SniB

Ok

This is incredibly frustrating. Knowing that I can't know...


I want to know the truth, I know that the truth can't be known. I don't want to live based on assumptions and fairy tales (maybe they're possible, I don't know). Ok, maybe fairy tales are the best way for someone like me...if only I could convince myself they are truly possible.

I don't know what to believe if the truth is unattainable, if I just believe nothing, then life means nothing. If life means nothing, then the fact that I'm unhappy is reason enough to change form...a form without conscious thought (is this possible? it's unknown grrr). I believe it is within my power to do so. I choose not to because I care more about others than myself. I would have to wait until my actions no longer affected those that care about me. This is a lifetime, perhaps, so I live my life in suffering until I choose to be happy about it for no reason.

Maybe that's as good of a reason as any...since reason and meaning mean nothing.

I want to be happy, I don't know how.

Does this mean I should stop with all these questions and just be.

I exist, this is all I know.

I'll stop there.

Buddha

This might not make sense, open minds please.

One thing about all this bothers me.

O.K. People with loving familes and great careers are happier than someone like SniB or myself.(don't saying SniB doesnt have those things but I cant think of a differant way to say it). They're happier because they've busyied their mind with these things. They ignore the human tendancy to seek out the unknowable. This in my mind puts them in the same category as people who base thier lives on organised religion(not that's there's anything wrong with either). It's like there is a curious voice in your head but you drown it out with the noise of life.

I wish I were a cat. I actually remember saying that to my mom when I was young, like 5-7 years old. She said something like "Then you would'nt know how great life could be". I still wished I was a cat, and I still do. Consciousness is a curse.
I belive I am so indifferant about life because nothing matters. This causes my life to look like somewhat of a waste to others I think.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm insane. Sometimes I wish I was so I knew what my problem was.


Sorry SniB, did'nt mean to hyjack your thread but I usually cant form such deep thoughts so I had to go with it.

SniB, you are by far the most interesting person I've met in months. It's refreshing.

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Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are american dreams

nakamichi680zx

Fair enough. There is no Magic Bullet SniB--no one to tell you how to simply be.

But to your question and point earlier; it IS the journey.

And all you need to do is be and pay attention--but as others may tell you, this is still a LOT to do.

There are people who dedicate their entire lives to the goal of mindfulness and it is life not boring or without happiness or compassion or without pain: it is total immersion into living and the journey. And when you live that fully, the destination becomes irrelevant.

To borrow an analogy from Wayne Dyer: if life were a stream and you wanted to experience it by placing your hand in this stream, you appear to be placing your clench fist in the water and not feeling the water--your hand is too tight. It is when you relax your hand in the water then you experience it flow in and around it.

You exist, yes, but while doing so you also can extend your awareness of each moment and do more than survive. You can do it.

Please let us know how you are.

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GrassHoppah: The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

nakamichi680zx

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GrassHoppah: The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

SniB

Alright,

I just wanted to say that I appreciate all of your input. Seriously, thank you.

No worries, buddha, if I have helped you in anyway then I'm glad. I'm also amused by being so interesting to you.

Ok, I guess it's a choice I have, to choose that the journey is the important part and just do the most good that I can, or not. It doesn't matter, but I will choose to do so, because that is what I feel like doing...so what. Does it matter? It does to me, if I say it does, because it is my choice. I could decide that turtles matter and dedicate my life to improving their lives. As long as I live the way that I feel is right and do the best that I can according to me...

well, I guess I'm pulling that old cheesy line of 'just follow your heart.'

...whatever I decide that it means.

debdodd

I'll give you a reason to live ..... just to piss off the people that wish you were dead ...

there seem to be so few finite answers in life that one could drive themselves crazy with the what ifs and what is. I have had times when I've felt like why do I continue to wake up every morning ... wouldn't it be so much easier to just go to sleep ... take the final dirt nap and then possibly find out all the answers .... but I've realized that I tend to generate all my own misery by thinking I needed all the answers and not "knowing" was frustrating for me .. damn it I just had to know all the answers ... life's hurdles were too much blah, blah, blah what ever spin I wanted to put on that current state of questioning and that feeling of futility of never being able to "know it all" (that's not to say I haven't been accused of being a "know it all but I digress) ....

I don't think there is a simple answer on how to just "be". Sometimes to be just means lying in the grass looking at the puffy clouds and seeing what rorschach picture you might see and other days it's wrestling with the demons of self doubt or whatever.

