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I sense another problem. Perhaps the OP analyzes too deeply and too much.
I am not insinuating in the slightest manner that thinking is a bad thing, or that anyone should dumb themselves down. However, when you're meeting new people, being user friendly is key. People don't want to be assaulted with winding comments because it often lends a presumptuous and condescending vibe to the air. People want to relax and enjoy the company of someone engaging. In due time you can bring out the philosophical debates.
. . . it just really, really grates on my nerves to see someone who must frame the discussion in the context of a particular book, or author. It is just too pretentious to for me to handle...
1. I've come to understand human nature more clearly. Seeing them as biological creatures with quite sadistic tendencies. Living in a world surrounded by merciless sadists, can make a guy pretty depressed.
2. There are some historical periods, people, and ideas that I greatly admire but all ultimately gave way to something new, which I didn't like as much. So it seemed like the "bad guys" always win. But I grew more sophisticated and saw that the new comes out of the old and doesn't just drop from the sky. So the world we live in today, is the sum total of all the "good times", in history fulfilling their natural development. True freedom means understanding the laws of the world and making decisions based on that understanding.
3.Therefore I realized that as a man living in 2010 USA, my "duty" was to pursue what a young man is "supposed to" desire. Sex, drugs and rock. In that sense PUA is a kind of duty for me.
4. Despite point 2 and 3, point 1 still has a powerful influence over me, and I'm not sure its been totally refuted which is why its hard for me to fully commit to PUA.
Dude, philosophers don't get laid- have you ever noticed that there are very few sons of philosophers running around?
Secondly, if you insist on a nihilist world view, you're never gonna get a girl. Pick-up artists, as much as I loathe them, tend to be positive.
Thirdly, if you're a nihilist, why do you feel any pressure to do what "society" tells you? If you aren't interested in sex, drugs &rock, who cares? I'm not interested in drugs or rock.
I'm conflicted between a more sophisticated notion of freedom on the one hand, (which is the freedom to build airplanes understanding the law of gravity, as opposed to the freedom to jump from a skyscraper to defy the law of gravity), and pessimism over the meaning of existence on the other hand. The pessimism was partly caused by empirical observations about today's culture, combined with a powerful dose of pessimistic philosophy.
Pessimistic philosophy has had a very concrete affect on my personal life, it led me to quit my job and drop out of college, move out of my parents house for a few months because of that, I had 2 female roommates I was very friendly and humorous with at first but then stopped talking to them all together because of my pessimism and then moved back in with my parents this week.
I guess in order for my problem to make sense, I ought to be more explicit on what I mean by pessimism, and I'll try to use as little name-dropping or philosophical concepts as possible. And just speak from the gut.
Below is a fairly concise summary of the deep metaphysical pessimism I feel.
A Demon Haunted World: "Living" in the Vampiric Age
What a dark world I'm sentenced to. A noble prisoner of state thrown in with the general population. I truly have the feeling of living in a post-apocalyptic world, surrounded on all sides by flesh-eating demonwolves. Oh what a dark barbarian age. To be cursed with thought and feeling! Danger at every corner. Such monstrous beasts, so cruel, vicious, sublime in their grotesqueness. Man! I care not for him. Surrounded on all sides by a deformed monstrosity of humanity. The few flickers of light in which I'm teased with what man COULD have been, ah that is just bitter mocking. It is acidic and burns my eyes. Biology what a curse that word is. The Creationists do no hate Darwin enough, they do not realize what a stake he drives through the heart of their benign creator. To reconicliate God with Darwin is to see us in the hands of a psychopath all-powerful sadist.
Existence is a curse! The Garden of Eden is the nonexistence of life before the Big Bang, Heaven the Kingdom of God, is the perfect harmony of the lifeless empty cold universe after the Heat Death. Yes if but the project of the Grand Inquisitor could be carried out. Long live Satan! Long Live Mephistopheles! The spirit that negates, all existence ought to be destroyed. Yes dread spirit remove all free will from the world, and give us stupid childish happiness. What a weak, ill-conceived, parody is man. There is more beauty in a spider or earthworm. Misshapen and misproportion, hideous and foul and rank. Indescribable stench. A gentle feeling, reasoning soul as mine, thrown into a den with lions! If I only felt and did not reason, perhaps I could deluded myself with Heaven or Karma. If I only reasoned and did not feel, I would fit in personally as a hedonbot pleasure maximizing machine. Ah to be cursed with both feeling and reason! I have no empathy? No, I have the empathy that crushes the soul. Well, better I did not have empathy or sympathy. Yes man suffers greatly, at his own hands! If Nature wished me to feel sympathy for man, She ought not have made him such a perfect devil. What do I care about devils tormenting demons? all is just in that sense. What would I care if somewhere far-off in the distant galaxy there was a planet of wolves, where flesh were torn off limbs by monsters?
