"Life sucks and then you die". I've heard and seen this before and I always thought it to be nothing but a stupid phrase conceived by immature, emotionally unstable, pessimistic, "emo", wanna-be rebellious, arbitrarily nihilistic whiners who really had no clue what terrific things life had to offer and how much those things could override the inevitable tragedies and sufferings of life.
I was wrong. Life's nothing but one big tragedy, that happens over and over and over again, for all of eternity. I'm not talking about individuals’ lives, I'm talking about all of life in general. It's one big pointless fuck up of the universe, and the only rational thing we could possibly do to save us from the misery that we're forced to face through experiences of death, illness, pain, rejection, heart break, and incessant longing for a God, meaningful existence, love, and harmony, is to kill ourselves.
Don't worry - no one's pulling the trigger here. However, there are times when we have to realize that life all over is fucked up, microscopically and macroscopically. In so many ways, we have nothing to look forward to. Nothing to hope for. The only shred of hope we have in our minds comes from fantasy fairy tales read in books and seen on screens. Our imaginations successfully ease our pain as we drift asleep at night, and we pray and believe in all the nice things from the movies and stories we experienced when we were young, and still experience now, all about nature, beauty, love, enchantment, mystery, creation, happiness, and all of life's intangible treasures and glorious adventures.
Why do we fall for this shit? We race up to the top, and we see the glimmer of light for only a moment, and feel the warmth of something True that is above and beyond our earthly existence, and every time we think we've gotten where we're supposed to be spiritually, the clouds gather and we fall, tragically, inevitably, passively, as no great hero, with no great accomplishment, no success, and that sliver of light we imagined is forever nothing but an illusion. We're destined to fail. We've always been destined to fail and lose everything in life, even life itself. Everything ends and cycles recur, people and things are created and destroyed, we're stuck in this torturous and unbearable cage of not only inescapable fear of death, pain, our government, punishment, disease, and heart break, but also of fruitless labor, undying yearning, constant dissatisfaction, and tremendous disappointment.
What do we do with life like this? What are we supposed to make out of it? How can we even go on every day, doing our work, writing our school papers, taking our tests, building and demolishing relationships, achieving mild success paired with outstanding failure, watching fellow beings of this earth hurt and killed, knowing nothing of what existence is really for and about? How are we to truly free ourselves from this despair, this clawing anxiety, this heavy anchor in our chests that keeps us held to the world of futile hope and desperate attempts at happiness? The truth we all must face is that the only happiness that will ever exist is that which arrives upon death. The true closing of our spirit, the turning off of our brains, our feelings, our consciousness. When we end, the world ends, and when the world ends, suffering ends. Death is the ultimate transcendence. Who cares what sappy hopefuls tell stories about and inspire us with? They're wrong. They're only there to try to pull us out of suffering, by giving us art, music, theater, poetry, dance, and everything else created in order to release minute fractions of the immense pain that consumes us. All of life is nothing but constant striving to escape suffering through endless cycles of creation and destruction. And it's all meaningless. We're nothing in time, nothing in space, nothing in reality. Why don’t we just give this shit up already?
being happy is pretty cool, it's just not something you achieve through "achieving" things
ReplyDeletewhich is really a psychology thing more than anything
basically the way I see it is this: some people are tricked into believing that happiness is achieved through "success"
then they achieve the things they're led to believe will make them happy, which generally does not actually occur
so they get surprised, and then they get sad
I don't have any scientific basis for this, but I feel like being happy is strongly based on just not getting caught up in one's surroundings, the opinions of others, etc-- to the extent that people could probably "learn" to be happier by doing that
which is kind of buddhism I guess
so yeah buddhism seems cool
try being a buddhist maybe
this sounds like a you problem, not everyones life sucks, mines pretty awsome not trying to brag.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think that ignorance is bliss. Other times I think bliss is ignorance.
ReplyDeleteAre you not able to live for the moment and be happy with what you have? What makes you view the glass as half empty and not half full?
Lifes it a journey not a race. we all know were its headed, i doubt your life is so terrible, just remember someone allways has it worse than you. when you take time to be thankful for what this life has just randomly given you, your a pretty lucky person
ReplyDeleteTo quote the song of Skyrim " Damn it boy why do you heed, To such shallow, mortal whims?
ReplyDeleteThere's a battle that needs your steel my son,In the land of old Skyrim!"
Skyrim will make you happy. Killing dragons which I envision to have some of my profs faces certainly helps me brighten up my day.
Prof. Chaos
"They're only there to try to pull us out of suffering, by giving us art, music, theater, poetry, dance, and everything else created in order to release minute fractions of the immense pain that consumes us."
ReplyDeleteSo why don't you try making your own art. I am 70 years old and love making art, can't wait to get up every morning and start another painting, poem or story. This consumes hours of creativity and my time...try it yourself!
You have already done something creative such as this blog. I dare you to paint what you feel! Artist are the happiest people I know! They know how to escape this world and create there own. Everything you see will become beautiful when you learn to see and feel the beauty around you and find the artist in you.
This post is about the human condition. And why we let ourselves suffer in the first place. Why do we care to grow? To seek knowledge? To find transcendence? To understand love and the workings of the universe? Why do we care to find a purpose? Can we not just accept that we have no purpose and we only live for the sake of surviving, but we're only surviving so that the same series of events can continue on ad infinitum? That life is nothing but a grand misfortune? A tumbling of forces, stirring around, chasing us at all times, waiting to grip us in misery, while all we live for is to avoid it, so we run and leap and try to make strides in life, overcoming the dark forces of sadness, guilt, anxiety, distrust, anger, and hate, and for what? So we can just die a few years later, and seemingly entertain a more worthwhile, pleasant, and meaningful life? The truth is we'll never avoid it. We'll always be running away from suffering, and suffering will always catch us, over and over and over again.
