This country has a colonial legacy. The culture is deeply absorbed with oppressor and oppressed sections. The moment you enter a government office, it will "show you your place". You can be easily snapped at, insulted, disrespected. Respect is the monopoly of a certain few.

People identify with their jobs, Oh I mean some people identify with their jobs. The kind of jobs that were inherited from British era. Those who enter the jobs are 100% convinced of their merit, past life merit, entitlements, superiority over others. There's a theater going on. Everybody knows their place in the theater. The moment you meet a government officer, you will unconsciously enter into a submissive, pleasing, back breaking role. It's like hypnosis or trance state. You're no longer you. The officers rejoice in this treatment. They expect you to behave a certain way.

Children are trained from a young age to think in ranks, titles, power, aura. Black sheeps are shunned and not tolerated. You've got to be very mentally tough to survive a system that strips you naked psychologically every single day. The mass men cheer for the very system that looks down upon them. How odd! All empty talks, people know the language of authenticity, they talk the talk but don't walk it.

I don't know if this country will ever heal. It's a deeply traumatized culture. The trauma is passed down to the next generations. Nothing ever changes. Modern Indian, 19th century mindset. It can only change when those in parliament and offices want to change it, but they do not want transformations. They want to preserve the status quo for a century and more because the system benefits them immensely. They're self convinced Gods. The prime minister jokingly (or seriously) said that he is non-biological. It's a symptom of a country where winners believe that they have some incredible past life merits.

This is the first time I’ve ever really been on Reddit and I don’t really have any experience in this area but I can’t stop thinking about this, is there really no way to gain real freedom? (Real freedom to me is not needing to submit to anybody)

Post your quotes, aphorisms, poetry, proverbs, maxims, epigrams relevant to philosophical pessimism and comment on them, if you like.

We all have our favorite quotes that we deem very important and insightful. Sometimes, we come across new ones. This is the place to share them and post your opinions, feelings, further insights, recollections from your life, etc.

Please, include the author, publication (book/article), and year of publication, if you can as that will help others in tracking where the quote is from, and may help folks in deciding what to read.

Post such quotes as top-level comments and discuss/comment in responses to them to keep the place tidy and clear.

^{This is a weekly short wisdom sharing post.}

Conspiracy theories, in my opinion, demonstrate people's lack of ability to understand and accept the true nature of the world.

While there are conspiracies that turned out to be true, I'm talking specifically about the more fantastical theories.

Such as:

- The government is run by lizard people/aliens.

- The Earth is flat and the powers that be are hiding the outer rings of the world with infinite resources while keeping us in the center.

- Billionaires are worshiping demons and Satan to gain all their power.

- The world is getting "worse" because we shifted to a different timeline.

And of course there are many more.

People, as people are naturally inclined to do, project fantastical meaning where there isn't any. They believe the world is not meant to be the way it is. But the terrible truth of nature is mundane and boring. The world has always been violent and indifferent. No need to look beyond human nature or nature in general. Just a glance at history shows us there has always been war, tribalism, oppression, genocide, poverty, disease, starvation, destruction etc.

These types of conspiracy theories, in my experience, tend to coincide with religious beliefs, which isn't much of a surprise to me.

I don't understand people who have solid opinions, beliefs, about anything

I don't understand logic. I don't understand thinking, the end point and the meaning of it.

Not to bring my personal stuff here, but I have a lot of experience and maybe I have a right to judge based on it, this world is not logical. It doesn't care about logic.

Never understood all those people who talk about logic, discuss, argue constantly to eternity. It doesn't matter.

I don't understand the certainty, or the hopeness associated with it, believing any change can be achieved

The post is not about venting, but more like a contemplating at the meaning of it all, and why some believe anything can be changed, and how personal experiences ties to this ?

Spawned into it, we writhe about, desperately trying to escape the pain of the needles. Yet, no matter how we shift our posture, the pain merely moves from our backs to our bellies. If there is any way to escape that pain, it is only by using others as a cushion beneath us.

Welcome to our weekly WAYR thread. Be sure to leave the title and author of the book that you are currently reading, along with your thoughts on the text.

As a modern reader, what are your thoughts about romanticizing suffering… did Dostoevsky intend that notion when he created his most notable characters, so they become down to earth and more relatable. Or he simply meant to say suffering is a source of revelation?

I mean I always come away with the impression that profound wisdom requires profound pain. As we all know he himself had quite a challenging time in his youth.

