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I think the internet has kind of inoculated us to such philosophies. There are so many people online who are depressed and try to channel it into insightful wri

I think the internet has kind of inoculated us to such philosophies. There are so many people online who are depressed and try to channel it into insightful writing. In the end, these insights turn out useless: life just isn't a very deep thing. He should've married Regine and got on with it.

daseiner1 6y ago
the implication that internet edgelords of any flavor are holding a candle to or diminishing Kierkegaard in any way is pretty disgusting tbh. and “insights turn out useless: life just isn't a very deep thing” is incredibly trite. i don’t mean this to come across as a personal attack, but dismissing K’s project out of hand and then making a pithy reference to his biography in what i suppose is an attempt to signal knowledge (or worse yet, understanding) of the matter at hand is just incredibly weak.
- fapjacks 6y ago
  Wow, so what does it look like when you are attacking someone personally?
  - DSingularity 6y ago
    That is not a personal attack. You have someone effectively dismissing a philosophers work using something that just sounds profound “life isn’t deep”. Sorry, it will take more than this to counter Kierkegaard!
    - fapjacks 6y ago
      Look, I have no horse in this race, but this is clearly a personal attack in the reply above. Regardless, on what basis are you disagreeing with someone's interpretation of life as having no meaning or lacking in depth?
      - catawbasam 6y ago
        If a person with bad eyesight looks across a valley and tells a person with 20-20 vision that the view is terrible, the one with 20-20 isn't likely to agree.
        fapjacks 6y ago
        But you don't get to decide someone's got bad eyesight if they tell you they see something perfectly clearly and you don't. If someone asserts that they see life as devoid of meaning or depth, you don't get to decide they are wrong simply because you disagree.
      - serf 6y ago
        >Look, I have no horse in this race, but this is clearly a personal attack in the reply above. in what way is it personal? In that he's attacking his conclusion for all of Kierkegaards' work? Or that he's trying to characterize your actions into a specific motivations? Being called wrong , even in the softest ways, is now a personal attack? I think it's fair to say that a 3-5 word sentence is a bit too shallow to characterize Kierkegaards' entire body of work. 'Sickness Unto Death' totally changed my outlook as a teenager reading it at the right time. Here's the thing that's missing : life is as deep as we give it credit for, and many philosophies seek to enrichen and deepen the experience of life. In my opinion, someone with the stance 'life isn't very deep' is in the perfect position to try to honestly absorb some of the pasts' philosophers and step away from the mammalian life of eat-sleep-breed. In other words : our biological life is shallow in reason, philosophy and human thinking itself is what fills the world with reason, objective, and depth. Anyone with the take-away that 'life isn't very deep' receives my greatest sympathy and sorrow. I remember how I felt when I came to the same conclusions, and i'm glad I have shifted away from that perspective with the help of philosophy and dialogue with others. Re-imagining the world with the tools that philosophy gives you through practice is a fantastic experience, and I hope that the parent who believes that life isn't as deep as people give it credit for has the chance to undergo that epiphany themselves one day.
        fapjacks 6y ago
  - humanrebar 6y ago
    Good point, fapjacks.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
cammil 6y ago
> life just isn't a very deep thing Surely life is the most profound and magical thing you will ever experience?
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  'surely'? - how does one justify saying that? 'profound' - what does that even mean in this context? 'magical' - Speak for yourself. Me & my brothers had our lives destroyed by appalling parents. It's not something you recover from. You don't speak for everybody. Don't try.
  - Arbalest 6y ago
    I guess 'surely' technically qualifies as you do not have anything to compare it to. But because of that, describing it in any quantity can only be guesswork. Edit: that is to say, you only have one life, and comparing the whole to individual parts doesn't really make sense.
  - boomlinde 6y ago
    It's true by definition (of "your life" as the time during which you can at all experience things). In that sense it doesn't matter how profound and magical your life has been or will be; it's still the most profound and magical thing you'll ever experience.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      There have been large parts of my life where I would have been better off dead. I didn't choose suicide at those times, and I've always wondered if I made the right decision not to. Life these days is... tolerable. There is nothing 'magical' about a daily grind of loneliness and (until recently) nearly two decades of pain and isolation caused by mental illness caused by two people who should never have been allowed to breed. I know this isn't really good form under HN rules, but: fuck you.
      - deleted 6y ago
BucketSort 6y ago
Oh, but it is. There's a riddle inside the mind of every man and when he solves it he gains a window into things far beyond himself.
goto11 6y ago
> life just isn't a very deep thing. He should've married Regine and got on with it. Kierkegaard is way ahead of you. Your viewpoint is already presented as one of his personas or stages (called something like "the model citizen").
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
golf3 6y ago
Existentialists have a reputation as sophists and phonies, pessimists write a bunch of subjective pessimistic crap, optimists write a bunch of subjective optimistic crap.
karatestomp 6y ago
> In the end, these insights turn out useless: life just isn't a very deep thing. Three pounds of flax!

