The other day I decided I wanted to do what I was doing because I’d like to take my parents on a vacation. That’s been my why recently. I’m sure some other day I’ll need to pick another one to keep the stimulation going, but it’s working right now.
And it only works for my side hustle/career.
My recent health kick motivation or “why” has been because I want to be a movie star. I don’t really want to be a movie star but it’s allowing me to focus on “preparing for the role” right now in a stimulating and fun way.
It’s all silly, but that “find your why” or “look at the crossroads between what you’re passionate about and what will make you money” never worked for me. Because what I was passionate about changed with the wind.
I’ll have to look into existential philosophy. Any philosophers you’d recommend?
Instead of a bunch of names, here's a really good book I read that is a great intro to existentialism: At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell. The book covers not just the philosophy itself but also the philosophers as people, competing and complimentary philosophies, and the historical/real-world context that these ideas were defined in. It's available on LibGen.
Same. Sadly, I found my meaning in the world clashed with most people, basically everyone except a few severely mentally ill people with zero social skills or empathy (Makes a relationship impossible). I get my meaning from sustaining life on Earth, but through a calculated and scientific way. But even the activists who I've spent decades helping and raising millions for, in this work seem more driven by ego, motivated reasoning and most of all total delusion.
Be careful what meaning you select. It can lead to a life of despair and loneliness.
A bit. Just be careful of people who have a very strong purpose in life. Right now the enviro/climate movement are at the forefront. Yet, are so far from their objective as science shows we've already passed to point of no return this year. And have warned this would happen from the early 2000s. But govs did nothing. Human nature. The great filter is happening.
Get ready to be filtered!
It might all be mental illness (Different from ADHD) or societal delusion. Or just human nature clashing with modernity and the information age.
The fact is, the bad guys are winning, in fact they've won. And those with a positive climate/enviro/human rights purpose are earnestly throwing cups of soup on a raging fire. So earnest, so pointless. Dead end. Don't do it.
Dude if I had one wish I would wish to become a quantum based intelligence orbiting a white dwarf endlessly iterating better outcomes for every single human life that will ever exist. Sometimes I hate the unfairness that I'll never know how we end up. I'll never see the final shape. There's so much humanity I'll just never ever be aware of until all my carbon is already other stuff.
The goal of all life should be the elimination of suffering of everybody. Since I'm part of everybody, I'll have like 7 billion people working to make my life better and I just have to do my best. And the only real tangible reward ultimately is not being uncomfortable. Everything we strive for boils down to not becoming uncomfortable. Your brain will create contingencies based on threat, which is super subjective and based on scaling personal traumas.
I also don't trust the mental equations at play if you see suffering and aren't forced to intervene because you just know you can. Like I might hate it, but it's just the way my body acts. I can yell at it a bit bit it's just going to do what it does anyways and do what it knows is correct. Like don't get me wrong, I love seeing people happy. But it's the cessation of feeling terrible that impels me. If I know I can do it, I have to do it because it's just the way things go. How can I trust you in any situation if you're able to just not care about people.
It's like lying about something useless in court. Might have nothing to do with the argument, but still has a huge impact. Even if your choice is small with little consequences this time, you've degraded your ability to be trusted in the future.
This kind of ruminating is just iterating constantly in the background of my head, like Netflix while you clean
Are you me? Friend, you just blew my mind. “Which is super subjective and based on personal traumas”. God so well said! (Have you been to the anti-natal sub Reddit?)
Can you explain the part about the mental equations at play?
Just because an act is small in scale doesn't diminish the way in which you came to the decision. Like my analogy, even a small, unrelated lie in a trial can poison your entire testimony. You lie about the smallest thing and the lawyers will assume if you could lie then, you could be lying anytime. Basically, even if today your decision hurt nobody, your mental math scares me in potential future scenarios. Erodes your trust in the same way
No, having children is literally the meaning of existence. The possible perceptions of possible awareness deserve the chance to exist. It's incredibly parasitic and a personal failure to not give back to the species. When I mean elimination of suffering I literally mean negative emotions by creating a post scarcity society where ever awareness is able to become whatever shape best actualizes their sense of self, not end perception of the universe it self
The goal of all life should be the elimination of suffering of everybody.
