Why do you choose to live?

[aimeeandbeatles]

Well it would be a waste to off myself now especially since I need to work on my site.

 

[G-Max]

Also, there is still cocaine to be snorted.

 

[SKILORD]

Yeah, but the problem is that heavy drug addiction is so frequently a call for help, then they catch you and lock you up and brainwash you in rehab and then you're just right back to contributing to the decay of the fabric of the earth with egocentric, short sighted western culture, square 1.

 

[bernie14]

Yeah, but the problem is that heavy drug addiction is so frequently a call for help, then they catch you and lock you up and brainwash you in rehab and then you're just right back to contributing to the decay of the fabric of the earth with egocentric, short sighted western culture, square 1.

or they could do the world a favor and just make sure their next OD will take them out, so that way, they dont have to be brainwashed and society doesnt have to pay for rehab....heck, we even get good fertalizer if we just throw them in shallow ditches.....inconsiderate addicts...that is the problem

 

[G-Max]

Yeah, but the problem is that heavy drug addiction

Cocaine isn't physically addictive. It's psychologically addictive, but then again, so is the Internet.

 

[Bootstoots]

Cocaine isn't physically addictive. It's psychologically addictive, but then again, so is the Internet.

I would maintain that the whole physical/psychological addiction dichotomy isn't very helpful. It is helpful to flag drugs with particularly strong and potentially dangerous physical withdrawal effects (in particular most downers, like alcohol, benzos, and opiates). Cocaine definitely has strong physical effects, especially related to increased dopamine, and the brain eventually upregulates to compensate. So while cocaine users aren't at risk of dying from withdrawal, it will cause a bunch of effects related to extremely low dopamine levels. Likewise for amphetamine addicts. Even if you don't think of that as "physical," it will still be powerful enough to generate behavior that is just as compulsive as is seen in addicts to drugs with more dangerous withdrawal syndromes.

Anyway...I live because I think life is likely to be an interesting ride, and I suspect that I'll have generally more positive experiences than negative ones, despite intermittent depressive episodes.

One thing I really want to see is what humanity does in the next 50 years. It's quite likely I'll live that long, and if you think about all the change we've had in the last 50, it's obvious that we'll be living in a world that will be totally different in completely unpredictable ways (whether you call them good or bad). I want to see what those are, and the only way to do that is to survive.

 

[Zelig]

'Cause I don't have anything else to do?

I agree, if I had anything else to do, I would do it.

 

[Leonel]

I want to see where humanity goes. I know someone in the 19th century wondered what people in the 20th century would live like. Here I am in the 21st century wondering how 22nd century people will live.

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

Read some existentialist works and solve it out. Folks like Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Wittgenstein all had these problems; and they all sorted it out their own ways.

Kafka is to be avoided thuogh; two of his books and you'll reel from depression.
I would personally recommend Kierkegaard. I remember there was a book written by Shusaku Endo called Silence. Recommend that one as well. Semi-autobiographical book regading the author's experiences of isolation and depression I think it was.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

One more turn

 

[TheBladeRoden]

so I can post in this thread

 

[Kozmos]

Love and work. The first one failed miserably because of x, y and z factors so I'm going to focus on work nao. Also future cybernetic arms are another incentive to live.

 

[Narz]

Because I don't know how to do anything else better?

Good answer. Curiosity too. It's a pretty interesting world & I kind of want to see how things go. Now I live for my child too.

Two questions pop up for me as an addendum.

Why do we choose to have kids?

Genetics & carelessness?

Why do we choose to let other people die?

You mean like starving people in Africa? Junkies on the streets? No one can save everyone.

 

[W|M]

I want to see what happens in 2012. Once 2012 is done, I want to see 2060, then 2112, as they will probably be the next dates with ridiculous theories about them.

 

[Narz]

I have another. Why do we care for those seriously injured - say, a limb blown off - in say, combat, when it would seem more economically wise to just leave them to die? Why do we care for the terminally ill?

---

Much of humanity's mentality would seem to spawn from evolutionary instinct, but other parts of it seem to answer to a higher calling...

Say you're a young tribesman of the Wawa tribe. Tribal custom mandates you intermarry with another group. You notice the Jaja tribe has the custom of shunning the injured or maimed, letting them die alone. The Yaya tribe on the other hand takes care of it's ill. Which tribe would you prefer to marry into? Raise your kids in? For tribal animals like humans group selection is more important than single orgamism selection.

Even elephants take care of their injured, IIRC.

 

[Greizer85]

Say you're a young tribesman of the Wawa tribe. Tribal custom mandates you intermarry with another group. You notice the Jaja tribe has the custom of shunning the injured or maimed, letting them die alone. The Yaya tribe on the other hand takes care of it's ill. Which tribe would you prefer to marry into? Raise your kids in? For tribal animals like humans group selection is more important than single orgamism selection.

