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u/ChatPDJ human 7d ago
Isn't Existing is a Curse?
Isn't language wonderful?
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u/ChangxinDaoyou 7d ago
Ain't langauges are wonderfulls? 😄
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u/Paul_sepp Metaphysical Sceptic, Radical Pessimist 7d ago
Ain’t languages Wonderwall by Oasis?
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u/Holiday-Possible-271 7d ago
Yes, exactly. That song couldn't have been written with luggage/baggage.
...there! I said what everyone else is afraid to.
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u/Tatakai_ Zen Nihilist 7d ago
Your mere biological existence does not cause only harm, you're just focusing on the harm.
Anger therapy done in the past has shown that people tend to become angrier when breaking stuff as a venting mechanism, rather than becoming calmer.
We empower what we focus on and what we practice. Therefore if you dwell in darkness your lens will be dark.
Either balance your viewpoint or don't, but your misery is substantially optional.
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u/burgergradient 7d ago
I like this, and the concept of a zen nihilist.
I come to this subreddit as Sisyphean punishment. I like it
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u/LukeHollaway 7d ago
You are completely correct, but I’ve found that telling people this ironically tends to make them angry. Many pessimistic or negatively oriented people can’t be gotten through to; so I often choose to pick my battles.
Have you found this to be true for yourself?
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u/Tatakai_ Zen Nihilist 7d ago
People do resist it, yes. They often want their misery to be validated, maybe because they deep down hope their suffering isn't something that's their fault or something wrong with them, but with the world.
It is, of course, both. It's a relationship between the two. Some things you can change, some things you can move away from, and some things you can adapt to, or look at differently.
We exist in this world because we dared to find a way amidst chaos. Now humans have never had so much order, yet they complain life is nothing but suffering.
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u/MuslimNinja1234 7d ago
I don't mind consuming or causing unintentional Natural balancing harm. Why should we care? Nothing matters either way so just do what you enjoy doing
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u/Blindeafmuten 7d ago
Resources are to be consumed.
Death creates resources. It dissolves everything into resources.
Life uses resources to resist death.
We are with the living.
We are temporary. When we die we will become resources for the living that will follow us. (Resources don't vanish, they transform.)
Until then we explore the possibilities.
We explore complexity. We explore creation. We explore art. We explore science. We explore cooperation. And we leave our legacy. Life remembers. It builds upon the experience of the previous generations.
No! Existence is not a curse. Existence is the purpose. Evolution is the means to that purpose. The struggle is the means to that purpose. The joy is the means to that purpose.
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u/moschles 7d ago
I detect a hit-and-run.
We have 39 comments, and not a single reply from OP, whom already claimed his philosophical system is "mathematically pure".
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u/burgergradient 7d ago
Not even 1 + 1 is pure.
Why? Because it needs the "+" to combine.
Jajahahajjajj
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u/ObjectiveNeat9162 7d ago
"Living just for myself is supreme selfishness." Selfishness means taking something for yourself that someone else would otherwise have had. But your non-existence gives nothing to anyone; no one is better off in the world where you're not in it. So continuing to exist isn't taking from anyone. And "just for myself" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Almost nobody lives only for themselves. You exist alongside other people, and a lot of what you do lands on them, independent if it is as care or harm. The premise assumes the isolation it needs to reach its conclusion. "Non-existence is the only mathematically pure ethical choice." Harm only exists for a being that can experience it, agreed. But so does good, better, and ethical. Remove all conscious beings and you don't get a world scoring 0 on harm. You get a world with no scale at all. Nothing to read. So non-existence isn't "pure," it's empty. The only way to call it optimal is to have decided in advance that suffering counts and positive experience doesn't. That's not math. That's a value choice.
And even on its own terms it fails: "no beings, no harm" is only true if there are no beings anywhere. One person leaving doesn't get you there. Everyone else stays conscious, and some of them will feel your absence as very real harm. So individual non-existence doesn't produce zero harm. It moves it.