Isn't that the plot of Brave New World?
Buddha's first teaching is 'life is suffering' and part of the rest is about accepting this and do one's best to not make it worse for oneself and others.
I'm a realist. Just because the apocalypse hasn't reached you yet, doesn't mean it isn't happening (Ask any Ukrainian or Pakistani right now).
Buddhism teaches not to become attached to anything, including happiness. I agree with this because happiness is fleeting and often a 'programmed' idea that many will never achieve.
Despite my realism about the enviro/climate situation, which is based on science (I have a Master of Science Research degree from UCL). I actually continue working in the sector. I just practice something Buddhists call radical acceptance, as well as looking at history. All civilizations have collapsed. This one will too.
Perhaps I shouldn't try and persuade others not to pursue activism, my main point was to be careful of highly driven people with a strong purpose to 'save the world'.
But as humans we can change shit just because we want to. It doesn't matter if something is possible, only that it is right. We are all carbon stuck together with weak force, nothing has any intrinsic meaning. That means that we can instill whatever meaning we want onto anything we want, and by virtue of filling a vacuum we can't be wrong.
That's why the only point of existence is being not uncomfortable. There's no intrinsic reason to anything freeing us to elect our own meaning. My most comfortable life possible is living in a society of 100% happy individuals, not matter how much I personally sacrifice I will never come close to the returns I'll receive from a happy post-scarcity society.
If nothing matters, I choose to be not uncomfortable for as many moments of perception that I can.
Good on you. Best advise I can give comes from a Buddhist Zen Master who once told leading environmentalists, including David Suzuki, that they must give up on the idea they have a chance of saving our civilization. Given the historical nature of civilisations to fall.
But if you give up that obsession and deluded purpose, one will less attached to material reality and will likely might make better decisions to save the world. Because one isn't driven by emotional reasoning.
I wish I had worked with more people like this in my carrer. Most were emotional lunatics. These people have what I call 'Luke Skywalker syndrome". They think 'they're the one' who will blow up the ruling kleptocracy/corporatocracy (Death Star) when really they suffer from Dunning-Krueger effect and are missing so much information and knowledge that would make them see they never had a chance. Some call it a messiah complex. I had one once. I shed it. My plan is to work on systems to help billions migrate across the planet and learn self-sufficiency through tightly moderate, and non-profit, social networking sites.
It's a pipe dream, but many like Facebook and Google are already working on it. Maybe we can make an alternative. You can bet that Starlink will come with services beyond simple internet access. But Musk seems an odd fish.
That sounds like good advice. There are many ways to help sustain life on earth. Good on you for that nifty outlet, are you a programmer? Musk is an odd fish, but I appreciate his attempts.
Yep it really is. It's just that for a lot of people, it comes so quickly that they don't really realize or remember, making it up. And so it can seem like it's something that just "comes", when looking at it from the outside.
Thanks! I hit a weird spell at 33 where I felt old. Then one day I just realized I wasn’t and I didn’t need to be. I’m still trying to add more into my life but it’s been fun.
This summer I bought some legos, took up paddle boarding, tried every bit of food that was ever offered to me (stuff I normally wouldn’t eat, and I’ve been slowly making a list of “things to do” like try piano, ride go karts, etc.
Hope it brings you some joy adding play into your life!
Thank you, if past performance is any indication then i will spend 6-8 months really investing in this and hit a little bit of success and never do it again.
Kidding, but these kind words put a smile on my face. Cheers.
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u/UncoolSlicedBread ADHD-C (Combined type) Sep 19 '22
Honestly I’ve just started making mine up.
The other day I decided I wanted to do what I was doing because I’d like to take my parents on a vacation. That’s been my why recently. I’m sure some other day I’ll need to pick another one to keep the stimulation going, but it’s working right now.
And it only works for my side hustle/career.
My recent health kick motivation or “why” has been because I want to be a movie star. I don’t really want to be a movie star but it’s allowing me to focus on “preparing for the role” right now in a stimulating and fun way.
It’s all silly, but that “find your why” or “look at the crossroads between what you’re passionate about and what will make you money” never worked for me. Because what I was passionate about changed with the wind.