This is a serious question, or I intend it to be:
Why carry on?
As a species, generally, why carry on?
That's necessarily an emotional question. (Is it?) Does its intrinsic emotionalness mean that it is also somehow false? Does it falsify itself? If I try to even it out with some perspective, does that just give some more specific emotional angle to it? EG:
If we really think that life is so ghastly (and cue all the big production sound effects for HORROR!!) then, instead of dragging it out as if we had no choice but to carry on in a battle to what end… why not either admit that it's ghastly and cease renewing it, or admit that there's something in it and ditch the histrionics?
I feel a bit as though the human race is like a scene I remember from The Young Ones in which Rick (was it?) threatens to leave the house or kill himself, and says, "I'm going" and everyone says, "Yeah, bye", and he says, "Okay, well, this is it then, I'm really going", "Yeah, see ya", "So, this is the last goodbye", etc. etc.
Anyway, I'm going to bed.
it’s not really a dilemma unless you’re suffering or something is wrong physically. life is still a bowl of cherries. we may as well enjoy what we can of it. sometimes you’re energetic and it’s very interesting and pleasurable. sometimes i am tired of doing things; then i rest and read or sit in the sun or take a walk and the interest always comes back. always changing, how could i ever decide, the way i am, that it’s not worth seeing it all through to the end. and the surprises, of state, or a turn in the road, an unexpected windfall in the human relationship realm. i just have to stick around myself, to see how the play ends.
I agree, but I wasn’t thinking in terms of individual self-destruction. I suppose the ridiculous thing about this particular blog post is that it makes the assumption that the human race are capable of making a single decision together, but, of course, that never happens. Even so, I do honestly and seriously wonder why we carry on as a species. As individuals we can say that we’re making the most of it, because we’re here, but as a species there is a decision involved in each generation whether or not to multiply. In other words, as a species, we are forever renewing our contract with life, when there’s no especial need to, and considering how miserable or, even if not immediately miserable then existentially hopeless, people generally seem to find life, I wonder why we keep on renewing the contract.As I said, I’m quite serious about this, and have been prompted to read up about Primo Levi, here:http://www.bostonreview.net/BR24.3/gambetta.html
From one or two responses I’ve received I’ve gathered this post was taken in a way not intended. Please note the phrase “as a species” in the third line. Don’t want to worry anyone unnecessarily.
as a species, generally… hmmm gnarly question. but it is an ethereal one. apart from philosophy and psychology, there is no reason. our reasons are either second hand or made up.it’s even difficult to hold the question in my mind for more than a second or two. but i just know there has to be a good answer to the sense and aim of the existence of homo sapiens. it sounds so cold in scholastic nomenclature…. almost lifeless.but when you consider the full scope of human endeavor, it’s fits and spurts of genius, it’s overall amazing grasp of the material world, the intense sense of survival not only of the individual self or communities, but the intense straining to collectively assume responsibility for our presence here on the earth, there just has to be a higher reason which is beyond the grasp of one individual’s consciousness. and as my friend moontan would say, so there. :happy:
I’ve been thinking about the issue of ‘fiction’ all the way to the office, on the train, but being now at the office, must get on with work. Basically, though, have been wondering if anything happens outside of the frame of ‘fiction’.If so, what?
Neil. It was Neil. Jeez, I’m not even British man.
I knew it was Neil!!!