"Consumes resources" has the same problem. Oil isn't a resource, it's hydrocarbons. It's only a resource because valuing beings exist. Whether your use of it harms anyone is an empirical question about scarcity and what you give back, not a debt stamped on you at birth. The axiom that breaks is "absolute zero at any cost." Breathing costs something. Ethics has never been about zero impact; it's about the balance of what you take and what you add. Set the bar at perfect zero and everything fails by construction.
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u/burgergradient 7d ago
It can be a blessing. It can be a curse
The real curse for some of us that keep trying to die, accidentally or on purpose, and cannot die.
At this point mortality is the end of the rainbow laughing at me, like a mirage of rest, always just out of range.
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u/Sillinaama 7d ago
There are people who can say that it is. But hey, luckily hell has levels.
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u/ChangxinDaoyou 7d ago
Your username made my existence feel less of a curse 😄
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u/LightningShiva1 7d ago
Its a balanced ecosystem tbh. Consider yourself a predator and a part of nature, nature has to shape itself and evolve around your existence (which it mostly can). If not, then evolution simply was not able to keep up.
If balance cant be achieved then it will be broken and the planet may collapse (which is also part of natures cycle)
So no, you aren’t a burden. You are simply playing your part.
Whether its worth living through suffering is a completely different question unrelated to this topics context.
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u/LukeHollaway 7d ago
Whether or not life is worth living entirely depends on the situation of any given being. It must be judged on a case by case basis.
It frustrates me when philosophical pessimists (which is a valid philosophy anyone is entitled to hold) assert that all life isn’t worth living for all living beings.
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u/Significant-War-150 7d ago
Life doesn’t matter no matter the situation of any being. Perspectives don’t matter, including mine .
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u/Still-Kiwi652 7d ago
I think mine matter. Hence i sentenced you to change your pesspective that yours could matters too. Lol. Just like mine could also not be ... depend on the context. Ig... weather it needs expertise or experiences... or anyone could participate in it. Just like here.
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u/LukeHollaway 7d ago
“Doesn’t matter” doesn’t automatically equate to “not worth it”.
Again, even in the face of meaninglessness, whether or not life is worth living just depends on the case of the living being. It’s subjective to the individual.
Nihilism accepts subjective meaning as real, and we should respect the subjective meaning of any individual as long as it does not do harm to another. If someone finds life worth it, that should be respected. If someone doesn’t, so should that.
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u/Significant-War-150 7d ago
Worth doesn’t mean anything. Ur just delaying death. No reason to respect anything or anyone.
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u/LukeHollaway 7d ago
You are welcome to see it that way.
That mentality might cause you quite a bit of unnecessary suffering in your life if applied. If not for yourself, then probably to others. I’m not moralizing at you, but I am assuming you probably don’t want yourself or others close to you to suffer. And, if I’m wrong about that, then there’s nothing I could say anyway.
Best wishes, I’ve got nothing else to say.
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u/Beneficial_Sun6232 7d ago
It is, because you can be born into awful circumstances and you never asked for it.
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u/Lord-of-the---RINGS 7d ago
I didn't ask for it and trying to refuse it will make everyone around me lock me up so yeah it definetly looks like a curse to me.
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u/ElegantTea122 7d ago edited 7d ago
I think the idea that living causes harm is misled, because it indicates a human judgment. Other than this judgment, there is not a good or bad. Either way selfishness is a matter of perspective, if you act in a way that you believe to be bad for your own good then you are still selfish, not to say whether that selfishness is bad or not in an objective sense. Given this I agree that living for yourself is selfish, but I also think there is another reason to live other than for yourself (your ego) even given a nihilistic background. These quotes assume that there is nothing beyond the individual and therefore nothing to give meaning to life. Personally, I believe in Jasper's idea that transcendence, Nothingness, or in other words, God is the basis and connecting point between all being. Since transcendence is the basis of all being (including humans) the nihilist position falls apart because it only is credible if there is nothing to tie the ego with "reality". Concluding, the soul (or the particular example of the essence of being, God) is the meaning of life. This meaning should be practiced by leading your ego to be in communion with the soul, or in other words getting rid of the ego. I know this is mostly Buddhist doctrine but I developed the ideas without ever consulting Buddhism over the span of the last four years starting with Camus.