daseiner1 6y ago

the implication that internet edgelords of any flavor are holding a candle to or diminishing Kierkegaard in any way is pretty disgusting tbh. and “insights turn out useless: life just isn't a very deep thing” is incredibly trite. i don’t mean this to come across as a personal attack, but dismissing K’s project out of hand and then making a pithy reference to his biography in what i suppose is an attempt to signal knowledge (or worse yet, understanding) of the matter at hand is just incredibly weak.

fapjacks 6y ago
Wow, so what does it look like when you are attacking someone personally?
- DSingularity 6y ago
  That is not a personal attack. You have someone effectively dismissing a philosophers work using something that just sounds profound “life isn’t deep”. Sorry, it will take more than this to counter Kierkegaard!
  - fapjacks 6y ago
    Look, I have no horse in this race, but this is clearly a personal attack in the reply above. Regardless, on what basis are you disagreeing with someone's interpretation of life as having no meaning or lacking in depth?
    - catawbasam 6y ago
      If a person with bad eyesight looks across a valley and tells a person with 20-20 vision that the view is terrible, the one with 20-20 isn't likely to agree.
      - fapjacks 6y ago
        But you don't get to decide someone's got bad eyesight if they tell you they see something perfectly clearly and you don't. If someone asserts that they see life as devoid of meaning or depth, you don't get to decide they are wrong simply because you disagree.
    - serf 6y ago
      >Look, I have no horse in this race, but this is clearly a personal attack in the reply above. in what way is it personal? In that he's attacking his conclusion for all of Kierkegaards' work? Or that he's trying to characterize your actions into a specific motivations? Being called wrong , even in the softest ways, is now a personal attack? I think it's fair to say that a 3-5 word sentence is a bit too shallow to characterize Kierkegaards' entire body of work. 'Sickness Unto Death' totally changed my outlook as a teenager reading it at the right time. Here's the thing that's missing : life is as deep as we give it credit for, and many philosophies seek to enrichen and deepen the experience of life. In my opinion, someone with the stance 'life isn't very deep' is in the perfect position to try to honestly absorb some of the pasts' philosophers and step away from the mammalian life of eat-sleep-breed. In other words : our biological life is shallow in reason, philosophy and human thinking itself is what fills the world with reason, objective, and depth. Anyone with the take-away that 'life isn't very deep' receives my greatest sympathy and sorrow. I remember how I felt when I came to the same conclusions, and i'm glad I have shifted away from that perspective with the help of philosophy and dialogue with others. Re-imagining the world with the tools that philosophy gives you through practice is a fantastic experience, and I hope that the parent who believes that life isn't as deep as people give it credit for has the chance to undergo that epiphany themselves one day.
      - fapjacks 6y ago
- humanrebar 6y ago
  Good point, fapjacks.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

cammil 6y ago

> life just isn't a very deep thing Surely life is the most profound and magical thing you will ever experience?

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
'surely'? - how does one justify saying that? 'profound' - what does that even mean in this context? 'magical' - Speak for yourself. Me & my brothers had our lives destroyed by appalling parents. It's not something you recover from. You don't speak for everybody. Don't try.
- Arbalest 6y ago
  I guess 'surely' technically qualifies as you do not have anything to compare it to. But because of that, describing it in any quantity can only be guesswork. Edit: that is to say, you only have one life, and comparing the whole to individual parts doesn't really make sense.
- boomlinde 6y ago
  It's true by definition (of "your life" as the time during which you can at all experience things). In that sense it doesn't matter how profound and magical your life has been or will be; it's still the most profound and magical thing you'll ever experience.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    There have been large parts of my life where I would have been better off dead. I didn't choose suicide at those times, and I've always wondered if I made the right decision not to. Life these days is... tolerable. There is nothing 'magical' about a daily grind of loneliness and (until recently) nearly two decades of pain and isolation caused by mental illness caused by two people who should never have been allowed to breed. I know this isn't really good form under HN rules, but: fuck you.
    - deleted 6y ago

BucketSort 6y ago

Oh, but it is. There's a riddle inside the mind of every man and when he solves it he gains a window into things far beyond himself.

goto11 6y ago

> life just isn't a very deep thing. He should've married Regine and got on with it. Kierkegaard is way ahead of you. Your viewpoint is already presented as one of his personas or stages (called something like "the model citizen").

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

golf3 6y ago

Existentialists have a reputation as sophists and phonies, pessimists write a bunch of subjective pessimistic crap, optimists write a bunch of subjective optimistic crap.

karatestomp 6y ago

> In the end, these insights turn out useless: life just isn't a very deep thing. Three pounds of flax!