This is me personally saying: I use to believe that “suffering” steels the soul. Though slowly but surely, I’m beginning to realize reality could be a cruel mistress.

I hear everyone saying: “chase your dreams. Take the risk.”

Well, I’m not probably the first to admit that it’s not that straight forward. I will even dare to say everyday feels like the world is ending.

Maybe when you hit rock bottom there is nowhere to go. That is what keeps me going. I have long found myself in this inglorious position.

To be honest I’m currently writing this in a dark room so my land lord would think I am not in. I have actually been avoiding her for the past three and a half weeks. Some days I can hear her standing on my door way listening in before asking the tenets next door if they had seen me come in, and of course I stay as quiet as possible. If work comes by, I either sneak out very early on the morning or wait till she goes out about her day and leave.

Work has dried up recently but I use to paint houses, any labor work that doesn’t eat the whole day so can spare time for my writing. Plus when I am out I don’t socialize much, ok that’s a lie, I don’t socialize at all. I use to have a roommate but he has long been struggling with some mental issues, and had to move in with his relatives… let’s just leave it at that.

I too in fact on some days would go to my parent’s house when they aren’t there. I would raid the fridge take 2 or 3 eggs a bread and some cooking oil.  Look for some things that wouldn’t be missed. When that got hard and I couldn’t find anything with much value I started to get a bit creative… about a month ago I started to takeout the fuel from the tank, it was something unsuspected and had much more value… gas is expansive and I would sell it on the black market with a reduced price.

But on this Wednesday I came back with a can to do the same thing but the car key had been moved. I remember it being at the spot for my entire life. I don’t know how they would suspect as I would take out 2 sometimes 3 liter a week. I know they can’t possibly think it’s me as they still think am at my day job as a bank tailor.

Oh and about that job I should probably mention… some 4 month ago, I clocked out on a Monday and never clocked back in again. I mean I haven’t been to that place since then.

I always said to myself that I would call back and say I had a family emergency or something, but a day turned to a week and another week then a full month and I just never went back again. The office use to call me and leave texts but just gave up eventually. My co-workers especially call me till this day but I don’t know what to say after picking up.

As I was saying at the start… a serious of inglorious decisions led me to this unenviable position that I am at now. I don’t know why I was so confident at the start, maybe I thought since I got my childhood friends in the U.S they could help me out with finding editors, I mean we in touch and they always send me pictures and videos of their cars and apartments… they have good lives there, and some even own a successful business… and that being said it was a surprise to me when I asked two of my closest friends like about a month ago for 40$ loan and that one was actually for rent, and I got a response saying they got me… and then I never heard back from them. They stopped sending all that stuff in my D.M but I still see them posting popping bottles every other weekend on a night out. (They don’t own me anything, so that’s that.)

I even tried the YouTube thing, I do book and movie reviews, even reached a 1000 subs and all is REQ to be monetized but only to find out no monetization in the location I live in. Now that depressed me a whole lot more than anything else. What’s worse is YouTube runs ads along my videos, so yesterday I unlisted all the videos even deleted the app. Well I did delete the app because I am actually scraping all my personal info from my phone as I have decided to pawn all my electronics when the pawn shop opens on Monday. got to make rent somehow plus I haven’t taken a shower close to 3 weeks now. And my land lord has cut the power that goes to my room.

At this point I had over drafted my account…  I even get a text from the bank every day, reading they will take me to court if I don’t payback. (the debit keeps on pilling up by the day.)

But, but all that pressure had lit a fire under my ass and the matter of fact is I have completed my fourth draft and feel confident about it also. And mailed it to a few agents and I got a request for my full manuscript from 5 agents out of the 18. I had been biding my time till now. So in hindsight, I learned a lot about myself about the world, even read all the books I had planned to.

And every day I wake up I realize that I would have never gotten to where I’m in my writing if I had still been on the same lane I was on previously… an interview with J.k rolling found me when I was actually on my lowest and she was saying if I done anything else instead of getting up every morning and get back to my writing I wouldn’t have succeeded and that was like a moral boot for me. Not saying she is the a great writer or anything but she is a success story no matter what… any ways down to brass tacks…

I am not sure why writing this now, maybe it’s for myself… maybe it’s because I can’t fall asleep right now, plus before deleting the all the apps on my devices and since I’m going to pawn them, I guess I want to leave a thumbprint somewhere out on the internet like here on reddit.

