Is life really just a sham, constantly oscillating between pain and boredom, where the brief pleasure of the predator is always outweighed by the immense pain of the prey? Is Zapffe correct to assert that our consciousness is tragically over-evolved to necessarily result in our angst and dissatisfaction? I don't want to believe, but these often seem the most reasonable positions.
I've tried living a modest life, dedicated to aesthetic and intellectual contemplation, as Schopenhauer prescribes. I've tried the base hedonism of drugs, alcohol, and junk food. I've tried the purely physicalist approach of good diet and exercise. I've considered going back to religion, but that's something I just can't commit to at the moment. I've tried living in accordance with a set of ideals, a strive towards virtue. All seem to work well at first, but I'm inevitably led back to that feeling of emptiness. Is there any real, lasting remedy to this predicament, other than death?
Start with the greeks. Seriously though, you'd probably find Epicureanism and Stoicism interesting
Ayden Ortiz
>Schopenhauer
Ah, the siren of pessimism. Very tempting, but don't be tempted. He makes a few convincing arguments, but coming to terms with Nietzsche's life affirmation is really worth the trouble I've found.
Blake Foster
Read a bit of them in college. Pretty similar ideas to Schopenhauer'a asceticism or even Voltaire's garden-cultivation, no? I should have the handbook of Epictetus lying around here somewhere though. I'll look through it again.
Been on my list for a while now.
John Scott
How long have you tried to apply those philosophies? Going to 3 parties doesn't make you a hedonist, eating salads for a week doesn't make you a physicalist, spending a summer alone reading is not "dedicating your life to aesthetic and intellectual contemplation". If you're the age I assume you are, and you didn't become self sufficient / control your own activities immediately out of middle school, I doubt you've had enough time to give even one of these a real attempt (let alone all of them)
Kevin Reed
Read Lev Shestov.
Jason Ward
I'm glad you made a thread on philosophical pessimism OP. However, most people tend to view it only with the view that you put: the emptiness and dissatisfaction that never seems to go away.
Everyone tends to forget that stoicism is primarily a defense (a great one) against grief, pain, worry and misery. However, It generally doesn't provide any significant answers on how to be happy. At the most it tells you to live a virtuous, civil life. It doesn't go beyond that. It doesn't tell you what to do when you've tried to live a virtuous and civil life and failed to find any satisfaction or significant happiness. It just assumes that a virtuous, civil life will bring satisfaction and stops there.
As for Epicureanism, it also espouses a remedy (that of moderate pleasures) and stops there without considering the possibility of an individual who might not derive contentment from such a life.
What then? What now? What do we do? I think the solution lies in the answer to the question "Do we have the ability to change the utility we attach to the things that affect us and to what extent can you change it?" I believe that the answer to this question will tell you if you can live a happy life or not.
I suspect that some utilities (such as the "NEED" for food, sex and companionship) are hardwired into us and that if we don't get these then we're fucked. Other utilities (such as the "WANT" for luxury, cars, big houses) are those that we adopt by learning from the environment and can be changed to a greater degree.
So if you want to escape this shitty chase of dissatisfaction, try to attach lesser value to the things that evoke dissatisfaction and disappointment and more to those that don't. EVEN after that, the emptiness won't go away. You will just end up being distracted enough from it. And that is the best that you can do in my opinion. to let the dopamine take you high and do its work from distracting you. Those who're not happy end up being more self aware of this emptiness which fucks them up more. those who're happy (have found distractions in family, career etc) don't have to face it. They go their entire lives living or chasing that high.
Matthew Diaz
That being said, I also suspect that once one becomes aware of this emptiness, it is extremely difficult to get rid of it. Maybe people eventually make peace with it or end up living unhappy lives. I don't know. I still haven't made peace with it to be honest and I don't really know how to.
Blake Adams
My hedonist kick was about two years straight of constant alcohol, marijuana, and drug experimentation. The healthy living has been going for about 10 months now, after I decided to quit the hedonism, and I was also living that way for about a year and a half prior. The aesthetic/intellectual contemplation coincides with the healthy physical living in both instances. The virtue kick is admittedly more recent, though I've briefly flirted with that and similar concepts at various other points throughout my life. I'm 23.
Maybe you're right that I haven't yet dedicated sufficient time to any of these, but the whole point is that I inevitably become disillusioned from them, perhaps before I'm able to cultivate a 'real' appreciation for their lifestyles. They all provide a boost in mood and motivation for a while, but then they become routine, and I return to my (maybe all of mankind's) default state of boredom, emptiness, and dissatisfaction. It's as if anything we do as a remedy can only ever be a momentary respite from that default state.
Jack Clark
This is a quality and insightful post. I think you're correct that much of the proper response to these issues lies in that question. I think much of my problem has been that lately I hardly derive pleasure from anything, as if I've become burnt out on my regular hobbies but can't find any replacements that help me achieve any of the satisfaction I used to find. So I'm in a situation where I can attach less significance to the things that have traditionally given me dissatisfaction, but I'm still attaching lots of value to things that have traditionally given me pleasure but don't (at least not to the same degree) any longer. This elicits great feelings of disappointment.