I think if one choose to die it is because they are a chicken sh*t ... death is so much easier than living.

But hey, that's just my opinion .... like I said I just wanna out live all those that wish I'd drop dead

__________________
"Ubi dubium ibi libertas."

"We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again ....."

NotConvinced

I enjoyed reading your posts as well as those who replied in this thread. You can think and think and think and still be nowhere, or you can just be and somehow be everywhere.......ofcourse it could very well be vice versa. What seems to matter most to me, are those closest to me, and the outreach for those with a similar view on life. It's the connection that I find drives me, the connection with others like me, and also the connection with those who aren't. I could tell you a thousand deeply insightful quotations and you might be no better off than you were before reading them. I would make the most of them by trying to find the connection that exists between them and me, them and everyone else, and me and everyone else with regard to them.

I guess I could say I've been down the same line of thought as you, and in the end it sorta leads to nothingness, there's only so much you can say to yourself before even the Words lose meaning, and it's only a matter of time before thoughts follow. The easiest way to describe it in the simplest of terms is that I was looking at the world, and the universe, through negative eyes, seeing nothing there that could possibly meet the expectations that had been implanted in me throughout my personal development. You don't have to let it trap you, and it's much like a depression spiral in that the symptoms effectively aid the disease.

Even though we come to the same conclusion that we don't need to fear death as others do, I find very few logical reasons to end it.

I find that the interaction with other people, physically and mentally, and indeed the mental interaction with yourself, can further aid you choosing what ever the hell you choose to do with your life. The interactions help you understand yourself a hell of a lot faster than you alone could do it.

Much of the time the true me feels much like a passenger, staring over at the badass behind the wheel, just enjoying the ride.

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Everything you think you thought, the water's gone...every drop.

to_hobbes

These posts are all very long, and I am tired, so I will just throw in my two cents without regard to whether or not someone already said it.

If you are trying to understand the universe and yourself and your place in the universe, I like the divide-and-conquer technique of understanding.

While I consider these questions to be all part of one big question of "why", I split this "why" question into two perspectives. The first perspective is from the universe's the point of view: that we are meaningless clusters of atoms floating around in space, and the universe doesn't care about us, and we just live for the sake of living, and eventually, everything we know in this life will be gone, either evolved into something new, or destroyed. This perspective is correct -- assuming you are the universe.

Now, assuming you are human, it might be better to look at things from the second perspective: the human point of view, which is that we were born and we have emotions and intellect, and we don't really know why (ignoring the physics/biological explanations for now). But we do know we are alive, so we can use our intellect to make the best of it. Even if it is all pointless from the perspective of the universe, we are not the universe, so we should be thinking about everything from the human perspective. Thinking about how pointless humans really are from a universe perspecrive is a valid intellectual exercise, but it is not important for our "home" perspective of being human.

Concentrate on doing things that you enjoy, and making yourself and others happy. There is nothing wrong with thinking about how pointless we are in the face of the stupendous size of the universe, but dwelling on this point is prone to make you forget that you could be doing other more human things.

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(By the way, it's all in your head.)

Skepticologist

Well said. I've postulated on why it makes sense to do good things, and I'm still working on a hypothesis that it's all in line with Darwinism and the perpetuation of the species, but it's very unlikely I'll wrap that up before I check out.

That leaves me with an unsubstantiated "gut feel" that what's left for me, after years and years of looking mostly after me (often in the guise of looking after my wife and kids), needs to have precious little to do with me and a lot more to do with others who weren't as fortunate as I've been.

At this point, I've encountered a whole bunch of fellow human beings whose situations compel me more than any turtle I've met to date, so I'll probably focus on them. Humans seem to have a far greater potential to get screwed up than animals.

And I think you're right on target with our assertion that the best you can do is to "live the way that I feel is right and do the best that I can according to me". If you sincerely ascribe to that ideal, it's hard for me to imagine how you could go very wrong.

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"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

Clarence Darrow

shadowind

the only meaning i've found is relative meaning, and thats enough for me.

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remember "for mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescirbe to oursleves is liberty"-rousseau: the concept of the general will "if we can not reconcile all opions, then let us endeavour to unite all hearts."-?"to be is to be perceived"-? "‘We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know’-Robert G. Ingersoll