No Truth

I just read The Stranger by Albert Camus today and it basically reaffirmed what i was thinking about all along. why do we all pretend that the world harbors meaning for us? when we are nothing but drifters or lurkers. could it be possible that whatever is there has nothing to do with us, and that nothing really matters since we will all die anyway. I feel that we are stuck in this loop where we all do the same things and live the same lives, act the same way, pursue the same things; everything is so conventionally put out there so when we really die we realize that all this was for nothing. God doesnt exist = nothing after death = one person is as good as another.

and the book started out saying:
"Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. I had a telegram from the home: 'Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Yours sincerely.' That doesn't mean anything. It may have happened yesterday."

another thing why do we pretend to care about the dead, when in fact we get over it and some of us wished it. all the dead people i used to know are now forgotten by me and it was as though they never meant anything to anyone, in a few years no one would even be able to recall his/her existence. so clearly what we do in life wont matter since we wont be remembered anyway and life goes on.

like Carlos Castaneda said:
“We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk.”

i think people worry too much about their future as well because you guys must admit its pretty meaningless to waste your mind pondering on something like that. whatever happens just happens and it wont make the slightest of difference because we aint soldiers fighting for a cause, and if there is a cause its a sham.

maybe for once people can admit that their life is futile, im not saying u should give up on life, all im saying is that we should admit to that fact and live life knowing that whatever we do will result to nothing and our ultimate death will make us forget it.

as the main character in the book said: "I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world."






[edit on 7-8-2008 by DuneKnight]

[edit on 7-8-2008 by DuneKnight]

no thanks, that doesn't sound like fun. We effect the world by our presence here. Even if it is temporary or an illusion. It is beautiful here. There is good here. There are good people to connect with. Life is good.

reply to post by seagrass


not arguing with you, life is good as long as its not defined by how meaningful it is.

the philosophy your describing is nihilisim. its not a bad philosophy realy but it wont work for everyone. see when you try and tell someone who dosent follow the nihilistic path that there lives are pointless exercises that will eventualy lead to oblivion they wont belive it because it makes them feel, well pointless and most people dont want to feel that way.

my personal belife is that lifes purpose is to mature the soul through pain, suffering, joy, feelings of accomplishment ect so that when you die your soul will be stronge and ready to transistion in to its new exsistance. i believe death should be looked forward to not feared and despair, and suffering is important as a method for growth and should be embraced. but hey thats my personal philosophy and spirituality.

good luck with the nihilisim and while your looking have a look at discordian philosophy its a good one.

Personally I think this is a great thread and it will bring tons of controversial comments.

I have studied existentialism and metaphysics. I have studied religion of every brand. I love to study and I have been where you are. But with my studying I had to come to my own conclusions about what life was about.

I think that people that don't go where you are at, or where I have been are missing a section of reality study. Many people do not go there out of fear. The 'what if everything means nothing' stance is scary in a world that is wrapped about everything is worth something. If everything means nothing, then everything would be worth nothing.

I had to go there, I now know, to find out what really meant anything to ME. See what means something to me, may mean nothing to you. Which is important to know, because I had to realize that the things and people in my life only had as much meaning as I put to them.

I do believe life and all it entails is some form of illusion. I have a choice whether I want to enjoy that illusion or not. Whether I want to choose a path that is painful or not. Where I really want my life to go to.

Where we go, or what we do after here is of no concern to me. I am not there, I am here and the time is now. That is all any of us have, here and now. If my brain is here and is what is real is what I am experiencing in the here and now well then I am doing it right.

Gaining this information is not an end, it is a beginning. There is a great power to this knowledge. It removes fear of the unknown, because it makes the unknown known to you. You will understand that if you think about it. The big religious of North America is Christianity. It is run with fear and instead of living in the now they live in the then.

There is a couple more books you might like to read. One is 'The End of Innocence' by Sheldon Kopp. I don't think you should give up on who you are. Whatever is in you, call it Spirit or whatever does have a reason. You might try reading some of Carlos Castaneda's book, I am sure you would find them good as well. But my all time favorite is 'Mans Search for Meaning' by Victor Frankell.

Feel free to u2u me if you want to talk about anything.

reply to post by DuneKnight


A lot of what you said I agree with. Most people choose to ignore such thoughts because it's a bit painful to realize the truth. People want a higher purpose and to continue their existence. I've come to accept the truth. I don't see it as being a depressing subject as I used to. The purpose of life is to live. So I'll die one day, and that will be the end of me. That means nothing to me because once I'm dead I won't feel anything, and while I'm alive, my purpose is to live.