Maybe this is largely because I've been lacking the hardwired utilities. I have a few close friends but I barely get to see them anymore. They're all busy with work and building their relationships, and a few of them have moved away from the area. There are some people from my hedonist days I could link up with at any time, but every time I do I feel increasingly alienated from them, which furthers my dissatisfaction.
Adam Evans
Matter is a prison. The ego is a virus. The greatest virtue is learning how to die. All paradoxes will be reconciled behind the veil.
David Gray
>the greatest virtue is learning how to die Elaborate on this part?
Josiah Edwards
quit being a city faggot
Austin Hernandez
Try helping other people I heard that it brings alot of satisfaction
Carson Smith
face it dude there is no answer, you will always feel this emptiness. just pick which one of the lifestyles you have tried that gives you the least emptiness. for me aesthetic contemplation works the best although i think everyone needs a hedonist phase and subsequent burn out
Christian Cruz
Have you really tried those things, or just thought about what it would be like if you tried them?
So schopie thought we should either contemplate art or become ascetics?
I haven't read his work, I'm still further back than all of that, but what made him think asceticism is a solution to suffering?
I do feel the desire to deny yourself, though I don't understand where it comes from. I figure a lot of people do to some extent. I'm not sure if it is the challenge of the thing, but something does seem very interesting and desirable about actually achieving the self-discipline to be an ascetic. Or a stoic for that matter. Does Schopenhauer's ascetic also contemplate art, or does he just exist in competition with the desire to do anything?
William Allen
did u try antidepressants
Jace Brown
clearly you do not know what the fuck you are talking about.
what i've come to realize, which many people think is pessimistic but i actually find quite empowering, is that literally nothing matters. You will inevitably die, your grandchildren will die, their grandchildren will die, and in time the entire human race will be extinct and everything that people make such a big fucking deal about will be wiped away and forgotten in time. It will all be swept away by time. This is a fact. Nothing matters. Your true form of existence is death. At this point you can choose to believe in an afterlife, there's no way to prove/disprove it so whatever. So use your short time here wisely, be happy, enjoy yourself, enjoy the present moment.
here's a reading list that will set your fucking ass straight: >Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu >Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse >Letters From a Stoic by Seneca >Striking Thoughts by Bruce Lee >Being and Nothingness by Sartre >The Way of Zen by Alan Watts >Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn >The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietszche
Jaxson Allen
hello lebbit
Jayden Perez
I think it refers to death of the ego or self-abandonment. Recognizing "That art Thou" or Tat tvam asi
Grayson Lopez
>advocating nihilism >recommending Nietzsche
Anthony Wright
This shit actually pisses me off. A completely baseless and flawed argument
Justin Bell
good grasp of what depression and a suicidal mentality entails
Caleb Lewis
This is a good idea
This is what I suspect. I wonder if the best method for me is simply to keep cycling through these lifestyles, moving on to the next one once I grow bored and disillusioned with my current one.
I've tried each to the best of my ability, yes.
No but I often wonder if I should.
>just bee you'reself and enjoy life bro, it's that simple
Wow totally compelling advice, never considers it that way
Xavier Butler
thats a lot spooks user
Colton Hill
Understand the Flower Sermon and pass through the gateless gate, lad.
Lucas Perez
>This is what I suspect. I wonder if the best method for me is simply to keep cycling through these lifestyles, moving on to the next one once I grow bored and disillusioned with my current one.
What I do by default.
Though I'm going to try to do a more "balanced" approach and see if I can't actually just do enough things that my time is always going to be full reflecting on, or progressing/improving in each of them.
I usually end up consuming myself with an obsession for a while, and then burn out. But I remember when I was a kid I had a lot of excitement for weekly television shows and upcoming book releases of the fantasy series I liked. I was able to gather a lot of distraction from just anticipating what was going to be available given some time. I feel like if I could just capture that again, I might be able to feel a general excitement or amusement. I figure cycling through several kinds of hobbies or interests will leave breathing room for the others to keep me in anticipation.
The only problem with this is that the weekly television schedule was something imposed on me. If I refuse to binge on certain activities, that is self-imposed, and so there might be a difference in experience.
Austin Baker
This is all because you lack immersion. Read Nietzsche. Understand Nietzsche.
Alexander Allen
I had the same experience as a kid, eagerly anticipating the latest episode of my favorite shows and the new releases of my comic books every Wednesday. The anticipation for new comic releases kept me going throughout high school. Though I still continue to read comics, by college I'd become invested in other mediums like film and literature, and noticed I was falling behind the comic world; it would take me several weeks to months to get around to an individual issue. Now I stick exclusively to trades, and read them whenever I get around to it.
I don't think I'll ever be able to recapture that sense of anticipation.
I'm the guy who you replied to in this post. I know exactly what you mean because I'm going through the same thing more or less. I moved abroad for higher studies and they've all joined jobs far away so I won't get to see them.
