How [Un]Comfortable Are You...?

[Jaguar]

Roast Beef and provolone sandwich is excellent. Want some?

[...] the more tyrannical always stand out. <snipped rant>

Yes, your tyrannical post did stand out. You have a right to define happiness in your own life; not define it for anyone else according to your personal opinion or a book you just read by a guru, or even Dr. Seuss.
If you want to keep ranting like a petulant child, here's the thread for that:

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/the-fluff-zone/29836-rant-thread.html?highlight=rant

 

[Beorn]

You have a right to define happiness in your own life; not define it for anyone else according to your personal opinion or a book you just read by a guru, or even Dr. Seuss.

If everyone defines their own meaning you don't have the right to limit how they determine their own meaning even if that meaning limits your rights, but that would mean I don't have the right to limit how you determine meaning even if that meaning limits someone's ability to determine their own meaning... except that I have the right to determine my own meaning.

My head hurts.

 

[Eluded_One]

If everyone defines their own meaning you don't have the right to limit how they determine their own meaning even if that meaning limits your rights, but that would mean I don't have the right to limit how you determine meaning even if that meaning limits someone's ability to determine their own meaning... except that I have the right to determine my own meaning.

My head hurts.

Apparently written and arranged on a sober afternoon

 

[sprinkles]

If everyone defines their own meaning you don't have the right to limit how they determine their own meaning even if that meaning limits your rights, but that would mean I don't have the right to limit how you determine meaning even if that meaning limits someone's ability to determine their own meaning... except that I have the right to determine my own meaning.

My head hurts.

People's rights to define things simply can't trump each other.

You can define things for you but that doesn't stop me from defining things for me and vice versa. Both happen at the same time and it's pretty simple really.

You have the right to THINK you can determine things for me, but good luck actually accomplishing it.

 

[Beorn]

People's rights to define things simply can't trump each other.

You can define things for you but that doesn't stop me from defining things for me and vice versa. Both happen at the same time and it's pretty simple really.

You have the right to THINK you can determine things for me, but good luck actually accomplishing it.

Well... then doesn't it just come down to might makes right?

 

[sprinkles]

Well... then doesn't it just come down to might makes right?

The opposite really, because neither can impose anything through might.

If someone punches me in the face enough times that I start to agree with them, that doesn't mean they win, it means I want to stop being punched.

 

[Jaguar]

If everyone defines their own meaning you don't have the right to limit how they determine their own meaning even if that meaning limits your rights, but that would mean I don't have the right to limit how you determine meaning even if that meaning limits someone's ability to determine their own meaning... except that I have the right to determine my own meaning.

Say that 10 times real fast.

You have the right to THINK you can determine things for me, but good luck actually accomplishing it.

Indeed.

 

[Qlip]

I really don't believe life is inherently meaningless. After all, life does actually come with a directive, to live. Life also comes with other directives depending on the circumstances of your birth, your genes, your surroundings, etc. We're a kind of melody, accidental or not, searching for a tonic.

People like to think that they are these wisps of absolute free will. I think this makes us feel powerful, but actually causes quite a bit of anxiety.

 

[sprinkles]

I really don't believe life is inherently meaningless. After all, life does actually come with a directive, to live. Life also comes with other directives depending on the circumstances of your birth, your genes, your surroundings, etc. We're a kind of melody searching for a tonic.

Isn't that saying the meaning of life is... life?

 

[Qlip]

Isn't that saying the meaning of life is... life?

A meaning of life is to live. That's an entirely different thing all together. To do things, conduct one's self, refrain in such a way to feel as if you are: provided for, engaged. What makes one feel like that isn't really decided by one's self, but there are definite choices on how to proceed.

 

[sprinkles]

A meaning of life is to live. That's an entirely different thing all together. To do things, conduct one's self, refrain in such a way to feel as if you are: provided for, engaged.

But if you're not living you don't have life so that still leaves the question of why you need to be alive.

If you're asking the meaning of life it's already a given that you're alive.

 

[Jaguar]

But if you're not living you don't have life so that still leaves the question of why you need to be alive.