There’s a badly transcribed discussion of the issues I’ve been talking about here:http://deoxy.org/w_nature.htmSo the world doesn’t come thinged; it doesn’t come evented. You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean. The ocean waves, and the universe peoples. And as I wave and say to you ‘Yoo-hoo!’ the world is waving with me at you and saying ‘Hi! I’m here!’ But we are consciousness [conscious?] of the way we feel and sense our existence. Being based on a myth that we are made, that we are parts, that we are things, our consciousness has been influenced, so that each one of us does not feel that. We have been hypnotized, literally hypnotized by social convention, into feeling and sensing that we exist only inside our skins. That we are not the original bang, just something out on the end of it. And therefore we are scared stiff. My wave is going to disappear, and I’m going to die! And that would be awful. We’ve got a mythology going now which is, as Father Maskell.?, put it, we are something that happens between the maternity ward and the crematorium. And that’s it. And therefore everybody feels unhappy and miserable.This is what people really believe today. You may go to church, you may say you believe in this, that, and the other, but you don’t. Even Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are the most fundamental of fundamentalists, they are polite when they come around and knock on the door. But if you REALLY believed in Christianity, you would be screaming in the streets. But nobody does. You would be taking full-page ads [out] in the paper every day. You would be [making?] the most terrifying television programs. The churches would be going out of their minds if they really believed what they teach. But they don’t. They think they ought to believe what they teach. They believe they should believe, but they don’t really believe it, because what we REALLY believe is the fully automatic model. And that is our basic, plausible common sense. You are a fluke. You are a separate event. And you run from the maternity ward to the crematorium, and that’s it, baby. That’s it.Now why does anybody think that way? There’s no reason to, because it isn’t even scientific. It’s just a myth. And it’s invented by people who want to feel a certain way. They want to play a certain game. The game of ‘god got embarrassing’. The idea if God as the potter, as the architect of the universe, is good. It makes you feel that life is, after all, important. There is someone who cares. It has meaning, it has sense, and you are valuable in the eyes of the father. But after a while, it gets embarrassing, and you realize that everything you do is being watched by God. He knows your tiniest innermost feelings and thoughts, and you say after a while, ‘Quit bugging me! I don’t want you around.’ So you become an athiest, just to get rid of him. Then you feel terrible after that, because you got rid of God, but that means you got rid of yourself. You’re nothing but a machine. And your idea that you’re a machine is just a machine, too. So if you’re a smart kid, you commit suicide. Camus said there is only one serious philosophical question, which is whether or not to commit suicide. I think there are four or five serious philosophical questions. The first one is ‘Who started it?’ The second is ‘Are we going to make it?’ The third is ‘Where are we going to put it?’ The fourth is ‘Who’s going to clean up?’ And the fifth, ‘Is it serious?’But still, should you or not commit suicide? This is a good question. Why go on? And you only go on if the game is worth the gamble. Now the universe has been going on for an incredibly long time. And so really, a satisfactory theory of the universe has to be one that’s worth betting on. That’s very, it seems to me, elementary common sense. If you make a theory of the universe which isn’t worth betting on, why bother? Just commit suicide. But if you want to go on playing the game, you’ve got to have an optimal theory for playing the game. Otherwise there’s no point in it. But the people who coined the fully automatic theory of the universe were playing a very funny game, for what they wanted to say was this: all you people who believe in religion–old ladies and wishful thinkers–you’ve got a big daddy up there, and you want comfort, but life is rough. Life is tough, as success goes to the most hard-headed people. That was a very convenient theory when the European and American worlds were colonizing the natives everywhere else. They said ‘We’re the end product of evolution, and we’re tough. I’m a big strong guy because I face facts, and life is just a bunch of junk, and I’m going to impose my will on it and turn it into something else. I’m real hard.’ That’s a way of flattering yourself.And so, it has become academically plausible and fashionable that this is the way the world works. In academic circles, no other theory of the world than the fully automatic model is respectable. Because if you’re an academic person, you’ve got to be an intellectually tough person, you’ve got to be prickly. There are basically two kinds of philosophy. One’s called prickles, the other’s called goo. And prickly people are precise, rigorous, logical. They like everything chopped up and clear. Goo people like it vague. For example, in physics, prickly people believe that the ultimate constituents of matter are particles. Goo people believe it’s waves. And in philosophy, prickly people are logical positivists, and goo people are idealists. And they’re always arguing with each other, but what they don’t realize is neither one can take his position without the other person. Because you wouldn’t know you advocated prickles unless there was someone advocating goo. You wouldn’t know what a prickle was unless you knew what a goo was. Because life isn’t either prickles or goo, it’s either gooey prickles or prickly goo. They go together like back and front, male and female. And that’s the answer to philosophy. You see, I’m a philosopher, and I’m not going to argue very much, because if you don’t argue with me, I don’t know what I think. So if we argue, I say ‘Thank you,’ because owing to the courtesy of your taking a different point of view, I understand what I mean. So I can’t get rid of you.But however, you see, this whole idea that the universe is nothing at all but unintelligent force playing around and not even enjoying it is a putdown theory of the world. [It was made up by] People who had an advantage to make, a game to play by putting it down, and making out that because they put the world down they were a superior kind of people. So that just won’t do. We’ve had it. Because if you seriously go along with this idea of the world, you’re what is technically called alienated. You feel hostile to the world. You feel that the world is a trap. It is a mechanism, it is electronic and neurological mechanisms into which you somehow got caught. And you, poor thing, have to put up with being put into a body that’s falling apart, that gets cancer, that gets the great Siberian itch, and is just terrible. And these mechanics–doctors–are trying to help you out, but they really can’t succeed in the end, and you’re just going to fall apart, and it’s a grim business, and it’s just too bad. So if you think that’s the way things are, you might as well commit suicide right now. Unless you say, ‘Well, I’m damned. Because there might really be, after all, eternal damnation. Or I identify with my children, and I think of them going on without me and nobody to support them. Because [But?] if I do go on in this frame of mind and continue to support them, I shall teach them to be like I am, and they’ll go on, dragging it out to support their children, and they won’t enjoy it. They’ll be afraid to commit suicide, and so will their children. They’ll all learn the same lessons.’