I almost wish our species hadn't evolved such a developed sense of self awareness and ability to learn abstractly, we seem to mistake this with intelligence.

Regardless, I have also a good understanding that death equals death and that there is nothing special about the human species. Most people refuse to except this for various reason's, be it religious, new age garbage, or just plain ignorance of the mechanics behind chemistry, biology, and physics.

I find it interesting that we are not the only species that mourns the dead, even elephants do. I personally believe that we should be looking for a way to extend the healthy lives of people, rather than wasting all this land to bury people. I never understood why we put dead things inside acres and acres of land that could provide homes and food for people alive.

One thing that has always bothered me, why do people have this undying need that our universe be something special and that we have some special role in it? It makes no logical sense to think so. We are more like the parasites we try to destroy, and yet we're arrogant enough to think we're special?

Dry your eyes, blow your nose and cheer up!

Originally posted by krill
the philosophy your describing is nihilisim.

Nope. The philosophy he is describing is...

Originally posted by Zaimless
existentialism

although Zaimless herself appears to be more of a believer in the philosophia perennis.

Don't worry, my friends. Life is positively bursting with truth and purpose.

The truth is precisely what you see around you.

The purpose is to have grandchildren.

* * *

And don't worry sirnex, farmland has dead things buried in it too. All Earth is a graveyard, and all life feeds on death.

I have studied Albert Camus (in French) , what baffled me is why this man never really and openly condemned the French colonial regime in Algeria.
He was born and lived at the heart of it. He condemned the Nazi regime because he saw it as detrimental to his way of thinking but also condemned the independence of Algeria because it was not suitable to his “Algerie Francaise” .
You see how hypocrite certain writers can be?
It is very nice to tell people that we live in absurdity and need not to search for any meaning, when you are born in the side of the oppressor.
I have seen the hypocrisy of certain writers in day light, this one is no challenge.
When I challenge my teachers about it, I got always negative and insufficient answers.
Glorified by Nobel Prices all of them indulge them self with the fruits of they birth.
I tell you about my favorite thinker in France: Jean Jaures. No equivalent.

Kacou.

I have a hard time putting all my thoughts into words for the most part, but i guess, plainly, i believe all this is essentially about evolution. And not the Darwinian type... I'm still forming my beliefs and attitudes towards life with each day that goes by and my perception is constantly changing - i've been thinking of these questions since day one, it seems..

At this point in time, my basic ideals about our evolutionary process are thus: the continual incarnation and reincarnation of the energy of the soul into physical reality for the purposes of healing and balancing its energy in accordance with the law of karma. To understand this concept, you should grasp the idea of non-physical reality - which, IMO, is where we originate and where we go back to when a physical life ends. I believe in a God, i'm just not sure in what context yet..

If you even wanted to gain some insight of this there is a great book i'm reading at the moment called The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav. The more i read of it the more amazed i become when i see my thoughts ad so-called beliefs being written across the page that i was previously unable to express.

On a personal note, i would say Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. Be able for thine enemy rather in power than in use, and keep thy friend under thy own life's key. (William Shakepeare) Martin Luther King Jr is a great inspiration as well..
Revere life - in all forms - whether it all means something or not, it's better than being miserable when you believe everything's pointless.

for the people that say that its scary to think of 'life as being meaningless'; it doesnt have to be a depressing concept because nothing is really depressing, if something depressed us then clearly it would be because we invested alot in the concept that there is meaning in life for us and we fail to grasp it. but if there is nothing to grasp then why the sadness?

one more thing, what im talking about is something between nihilism and Absurdism

actually im the one who is usually blamed for enjoying life and being too 'laid back', not caring much and that disturbs alot of people who dont understand me. when i hear them talking about their concerns in life such as signing up for courses, i at times just annoy them by telling them i dont care and that i thought it was funny that i almost failed two courses last semester. but thats one mild example. another close one would be when i was in high school, students would tear up when they got their report cards but i didnt, even though i did much worse than most of people, so i felt that i had to pretend to care and put on a sad face because that was the 'right' thing to do. if i appeared happy and full of content they wouldve thought i were mad especially after knowing my grades.


here is a site that i found disturbing:dangerthanparadise...