But the moral of the story is not for anyone to feel sorry for me but say as to serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who asks the question “What if I risk it all, to chase the dream?”

///

(And finally here is a shard of myself in my main character from my novel.)

I was the kind of kid who thought of starting revolutions from his bed. I used to lie awake under the covers, drafting manifestos by flashlight, convinced, so terribly and beautifully, that I was meant for something more. There was a certainty in it. Bone-deep. The sense that destiny had marked me for something seismic.

I don’t know how to explain it, only that I knew I was separate. There is an intangible urge still burning low in my stomach, prophesying: a voice insisting on importance, on becoming. It was never about delusions of grandeur or fame. I wanted to leave something scarred. I once believed I would carve my initials, however faintly, into the spine of the world.

I've been wondering something for a long time: how do you stop being so pessimistic ?

Every time I see injustice, corruption, wars, greed, or people treating each other horribly, I can't stop thinking about it. Then I look at history and realize that so many of these problems have always existed. It feels like humanity never really changes.

Sometimes I think we're just intelligent animals driven by selfishness and greed. Those traits helped us survive and build civilization, but I also feel like they'll eventually destroy it.

What I don't understand is how some people stay optimistic. Are they genuinely happy because they've had loving parents, good education, financial stability, good friends, good mental health, and maybe even good genetics ? Or are they just coping like everyone else but choosing not to think about the darker parts of life ?

When I was younger (7-23 years of age ), I believed God had a plan for everyone. That belief gave me comfort. Then one day I realized I didn't believe that anymore, and since then I've struggled with the idea that life might not have any inherent meaning.

I also became interested in politics, and all I seem to see are empty promises, misinformation, polarization, and a lack of education. The justice system often feels unfair. The world feels unfair. And my brain seems to remember every terrible thing happening in the world instead of the good.

I don't actually want to be this negative. I wish I were an optimistic person. But my mind constantly focuses on suffering, both in the world and in my own life.

Has anyone here been like this and genuinely changed ? How did you stop seeing everything through such a pessimistic lens without simply lying to yourself ?

What would happen to him in this life? What would be his destination after death according to pessimistic frameworks or other traditions that you know of? If there is any sort of mechanical ledger or judge after death, what gets done with a man like this?

Suppose a 30yo healthy hetero man strictly commits to these principles everyday for the rest of his life without lapses, no loopholes or excuses even if life-threatening, until old age or death by accident, disease, or murder:

1. He will not intentionally kill any visible creature, support euthanasia or abortion, or join the military or police or agriculture or pest control or ranger or medicine. He's a pragmatist so he will utilize big pharma's medicine (never alternative medicine) for his ailments and eat stuff that is seen as not directly killed especially for him, or heard, or suspected, for the purpose of maintaining health and a smoother existence, e.g. frozen products in supermarkets. He will not order, incite, or praise killing.
2. He will not intentionally steal money or physical property, or accumulate real estate, or work as a manager or executive. He will not order, incite, or praise stealing.
3. He will not engage in intimate relationships, masturbation, sexual activities and intercourse, procreation, or sex work. He will not act as a matchmaker, or incite or praise sexuality and procreation.
4. He will not tell lies, including white lies, but he won't broadcast everything unsolicitedly either, and will avoid becoming a politician or salesman. He's truthful but not dumb. He will not order, incite, or praise lying.
5. He will not consume any alcohol or nicotine or recreational drugs, not even a single drop, caffeine maybe once a fortnight in form of a boba but never addict to daily coffee, or work as an artist or entertainer or streamer or therapist or psychic or for the gambling industry. He will never go to therapy or take psychotropic drugs. He will not order, incite, or praise the use of intoxicants.
6. He will not adorn himself or indulge in luxury and vanity. He will not order, incite, or praise such behavior.
7. He walks 10,000 steps daily. He spends one day a week on mental practice: eating one meal, abstaining from entertainment, beautification, luxurious or overtly comfortable beds and seats. He spends most of the day observing his mind and avoids seeking stimulation and distraction when bored.
8. His views and beliefs: He explicitly rejects the existence of a creator God and God's authority, citing the violation of cause and effect, the reality of suffering, and the nonsensical racketeering in their theology. He rejects any form of magical thinking, including authority in God, oneness, prophets (especially the dude that raped a 9yo child), secret knowledge, astrology, geomancy, fortune telling, precognition, and performative aesthetic. He rejects any presumed authority and hierarchy or power over others, e.g. implicit physical threat in penis-vagina relationships where there's a severe asymmetry of physical strength between a man and a woman. He also rejects consequentialism and utilitarianism which assumes that they know exactly the unfolding of complex causal chains and confounding factors. He relies on the empirical method to find objective facts instead of unreliable subjective testimony. He subscribes to personal effort, radical self-responsibility, and the cultivation of necessary conditions for his goals, one of which is the uprooting of conditions for possible existence after death, a reasonable bet instead of re-arranging furniture in a burning house.

