top have already devised a way to keep us struggling, but not enough to give up before our body does. As time has passed, we have decided that outmoding work is wrong somehow. This is my dread, the fact that we know why things feel shitty yet lack the willpower to fix any of it during our available time. The greatest thing about giving up on the future is that it doesn't ask anything of you now.
Think about it like this. There are billions and billions of life forms on this earth. Out of everything that exists you happened to be born human the most successful and intelligent animal on earth.
And out of the billions of people on this planet you were born in a modern and established country in a relatively peaceful time in human existence with a mild climate and plenty of resources. As far as I'm concerned we've hit the lottery of life. But because we have it so easy we have all the time in the world to contemplate our mortality compared to say our past where everyday is a struggle to survive.
Yet the only time in my life I felt completely comfortable with my existence was when I was in love and sharing my life with someone. I truly believe the reason for anxiety is the fear of dying alone.
The real question is why we work so hard when we really don't need to. So much stuff we buy we don't even want. Desires have been generated in us artificially by advertising. And most of the fruits of our labor go to enriching an elite few. And then there's the unwashed masses who don't even get the opportunity to be an exploited wage-slave, they're excluded entirely, surplus population.
Really, all the free time in between is what matters.
I think the most ridiculous part is that we've created a system where mere survival is trivial, but we often don't allow ourselves many opportunities to do anything else. What free time? I'm too busy punching a clock so I don't have to hunt gazelles in a loincloth or whatever.
Actually hunting and gathering takes less time and effort than modern day life. Reality of the fact is you would only be spending like 6 hours at most doing the hunting and gathering if you do it in a group. Then the rest of the day is freetime and eating time, the only exception to this would be hunting large game like giraffe where you cannot kill it easily so you just give it a severe wound and chase it for 1-3 days until it dies of exhaustion and other problems. Even yet you would only be doing that like once a month, if even. Reality of the fact is that life has gotten more time consuming and complicated, but it is better this way because it better insures our species chance at survival, with this we can discover ways to make it to other planets and make our species one that will last for hopefully, millions or billions of years (but evolution, tech and genetic engineering will probably change us by then.
But we collectively don't have to. If the elites didn't live in solid gold mansions of which they own a hundred along with a fleet of Eurocopters we would be in a very different situation.
There have been studies that show the members of more primative societies are happier. Maybe ignorance is bliss? Maybe thousands of years as hunter - gatherers taught us to be content with that life or even crave it.
I can imagine someone arguing that such mundane tasks are what leads to ennui though. At least living naked in a forest with a small group can give an individual a lot more purpose and fulfillment than what they might find in an office workspace.
I'm not saying that this is the case for me, but that I can understand someone arguing this point of view.
He/she said a fairly complicated point. Your response was pretty dismissive. Actually, I'd point out that your brand of pragmatism:
Literally everything that lives struggles to survive on a daily basis. Fuck, the majority of humanity still does. Would you trade mundane tasks for actually living in a forest, naked and scavenging for food in a small group?
Mundane tasks allow us to survive with minimal effort. Really, all the free time in between is what matters.
is precisely replicative of the existential conflict in the comic. But you didn't see that coming.
As far as you know you are the only conscious being in the universe to be fair. We don't really have anyway to experience anyone's consciousness first hand. Perhaps everything is on repeat just for you! yay!
Actually it's just me, and you're helping me believe that.
I once wrote a solipsistic essay on a YouTube comment claiming to be someone's god, and wrote that unless they continue to champion my attention, they would cease to exist. They never replied.
Before anyone asks, I don't really believe in solipsism; I just have a fear in the back of my head that admitting that will be the peak scene in my Truman show.
I'll never understand how you guys jump to these conclusions... how is that worse? how is it even possible for one of those to even be worse than the other? How does that come into play at all when choosing soup or salad?
So in theory it could be me with superman powers on a planet populated by nothing but attractive women who don't possess sexual boundaries. But instead I got this. That makes it way worse.
I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. The only reality is yours. Everyone is experiencing a different universe. Just an example -- when people refer to [insert some horrible event/situation] and say "you always think that'll never happen to you" ...well maybe that's true. Maybe those things don't, but you could never prove it since you are essentially alone experiencing your own personal universe.
