This is what I want to talk about. My inclination towards existential thoughts. It's become a way of thinking about phenomena in general, not just the horror and meaninglessness of existence. In a way, it's relieving, because nothing matters. You can live your life any way you want, and it doesn't matter. All of these feelings you have. All the pain, misery, bliss, pleasure you experience mean nihil. There are so many conflicting thoughts and thought schemas playing on shuffle in my mind that it makes me insane and useless. To move on in my life, I have to make decisions and weed out the thoughts and ideologies that are wrong. But I have no idea where to start. I am ever confused. It then comes to me as no surprise that so many people have such radical and varied thought patterns and, consequently, culture. It then makes sense that in order to coexist, we must be tolerant of each other and be as understanding as possible of the arbitrariness in everything. That, in my opinion, can be an aide in learning tolerance -- by constantly remembering the random and impermanent nature of everything.
That sounds like a Buddhist perspective. Pleased to meet you. I am a quasi Buddhist expert at being being insane and useless, still wondering where to start after 56 years of it. Never did much else, really. ---
Pretty thoughts but hardly of an existentialist who is dangling his feet over the edge of an abyss so immense that his 'meaningless' existence would ignore with a sneer such a diplomatic generalisation towards a hustling and erratic mob edging him to JUMP because they are crowding his meaningful existence behind him! Bah.
I do understand what you are saying, but you what I find truly amazing about all this? So many people wasting so much of their life trying to sort through all the various dogmas and philosophies. People spend SO much mental effort and time trying to discover "what it all means." If someone wants the meaning of life, they have to get into religion - nothing else can provide it. Unless you accept the idea that the whole purpose of life is simply to reproduce and perpetuate itself. My whole point is that I think it's natural to wonder about such things - and everyone does now and again - but to spend more than a few seconds on it, when the thought crosses one's mind, it just to waste your time and mental effort on nothingness. Why insist on knowing the unknowable? The answer cannot be found so why not dismiss it the moment it comes to mind and move on with something - anything - productive?
It is silly, Light...but some people just can't get over their need for a rational basis for their existence. They can't achieve one...see life as a futile journey...and end up feeling more unmotivated than ever. It's best not to adopt this stance since no one KNOWS if life is or isn't futile. It may have a purpose.
I agree perfectly. It's just like trying to catch a sunbeam in your bare hands - cannot be done. So those that DO attempt it only wind up more confused and frustrated than when they started, much as you said - and in the end have accomplished absolutely nothing .What a way to have wasted your life!!
IGNORANCE IS BLISS! You need to think less and do more. Accept you are a worm in the grand scheme of things and that your life has no predestined purpose or resolve to make yourself purposeful and do some good (or bad if that is your inclination??) , help the sick, feed the hungry, invent something fabulous, write a memorable play...if you want to make a mark do it, or just enjoy the ride and the great pleasures that a physical form presents us with. The beauty of nature, the beauty of emotional relationships with animals and humans, the physcial pleasures of sports and sex, life is great, embrace it, meaningful or not meaningful the choice is YOURS!
apendrapew, While I'm in agreement with what appears to me to be a sense of frustration, the above two quotes illustrate an incomplete understanding of existentialism. People love to gloss over existentialism as an 'oh woe is me' mindset, and this is completely wrong. More to the point, it's an incomplete understanding. While it is true that the existentialist perspective pays homage to the fact that, ultimately, there is no meaning in the world, and the individual therefore is meaningless, the real 'essence' of existentialism is that it is this very recognition of our reality that enables us to truly lead a meaningful life. Once recognized, we can only conclude that all we can do is create meaning, and thereby live fully.
just know tis....Satre who started th exist-ential philosophy was 'inspired' tp do so after a particularly bad mescaline trip........!! also, that we dont HAVE to create meaning' life IS meaning. so much so, it is awesomly depthless with meaning
Actually, it's more correct to say that Kierkegaard 'started' existentialism. And Sartre hadn't tried mescaline until after writing his first piece of fiction, and two texts. Actually, not only do we have to create meaning, but it is actually impossible to not create meaning.
Why do you say it's impossible 'NOT to create meaning'? I think that anyone who believes 'life has meaning' believes (whether they accept it or not) in a 'God' of sorts, as if you don't belive in a 'God' then what meaning do you imagine life to have other than you are here by 'chance?'
It is impossible to not create meaning because every single action you take, in some small way, changes the world, thereby altering it, thereby rendering it it new. If someone believes that 'life has meaning' implies a deity, then I can only feel sorry for them.
Ok, so you are saying that because life changes and we are responsible for initiating those changes, means that our individual lives have meaning yes? So when a leaf falls from a tree and blocks the sun from hitting that spot of grass thus causing it to yellow and die, means that the 'leaf' had meaning, because it affected the grass it fell upon. I would actually describe this process as cause and effect and without 'meaning' and the same applies to humans, unelss you are implying something grander for humans? If you don't believe in a diety why do you assume something greater for humans?
Not exactly. I'm not using the word "meaning" in the same sense as you apparently. For something to have meaning, it must be grounded in a context. So, for something to be meaningful to me, it is necessarily connected in some significant way to my self. So it's not so much that I'm an agent of causation as that I'm an elector of change: I could have acted in such and such a way, or another, or another, ad infinitum, but, I chose to act in one particular way, which irrevocably changes the world. What I'm getting at is this: things cannot 'have' meaning, all there is, is 'meaning for'. Scientifically, yes. Existentially, not necessarily. Was it observed? Was it somehow relevant to someone? Etc., etc. It's not the causality that's significant, it's the election, volition that is. (I'm going to refrain here from going on a rant about the highly dubitable nature of causation, I'll just mention Hume. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) There's nothing grand here, just choices. I make no such assumption.
but we DON'T HAVE to create meaning, but be OPEN TO meaning. Life IS Meaning. Life and death and regeneration IS MEANING
I'm simply stating the existentialist perspective here... not necessarily disagreeing with you. From an existentialist POV we do have to create meaning.
Aaaaaah. Well then, that could certainly be interesting. Alas, I fear we've gone off on a wacky tangent here.... I wonder if the thread-starter might return to digest what we've said?
I think it is you who doesn't quite get what an existential experience is about. And that's what I was pointing out in my post: when you're in an existential gravity mine field, inspirational negotiations with a perceived inanity is impossible. Yet, a "meaningful life" is not something that gushes forth from existentialism -- but from the stillness of an existence when the master existentialist forgets himself.