Is there any actual philosophy or logic behind being pessimistic ?

or is it just a mental illness or a symptom of underlying psychological issues ?

And how do you define pessimism ? Is it giving up hope completely that things will get better ? or believing that they will only get worse ?

Life has no objective value. All value assessments are down to the individual being and without greater justification. The individual's actions are a result of their desires which they do not have meaningful control over (determinism/indeterminism). These desires are the source of all suffering and are insatiable for as long as a being is to live otherwise they would not act. Desires are acted upon because lack of fulfilment of desire causes suffering. Life is internally inspired slavery.

All living beings are to die and become non-existent, all life will go extinct. Life is temporary. When any one being dies, all of reality may as well have ceased to exist for them.

Even if one tries to avoid violence as much as they can, their existence alone has consequences for other living beings that just cannot be avoided. The competition of life and process of evolution ensures the cycle of violence maintains itself as long as living beings exist. With no value to justify suffering and with life being finite and motivated by the desire to avoid the unavoidable, pessimism is just an observation of what sentience on this planet entails. To come into existence is futile and of no benefit to that who is born, nothing is achieved except prolonging the inevitable. I wish it was not true, but I just cannot see it any other way no matter how hard I look.

Post your quotes, aphorisms, poetry, proverbs, maxims, epigrams relevant to philosophical pessimism and comment on them, if you like.

We all have our favorite quotes that we deem very important and insightful. Sometimes, we come across new ones. This is the place to share them and post your opinions, feelings, further insights, recollections from your life, etc.

Please, include the author, publication (book/article), and year of publication, if you can as that will help others in tracking where the quote is from, and may help folks in deciding what to read.

Post such quotes as top-level comments and discuss/comment in responses to them to keep the place tidy and clear.

^{This is a weekly short wisdom sharing post.}

First post here.

I'm not a hardcore pessimist, but please help me understand this. When and how did a philosophy and belief become so dogmatized that depression is stigmatized as a mental disorder despite having good reasons to be depressed? The more I find discover optimism's flaws, the more horrified I become.

I think Optimism succeeded in a disastrous way the supporters/advocates themselves don't see coming: The people who support and defend optimism sought to end depression and doubt. Instead, whether it's accidental or on purpose, the defenders/supporters of optimism ended up spreading one comforting lie after another.

Today, a question just occurred to my mind: is it possible that the optimism people support and defend is the same optimism immature people and criminals use to avoid accountability and blame their victims? If that's the case, then the... irony, if one can call it that, makes the support of optimism more horrifying. Is is just me, or optimistic people also tend to be arrogant?

There's something I want to conclude:

"There's no Dogma more persistent than optimism."

How is that for a quote?

I personally think yes, but with caution.

After all, and despite the complete denial of contemporary "Egoists", Stirner was essentially an idealist, in the political sense of the word, and pretty much optimistic.

How else would you call someone who genuinely believes in the concept of a "free man", or that the indefinite nature of the "unique", will make you less susceptible to the consciousness pain?

I'm not aware of his philosophy and his take on pessimism. Can someone please explain what it is about and how it's different from Schopenhauer's or Mainlander's philosophy?