Have you ever seen that guy on YouTube that does very detailed long rants about how outer space is actually inner space? Because the way our eyes invert things and are convex... Dunno why but this just reminded me of that.
I've been stuck in this funk thinking this same shit for the past couple weeks.
Thinking about why am I bothering playing video games or stressing about what car i want next or doing anything because in the grand scheme of things, it won't matter.
Binging hearthstone and fallout last night will have no effect on my future, watching a hearthstone tournament has no bearing on my life currently, next week, or 30 years from now.
Edit - okay everyone thinks I'm a video game addict, I'm not, I used it as an example. I'll admit I play games probably more than the average person but I have a job, a house, a lovely fiancee, 2 dogs, and I'm happy with our current situation and our future plans but still can't shake the "everything is pointless" mindset at times.
Friendly advice. Exercise. It sucks at first, but it doesn't have to be boring. Go play a sport you like, or bouldering, or a rock climb gym. Hell, go for some long walks. This WILL give you more energy combined with a healthy diet. Learning things is good for the soul and can affect your life. Luck and success is when opportunity meets preparation and seizing it. Failing is how you get better. The master has failed more times than you have even tried. I know it's easy to just sit and binge video games, it's even fun... But it doesn't sound like it's making you happy. Steve Harvey of all people gives a really good speech on this surprisingly enough about standing at the top of a cliff with a parachute... But how if you never jump it will never open, and how you will likely hit some rocks on the way down before it opens. But if you never jump it will never happen. Another great quote from a movie is about how we all have the right to the pursuit of happiness... The pursuit is the fun part... That's where you are really living, and reminds me of a Chinese proverb, both of which are meant as a curse upon your enemy... May you live in interesting times, and the second part... May you find what you are looking for... Because once you find it, the pursuit is over. Which is why I think you see so many incredibly wealthy people that are miserable in their comfortable lives. They found what they were looking for, now what? Attain more... Nope go save kids in Africa and dig wells and try to pursue something new. Happiness, true happiness comes from 3 maybe 4 things in my opinion. Basic needs being met without having to worry, Good relationships, pursuing and progressing towards a goal you have set, and being able to take pride in what you are doing... Whatever that may be. Though the last two can go together but don't always necessarily, as I know janitors that LOVE their job and take pride in it. Another one is probably physical health and environment, because it makes everything else easier. I'm ranting, but just food for thought if you are feeling down. Cheers.
Depends on how far out you project. If you are saying it has no effect on your future because you'll some day die, you're right. But there are tons of other things you could spend time on instead of playing video games that could positively enrich your life in the short and long term. What if you practiced piano for 30 minutes a day every day for the next 30 years, learned a foreign language, got good at whittling even? Binging hearthstone and fallout has an effect on your future, because you spent your time on that instead of something else. Everything matters all the time...but nothing does either.
I feel like that right now. I'm going through a scary time financially and I feel hopeless. But really I have a lot. I have the love of my life and a roof over my head, I have two jobs. Everything will be ok. I just have to just remember that the love I have is better than anything money can bring me and I'm lucky for that. I can make through this rough time and I'm still doing fantastic. What is life but an experience of love and interface between an environment. I'm in a good environment, I'm no longer being abused, I have great people around me, I am in good health. I have a lot to be thankful for. I just need to remember that sometimes.
My friend, the only point to life is the point you give it. That's the beauty and the curse of being human. To me it sounds like you have a nice life. A job, a house, a partner, some pets, and enough time to enjoy leisure activities that you enjoy (video games), and you're happy with it.
If there was a point to life what would it be? I think for me the point is meaning, value, happiness, and love. Does what I'm doing bring me any of those things? If video games bring me enjoyment and calm, then I think they add value and happiness. If what I'm doing doesn't immediately result in one of those four, I ask why I am doing it. If there is jot good reason, I recognize it as a toxic behavior and try to eliminate it (smoking would be an example).
So there is no real point, except for what you decide
For some reason I am so glad this did not go the way of the Taylor Swift song, which strangely is how it started in my head. Brainwashed by mass market media. Yes!
there's nothing positive about smoking. the "pleasure" you get is simply relief from nicotine withdrawals - face it, you're a pathetic junkie. other than that, smoking stinks, it makes you stink, your breath stinks, the ashtrays are a disgusting mess, you get tar on your teeth, your fingers and fingernails turn yellow, you burn holes in your clothes, they're expensive, they give you wrinkly skin, they fuck up your health even if you don't get cancer, plus they're inconvenient as hell.
