To all dorks saying "Nihilism isn't about being depressed, it's about [text length of an average leftist meme]" I just ate a really good garlic bread and don't give a shit about what niche-ee had to say. All that time you spent typing out your dork 95 thesis on posting could have been used that to make some delicious garlic bread but you didn't
I would be a depressed nihilist if I were you, a person sans garlic bread
Coat whole peeled garlic with olive oil in an oven safe bowl or dish, roast it in the oven at °425 for like 20-30 minutes. Bam. Garlic confit and garlic infused olive oil. Confit Keeps in the fridge for a few weeks. Take some of your confit and mash it together with butter, some of the olive oil, and whatever seasonings you have. Honey or something spicy is a good twist. Spread on bread with cheese then throw it in the oven
Your OP meme is nihilist and existentialist. The “yet we dance” is saying “yes there’s no meaning, yet we dance”. That’s an existential nihilist position
Are you getting mad at your own meme?
Mad at dorks trying to make me learn philosophy
I will never read philosophy or theory
The Gay Sciences indeed
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. It’s rather absurd that I get to live at all.
I feel like I understand the Buddha better as years go by. I want to enjoy this strange and mysterious opportunity to be without becoming too attached to all these temporary things, myself included. Indeed, my life today looks nothing like it did 10 years ago. I’m not sure I am the same person. In many ways, it’s like every day we die and become something new.
happy for you that your quality of life is enough that it's "get to" and not "have to".
even the poorest monk can find moments of joy and happiness that give meaning. I wouldn't be blasé
fuck yeah bro give me 1 second of joy and 86.359 seconds of misery every day and i'll love life bro
For context I was born a poor Egyptian and lived through the so-called Arab spring and personally saw murder and death. I’m not some coddled imperialist, and I feel like I have a better connection to life than the comfortable yanks
congrats on dodging the myriad mental illnesses you could've caught from that trauma. do you have an effective clinical treatment for major depression or just survivorship bias?
I don’t claim that it’s universally worthwhile. It just is what it is until it isn’t.
And it isn't what it isn't until it is. Swapping around words and dualities is not wisdom, it's sophistry.
I believe you're missing the forest for the trees. Words are signposts, tools. It doesn't mean literal vacuous truth. The phrase is illustrative, of course.
In this case, "is what it is" means forgoing judgement because it doesn't change what already is the case. This seems fundamental to Buddhist teaching that was mentioned in the root comment. This attachment and resistance is, to some interpretations, the source of suffering. At least that's how it was taught to me during my short time living at my local temple.
"Until it isn't" refers to death.
I'm not missing the forest for the trees, I'm telling you that you are looking at a desert with a scrub brush, insistent it's a forest.
It is vacancy masquerading as truth. I am perfectly aware of Buddhist dualisms and detachment theory. However, per Wittgenstein, there is no real wisdom or metaphysical truth to be gained in phraseology and word games. Particularly if they are readily interchangable with their contradictions. It can be fun, but not nessecerily wise or meaningful.
'Isn't what it isn't" means foregoing judgement because it doesn't change what already isn't the case. This attachment and resistance is, to some interpretation, the source of suffering.
'Until it is' refers to death.
However, per Wittgenstein, there is no real wisdom or metaphysical truth to be gained in phraseology and word games.
They aren't playing word games, you are merely interpreting that way. They are conveying a message via the words to you, one you reject without reason
Actually I’m fine being attached to temporary things, experiencing loss and negative emotions is something I consider healthy for me. I don’t understand why we have these expectations for ourselves that we have to all become beings separate from the reality around us, and deny our emotions and feelings. Feeling remorse and sadness that something is gone does not demand that you cause harm because of it, and the fact we fear that remorse and sadness, not in the normal sense of trying to avoid it, but outright opting out of caring about what we lose or gain, means we haven’t learned to be a living being at all. I think maybe teaching people to feel pain and remorse in healthy ways may even lead to more happiness overall than trying to prevent it at all costs.
Edit: It makes me sad that I will die someday, but accepting that it makes me sad and yet I cannot change it makes much more sense to me than trying to change the fact I am fundamentally sad or attached to this life in the first place. I can accept my emotions and the reality around me at the same time, and in places I cannot, I think it is important to remember that we often experience emotions for a reason, because we are beings capable of changing things for ourselves and others. The important part is to ensure it does not let us hurt people (when not hurting people is a practical option)
Of course others might not feel the same way as me. But everyone is different
existential nihilism doesn't require that there is no meaning, just that there is no inherent meaning. Meaning can still be created and received through recognition of others.