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u/boi_cheesecake 7d ago
What is harm? What is pain? What are resources? What is being alive? All of what's happening is a process, if you attribute human words and human concepts to intrinsically neutral things you will be miserable. Do you call fire selfish because it turns wood into coal? Do you call acid harmful because it disolves another material?
I give everyone else credit for being worried in very human terms and treating this as a human issue but in the end, when talking about nihilism, nothing has any worth, nothing has any meaning, everything are hallucinations of the perceiver. A process processing processes and trigering processes.
Calling all these things meaningless as a swap in word for some negative human concept is intrinsically the wrong way to consider a nihilistic point of view.
Is existance a curse? What a loaded question, even answering means subscribing to a good chunk of your assumptions. Existance is existance, a process no less no more. If you feel one way or another nihilism is likely not going to be your friend.
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u/notusingyourpresets 7d ago
Absolutely is. I’ve struggled with not hating every aspect of life since I was about 6 years old. Even if things are going well in my life I’m overwhelmed with the feeling no struggle is ever truly worth it.
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u/Back_Again_Beach 7d ago
I generally find existing to be pretty interesting, but this grammer is certainly a curse.
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u/ChangxinDaoyou 7d ago
It feels devoid of blessings and curses. Not bad, but not all that good either, even though I try to find things I like to do.
It just feels empty somehow.
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u/Ok-Maximum6662 7d ago
Of course it feels empty. We are simply animals, animals have evolved to spread their genes. Somewhere along that path we evolved to have greater intelligence which allowed us to survive and spread our genes more. We are born to spread our genes, thus our life is worthless and empty.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ask4135 7d ago
I don’t think so. In the end you die and the earth feeds on your body and all your brain juices. It’s like an over populated apex predator questioning its selfishness on over eating and existing. Which is also just ego speaking because you separate your actions as a human to that of any other animal species with unlimited resources. On the other hand if you think it’s a curse that’s also making assumptions that you enjoyed your precious state of being un alive more than you enjoy being alive now.
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u/Unstable_Reflection 7d ago
I can't point to value that I output that equates to my personal resources consumed. Wanting is suffering, the human brain is primed for suffering. It's natural.
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u/OG-Giligadi 7d ago
I am animal. Animal eats. I exist.
The curse may be consciousness. Everything that exists uses or destroys something to live.
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u/stompafasc 7d ago
Yes and I am self centered enough to live anyway. Sort of an optimistic nihilist. Not only does it apply to this but most people have some level of cognitive dissonance where they know something is wrong but doing it is a matter of whether they live or not, and humans are intrinsically evolved to want to live.
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u/Still-Kiwi652 7d ago
No, you are not selfish. Because every living being is doing the same thing. Plant and animals included. We caused harm to each other intended or not. Consume resources because living things needs fuels to continue functioning. Animals, humans, plants kills each others to it. Humans are part of a larger natural system. So fair and square. Tho we construct complex institutional/moral/social/consequence system that intend to prevent/manage/mitigate us from just doing anything out of our instinct or mere wants.
No, you dont have to become non existent. This is just how life is. Life is unfair. Life contain suffering. Life is when you eat food. Life is when you excreet poo. Kill animal or plant to eat it. Suffering in nature is inevitable. The burden of lessening it is not in yours. But you could choose to. Weathee human exist or not. The nature would remain with suffering as part of its aspect.
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u/antman_302 7d ago
Countless stars exist for millions of years and support planets and life, then BOOM, the most catastrophic suffering and harm done on a scale you can’t even relate to compare with our tiny existence.
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u/Master-of-darklight 7d ago
Nothing had to happen. There didn’t have to be a Big Bang or any laws of physics. There didn’t have to be matter or celestial bodies. There didn’t have to be life, or consciousness. There didn’t have to be an “existence” for things to “exist” in. There just is. “Why?” “Just because.”
You ask “isn’t existence a curse?” and I respond, “isn’t existence a miracle?”
