Sounds like the typical delusional optimism we get from the pro-life majority. (Some of us find that rhetoric quite yawn inducing too btw)
I don't even see it as pessimistic, to admit that our lives have no objective purpose and we are literally all doomed. Born into a pointless losing struggle, that for some people is a lot worse than others. But for everyone, it's still pretty much hopeless. And the optimism that the majority live with, is essentially just a bunch of deluded coping mechanisms and fantasy bs that we are fed from cradle to grave to make our existence feel more bearable. I just see that as pointing out easily observable truths, not necessarily doomer pessimism. But people are so conditioned to being fed a diet of toxic positive nonsense all their life, anything that deviates from this script looks like doom and gloom, when in reality it can just be the brutal truth.
Even just the idea of being optimistic about the future of humanity, when most of these visions of the future (if they materialise at all) will happen when we are all long dead and gone and worm food in the ground. I find it quite a bizarre fantasy game that many people play in their head, being excited about some utopia that they themselves likely won't get to experience. I'm completely on board with making the world a better place for future generations, if our species does survive (which is far from guaranteed)... but being exciting about that future I find quite odd. All we're essentially doing is making the cage we live in a bit less shit/more entertaining... because being a sentient conscious living being that can suffer and has no purpose, is a type of cage. And it always will be, as far as I'm concerned.
I actually do find life interesting, but I still don't consider it a worthwhile endeavour. I consider it to be a fundamentally broken and deeply flawed game, that we should not be promoting as being a positive. I think that is the divergence we often see in society, as some people consider this life very valuable and worth preserving based on it being interesting/fascinating to them. But they manage to either block out all of the horrible elements, dimmish them in significance in their mind or even delude themselves into thinking that everything can be fixed at some point in the future. But you also just get quite a lot of selfish people in society, who love this life because they got dealt and okay hand and don't really care about the lack of equitable outcomes for other people. (even if they're good at faking empathy) It's all just a fun lottery to these people.
I'm sorry you have such a negative outlook. Like I said, we create our own meaning in life. I've had enough of these conversations on here over the years so I'm not going to fane the interest at this point. But like I said, I've been pretty warmly embraced by this community as a whole for a couple years now. I'm not sure what your deal is but I do feel sorry for you. I find personal meaning in my life and enjoyment. I strive to make 80% of my life heaven on earth. And I have a little niece and nephew so I do want to help build towards a better future.
You could even choose none or nothing as your meaning, if you wanted to. If you're a nihilist. But thats not very logically useful or beneficial.
Sigmund Freud in his book Civilization and its Discontents, in the second chapter he says, what is the purpose of life? He said, this is a question thats been asked without end by millions of people. By great philosophers. And he said, it seems nobody has an answer. Because maybe there is no answer. But he said, as for the behavior of men and woman, we can ascertain that they seek pleasure and avoid pain or simply they seek happiness. But I have a more nuanced answer. I've thought a lot about this. I would say the purpose of life is love, but not Hollywood love, not what everybody talks about. I even hate to say the word love. Its actually the words social life. And I'm not talking about the purpose of life after death. Thats not something I know much about. But as to the purpose of life on earth, I'd say its social/love. Love breaks into three subsets. Friends, family, romance. I would say, as a practical matter, the purpose of life is friends, family, romance. Which you can call that love, there's three types of love in old Greek or Latin. There's agape, eros and phileo in life. Agape is like family love, unconditional love you have for your kids. Phileo is like the friendship love. It's like the saying there's no greater love than you would lay down your life. I'd lay down my life, I think, for some of my friends. And then you have eros. Thats where the word erotic comes from. Thats romance, thats sexual love. Thats what makes the world go round. I would say the purpose on life, a simpler version is social or love. I would slightly disagree with Sigmund Freud if I may, even though I consider him such an underrated person. So many people in the modern world - oh, didn't he say the id, the super ego hasn't this guy's methodologies and hypotheses been disproven? Yeah, that was in late 1800's, early 1900's. But I don't think I've read anyone at some level more genius than what he wrote. The simplicity that he laid out super complex subjects. But if you think about this, happiness, he said, it seems by the behavior of humans that we seek happiness. We may seek it, but it doesn't mean its the purpose. Happiness is the fuel that allows you to get out of bed. But ultimately, humans are social creatures. There's a great book by Matt Lieberman, former Harvard, now he's at UCLA, a neuroscientist, and he has all this advanced research he's done with FMRI machines, where you study the brain function. It's all social. We dream about social situations. Our fears are social, our ambitions are social, our appetites are rooted in social. So if you read that book Social by Matt Lieberman, everything is social. So the purpose of life at an FMRI level functional magnetic resonance imaging machine. When you study the brain, no matter what people say, the scans don't lie. We think in social terms, we live in social terms. The great Greek billionaire Onassis who married JFK's widow. He said all the money in the world doesn't matter if there wasn't women. That was his take on it.
