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What's your philosophy on Life?

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 8:58 pm
by Wes Mantooth
Anyone else out there think life is utterly pointless?

I'm not sad or depressed I just think life is meaningless. I still enjoy my life and do my best to make sure everyone around me does but eventually, everything I do will (quite shortly) be forgotten and I'll cease to exist.

I think the problem with this whole 'nothing matters' view is that people take it to an extreme and do whatever the fuck they want with no regard for anyone around them which is totally fucked up.

Am I alone in thinking like this? What do you all think?


I want to hear everyone's life philosophy, I think at least I could learn a lot and gain some perspective hearing from other people.

Re: Let's talk about Nihilism, Cosmic Pessimism, etc.

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 9:16 pm
by Greenfuz
i am sad and depressed and I think life is for the most part meaningless


but I wanna make some cool music before I die

in the long run all you really are is what you've done and left behind after you're gone

Re: Let's talk about Nihilism, Cosmic Pessimism, etc.

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 9:23 pm
by jreeves47
The meaning of life is life, and making more of it. Also fuzz

Re: Let's talk about Nihilism, Cosmic Pessimism, etc.

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:16 pm
by Wes Mantooth
jreeves47 wrote:The meaning of life is life, and making more of it. Also fuzz


This is good I like this.

I feel like for me it just helps me feel more comfortable, like I can be a total failure but still it won't matter because in the universal picture of things, my life doesn't matter. Though I am glad most people don't think this way, the world would be kind of fucked up probably.

Re: Let's talk about Nihilism, Cosmic Pessimism, etc.

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:23 pm
by bigchiefbc
Wes Mantooth wrote:Anyone else out there think life is utterly pointless?

I'm not sad or depressed I just think life is meaningless. I still enjoy my life and do my best to make sure everyone around me does but eventually, everything I do will (quite shortly) be forgotten and I'll cease to exist.

I think the problem with this whole 'nothing matters' view is that people take it to an extreme and do whatever the fuck they want with no regard for anyone around them which is totally fucked up.

Am I alone in thinking like this? What do you all think?


Of course it's pointless, assuming you mean as opposed to life having some sort of directed or intended point. And saying that doesn't mean that you or I are depressed or suicidal. It just means that we both realize that nothing you or I do or will ever do will have any effect whatsoever on the world, or anyone else in it, aside from our close friends and family. That doesn't mean that we might as well just die, it just means that you should just try to make yourself and those closest to you as happy as you can for the time we have, because at the end of it all, it means fuck all to the rest of the world. :idea:

Re: Let's talk about Nihilism, Cosmic Pessimism, etc.

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:28 pm
by Wes Mantooth
bigchiefbc wrote:
Wes Mantooth wrote:Anyone else out there think life is utterly pointless?

I'm not sad or depressed I just think life is meaningless. I still enjoy my life and do my best to make sure everyone around me does but eventually, everything I do will (quite shortly) be forgotten and I'll cease to exist.

I think the problem with this whole 'nothing matters' view is that people take it to an extreme and do whatever the fuck they want with no regard for anyone around them which is totally fucked up.

Am I alone in thinking like this? What do you all think?


Of course it's pointless, assuming you mean as opposed to life having some sort of directed or intended point. And saying that doesn't mean that you or I are depressed or suicidal. It just means that we both realize that nothing you or I do or will ever do will have any effect whatsoever on the world, or anyone else in it, aside from our close friends and family. That doesn't mean that we might as well just die, it just means that you should just try to make yourself and those closest to you as happy as you can for the time we have, because at the end of it all, it means fuck all to the rest of the world. :idea:


Sorry if my point didn't come across but that's kind of what I was getting at, a blissful cosmic indifference :thumb:

I just do my best to bring the number one rule of ILF to my real life: don't be an asshole.

That said, I do struggle with apathy a lot and sometimes fear I'm way too comfortable with death. Maybe that's a good thing :idk:

Re: Let's talk about Nihilism, Cosmic Pessimism, etc.

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:35 pm
by dubkitty
i have a rather odd philosophical approach nowadays which i like to think of as Christian Nihilism, based on the Calvinist idea that God has already chosen the Elect and there's nothing we can do about it except play the scenes we're given. i just try to be decent and hope it gets sorted out somewhere down the line.

Re: Let's talk about Nihilism, Cosmic Pessimism, etc.

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:46 pm
by Wes Mantooth
dubkitty wrote:i have a rather odd philosophical approach nowadays which i like to think of as Christian Nihilism, based on the Calvinist idea that God has already chosen the Elect and there's nothing we can do about it except play the scenes we're given. i just try to be decent and hope it gets sorted out somewhere down the line.


So do you believe in predestination then?

I should just change this thread to life philosophies, I like hearing everyone's even though I'm hardly eloquent enough to properly portray my own.

Re: What's your philosophy on Life?

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 11:10 pm
by Mudfuzz
create as much art and general creativeness as you can think up... all else is just to help you do so... or has to be overcome for getting in your way.