Ah but I have to be thrown into the lion den! Oh that beautiful scene of Daniel in the den of lions. Peace be upon you lions he cried out. The jailer returned to see a sublime sight, the lions kneeling before their meal, their master! But such beautiful stories can not be telled of man. No these are lions that will not just tear your flesh to feed, they will take great pleasure in prolonging your torture, and they will call this long
flesh tearing life, society, culture. A curse indeed! Biology, that word is a slur! No greater insult than to say that one has genes, that one is organic! Oh what it means to be Darwinian. The traits that were useful to survival on this cruel rock! Ah this barren rock you threw these scavengers upon! The restless energy to build meaningless mountains on a dying island.
What can I do? I'm just thought and feeling trapped in flesh. Ah flesh how it disgusts me. How humiliating it is to the mind to be trapped in decaying, soft, imperfect, gross human flesh. Flesh is there any more proof that all is vanity? The Gnostics they were right. A divine spark trapped in the prison of the body! and yet the petty wickedness of man seems so universal, that it is hard to find even a few that are not at home in their flesh. I'm a sailor in a black ocean. Oh angry waves how they attempt to devour me. It is not an ocean but a war! The whole ocean wages war upon me! That is my state among humans. It is not a war of all against all, it is a war of all against me! Enemies at every hour, at every corner. To flee into hiding was my only choice! Is it a bad life to be trapped in 4 walls, isolated, completely and totally alone? Ah what a blessing, worth any price, to not have to lay eyes on a human. To not have to smell their repugnant odor. No sane being could not be a misanthrope. Reason how beautiful she is. What a shame that such beauty, must be raped and enslaved, by the foul inclinations of that beast man.
I'm like Prometheus chained to a rock! My liver plucked out every day by these human vultures! And my crime was the same I tried to steal the fire and give light to man. Ah how right Zeus was, man ought be trusted with nothing not even his claws. An all-powerful evil God, would be necessary to be diabolical enough to create the perfect embodiment of evil found in man! What would I care if a thing existed? But why am I thrown in with this general population! Why me? Surely I'm not at home in this rotting decaying rock. The will to power, the genes drive to survive and reproduce, those are absent in me. Surely the gene could not have been my creator? I can imagine no evil, that could earn such a punishment as existence on earth. Well that is not true. I can imagine man. Hell is other people. How easy it is to brave the pinpricks of nature compared to man. If I was alone on this planet, I would not survive not long. Oh what would you do "harsh" nature. Starve me? Devour me? Bleed me? All mild pinpricks, compared to the long torture man has invented!
Man deserves man. I'm no man. I have no drives, no will to power. I do not affirm my existence! I'm not an individual, I have no free will, and I do not make choices. I'm no perfect angel. But at least I'm what I'm. My existentance is contingent. It is not necessary it did not have to be. What a curse to be born. What could possess the insane sadism of parents, to believe that they should populate this hellish fire, with more victims. What right do they have to throw more flesh to be torn up by dogs! Eternal hatred for all parents! There is nothing more sadistic and psychopathic than to be a parent! To follow the commands of biology and to fulfill one's genetic purpose. Nothing is as monstrous as the "miracle" of life. The birth of a child is a incomprehensible horror. The ugliness of human birth is vomit inducing. I know of no more sickening thought than the birthing of a child. It is enough to drive one to madness to know that new babies are born.
God or nature, show thyself! Answer your accuser! How dare you disturb my slumber of billions, trillions, infinite centuries of peaceful nonexistence, to curse me with life. There was no I for so long, why did there have to be an I now? I'm a foolish ape screaming at an empty starless sky. No voice will answer from the whirlwind. I will scream louder, and louder, I will tear my hair in rage! I will smash my fists against stone, till they are bloody pulps. And I will fall to my knees, and no God will answer. And the gene will not bother to
defend itself. We exist! Shout the billion vampires. And that is the only answer I deserve. A billion vampires all surviving by sucking on my blood. All is suffering. How dare you selfish gene! I did not have to exist! I did not exist for an infinite amount of time before my birth, and I will again not exist for an infinity after my death. Why disturb my perfect harmony? I knew utopia, not being born! You had no right to kidnap me and throw me into hell! The gene does not care. More cinders to light its flames! I once dreamed of saving man, I'm not so delusional anymore. If man wishes to devour let him devour. I won't complain. But why throw me into the battlefield? I'm on neither army, and all sides fire their slings and shots at me. How ghastly.