You know what would be good for you to believe in? That one day you will have a secretary. Haha. By the way, at one point it was thought that secretary as a profession would disappear (replaced by robots or something) but it is now clear that it will never happen.
A secretary would be very much appreciated, but I don’t know if I have the necessary faith.
I ask myself this sometimes.The answer is generally “why stop now”? Which makes as much sense as “We’ve spent billions developing the underwater pogo stick! If we stop now, it’ll all be wasted!” admittedly.
that was a tantalizing pile of words. it kind of proves that words are not adequate to describe the true angst of being here, alive and often in a quandary as to whether it is worth it.we are confounded. but that is perfect. that’s what makes it interesting. i will go on in the same way i continue to watch a movie. i want to see what happens. i kind of heed the warning about suicide even though i have no religious faith at all. just suppose that you are punished, sent back to some lower existence like a worm or a roach, because you couldn’t fathom the service required of the acme of creation… a human being with all the bells and whistles the creator could devise in his unlimited intelligence. just suppose they are in the know, the teachers, the prophets and the saints…naaaawe are grown ups. we are existentialists. we must wrestle with an outsider reasoning. we can justify our personal existence in so many ways.it still boils down, for me at least, i want to stay alive. i want to see how the world goes… will it grow in compassion? will it involve and descend into barbaric practices… so to sum it up… i am continuing here as i am because i am simply curious. or to put it in a better light, i am interested. and maybe i can still help. that would be nice. so i wouldn’t go out as just another well meaning asshole who sought comfort only.
For me, the ‘might as well live’ argument (see Dorothy Parker: http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/4931/ ) works for why not to commit suicide, but not for why to carry on as a species. In fact, for the latter it’s an argument against. “Why not have children?” doesn’t sound as convincing as, “Why not carry on living?”EG:”Mummy, Daddy, why was I born?””Why not?”In this case, it’s clearly a shrugging off of responsibility, a perpetuating of agony and confusion.Sorry to be brief, but I’ll be back.
Hmmm.
I think this highlights an interesting divide in experience and viewpoint. I don’t see existence as an opportunity; there doesn’t seem to me to be any kind of a go to give in life. I know I’m not alone in this, either.
I suppose that brings this back to what I said about the human race never being able to make a single decision, which is why this blog entry is ridiculous.
This is roughly what I meant by renewing the contract:
The contract is (I shall put it in italics):
By virtue of the procreation of your parents, you are hereby entered into the contract of life. The contract is already signed and dated for you.
You must abide by the rules of the contract, and agree:
1. To exist in an environment where the attainment of most desires is impossible for most people, but possible enough for a few to allow for tantalising dreams.
2. To exist in an environment with parochial rules and customs established before your birth without your consent.
3. To inhabit a mortal body, prone to disease, hunger, injury and exhaustion, which is rigged to lose the battle with decay.
4. To sustain this existence by constant intakes of nutrition, which will not be provided for you, but which you will have to do your best to provide for yourself in order to escape hunger, malnutrition and, in some cases, drawn-out and painful death, usually being indentured as a slave (often called “employees”) in order to obtain such nutrition.
Etc. Etc.
37. Break clause: You may cancel this contract at any time you wish if you find the physical means to end your bodily existence. There is, however, a penalty for breaking the contract, which will be exacted in extreme pain and the risk of lifelong disability to you, and anguish to those close to you. (The management retains the right to threaten you with vague but nightmarish post mortem damnation in such a case.)
38. The management will not be responsible at any time to explain the reasons for any clause in this contract or for why you were entered into this contract in the first place. Nor is this contract negotiable in any part. Nor, in fact, will the management ever be held responsible for anything… ever.
Etc. Etc.
193. After a given period, for which the management has no responsibility of warning you beforehand, your contract will expire, and so will you, into the unknown. However, you may renew the contract before this happens vicariously, by creating the same contract for a future life. No guarantees whatsoever apply to this future life.
Everyone must decide for themselves, of course, whether to break the contract or not, but a renewal of the contract is always a decision made for others. This is why, for me, “Why not?” is not a decisive answer to the question “Why?”