Re: What's your philosophy on Life?

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 11:26 pm
by Joe Gress
Enjoy it while you have it, because it'll never come again. Personal goal I would say would be to make the biggest impact on as many people as I can.

Re: What's your philosophy on Life?

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 11:35 pm
by Achtane
I can't say for sure if there's an afterlife or not but personally I think you live your life and that's it...I don't think there's a higher purpose or anything beyond what you choose to do yourself or make your personal goal, creed, whatever. I don't believe in any kind of deity but I do think we're, as a whole, crazy fortunate to exist.
Well, I mean, a whole lot of terrible shit has happened and will happen, but it's also pretty astounding, that whole existing thing.
To oversimplify it, I try to be good and appreciate other people and my situation while I'm around. Compared to the span of history, in a relatively short time nobody will know a thing about me. How many people even really know who I am, and in turn, how many people can I claim to truly know? How many people in the entire world have lived and died?
Dude, I don't know anything about any particular peasant in any particular village that existed even "just" a thousand years ago. I'm just a person who lives in a country on a part of a planet that chills with other planets in a galaxy that's part of a fuckoff-huge area of space...WHICH ISN'T ANYTHING IN COMPARISON TO THE SIZE OF OTHER AREAS OF SPACE, SHIT.

Summary: SPACE IS BIG

Re: Let's talk about Nihilism, Cosmic Pessimism, etc.

Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 12:21 am
by dubkitty
Wes Mantooth wrote:So do you believe in predestination then?


that's a difficult question to give a "yes" or "no" to. i believe that we have free will in the sense that we make individual choices--or at least have that impression--but i believe that some events and life changes (emphasis: "some") are beyond our control and indeed that we're often given situations and opportunities because we've reached the point in our journeys when we're finally prepared for them, or they for us. for example, free will was involved in bringing my second wife and i together, but we were always going to meet.

Re: Let's talk about Nihilism, Cosmic Pessimism, etc.

Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 2:06 am
by Haki
Life has no grand purpose, other than perhaps the biological one of procreation, so you get to spend it as you see fit; doing what you enjoy most as much as possible.

Wes Mantooth wrote:That said, I do struggle with apathy a lot and sometimes fear I'm way too comfortable with death. Maybe that's a good thing :idk:

I don't think you can have enough apathy as long as there's something you really enjoy doing (like making beautiful fuzzy noises). The apathy helps you block out the more boring parts of life such as work.

Re: What's your philosophy on Life?

Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 2:14 am
by 01010111
THIS IS MY PHILOSOPHY
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR46gQLyxuE[/youtube]

Rant inside:
NSFW: show
Without reading everyone else's:

I found out earlier that I've been trying to live my life according to Kant's categorical imperative; I should try and act in a way that should be universally applied. I used to go by that Gandhi quote "live the change you want to see in the world," but the categorical imperative concept feels a lot less hippy. I don't do this because I have a belief in the afterlife, because I don't have any idea what to think about the concept of the soul, or whether or not our consciousness are eternal. I live this way because it's how I would want everyone else to live.

I don't see any evidence for god or the afterlife, so I don't think we should bank on getting some kind of sweet ride after we die. And in the perspective of the cosmos I don't really feel like we have a purpose. That is very different from saying that we have no purpose, though. I look at this lack of divine or cosmic intervention as something empowering. THIS LIFE IS MINE, AND MY PURPOSE IS WHATEVER I WANT IT TO BE! :animal:

This is very intimidating to me, because I feel that life is truly a gift; that we are different from the star stuff from which we are made because we are alive. So, whatever purpose we choose for ourselves should be the highest purpose that we can achieve. For instance, I feel like my life should, at the very least, not make anyone worse off, and if possible I should try and eradicate poverty (I feel like poverty is one of the biggest injustices; in the same sense that the seven sins weren't actually sins, but were the things which caused man to sin). I feel like if I'm not able to create, invent or discover, I should do my best to help create a world where art and science can flourish.

After reading everyone else's:
In my view it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. There are very few people in this world who's opinion about me I actually hold in high esteem, maybe one or two, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. As long as I live a life according to what I think is right, and I make the people closest to me happy, I could care less about being remembered in even a year. If with my life I've been able to help make the world a better place, even in a small way, and made the people I love happy, then I feel like I've succeeded in life.

Re: What's your philosophy on Life?

Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 2:36 am
by snipelfritz
I'm an optimistic absurdist. Searching for "connections" or "reasons" for things that happen to us or why people do what they do is useless.

To me, a finite belief of God (moreso how God acts/thinks) is rather pointless. However, I believe that any "rational" person cannot deny the existence of God with any certainty (Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence). Saying you "believe" God doesn't exist is fine, but don't act like you can be any more certain than people who believe God is real.

Life is pointless, but that doesn't mean it wasn't designed to be pointless.

If you want to know more, just read Camus' The Stranger or listen to this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdbLqOXmJ04[/youtube]

(I feel like at least one person reading this was expecting that The Cure reference after the first sentence)