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A bit sad today, so I wanted to open a random thread and wish you well. Remember to take a moment to appreciate the people around you. One surprising thing is

A bit sad today, so I wanted to open a random thread and wish you well. Remember to take a moment to appreciate the people around you. One surprising thing is that a lot of people go through life with serious existential dread, and that you can't really empathize with what it's like until you experience it yourself. Sometimes I wonder what the point is –– we evolved that behavior for a reason, and I can't think of a single way it improves one's ability to produce grandchildren. (Apparently the best evolutionary traits are those that let your children have children, rather than you having children directly, which was sort of counterintuitive.) In my experience, the existential dread seems to do nothing but chip away at people and their relationships. Life gets strange at 30+. If you're around 20, my advice would be to relax and enjoy yourself, and truly realize that almost nothing you do now will matter in the long run. The reason that pushing yourself seems like the path to success is because you don't hear about the 9 out of 10 cases of ruined lives as a result of unrealistic expectations. But it's very easy to get caught up in being driven, as if it's religion. Just find something small that makes you happy. Even if it's a pointless number puzzle, it's still yours. And that's good enough.

bobnamob 5y ago
Gpt-3?
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  I think they've just lost somebody that they care about. :(
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    Thankfully not. Just in a pensive mood. But my programmer friend has been unable to use the computer for two solid months due to some kind of sickness -- possibly pneumonia. I'm worried sick about him, because he lives in some kind of war-torn country with no functional medical system. I didn't realize how much I'd miss him till he was gone for a couple months on the verge of dying. But that kind of thing can happen at any time. You just don't really notice it till you get older, so you never slow down to appreciate the people around you while they're there. Or at least, I didn't, for a long time. Been trying to change that in recent years. Anyway, I really don't care about seeming weird. The weirdness is life itself, being a descendent of a monkey on a spinning speck of dust in the cosmic soup, worried about an abstraction we call money just to climb a societal ladder that doesn't really matter much in the end. Everyone has to walk their own path, but my goal was to get one of you to stop and think about how you want to spend the next few years of your life. I've seen so many people allow themselves to think that work = life, and most of them seem to regret it. So I try to consciously avoid that in my own. Maybe you will too.
olau 5y ago
I don't think it's on purpose. I think the problem is that in a modern society, you are so far removed from the habitats that our ancestors evolved in that a lot of people simply can't cope. We're designed to spend time grabbing food, building shelters, making and taking care of babies, those sorts of things, all in small social groups. We're designed for immediate needs and feedback. You could try this series: http://rickroderick.org/200-guide-nietzsche-and-the-postmodern-condition-1991/ http://rickroderick.org/200-guide-nietzsche-and-the-postmode... Seems like Nietzsche already saw this coming with science dealing a death blow to the old myths that kept people going, and with the advent of mobile terminals and apps optimized to keep our attention, I think we've just gotten closer to that vision.

bobnamob 5y ago

Gpt-3?

AussieWog93 5y ago
I think they've just lost somebody that they care about. :(
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  Thankfully not. Just in a pensive mood. But my programmer friend has been unable to use the computer for two solid months due to some kind of sickness -- possibly pneumonia. I'm worried sick about him, because he lives in some kind of war-torn country with no functional medical system. I didn't realize how much I'd miss him till he was gone for a couple months on the verge of dying. But that kind of thing can happen at any time. You just don't really notice it till you get older, so you never slow down to appreciate the people around you while they're there. Or at least, I didn't, for a long time. Been trying to change that in recent years. Anyway, I really don't care about seeming weird. The weirdness is life itself, being a descendent of a monkey on a spinning speck of dust in the cosmic soup, worried about an abstraction we call money just to climb a societal ladder that doesn't really matter much in the end. Everyone has to walk their own path, but my goal was to get one of you to stop and think about how you want to spend the next few years of your life. I've seen so many people allow themselves to think that work = life, and most of them seem to regret it. So I try to consciously avoid that in my own. Maybe you will too.

olau 5y ago

I don't think it's on purpose. I think the problem is that in a modern society, you are so far removed from the habitats that our ancestors evolved in that a lot of people simply can't cope. We're designed to spend time grabbing food, building shelters, making and taking care of babies, those sorts of things, all in small social groups. We're designed for immediate needs and feedback. You could try this series: http://rickroderick.org/200-guide-nietzsche-and-the-postmodern-condition-1991/ http://rickroderick.org/200-guide-nietzsche-and-the-postmode... Seems like Nietzsche already saw this coming with science dealing a death blow to the old myths that kept people going, and with the advent of mobile terminals and apps optimized to keep our attention, I think we've just gotten closer to that vision.