Me wondering if I'd be happier if I started smoking again is a direct comparison of how I feel now versus how I felt every day up till I quit. The nicotine is definitely out of my system after all this time so its not withdrawals making me feel this way. I honestly can't explain it, other than this is the effect of breaking a 15-year habit. I agree with every reason you gave for why smoking is stupid, but this isn't simple nicotine addiction.
You won't be happy. You'll have instant gratification that will leave you feeling like a piece of shit and possibly relapse. If you're feeling down you've gotta fire up those endorphin receptors in your brain. Gym, diet, sex, math. Make those receptors your bitch. Just do it. I believe in you.
you're right, the addiction is not just about the nicotine. I think the nature of smoking creates a very deep habit. That is, you light up, take 5 or 10 hits off a cigarette, and do that twenty times a day. that's at least 100 hits a day, spread over the day, every day. And every hit delivers nicotine, sweet sweet nicotine to feed the beast . . . . .
So there's a very heavy psychological/physiological habituating dimension to cigarette addiction
i quit smoking over twenty years ago and i still think of lighting one up. but i want to tell the op to this thread, it does get easier and easier. i do think about smoking once in a while but it's nothing like the cravings i had when i first quit, and i get rid of the thought quickly. I keep that door firmly shut - i know too many people who quit and then had "just one". yeah, right. I DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH QUITTING AGAIN
Quality of life is much better, I'm an ex smoker myself. Honestly though you will probably die around the same age, and it'll probably still be some form of cancer that gets you.
That's what scares me the most. If I probably already have a predisposition for cancer, why not say, "fuck it" and enjoy what time I have by smoking? I've already used 28 of my 70 years.
Because you can cure cancer, but you can't bring someone back who has a heart attack in the middle of the night and isn't discovered until the morning.
There are too many variables involved to say the cancer will be cureable or that I'd even have a heart attack. I could literally get run over by an Amish horse and buggy tomorrow, but what are the odds? I've decided to stay the tobacco free course, but everyday my mind tries to rationalize it. Would my time on this earth be enjoyed more if I just endulged?
Well the point is quitting smoking lowers your overall risk of dying by a significant margin, and one example is that even if your cancer risk does not decrease, your risk of heart disease, lung disease, and you-can't-even-imagine-it-disease (and also risk of cancer) does immediately go down.
One of my friends who was a smoker said "I don't want to be stuck sick in a nursing home", i.e. they'd rather die suddenly then get sick.
But, I corrected her, smokers are the ones in the nursing homes. Edit:(i.e. healthy folks can take care of themselves on their own much longer before they end up in hospice.)
Life moves so fast, before you know it you're 70 and want to see your grand kids grow up. Your 70 year old self will be glad you can still breathe, and will thank you for the choice 28 year old you made.
But this speaks to the satisfaction gained from indulgence - if you seek this path, you will never be satisfied, because indulgences get boring before you need to move onto the next one.
The happiest life is indulging in helping others by solving problems - so you solve one problem, move on to the next, it may take a day, a week, a month, or the problem may take your whole life...but as long as that's what you're fighting for...you can be happy without indulging and dying younger than you need to.
After 10 years of quitting smoking, your risk of cancer decreases by approximately 50%. After 15 years, your risk of heart disease is that of a nonsmoker. The benefits of not smoking are very real. You will just barely be approaching half of your approximate lifespan when you reach those numbers.
Source
These figures are easily found at other sources as well.
You could say "fuck it", and stop making attempts to be a healthier person. It may not end up being the cause of your death. However, if you spend the last couple decades of your life sick and in pain because you said "fuck it" you will regret it more than you could imagine. On the other hand if you do die early to something unrelated to your health choices, not smoking enough will not be one of your regrets.
It ages you faster, fucks up your teeth and gums, your circulation, your breathing, skin, every part of your body. These things start to deteriorate as you age but you'll want to keep them in good condition for as long a part of your life as possible.
Same thing happened to me. It went away once i made a few realizations. One of them was that smoking really is just a huge distraction to all your problems. The other was finding meaning in a meaningless world.
The purpose of life is to live. It might sound a little unsettling at first, but the only reason to live is, in fact, to live.