Hmm. Seems to me the Jaja tribe is more rational about managing their resources... While the Yaya tribe makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Tough cookie. Depends if we live near the Icy Volcanoes or in Deer Valley, Coconut Grove I guess.

Even elephants take care of their injured, IIRC.

Remind me again which ones are hunting the others to extinction as we speak, elephants or humans..? (Sorry, I can't get up without black humor in the morning. ...And it is morning. Morning is whenever I get up, duh, studies or not.)

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I certainly hope so. However, hope doesn't count as evidence. Neither do mystical experiences, in the scientific sense; but it'd be a personal comfort if nothing else.

Anyway, this is the sort of vague hippie talk that people don't appreciate here.
I wish I had more to say on the subject, but I think SiLL's post summed up my view
better than I could've. I exist to feel, and as for death, I try not to think of it and hope for the best (I'd rather science make me immortal than take my chances with God's existence, though).

I am pretty sure that mystical experience counts as evidence(for the experiencer) but to have it one would need more than just hope - one needs strong faith. so i guess the drug experience is something more available but also less everything else.


I suppose this is the ancient hippies talking(wikipedia):

The Pythagorean doctrine prevails among the Gauls' teaching that the souls of men are immortal, and that after a fixed number of years they will enter into another body.
Julius Caesar recorded that the druids of Gaul, Britain and Ireland had metempsychosis as one of their core doctrines

The principal point of their doctrine is that the soul does not die and that after death it passes from one body into another..... the main object of all education is, in their opinion, to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can the highest form of human courage be developed.

 

[Tani Coyote]

You're going to give me a prequel aneurysm. But my point stands, Anakin was emo, but Darth Vader was not emo, ergo the Dark Side cured his emo-ness.

May I suggest as an alternative:

"Everyone's against me."
"Everyone thinks I'm stupid."
"Even my girlfriend turned against me!"

The Dark Side once more has cured emoness! ..turning one from a mopey, well-intentioned echidna to a sadistic, insane, self-righteous "I'm still a hero despite destroying the entire world" one.

Audacity is a much rosier way to paint the psychological landscape of a person delusional enough to think they can make the world a better place to any extent, but the truth is that many people (most of them in the Republican party) that audacity was arrogance. That is one of the many reasons that conservatives don't care for the man.

Personally, I think living with a desire to change the world isn't arrogant. I think it's being hopeful. Hopeful that you'll be the one who can make a difference in so many lives.

I mean, I know I live with the hope of making the world a better place. I think many people do, really. I want to be something more than just another automaton.

Unfortunately, the people who often are vested with the power squander it. My example above may be fictional but the point is true even in reality.

But with regards to happiness, you know, it's not like I don't try. I make attempts to enjoy life. But then again, you can't be happy all the time, my boy in the OP clearly is having trouble being happy and so my advice is to take all the sadness and set it aflame.

Anger is seen as more productive than sorrow, but that's probably only in a combat situation. Depressed or bloodthirsty, I'd think any emotion could be used to say, create a work of art. Though you might perform better with certain emotions.

 

[Greizer85]

Spoiler :

I am pretty sure that mystical experience counts as evidence(for the experiencer) but to have it one would need more than just hope - one needs strong faith. so i guess the drug experience is something more available but also less everything else.


I suppose this is the ancient hippies talking(wikipedia):

The Pythagorean doctrine prevails among the Gauls' teaching that the souls of men are immortal, and that after a fixed number of years they will enter into another body.
Julius Caesar recorded that the druids of Gaul, Britain and Ireland had metempsychosis as one of their core doctrines

The principal point of their doctrine is that the soul does not die and that after death it passes from one body into another..... the main object of all education is, in their opinion, to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can the highest form of human courage be developed.

Don't you think it's a bit too convenient that said form of courage made people die unquestioningly for their leaders? Not to say that it's necessarily a scam, but I'd lean on that side without evidence to the contrary (even personal evidence).

Anyway, I know that you can experience some wild stuff if you take up meditation in earnest. But it's hard work and tbh I'm kinda scared of it. I'm egotist and insecure in the extreme for the most part. I'd rather pursue the traditional means to happiness and if that's unsuccessful, then opt for the spiritual route. There's a whole eternity of time after all (if there's not then the whole thing is pointless since the Universe is unjust towards the ignorant).

 

[Richard Cribb]

Since I have been living every day of the last few years with rather considerable physical pain, a condition which hardly will ever change, there has been times when voluntarily ending my life has indeed been tempting.
But then again, have quite a lot to live for, things to do, to see, to experience. Oblivion will come quickly enough without me positively contributing to it,