I wandered the streets alone solitary at night, that strong stench of urine everywhere invading my nostrils. I don't complain it is the perfect lyricism for man. Urea symbolizes everything he is. It is the one organic compound man was able to create himself without God or nature. Man is a God, and urea is his Adam and Eve.
This should be moved over to the religion/ philosophy,etc. forum!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by enamdar
I'm conflicted between a more sophisticated notion of freedom on the one hand, (which is the freedom to build airplanes understanding the law of gravity, as opposed to the freedom to jump from a skyscraper to defy the law of gravity), and pessimism over the meaning of existence on the other hand. The pessimism was partly caused by empirical observations about today's culture, combined with a powerful dose of pessimistic philosophy.
Pessimistic philosophy has had a very concrete affect on my personal life, it led me to quit my job and drop out of college, move out of my parents house for a few months because of that, I had 2 female roommates I was very friendly and humorous with at first but then stopped talking to them all together because of my pessimism and then moved back in with my parents this week.
I guess in order for my problem to make sense, I ought to be more explicit on what I mean by pessimism, and I'll try to use as little name-dropping or philosophical concepts as possible. And just speak from the gut.
Below is a fairly concise summary of the deep metaphysical pessimism I feel.
A Demon Haunted World: "Living" in the Vampiric Age
What a dark world I'm sentenced to. A noble prisoner of state thrown in with the general population. I truly have the feeling of living in a post-apocalyptic world, surrounded on all sides by flesh-eating demonwolves. Oh what a dark barbarian age. To be cursed with thought and feeling! Danger at every corner. Such monstrous beasts, so cruel, vicious, sublime in their grotesqueness. Man! I care not for him. Surrounded on all sides by a deformed monstrosity of humanity. The few flickers of light in which I'm teased with what man COULD have been, ah that is just bitter mocking. It is acidic and burns my eyes. Biology what a curse that word is. The Creationists do no hate Darwin enough, they do not realize what a stake he drives through the heart of their benign creator. To reconicliate God with Darwin is to see us in the hands of a psychopath all-powerful sadist.
Existence is a curse! The Garden of Eden is the nonexistence of life before the Big Bang, Heaven the Kingdom of God, is the perfect harmony of the lifeless empty cold universe after the Heat Death. Yes if but the project of the Grand Inquisitor could be carried out. Long live Satan! Long Live Mephistopheles! The spirit that negates, all existence ought to be destroyed. Yes dread spirit remove all free will from the world, and give us stupid childish happiness. What a weak, ill-conceived, parody is man. There is more beauty in a spider or earthworm. Misshapen and misproportion, hideous and foul and rank. Indescribable stench. A gentle feeling, reasoning soul as mine, thrown into a den with lions! If I only felt and did not reason, perhaps I could deluded myself with Heaven or Karma. If I only reasoned and did not feel, I would fit in personally as a hedonbot pleasure maximizing machine. Ah to be cursed with both feeling and reason! I have no empathy? No, I have the empathy that crushes the soul. Well, better I did not have empathy or sympathy. Yes man suffers greatly, at his own hands! If Nature wished me to feel sympathy for man, She ought not have made him such a perfect devil. What do I care about devils tormenting demons? all is just in that sense. What would I care if somewhere far-off in the distant galaxy there was a planet of wolves, where flesh were torn off limbs by monsters?
Ah but I have to be thrown into the lion den! Oh that beautiful scene of Daniel in the den of lions. Peace be upon you lions he cried out. The jailer returned to see a sublime sight, the lions kneeling before their meal, their master! But such beautiful stories can not be telled of man. No these are lions that will not just tear your flesh to feed, they will take great pleasure in prolonging your torture, and they will call this long
flesh tearing life, society, culture. A curse indeed! Biology, that word is a slur! No greater insult than to say that one has genes, that one is organic! Oh what it means to be Darwinian. The traits that were useful to survival on this cruel rock! Ah this barren rock you threw these scavengers upon! The restless energy to build meaningless mountains on a dying island.