If you're asking the meaning of life it's already a given that you're alive.

For me, breathing =/= being alive. I may be living but at a particular time, not alive. What does it mean to be alive? (There's a new thread.)

 

[Qlip]

But if you're not living you don't have life so that still leaves the question of why you need to be alive.

If you're asking the meaning of life it's already a given that you're alive.

It depends on how you look at it. Meaning can be a reason to your life: Why am I alive? Meaning can be a resolution to your being: What in life makes me feel whole?

Both can be characterized as thing that provide meaning to living. The second is reasonably answerable, and if you believe in such things as ultimate purpose, a grand design, it's also most likely the answer to the first.

 

[sprinkles]

For me, breathing =/= being alive. I may be living but at a particular time, not alive. What does it mean to be alive? (There's a new thread.)

To me that's not being alive and I personally find no utility in conflating the two. I gain nothing by defining life that way, and I certainly don't lose anything by not doing so.

Do you gain something from it?

- - - Updated - - -

It depends on how you look at it. Meaning can be a reason to your life: Why am I alive? Meaning can be a resolution to your being: What in life makes me feel whole?

Both can be characterized as thing that provide meaning to living. The second is reasonably answerable, and if you believe in such things as ultimate purpose, a grand design, it's also most likely the answer to the first.

To me a reason to be alive is not the same as meaning for life.

 

[Jaguar]

To me that's not being alive and I personally find no utility in conflating the two. I gain nothing by defining life that way, and I certainly don't lose anything by not doing so.

Do you gain something from it?

"To be alive" can vary in meaning from person to person. That's all I was getting at. For me, just because I am breathing doesn't make me alive. I may be living, sure. But not alive.

 

[Qlip]

To me that's not being alive and I personally find no utility in conflating the two. I gain nothing by defining life that way, and I certainly don't lose anything by not doing so.

Do you gain something from it?

- - - Updated - - -



To me a reason to be alive is not the same as meaning for life.

It's the meaning for my life, and it's a pretty satisfactory in very unexpected ways.

i suppose perhaps the disconnect between you and me is that I decided a long time ago, if there was some sort of big picture, then who you are would be somehow connected to what you should be doing which would be a part of the big 'Why?' if it existed. Any other way lies madness and indicates a really shitty and contemptible Architect at the helm.

 

[sprinkles]

"To be alive" can vary in meaning from person to person. That's all I was getting at. For me, personally, just because I m breathing doesn't make me alive. I may be living, sure. But not alive.

Yeah, that's fine. That's also not inherent, in conventional terms. So we're back to square one yet again.

 

[sprinkles]

It's the meaning for my life, and it's a pretty satisfactory in very unexpected ways.

i suppose perhaps the disconnect between you and me is that I decided a long time ago, if there was some sort of big picture, then who you are would be somehow connected to what you should be doing which would be a part of the big 'Why?' if it existed. Any other way lies madness and indicates a really shitty and contemptible Architect at the helm.

Yeah, that's fine. That's also not inherent, in conventional terms. So we're back to square one yet again.

 

[Qlip]

Yeah, that's fine. That's also not inherent, in conventional terms. So we're back to square one yet again.

It's not immediately inherent, but it may be the only logically actionable and useful answer. To have a reason to be alive proposes a whole lot of weird nonsensical questions. One of the larger of which is, would you be capable of understanding the reason in the first place? And if so, wouldn't understanding it and the larger framework, put you in the position of being able to override it, thus leading you to square one again again?

 

[sprinkles]

It's not immediately inherent, but it may be the only logically actionable and useful answer. To have a reason to be alive proposes a whole lot of weird nonsensical questions. One of the larger of which is, would you be capable of understanding the reason in the first place? And if so, wouldn't understanding it and the larger framework, put you in the position to override it, thus leading you to square one again?

That's very astute!

I suppose yet once again though it is personal. I've chosen to focus on other things so even though this is probably a logically actionable answer, it's an answer to a question that I don't ask all that often.

To me - and this is only me personally - it's like asking why you should play jazz when you could be playing jazz.