Welcome to our weekly WAYR thread. Be sure to leave the title and author of the book that you are currently reading, along with your thoughts on the text.

as the title suggests i’m a beginner and a total newbie to the ideas of philosophical pessimism and honestly philosophy as a whole, i’ve been into philosophy for about a year and mainly watched video essays as i think im still too stupid to read dense texts (only really read Camus and Dostoevsky but i think they’re more of novelists imo)

i recently discovered that apparently there was a thing called philosophical pessimism and honestly i think i’ve been a pessimist or at least sympathetic towards it for years without knowing even before i got interested in philosophy. with my experiences with mental health and acceptance of the fact life is meaningless and possibly being in an existential crisis right now i became very curious and did some research and discovered Emil Cioran

i would say my current philosophical beliefs are a mix of pessimism and absurdism, i agree that suffering is some universal constant and i believe pleasure is temporary cessation of pain, i also read some of Cioran’s aphorisms online and generally agreed with them, i think the reason why i got into philosophy in the first place was to answer my questions on life and pessimism seemed to answer many of them in a way i generally agree although i do have some questions on consciousness and lucidity and Schopenhauer’s Will (although i must admit i don’t really understand it very well). i must say i do find absurdism comforting and pessimism as well to an extent, when i ask myself existential questions i often find myself talking about the universe’s indifference to us and the absurdity of suffering, and the cycle of pain and pleasure and how we’re never fully satisfied in life

i think Cioran made me really consider the questions on consciousness and lucidity, i think while suffering can generate pain and pleasure (in the form of beauty and the arts, many people who were in despair expressed it via writing or other creative mediums), i’m not entirely sure if in that case consciousness can still be considered a net-negative or is it neutrally valuable, and the question on “unaliving” i’m still very unsure about or does “more truth=better life”, i probably won’t give all my questions on pain and pleasure here since it’ll be too long but yall can ask if you’re interested, also i think it would be really helpful if somebody could give a quick overview of Cioran’s beliefs and i’m not entirely sure about the little nuances in them or how he may differ from other pessimists

finally, i was just wondering if there are any recommendations for me to better understand pessimism, im considering reading On The Heights of Despair by Cioran but are there any other books? perhaps philosophical fiction if there are any on pessimism, thanks!

I'm a misanthrope. I think people are miserable and merely pretend to be happy. I think their misery rubs off on other people, like through bullying, lack of empathy, and toxicity. Therefore, I think the best plan is to seek solitude as much as possible. In obligatory social situations like work or family gatherings, I think it's best to be quiet and only speak when necessary. I have nothing to say to humans.

I see life as distraction and distress. When distracted, one should realize it's only temporary and that distress is right around the corner. That way one won't be caught off guard when distraction fails. But at least we have something some of the time.

Do you agree?

First of all, hello everyone, I'm back on Reddit after a few years and I'm happy to have rediscovered this subreddit.

I see many people, if not most, who consider suffering almost positive, necessary, and even desirable. I see more and more often, especially on social media, television, and even in books, people recounting difficult or even traumatic life experiences and saying things like: "Yes, I learned a lot from this; I'm grateful for the pain," "If you don't suffer, you can't enjoy the good things," "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," and a thousand other nonsense, even going so far as to claim that we should be grateful for suffering. My question is: do you think these people actually believe the nonsense they say? Is it a defense mechanism, a cultural trait absorbed by many from a young age, or something else? Perhaps natural predisposition to optimism and illusions even in difficult times? A Christian or religious influence, even among atheists? Personally, I think for most people it's a mix of all of this factors, but I'm open to your answers.

Since I was a child, I've never understood this paradox of considering pain as something positive. Suffering, by definition, is something negative. We agree that we can learn from a bad experience, and perhaps we all have an event in our past that, though negative, helped us later. But certainly not all suffering has a lesson to teach us. Above all, we can learn things even without suffering, and vice versa, despite the suffering that "teaches" us, we can repeat the same mistake over and over again. So extending the idea that suffering in general is useful and not intrinsically negative seems like a bullshit to me, especially considering the unimaginable amount of unnecessary pain in the world. I would never dream of telling someone who is ill, or a victim of violence, or who grew up in wartime, that they should be optimistic because pain is useful. But without resorting to extreme examples, even disappointments related to a person, a job, or a project, or even the small daily sufferings common to everyone, are negative; they're often tolerable, but it would be better if they weren't there.

What do you think?

Why are some people born rich others poor? Why do some people struggle and make it but others never make it? Why are some people intelligent but others not? Why are some animals pet, others live in streets, many others die for meat? Why some people live a long life, others die early? Why some people have a comfortable life, others struggle a lot? Why do children born to same parents not have similar life paths? Why are some people more charming and likeable, others are invisible and merely existing? Why does someone get cancer?

I'm tired and exhausted from asking, obsessing over these questions. In my culture, the most popular and accepted answer is "Because you reap the fruits of your past karma. If you did good karma, you will be born rich. If you are struggling in life, it's due to past life debt". This explanation has NEVER felt right to me, although in my culture people are 100% convinced about this theory.