The ability to repress is a valuable survival tool. And reframing. Maybe the good just outweighs the bad in my life personally. If you study things like Ontology and complex psychology and metaphysics they talk about the story we tell ourself. So their big thing is we can manipulate our own mind and reframe it into whatever story we want. Failure can be a creation of new wisdom, endings can be new beginnings, mistakes can be discoveries. Thomas Edison was awarded over 1,000 patients. But most of his ideas failed initially. But he manipulated how he perceived his failures by saying, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Colonel Sanders who started KFC said he knocked on almost exactly 1,000 doors before somebody invested in his restaurant. So he was able to see these closed doors as opportunities to find someone else. At the end of the day life becomes some kind of imagination that we make up. Conflicts become growth opportunities and ex's become teachers. If you study evolutionary psychology the human mind was not designed for happiness. It was designed for reproduction, that's evolution that's why we get in bad relationships but stay in them. Because our subconscious our animal, lizard, reptilian mind is interested in something else beyond our conscious happiness. So I'm a big believer in the concept that happiness is something we create. One thing that all these top billionaires seem to have in common is the ability to make a mistake and then somehow manipulate their mind that, that mistake doesn't effect them. I read Sam Walton's book and he says in the first chapter the first store that he opened he didn't pay attention and lease that he signed after two years basically he lost all control of the building. So he grew this business, it wasn't Walmart at that point it was some discount store, he built up this big business and then the person that owned the building took it away from him after two years. And he said at first it kind of messed with his brain. But he said he had this unique ability to just see it as a learning experience. Remember in the future to always read the legal lease contracts before he moves into a new building and he just moved on. Most people, the average person in the world cannot handle failure. There's a good book The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber and I remember he talks about the statistic in the world the average person about 70% of people quit after one failure. Then another 20% quit on the second failure and like 90-95% of people have quit after three years. But the average millionaire has failed three times before they hit on their big thing. The reason the US is more advanced entrepreneurially is necessarily because we're smarter but because he have a system that allows you to fail. I was talking to my friend and he said entrepreneur you're almost supposed to fail. It's like a badge of honor to say I had this company and it crashed. Like Sam Walton, he had this first store, he built it up. someone took it away from me and then I came out bigger and stronger. It's pretty much all about building the ability to take events that happen to humans and reframe them into some other story that you tell yourself. And one of my favorite sayings it's very simple it says: "Who is mighty? He who has control over his own mind."
Anyway, I'm not going to get into this any further. but I will leave you with this: Call it delusional if you want. I recognize the absurdity of life and just laugh or shrug. And I simply say, so what? I recognize it. I'm okay with it. Just like the passage of time. I'm okay with it. I just choose to do something with the life and time I've been given. Which one of us is happier? I also don't think life is miserable without finding meaning. And regardless, I just do what I
want to do with my life. Also I never argued with the right to ctb. That remains an individuals choice, as I have always said. I don't know why you feel so disenfranchised or why you think others can't be genuinely happy. Yes, I was blessed in life and won the genetic lottery. But we all have problems and suffering. Granted, some are, I hate this word but "luckier" than others. I do personally truly feel blessed and thankful for my life. And I love sharing happiness and I love life. I love my family, my friends, my girlfriend, my work, my hobbies, I'm blessed with great health. I love the rush of adrenaline I get from driving my 1,000 horsepower model S Tesla Plaid. I love the thrill of being with a women. I love dancing, I love golf, I love laughing. I love where I live and I love traveling. But that is me. Others are not as fortunate and I recognize that. That is why I am grateful and appreciative and thankful for all my blessings in life. I don't want to ctb. But I support the right to choose. I have my readons for being here. And the overwhelming majority over the
years appreciate my presence.
Maybe its just sour grapes?
At any rate, I wish you peace in life.
