Art?

[user 115627]

...I don't know if I should be sorry or thank you for calling it impressive. I'm just a nightmare-fuel refinery.

 

[LonesomeDay]

Great shot - I like everything about this.

 

[user 115627]

Nothing creepy. Just random shots.

 

[user 115627]

It's a high-resolution version of my avatar, obviously.

 

[Hopetracer]

Great artistic creations!

 

[Paraiyar]

Nothing creepy. Just random shots.

Is this where you live? Love it.

 

[user 115627]

Is this where you live? Love it.

Only the very last picture which is the view from my balcony. The rest are shots I took on a walk through the mountains during a family celebration.

 

[ladyforsaken]

^Nice balcony view.

Also, that hand. It reminds me of a movie character..... though I can't recall who I might be thinking of.

 

[user 115627]

^Nice balcony view.

Also, that hand. It reminds me of a movie character..... though I can't recall who I might be thinking of.

I'll make a wild guess: It's the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth.

 

[ladyforsaken]

^Nice balcony view.

Also, that hand. It reminds me of a movie character..... though I can't recall who I might be thinking of.

I'll make a wild guess: It's the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth.

Omg YES! I have seen that picture and I know who shared it with me lol. I'll prep for upcoming nightmares tonight now.

 

[user 115627]

I did a thing. I should do things more often.

 

[Wayfarer]

Nice!

 

[DarkSelene]

Your pictures are so beautiful.

 

[Meaw]

Neat I approves.

 

[user 115627]

This is not art but I'd say it is more art than it is ********. But that's up for debate really. Since I don't intend to create a new dead-end thread that would get abandoned sooner or later, I decided to dump the occasional abstract thought into this thread as well. At least the ones which would blow the normal confines of the general chat section otherwise.

Gnawing Ambivalence (working title)

Something has been bothering me lately and that is my personal assumption that most people hold beliefs that make them a “good person” in their own book and in those they wish to surround themselves with. Now I deliberately called this an assumption but in my head it makes very little sense to hold beliefs which would make you a “bad person”. We're all aware that our actions do not always reflect our beliefs or automatically result in consequences which reflect these beliefs, but I think when people find themselves in a situation with undesired outcome but which did come out of a good intentions, they experience regret and sorrow for the potential harm that was put upon other people.

First, let me clarify why I used the word “beliefs”. For what it's worth, it is impossible to determine whether anybody's beliefs are rooted in sound logic or objective reality in any given daily encounter. It is ultimately irrelevant because we have to assume that these beliefs are at least “true” to the person holding them, even if only within their own possibly narrow framework of reality.

Obviously there are worlds in between good and bad, but would anybody even hold beliefs that place them merely in a neutral position on the moral spectrum? Because this is the situation I find myself in. I'm trying to ground my beliefs in objective reality and what I have carefully assessed to be factually true and provable as much as possible, but none of this makes me feel good about myself. Which one might deem a failure in my choice of beliefs.

When I was younger I used to think about what is morally right very often and I always tried to stay on the “good side”. Until I realized that my past beliefs where not as much rooted in reality as they were supposed to. Throughout the years I revised my position on various issues based on the new information which I was ignorant of before and was unable to ignore after this point. While it may have turned me into a more balanced person overall, at this point in time I got rather bitter and I ultimately abandoned some very juvenile ideas of happiness and blind altruism for what I perceived to be of much greater value but impossible to reconcile with the former ideas. Truth and rationality.

Some of these thoughts have been touched upon before in an older thread of mine, but I was just rebuilding myself back then after I'd started taking axe swings at the foundation of my reality and morality once again. I know it is unhealthy to lean heavily to either extreme. Whether it be left or right, altruism and selfishness or empathy and rationality. But this state of absolute ambivalence seems even harder to maintain, especially when you observe people in reality trying to outmoralize each other on either side while you are trying to hold on to a nuanced perspective.

I've always had nihilistic tendencies but I'm reaching a point where I find it utterly pointless to argue or even communicate my opinion on any topic because you can hardly reason anybody out of their beliefs anyway, no matter on what end of the spectrum they place themselves. At the same point I cannot tolerate the cognitive dissonance I see a lot of people exhibiting. While they all use different tools to defend their foundation, the goal is the same of course. Holding onto their paradigm. Which is not a problem in itself since I am doing the same thing. It took me years to process certain pieces of information, corroding my own foundation, before I could sufficiently damage and rebuild it. My issue is that I'm not seeing a change in anybody anymore and reality has become depressingly predictable in the process. People's minds seem rusted shut and I don't have to do anything but observe how they talk and act to see I don't have to anticipate any surprises. For a cold and calculating person as I am, this should be paradise...right?

No. This is as close to Hell as I could ever get. I always was an introvert, but I transitioned from shy to comfortably quiet and I see myself eventually arriving at nothing-I-say-will-ever-matter. Maybe this is exactly where one ends up after delving deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. I expected to find more knowledge and revelations down here, but instead I just hit the bedrock. Maybe that is the finiteness of human nature and endeavor and I'll spend the rest of my life finding the right tools to go beyond the bedrock. I'm being hyperbolic of course. For all I know it is just another reminder to look for ideas beyond people and to never prop up the latter as something extraordinary. That goes for myself as an individual as well. There is nothing particularly unique about myself and if I just happen to collect the right ideas which float out there in the ether, I can count myself lucky, but not gifted to any degree. And I can only stare into my own head for so long before I go insane...so I might as well keep listening.