[edit on 8-8-2008 by DuneKnight]

[edit on 8-8-2008 by DuneKnight]

I personally think that the Point of all life is to LIVE.What's the point of living if you don't have fun. We learn from our experiences, we've all done some things and we learned from them, but that's all just a part of life.We experience different emotions, leave our marks on society, some positive and some negative. Then those experiences come to a crashing halt when you breath your last breath and your existence ends. Although if you lived your life I don't think people should mourn you, they should celebrate that you are going to the great beyond (I believe in some sort of life after death) It's all a matter of opinion really, and here's mine

Some observations:

I know two ways to approach the concept of "life has no meaning".

One is a very negative way of doing it, saying it in the sense of "its all pointless and I dont give a sh**"

The other is a very positive way of doing it, saying "life has no inherent meaning except the meaning I ascribe to it.. A white canvas upon which I project my creativity".

My 2 cents.

_______________________

On another note, I noticed you are in Cairo, Egypt. I must say that during the times I stayed there (now and then a week or two for research on ancient egypt) all the heat and noise and dirt caused me to have a pretty low and pessimistic outlook on life.

In this case, my surroundings changed my philosophy.

Im not sure if your outlook is pessimistic or optimistic, but do you think your place of residence may have any effect on your outlook?

[edit on 8-8-2008 by Skyfloating]

Well, That's good way to look at things.I prefer to look at things positively. Where I live we have a saying that you must think of the bad things so the good things won't come up short. I don't how to pronounce it in English as it is very difficult.

If that is the life you choose, fair enough.

Personally, I prefer to see the beauty in things, the truths, the diversity and possibilities presented to us.

It's far less boring and provides enough meaning for this little "being".

Also, I live with the wonderful memories of those who I have known who have passed away. I remember the good stuff and it lives in me, Thanks Gramps!

Life's what you make it and meaning is where you find it, but if you don't see it around you, you will be short on ingredients for that big, icing covered, multilayered cake with bows, candles and pretty icing.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Some observations:

I know two ways to approach the concept of "life has no meaning".

One is a very negative way of doing it, saying it in the sense of "its all pointless and I dont give a sh**"

The other is a very positive way of doing it, saying "life has no inherent meaning except the meaning I ascribe to it.. A white canvas upon which I project my creativity".

My 2 cents.

_______________________

On another note, I noticed you are in Cairo, Egypt. I must say that during the times I stayed there (now and then a week or two for research on ancient egypt) all the heat and noise and dirt caused me to have a pretty low and pessimistic outlook on life.

In this case, my surroundings changed my philosophy.

Im not sure if your outlook is pessimistic or optimistic, but do you think your place of residence may have any effect on your outlook?

[edit on 8-8-2008 by Skyfloating]

no im with the positive way of doing it definitely, im just being honest with myself which doesnt hurt me a bit. and yes i do believe that there is no inherent meaning and at times i create my own meanings in things as overcompensation or to fill the void, just like you said.

ah, its funny that you mentioned the whole egypt thing well yeah it isnt a serene place, adventurous yes but not the place you want to call home. so i would have to say that im affected partially by the atmosphere here which constantly disturbs my senses. and sometimes it seems like a Star Wars bar scene, things are a bit raw maybe realistic in comparison to other places in the world. people here like any part of the third world are satisfied with what they have but they arent the happiest of people if you check the ranking.

when someone lives at such a place its hard for people not to believe in God, his presence is felt when the sun strikes you with unbelievable heat and the surrounding desert tells you to be grateful so i can also say that one can gain faith here and find meaning in religion here instead of what im saying. but i think my mind works differently i look at anything with disdain nomatter how glorious it is be it a treacherous desert that swallows civilizations or a night in vegas; whatever it is it all seems unreal but living in egypt and other african places seems more real to me than anywhere else in the world.

What you believe is what you become.

Remeber that if you think you are nothing and meaningless, than you are.

There is some point to this all; I've pondered this myself but I always leave myself open to truths and never answer questions for myself.

Think.Speak.Act.Become.Know.Understand.Believe.Exist. -
Grace

for the people that believe in purpose and meaning: what if your purpose in life is to die? would you be happy about that?

i dont know how relevant this is but this episode reminds me of that; this is an altered fan video version of it (kinda long):

What kind of purpose is that??
How did you even come up with that idea? Can you shine a little light - that just makes no sense...
I don't believe that's the way things work, we're here to learn and evolve - what matters is the journey, not the destination. So given my beliefs on the whole process, no, it wouldn't depress me (personally) because our conciousness is eternal - there is no end...

reply to post by DuneKnight


maybe your hear what I hear...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I am not so poetic (that is a blessing) but we all strive to see the truth.