What can I do? I'm just thought and feeling trapped in flesh. Ah flesh how it disgusts me. How humiliating it is to the mind to be trapped in decaying, soft, imperfect, gross human flesh. Flesh is there any more proof that all is vanity? The Gnostics they were right. A divine spark trapped in the prison of the body! and yet the petty wickedness of man seems so universal, that it is hard to find even a few that are not at home in their flesh. I'm a sailor in a black ocean. Oh angry waves how they attempt to devour me. It is not an ocean but a war! The whole ocean wages war upon me! That is my state among humans. It is not a war of all against all, it is a war of all against me! Enemies at every hour, at every corner. To flee into hiding was my only choice! Is it a bad life to be trapped in 4 walls, isolated, completely and totally alone? Ah what a blessing, worth any price, to not have to lay eyes on a human. To not have to smell their repugnant odor. No sane being could not be a misanthrope. Reason how beautiful she is. What a shame that such beauty, must be raped and enslaved, by the foul inclinations of that beast man.
I'm like Prometheus chained to a rock! My liver plucked out every day by these human vultures! And my crime was the same I tried to steal the fire and give light to man. Ah how right Zeus was, man ought be trusted with nothing not even his claws. An all-powerful evil God, would be necessary to be diabolical enough to create the perfect embodiment of evil found in man! What would I care if a thing existed? But why am I thrown in with this general population! Why me? Surely I'm not at home in this rotting decaying rock. The will to power, the genes drive to survive and reproduce, those are absent in me. Surely the gene could not have been my creator? I can imagine no evil, that could earn such a punishment as existence on earth. Well that is not true. I can imagine man. Hell is other people. How easy it is to brave the pinpricks of nature compared to man. If I was alone on this planet, I would not survive not long. Oh what would you do "harsh" nature. Starve me? Devour me? Bleed me? All mild pinpricks, compared to the long torture man has invented!
Man deserves man. I'm no man. I have no drives, no will to power. I do not affirm my existence! I'm not an individual, I have no free will, and I do not make choices. I'm no perfect angel. But at least I'm what I'm. My existentance is contingent. It is not necessary it did not have to be. What a curse to be born. What could possess the insane sadism of parents, to believe that they should populate this hellish fire, with more victims. What right do they have to throw more flesh to be torn up by dogs! Eternal hatred for all parents! There is nothing more sadistic and psychopathic than to be a parent! To follow the commands of biology and to fulfill one's genetic purpose. Nothing is as monstrous as the "miracle" of life. The birth of a child is a incomprehensible horror. The ugliness of human birth is vomit inducing. I know of no more sickening thought than the birthing of a child. It is enough to drive one to madness to know that new babies are born.
God or nature, show thyself! Answer your accuser! How dare you disturb my slumber of billions, trillions, infinite centuries of peaceful nonexistence, to curse me with life. There was no I for so long, why did there have to be an I now? I'm a foolish ape screaming at an empty starless sky. No voice will answer from the whirlwind. I will scream louder, and louder, I will tear my hair in rage! I will smash my fists against stone, till they are bloody pulps. And I will fall to my knees, and no God will answer. And the gene will not bother to
defend itself. We exist! Shout the billion vampires. And that is the only answer I deserve. A billion vampires all surviving by sucking on my blood. All is suffering. How dare you selfish gene! I did not have to exist! I did not exist for an infinite amount of time before my birth, and I will again not exist for an infinity after my death. Why disturb my perfect harmony? I knew utopia, not being born! You had no right to kidnap me and throw me into hell! The gene does not care. More cinders to light its flames! I once dreamed of saving man, I'm not so delusional anymore. If man wishes to devour let him devour. I won't complain. But why throw me into the battlefield? I'm on neither army, and all sides fire their slings and shots at me. How ghastly.
I wandered the streets alone solitary at night, that strong stench of urine everywhere invading my nostrils. I don't complain it is the perfect lyricism for man. Urea symbolizes everything he is. It is the one organic compound man was able to create himself without God or nature. Man is a God, and urea is his Adam and Eve.
You can't blame philosophy for making you drop out of college and move home. You made those choices.
Once you admit that you do actually have control of your life, it will get better. You are currently choosing to wallow in pessimism and it's clearly not working, so do something different.
Don't read philosophy for 6 months- you're clearly misinterpreting it. My dad has a Ph.D. in philosophy and I know that a lot of the names you've dropped, especially Kierkegaard, are not all gloom and doom.
You are clearly very self involved, so go out and volunteer. Help other people and see if behaving differently causes changes in your life. I bet it will.
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This should be moved over to the religion/ philosophy,etc. forum!!