I didn't expect myself to go on such a tangent and it has become incoherent to myself at this point. The perfect opportunity to stop. Sorry if I didn't announce this as a rant but the wall of text should've been rather telling.

 

[ladyforsaken]

...I find it utterly pointless to argue or even communicate my opinion on any topic because you can hardly reason anybody out of their beliefs anyway, no matter on what end of the spectrum they place themselves.

This... is so much how I feel lately.

 

[Wayfarer]

...I find it utterly pointless to argue or even communicate my opinion on any topic because you can hardly reason anybody out of their beliefs anyway, no matter on what end of the spectrum they place themselves.

This... is so much how I feel lately.

But.. isn't the point of dialogue to try to understand different points of view? Sure, I can imagine that having every time everyone against you can get tiring fast.. but then you just have to find the right people to talk with, ones that listen and care about what you think.

 

[user 115627]

...I find it utterly pointless to argue or even communicate my opinion on any topic because you can hardly reason anybody out of their beliefs anyway, no matter on what end of the spectrum they place themselves.

This... is so much how I feel lately.

But.. isn't the point of dialogue to try to understand different points of view? Sure, I can imagine that having every time everyone against you can get tiring fast.. but then you just have to find the right people to talk with, ones that listen and care about what you think.

It should be, but the "right people" are turning more and more into a minority for me. And what is tolerance and understanding towards other people's opinions worth if they don't extend the same tolerance towards yours?

 

[user 115627]

This trend of spontaneous thought is probably going to continue, just so you know.

Low-resolution problem solving is very tempting. Full-blown anarchy is certainly easier than fixing particular flaws within individual political systems. Telling somebody they're nothing but a terrible person is easier than recognizing and assisting them with eliminating their detrimental traits which are causing all sorts of harmful behavior to themselves and other people. On the personal level, this would make suicide the ultimate low-resolution problem solver since individual problems and their respective potential solutions have become so numerous, intertwined and blurred together that the shortcut of just removing yourself as the linchpin of all issues is the obvious solution.

Well, obvious is not necessarily correct...but who has the time and energy to engage day-to-day problems on a high-resolution level?

 

[user 115627]

Individual™

I think it is well established that wealthy societies whose members are not preoccupied with survival efforts allow its members to exercise a greater degree of individualism. Now I do not intent to criticize the notion of individualism itself, but to present my observation regarding some of its manifestations instead.

Let me address the superficial display of certain markers of individuality first. I would include a wide array of clothing, hair styles and body modifications such as piercings and tattoos etc. in this which you wouldn't find too such a degree (or at all) in collectivist or even totalitarian societies with uniforms. While some of these markers were usually relegated to respective subcultures, you can find people from all corners of a more individualistic society picking and choosing them from a giant culture pool. What seems to be missing is that the subcultures who brought these markers into the culture pool had more than just their uniform to contribute. Most ideas and personal philosophies seem to have been left at the roadside during the process of integration into the mainstream.

It is not just a singular impression that people look more individualistic and unique than ever within these societies, but think and behave rather similarly once you engage in conversation with them. Which might be the reason that new groups look for more and more extreme markers to self-segregate allthewhile maintaining a similar collectivism. On the flipside, you have those who always noticed these trends and could never be bothered with the markers. The outcome is ultimately the same since you can ascertain what is on the mind of a seemingly bland person as little as you can with a person displaying many of these markers of individuality. For more you will have to engage them in an in-depth conversation. Diversity of appearance is no indicator of – and certainly no substitute for –  diversity of ideas.

There is something else which I have always been very confused about and that is rise of spirituality. One might just term it a necessary substitute that rises from the ashes left untended after the “Death of God” and  increasing secularism in advanced societies. Even without the involvement of traditional religions, religious ideas retain a foothold in people's minds or leave room for more individualistic notions of spirituality to form. Now I am by no means a friend of traditional religions but I am just as critical of solipsistic spiritual people who are all about self-actualization and completely get tangled up in themselves in the process but maintain they have come to any unique insight. Furthermore it just led to the formation of new subgroups since the individual's notion of spirituality is not as developed as one might think. In the end, they find a savior or a guru (or a cult leader) and end up thinking the same way as everyone else in that fellowship after all. I am trying not to pass any judgment but if your initial goal was to transcend collectivist ideologies, you failed your quest.

Holding a minority position or exhibiting a degree of uniqueness is not objectively better or worse by virtue of existing. Furthermore it is quite easy to presume your position is even a unique one just by not exposing yourself to critical examination or by surrounding yourself with people who are fooled by feel-good formulas and confirmation bias wrapped in sophistry. If you want to take pride in being special, it is your prerogative. Just keep in mind that while no two snowflakes appear to be the same on the surface, they both melt together effortlessly in the palm of your hand.