As I said, I’m quite serious in asking the question, Why carry on? No one is obliged to answer it, of course, I just feel that I want to pose it. And it’s not rhetorical, it’s not just meant as a request for reasons or methods for ignoring all that is bad in life. It’s not meant, either, as an assertion that life is inevitably terrible and worthless. I honestly want to know the answer. Others may have answers that satisfy them – I certainly don’t yet have an answer that satisfies me.
no species, no me. i wouldn’t want to deprive future beings of the opportunity to give life a go.also, i don’t care how knowledgeable or enlightened joyous and free a man can be, he will still never divine the reason for there being a universe. 💡 we are just animals that like to reason.
Originally posted by myrzipan:The answer is generally “why stop now”? Which makes as much sense as “We’ve spent billions developing the underwater pogo stick! If we stop now, it’ll all be wasted!” admittedly.Sorry – I did take note of this. Actually, comparing life to developing an underwater pogo stick does make it sound suddenly, inexplicably almost irresistable.
see… you just have to be intrigued to play the game. no. but seriously, brilliant foile stab and stunning balestro thrusts. and the final coupe de gras sabre slash, point 193. this is all precious repartee’. i, for one, enjoyed these enumerations immensely. we could go far with this stuff and even stuff a book with it.Originally posted by quentinscrisp:I certainly don’t yet have an answer that satisfies me.nor do i.all the more reason to preserve the species; that it might grow it’s intuitive antennae. or maybe it’s a search for a way of life which furthers deeper questions than ‘where will i get my next loaf of bread from’. i think that as long as we are struggling simply to survive, we don’t have the luxury or the freedom/time to ponder deeply enough. and i don’t mean that it can be got in a cold cave somewhere living on nettle soup.i’m sure that anyone who spends forty days and nights in a mountain cave will have visions and hear the voice of god. but i give that no more credence than a successful peyote ceremony.the nineteenth century thinkers dreamed that the ‘doors of perception’ could be opened through chemistry. maybe a glimpse of truth…. rimbaud thought that a derangement of the senses might free his formatory mind from blocking the sublime realizations. it was a good idea but far from a meaningful success.
Just about to go to bed. Related things I’ve been thinking:Some people have to take drugs just to be normal, or they are told they do. This makes normality seem a slippery concept to me.Another thing I was thinking about: I have a kind of passing interest in skepticism, and a vague notion or suspicion (for all I know everyone already knows this) that skepticism really began as a way of being open-minded, as a way of saying that there is more, rather than less. In other words, to jump to conclusions is to settle for less, conceptually and perhaps otherwise.More late, I expect.
I understand pretty much everything about this blog except the fact that the guy apparently has children, or at least, a child:http://whoistheabsurdman.blogspot.com/
interesting reading. i read two posts. i liked the acquiescence in regard to age… it’s kind of true but not in my experience. my experience is that i lost some luggage, or baggage, or interests. yes. but some of them come back. like politics. i think i lived happily without politics for 30 years. now i am interested again. and,”Mystifying as this seems, we have a theory. Indeed, it is a remarkably simple one–freed of the daily struggle for survival, humans find themselves at a loss for how to do something “meaningful,” due mainly, if not exclusively, to the nagging suspicion it is all futile anyway.”my theory, i would like to prove is that we are not really using this freedom from want of food shelter warmth very efficiently. it seems obvious to me that it should cause a renaissance of art. a renewal of private inventors etc., not so much dismay that life is not meaningful. it means exactly what we reason with ourselves to mean. outside of myself, it’s all meaningless in a way. like religions… do i need it? no. i have a conscience. i am in a constant state of wonderment at life without spiritual guidance.i’m not sure i made a point.
Actually, on further thought, my ‘understanding’ of the blog is only really quite partial. Absurdly, I’ve just left a comment under one of the posts.
Talking of taking drugs to be normal:http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/80147I was thinking recently about that old saying, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” Of course, like all old sayings, it’s become a cliche, so that the meaning of it is seldom meditated on or felt deeply. But it struck me as a very good and a very profound saying.Religion has been compared to an opiate. This is a favourite comparison among many. I think the original comparison was not meant entirely perjoratively, but it has become such. And yet, how many people making such a perjorative comparison never use drugs of one kind or another?I’ve observed for myself conversations between people whose favourite drugs are different. Very often, both sides seem blind to the fact that their experiences of the substance are necessarily different because they are different people.Sorry, I’m kind of going off at tangents, but they seem related to me.I may elaborate later…
yeah, drugs and religion are related. i guess we need relief from harsh reality, disappointments, natural fears. anything that allows some escape from the day to day struggles.it is hard to just face reality. it’s organically hard even.the opiate of the people or the religion of the disillusioned. if one doesn’t get you, the other one will.