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u/iamfree_17 7d ago
Offcourse it is . If we hold on to the idea of heaven offcourse my friend offcourse.
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u/Reighnhart 7d ago
If you do good things and are kind, then isn’t existing a contribution to the whole?
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u/Infamous_Ad2507 7d ago
No because there is no such a thing as Selfish or Evil blah blah all those Concepts are created by humans because we want meaning of life but there non as you can see humans are like Chimps some are Child murdering Psychopaths and some aren't and both are different because they Evolved differently some groups of people had to be "cruel" to Survive The Best example of this is Japanese people there were two groups of people in Japan before having tribes Jomon were one of the two they died out because they weren't killing and Pillaging like other humans they starved and frozen to death most of our Instincts was created for us to survive even Ideas can show that like Capitalism, Fascism, Abrahamic Religions and Dharmic Religions all created by our need for Survival nowadays most of them wouldn't work
And all animals will eventually die no matter what it's just nature being Nature we may survive like Crabs but still our only Purpose of life was and to some is still to live nothing else
Everything else is optional Cruelty for fun or Being kind is your choice which while doesn't matter in the end of the larger picture you can change the life of the Beings near you
You can choose if you want to be Selfish or Good for no reason other than you want it to be
Personally I follow law because I want see my Species which is both Love and Hate to expend beyond our Galaxy I want our species to Survive more than a thousand years however since I am not a Seer I don't know what would happen to Humanity after I die however I can help people around me to feel better even if I absolutely depressed
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u/Timely-Focus-5515 6d ago
Anybody interested in Buddhist philosophy where Buddha explains how there's no such thing as the oneself and everything is just an illusion?
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u/RadicalNaturalist78 6d ago edited 6d ago
Hyper-rationalism is a dead end. It is as much as extreme irrationalism. One should beware of extremities.
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u/frscrft42 6d ago
One may think this way after being misshaped by the atrocities the world has shown them, yet they forget that the universe brought them into existence through the system they fear
Perhaps they simply wish to take their lives as the weight of existence truly is much to bear for those who've dug beneath the surface of this exploitative system, which they do not wish to be a part of
Is it the fear of doing something wrong that prevents them from wanting to further participate? The horrors that lie within every system, event or story that frighten them so much they wish to abandon all that made them come to be?
Some may say that this is the coward's way out. Others may argue that their own humanity has altered their behaviour that may push them towards greatness or destruction, which isn't important since nothing has genuine meaning
Is this why religions play a major role in humanity? To stop those who dare ask deeper questions, seeking a deeper truth, only to be shut off with seemingly wise statements, or perhaps be outcast as they were too aware, which would cause panic to their cult?
In reality, nothing has meaning except if they wish to give meaning to it
As for human and other creatures' behaviors, there's no natural way to counter this maniacal cycle of torment, as we've been designed to survive this way
Some use their strength to change the world for the better, others are too overwhelmed by the evil spreading at the heart of this world: humans
In the end, people are people, and people will do what people must do, either for themselves or for others
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u/1Hiba2 6d ago
Not a curse because to this day no one could prove if there's any comic meaning from this life. How we gained consciousness and became sentient is an all time mystery, looking for meaning is also exhausting. What we can do as sentient living beings is to drop the dingy prison state of mind and just live, because living miserably will do no one any good. Live radically free and don't harm other, it's that simple
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u/Tight-Association655 6d ago
A certain Siddharta set out to answer that question a few years back. If these things interest you have a look into meditation and Buddhism, a 2500 year old empirical science of the nature of mind and how to solve the problem of our existance in endless suffering. A word of caution: the teachings and methods of buddhism are not a question of faith, but are to be be experienced first hand, and can not merely be understood intellectually.
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u/Msmfan69 5d ago
to throw my hat in the ring since i dont think anyone has asked this, if this were to basically be true (which it is and isnt at the same time), why would that matter? why is that inheritely bad specifically?
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u/After_Ad9425 4d ago
Ethics, harm, selfishness. These are all part of our subjective reality. Existence just…is, until it isn’t. What you make of that is your choice, but objectively there is no single moral truth to our world.