Those who stop at the breakdown of old morality and wallow in filth are nothinglords who missed the point of breaking down the old social constructs, that is, to build new better ones and even later break those down again and so on... That is what history is, that is what the dialectic is - the eternal process of change and exchange.
There is objectively no meaning in the universe, but IMO nihilism is cringe. Absurdism is the way to go.
absurdism is also cringe because it implies that we should be content with a reality of meaninglessness rather than forging things that are meaningful to us. indeed the problem of the Absurd is not real, an issue only present in a culture that is used to relying on God for meaning
Yeah I definitely am more sympathetic to Hegelian ideas of meaning, in that I believe the connections and dialectical relation between people is where meaning is created and received. Meaning originates in the area between you and I, we both create it and then get it back - that is between two equal comrades.
There’s all types of unequal relations such as master-slave or tenant-landlord or employee-employer or two parties at total war. These create distorted and off balanced meaning that has to be enforced with violence and are filled with contradiction. At some point they will necessarily end.
This is pretty much where I'm at personally, and you worded the ideas very well.
Oh I should clarify Absurd-problem-like symptoms can also be caused by depression caused by living in shitsholeland so don’t take this as me saying your depression is invalid, your struggle is real. I’m talking more about the abstract idea of meaning than the emotional struggle of having a hard time finding it.
I certainly find De Bouviourvian goals in life and such, but ultimately looking for a “meaning of life” is a foolish task, because it is just our culture that told us it is out there. Ultimately we will leave this absurd world and find ourselves worm food.
I don’t see how a “meaning to life” has to make us immortal or something to be valid. My life has plenty of meaning in it and the fact I will die eventually doesn’t really hurt that at all. In fact it probably aids it.
I mean “the meaning of life” is a myth. You can find it meaningful but there isn’t some answer out there.
Think of it like free will. When most people think of it they think “a specific person could make any decision physically possible” and imply they might make a different one if you went back in time. Instead we do make decisions freely, but those decisions are completely determined by the way our mind works and the influences we have encountered.
The point I’m trying to make is that it can exist, but it’s different from how people colloquially imagine it (say, someone asking an omniscient being “what is the meaning of life?”).
I mean “the meaning of life” is a myth. You can find it meaningful but there isn’t some answer out there.
Answer to what? That seems dumb, I find plenty of purpose in everyday life. This idea of there being some sort of transcendent purpose to existence is what I mean when I say people are reliant on the idea of God for meaning. Christians culturally hyped themselves up for there being some fucking Thanos Infinity War that all of life is trending towards and got angry when they realized they were wrong and, in fact, it does not justify being assholes to the majority of humanity.
I agree with you completely, by the way. I just dislike how we have painted this idea of transcendent meaning as somehow better than the purpose given to us in our impulses and desires. I don’t know if a world with an objective, transcendent meaning would even be enjoyable to live in. It might actually be miserable to live in. Everything not bending towards that one purpose would become universally meaningless.
The meaning or lack thereof of life doesn't abrogate your responsibility in life: to change the world for the better. This could be as impactful as being the architect of a world-historic event and it could be as modest as being a good role model for kids who will grow up to not fuck up as much as you. But everyone has this responsibility, and this responsibility is completely orthogonal to whether life has meaning or not.
There's nothing more meaningless to question whether life has meaning or not.
Bourgeois absurdism. You can only be a nihilist if you can afford to not care. The rest of us are forced into Sisyphusification by that same meaninglessness.
Eternal recurrence but it's me putting my makeup on every morning.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I want you to know this was a really good point ignoring the sissy hypno memes lol.
Too much thinking in this thread when obviously you should just flow like a river and smoke weed
I don't give a shit if God is dead, I want to know if God is giving head?
"What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest jerk off, and say to you, "This goon sesh as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it other than me sucking you off? but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and cumsplosion everything unutterably small or great in your Armenian conveyor belt with your bros will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence" ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine."
the wrong things turn to dust and the wrong things turn into the stones we build our world on