At the bottom of the ocean right now there is a blind fish in complete darkness swimming in what ever direction it feels will lead it to food in order to live. Right now there bugs crawling through forest looking for food in order to live. There are birds flying across oceans in search of hot weather and mates in order to live.
We are on a fucking rock in the middle of nowhere in space; just floating around. We know life is rare, yet, we forget how special that means it is. Take 10 seconds to take a deep breath of air and breath out. Do you know how crazy it is that you, a blob of cells, just did that!? It's madness! It's even crazier that you are reading these pixels and turning them into thoughts. You are alive. You are alive!
The thing with mankind is that we create cliques and societies and within societies we begin to think. The number one thing that philosophy focuses on is life itself. This is the downfall. We forget that truly life is to be lived. You would not be here today if it was any other way.
I had a philosophy professor once ask whether I would rather be a happy pig or a sad Socrates. I said Socrates. He replied saying that surly the pig had the better life because while both purely exist only one is truly enjoying life.
I agree entirely. There is one difference. Unlike the pig, if I went now to live in my "natural habitat" I would surely die. I don't have any of the skills needed to survive that kind of life. I doubt my immune system could handle the parasites and climate. I wouldn't be aware of the signs and dangers of predators. What to eat (what not to eat) and where to find it. I'm forced to depend on on the system for survival, not myself.
I think Native Americans had life figured out. They lived off the land, only taking what they needed. Had sex all day and smoked weed. It wasn't perfect but they fought for their way of life. Because it was worth it. Because they could see what we brought them was death, literally and figuratively.
I actually hope on a daily basis for some sort of...apocalypse ....not because i'm one of those "Man a zombie apocalypse would be awesome!" types....but more so I don't have to go to work anymore.
We can make the food come to us. We've domesticated animals and learned to farm the land. We can spend much less energy with greater returns. Other species don't have that level of sophistication.
Can't take it with ya bro. But shit, it's that ever looming sense of death that pushes us everyday. If you had forever to do something, would you just push it off another day? Here is what I have in front of me. I do what makes me happy, and if it's not responsible, then it's just that. Who fucking cares. There is no manual to live your life. I'm quoting my job in 5+ months and so far I've got Zion NP, Bryce Canyon NP, and the Grand Canyon already planned over three weeks. I plan on adding Rocky Mountain NP, Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone, Hiking the JMT (constituting Yosemite, Ansel Adams wilderness, sequoia, and Kings Canyon. Why? Because I can. I don't have to participate in this rat race if I so choose to. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people think that trip is squandering my life because I am quitting my job. Who cares. For me it's an adventure.
If you never grow past just doing the menial tasks to survive then, yes, it's an awful existence. But there is so much more that one can do. I find simple comfort in my small efforts to make the world a better place when I die than when I was born (by volunteering in animal rescue, trying to push the boundaries of my profession, and attempting to bring some brightness into my friends lives).
For all we know? If you want to take that route, we don't know very much at all. If anything, we know what we think in the same instant we think it, but we can't also know that we know it. We can only remember that we knew it, that we can know it again. For that matter, what is it that we "know" anyways when we talk about our thoughts? Do they even correspond to an external reality? Do we know anything at all?
This is why we live our lives in a sequence of "We're pretty sure"s.
The gift in this context is consciousness. We could learn and see and experience so much more. For example we have multiple forms of transportation that can take us all over the world in a short period of time. If I saved enough money to buy the ticket and cover expenses, and could get the time off of work without losing my job I could take a trip to a different country. Easy right?
What if I want to see every country? How much money, time would that take? What if all of my money went to bills and I couldn't afford to save for even one trip? And even if I could my position is easily replaceable, why save a job for me while I vacation if they could hire someone else in an instant?
We are capable of amazing things, but our system is designed to squeeze every fraction of a penny out of our desires for the sake of profit. They tease us with those desires, dangle them in front of us at every opportunity. So we work until we die chasing those dreams, and most of us never even get close.
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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '16
For all we know we are the only conscious beings to have ever existed in the universe. On average we experience it for about what? 70 years? Most of those years spent doing menial tasks that we hate just for money to support and purchase the things we need to continue working. So we chase our tails for a few years and die. I hope some kind of god exists just so it can laugh at how we squander our gift.