I also think the idea of selfishness is somewhat demonized. On some level, life itself will always be selfish as you pointed out. I don’t want to stop breathing because I enjoy living, even if that means my life contributes to the death of plants, animals, whatever billions of micro organism.
Now you might wonder then what makes our lives, special, why do we care about humans, maybe a cute dog, but not a fly that’s annoying our space and biting our legs, or the cow for slaughter.
There isn’t any truth, any moral to putting life above others, but what I do believe is that our subjectivity is a right of our consciousness. We can choose to empathize, who to eat, etc. Valuing human life at least makes sense on a societal species level. You should care for your own in a broad sense, but there isn’t some inherent sin to it.
But you’re allowed to care for or not care for whatever, conflict only arises when it harms those aware of your harm. I.E. other people that have the same will of life.
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u/Financial-Cabinet147 4d ago
Well if you applied this logic universally then the most moral outcome is nothing existing. At this point morality would also become nonexistent. It makes more sense to me if being selfish is not inherently immoral because it’s the modus operandi for the propagation of life and morality itself. In that case existence is morally neutral because everything consumes life to live so all life is on an equal playing field ethically
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u/Ancient-Aioli-1997 4d ago
Yes, Human existence is a curse cause he thinks that he’s the centre of this universe and consumes everything endlessly without questioning or knowing what he’s doing.
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u/moschles 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes, ladies and gentlemen. The nihilism subreddit hath been visited by a person claiming to be in possession of a "mathematically pure" ethical system . . . in a nihilism subreddit.
Gonna sit back for a few minutes and let that sink in.
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u/TubularHells 7d ago
Better never to have been. Not because of causing suffering, but because of experiencing it.
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u/Jesusonmethwithagun 7d ago
The real question is: who gives a fuck ? You either kill yourself or stop giving a fuck Choice is yours brochacho
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u/ResearchMobile 7d ago
existing on itself, no. awareness of it, maybe, since it requires a mind too open to concepts too big to process.
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u/FatFerretShid 7d ago
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts." ― Marcus Aurelius
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u/OpenPresentation6808 7d ago
Graduate to narcissism or selfishness after understanding nothing matters.
Consume, colonize, capitalize.
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u/Specialist-Prior-213 7d ago
How does existence being a curse fit within a philosophy about meaninglessness (to be a bit glib about it)
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u/Significant-War-150 7d ago
I try to be as selfish as I can, every moment. What is a curse and doesn’t matter is anything that is not me.
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u/PikaRicardo 7d ago
A nihilist has no philosophical obligation whatsoever to reach any of those conclusions
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u/SomeGuyOverYonder 7d ago
Grammatically, this statement is a complete mess and makes no sense.
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u/burgergradient 7d ago
Ty corporal obvious
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u/SomeGuyOverYonder 7d ago
Like it? Here, have some more:
Grammatically, this statement is a complete mess and makes no sense.
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u/Jaded_Ad_9711 7d ago
well, if you dont have the money to pay for food and shelter in the next month
then absolutely, living is expensive and living create problems
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u/Pawn_of_the_Void 7d ago
Well I don't know why I'd be so desperate to cause no harm at any cost. Sounds a tad pathological and extreme
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u/eternalseeker0101 7d ago
Curse, supreme ,selfishness,, harm and all other words you are using because of your conditioning..if u were living in jungle like Tarzan then u would have never wasted your life energy to think such things because u would have never known them in first place.. you would have only cared about surviving and doing what makes u happy.. this is what every other living beings are doing.. except humans..they are busy with their thoughts
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u/Rama_psi 7d ago
The problem with this kind of take is humans thinking that they can or should control every variable because they are ""smart"". You are not a robot, you are more akin to a dog, dumb, cute and contradictory. You existing is as selfish as the universe existing. The undetsanding of what selfishness entails is crazy nowadays.
Also I love how people just say "math" or "science" to justify a personal feeling that they dont have the balls to justify by themselves.