But more frighteningly, I don't seem to be passionate about the things I used to be about anymore. I don't enjoy most things with as much fierceness before and I'm afraid that the more this problem worsens, the deeper I will sink into that emptiness which at times leaves me in a horrid, deeply dis-satisfactory and alienated state.
For the first time I'm beginning to realize the dread that the emptiness induces when there are no distractions.
As an escape, I currently just listen to a fuckton of music and read literature. But it's just that: an escape. I'm trying to explore some other hobbies and hopefully, a busy enough academic life in which I may or may not find a passion could prove useful.
Joseph Powell
It's slightly coincidental that you call him "schopie" because I do too. I guess it isn't that unique a nickname for him.
Even I've read very little by him but I have some grasp on why he was inclined to it. If you've read Siddhartha by herman hesse you'd understand why schopie would approve of it. The point of asceticism is not self denial but denial of the ego and denial of the chase that our "wants/needs" impose on us. A huge amount of sorrow, dejection and misery is borne from our constant, desperate, harrowing race to keep these wants satiated. Schopenhauer understood that this coupled with our ability for self awareness inflicted a huge amount of misery on us. An ascetic, disciplined and stoic lifestyle attempts to restore some sort of calm and peace with this struggle. Only when you "acquiesce" to life and to a minimal lifestyle will you have any shot at peace. Schopenhauer might assert that art can help you in this endeavor.
(Anyone: feel free to correct if I erred anywhere)
Colton Hughes
you equate hedonism with drugs, alcohol and junk food? How about the activity that is literally synonymous and epitomic of hedonism - sex and intimacy? Why am I putting emphasis on this aspect of hedonism? You can think and analyze all you want, you can try to intellectually solve your existential conundrums and get answers through philosophy, but in my opinion it's just overthinking life and not seeing things for how they are - much simpler than we'd like to admit. Biological determinism and the limitations of our free will - we evolved to function and behave in certain ways and we can hardly go against our biology, no matter how remarkable our cognition. There is no more life affirming activity than intimate relationships and sexual encounters, and no amount of thinking and analyzing will give you the fulfillment that these activities do. Our bodies are machines and our mind is a part of the machine. Get a girlfriend, have sex, and you will never be asking these questions again. Trust me.
Kayden Jenkins
have you tried gardening? maybe try to move somewhere cool
Brayden Cruz
>biological determinism and the limitations of our free will - we evolved to function and behave in certain ways and we can hardly go against our biology Not OP. But I agree with this. Even stoicism claims that there's no point going against "nature"/"human tendencies". We're biological machines that are programmed to search for the things we search for: companionship, sex, hunting (career and food).
But I think you overestimate the amount of satisfaction that one can derive from a significant other. Finding someone who you can connect with beyond a superficial level of just "impressing the other enough to continue seeing each other" is rare. And when you see how base and devoid of substance most relationships can be, you become more cynical of them.
But yeah, I guess finding a qt who is sensitive and with whom you can connect and be yourself around sounds great. Because then at least you know that if the emptiness is going to consume you then you wouldn't be so utterly alone while that happens and you can always turn to that person for solace and warmth. I don't know how that feels but I wish good luck to OP.
you are absolutely right for thinking that I perhaps overestimated the importance of intimate relationships. there are so many other things in life that can lead to fulfillment. I emphasized this aspect simply because I believe it is one of the most powerful and natural contributors to overall well-being, but certainly not the only one.
Isaac Rivera
Totally identify with losing your passion. I still have moments, sometimes stretching for days, during which I can appreciate music, film, or literature with the same zeal I had as a teen or in the beginning of my 20s. Unfortunately those moments seem to be growing sparser and sparser.
I make threads about philosophical pessimism on Veeky Forums, what makes you think I can get laid? Drugs, booze, and fast food are as close to hedonism as I was able to reach.
I have not. I suspect that if I do, they will follow the same trajectory as every other remedy, fulfilling at first, then empty and quotidian. Maybe these are the answers though.
Wyatt Phillips
Not OP. I read this. It says very little to be honest. It claims that the denihilist: 1. embraces the postmodern condition 2. rejects transcendental values and nihilism 3. acknowledges absurdity of transcendental ego 4. engages in bursts of spontaneous actualization
None of this actually tells you how to live life and escape the emptiness. When you've rejected everything that it claims to reject, where do you go? It sounds a lot like anarchism to be honest and that is reaffirmed in the last paragraph where it randomly espouses subversion of power structures.
On a casual glance it might seem as if this is a radical text but it really isn't. It's just another arbitrary and temporary "fix" with the only difference being that it at least acknowledges the arbitrariness of its own suggestion. It also trivializes human action by simply stating that any act can be carried out by "why not?" but it forgets that choosing which act to carry out at any instance is the primary question in ethics and philosophy. before it says "why not?" it must explain the "what". And it's suggestion is subverting power structures in society for some inexplicable reason.
Andrew Clark
>they all provide a boost in mood for a while
so just keep switching them
Joseph Lewis
So how's that Mainlander translation coming along? That should give us non-German pessimists something to look forward to, at least.