ReplyDeleteYou all think I'm talking about my life. My individual life. Well I'm not. I'm talking about ALL of life. Every living thing on this earth is just trying to survive. Happiness doesn't come from anywhere. Happiness doesn't exist. Happiness is nothing more than the absence of suffering and the ignorance of future suffering. Day to day, I would say I'm pretty happy because I'm rarely suffering and I try not to think about this shit country full of shit people, shit work, shit education, and shit values. I get personal glimpses of happiness that appear to be true, everlasting, astounding, fulfilling, satisfying, and real. But all in all, it's an illusory image. An illusory sense.
If there is any happiness, it is to be found in nature, in our animal roots. We must appeal to nature to understand ourselves. And nature is devalued daily. The truly happy beings on this earth are animals, like squirrels merrily chasing each other, unaware of the car that is about to crush them as they skip across the road. Unaware of their existence, they are unaware of their inevitable non-existence as well. Thus, they are truly one with the world. Humans cannot be this way. The art we create will always be nothing but an invalid extension of our feelings and our creative powers, and it is always left up for interpretation, for others to perceive incorrectly every time. When I look at the art I've created, I have a sense of joy, but I remember it's nothing but a board and some paint, and others will see what they want to see in it. A useless extension of myself that ultimately has no purpose other than to sooth my own despair. Art has no real value in the concrete world. And the abstract world is what we create in our minds, and express through art, just to make ourselves feel better about the concrete world we're all inevitably stuck to.
This isn't about finding happiness. Or "living in the moment" or being "happy with what you have" or not seeing "the glass half empty". It's not about my life, and me complaining about my life. It's about everyone. It's about despairing over humanity's futile existence. We mean nothing to the universe. Our sun does not rise everyday to show us how much it loves us. Heck, it'll be gone in a few billion years anyway, and everything we've done here on Earth will have been a complete waste. Every war we've suffered through, every religion we've fought endlessly for, every power struggle we've strenuously encountered, every love we've lost, every ounce of compassion we've sickened ourselves with, every investment we make towards Truth and Love is washed away, and the more we invest, the more we suffer in the end. So I say, why not give it all up?
Put your life where your mouth is and go jump off a bridge. Actions speak louder than words right? You say happiness is just the lack of suffering. Why can't it be the other way around. Suffering is just the lack of happiness. And you really think that in a billion years the human race will not have figured out a solution to the sun problem. No real way of knowing. But human civilization has been around what 5000 measurable years give or take a few thousand years. I'm pretty confident in 1,000,000,000 years we will have figured it out. Just because were all going to die does mean it's all worthless. Worth is in the eye of a beholder. Make a child laugh and honestly say that that action was worthless. If you do think it was worthless then take my advise in the first sentence.
ReplyDeleteI actually think the poster is quite right. But despite it we keep on living and going. It's because of those moments that everything is ok that we keep going. That's all life is really is a series of repetitions with some nice moments splashed in-between. Living despite it's complications remains quite popular.
ReplyDeletepeople could always do what I do. Exchange this reality for another. Through video games and cheep booze I distort my reality to something manageable. Then I get up and take care of what society wants, then I have my moments.
Prof Chaos
I believe no one can be happy just content.
ReplyDeleteAlso check this out:
zeitgeistmovement.com
The Truth "with a capital T" shall set you free
- Scott Walker
If we mean nothing to the universe like you say, then there is no meaning in the universe. If you truly think that there is no higher truth then why are you despairing over not being able to find one? We're all just along for the ride. I'm gonna try to appreciate it, for whatever it's worth.
ReplyDelete"If there is any happiness, it is to be found in nature, in our animal roots. We must appeal to nature to understand ourselves."
ReplyDeleteSounds like you need to fuck a little more. Get back to that animal stuff, you know. Fuck. Then gorge yourself some more. Fuck again. There's nothing more natural than that! I suppose you could go to the bathroom afterwards. That's natural too.
I am so happy that Scott Walker decided to weigh in on this meaningless issue. Let's have the biggest airhead in Wisconsin shed his pearls of wisdom upon us all. He'll probably try to find out if there was a way that meaninglessness could create jobs and "bring business back to Wisconsin!" Hell ya! Let's get some businesses that sell some big whopping shits of emptiness. Oh wait. We already have advertisers. AND VECTOR HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
11:15 - great speculation but I said we must appeal to nature, not our natural instincts exactly. So yeah, we can eat, sleep, have sex, and go to the bathroom like animals, but that's not really the point.
ReplyDeleteThe point is that we need to go back to where we came from to rediscover ourselves and what purpose we could possibly have is going to be in nature. As humans who orient ourselves around technology and stuff that keeps us removed from nature, we forget what it is to be one of earth's living beings.
"The point is that we need to go back to where we came from to rediscover ourselves."
ReplyDeleteBS. There is no such thing as "nature." All there is is "social." Just say what you mean. You don't like technology. That's all fine and dandy, but don't judge us if we like it. You just throw in the nature part because you want to appeal to some kind of authority of nature. Doesn't exist. You're trying to claim authority where it doesn't exist. You might as well appeal to the Bible. You're doing the same thing.
Yikes, so, you're one of those who thinks we magically dropped out of the sky? As though this earth did not raise us, give us the means necessary for a spectacular evolution of body and mind? You don't think it was nature in the first place that brought us to the point where we could have the intelligence and brain capacity to create technology? Look down. I bet you have nipples. Like all other mammals. Somehow that tells me nature still governs us, a little.
ReplyDelete