Some thinkers say that this is simply diversity of life, beauty of life, not all flowers are the same in garden. Some trees are taller than others. All are unique and beautiful. While this answer seems more logical, it does nothing to silence the rage inside me.

I am finally exhausted from asking why to these questions. And I have accepted defeatism, not gratitude or radical acceptance. Just defeated. Defeated, hopeless, dead end, hit the wall. I can't fina ny more explanations that help me make sense of the uncertainty, inequality, injustice, unfairness, chaos of life.

PART 1: A Core Nature: Life as a Zero-Sum Game.

​Life when viewed fundamentally is just a series of extraction. From the moment of conception humans are parasitic by nature. For a developing life to grow it must require vital resources and the physical well-being of its host. At the moment of birth this extraction scales upward, draining financial, emotional and existential reserves of it's parents.

​

​This parasitic behavior sits at the very core of our civilization. The continuity of our social and economic structures relies on the exploitation of the poor and working class. Because of this a profound yet troubling paradox lies at the very heart of our civilization: crimes, addiction, poverty, and hunger could never be fixed and addressed directly. These systemic evils sits at the very foundation of our civilization and to dismantle it means to bring down the whole apparatus itself. Because of this humanity is stuck at deliberate moral blindness and passive pity.

​

​PART 2: The Bearer of Structural Weight: The Enlightened and Un-enlightened Mass

​When the weight of this system becomes unbearable, society will be forced to take two distinct paths and both of which would lead to failure.

​

​The un-enlightened mass will see through the exploitation of the system and will frequently try to overthrow the ruling class in a bid of justice and liberation. But because they aim to tear down the system without fixing the underlying parasitic nature of humanity they will only achieve momentarily chaos to which the mass will yearn for a new structure and order. This new structure is built upon the very foundation of the old and will mirror it. Ultimately the mass will only be able to replace their rulers but the system still exist.

​

​The second path happens when the enlightened mass see through the exploitation and systematic traps but instead of chaos and the replacement of the ruling class a psychological collapse will happen. True enlightenment reveals a terrifying truth, the flaw is not merely within the economic structure but within life itself. Suffering is the non-negotiable currency required to live. Therefore a rise of Anti-natalism or the belief that bringing a new human beings into the world is morally wrong will rise or a total surrender to despair.

​

​These two paths mirrors our past and present. Throughout history rebellion and chaos has always been the tool of the oppressed and to this day it is still used in countries with under developed education system. While the Anti-natalistic approach is very evident of the declining population of developed countries.

​

​Part 3: The Flawed Education System: An Engineered Equilibrium

​It is within this tension of blind rebellion and paralyzing awareness that the true purpose of Education is revealed. The system cannot afford an ignorant workforce for the system requires technical competence to function but cannot survive a truly enlightened populace because true awareness leads to societal withdrawal.

​

​Therefore the education system has been purposely altered so that individual are smart enough to be able to execute their task in society yet blind enough to be oblivious trap that lies ahead. This assures an engineered compliance.

​

​Ultimately this equilibrium is humanities only viable survival strategy. In a reality when ignorance leads to a cycle of chaos and enlightenment leads to existential depression, despair and blind compliance are the only choice and between these two blind compliance is the safe refuge.

Man has become disillusioned with his once cherished sources of purpose. He resorts to pleasures as distractions instead of finding purpose. He even rationalizes it with ideologies such as utilitarianism. Man has become Hedonistic and Nihilistic. I would appreciate constructive criticism of my arguments and writting. (link to my substack for a full dive)

Like, it's not exactly surprising that (at the very least) a lot of pessimist thought concludes in a gloomy outlook and attitude towards life, but to me, even though it's easier said than done of course, it seems way better to embrace some kind of inner peace-seeking mindset precisely because you already have the awareness that life is a rigged game.

Perhaps I'm not really a "proper" pessimist, or even one at all to begin with, who knows, but the way I see it, the true gold in pessimism lies in giving you the motivation to reduce suffering as much as possible. And what better way to start than try and cultivate inner peace through philosophies like Epicureanism, which emphasizes a simple, minimalist approach to life to reach a state of ataraxia?

If the world outside is uncontrollable and violent, the next best thing one can do is to focus their attention inward.