Begiining To Feel Quite Misanthropic. Anyone Know How That feels?

[ladyforsaken]

The measure of a person's intellect and humility is their preparedness to question long-held beliefs and, if persuaded, to change them. The best example is religion. So many people's beliefs are set in stone, and if you question them they react aggressively. Which is instructive, because it is always useful to know which buttons you can press on a person to make them lose it.

Gosh that's so true! I've faced this.. and it has made me realise a lot and open my eyes a lot too. Broke me away from the hypnosis. I guess.

 

[Omnisiac]

I think experience teaches us the stove is hot, not morals. As for hookers and 'that' type of woman...? Experience has taught me that they are a shitload of fun, with no harm done to anyone. i believe morals functions to discourage us from doing something in the first place, because somebody else decided two thousand years ago that it is a bad thing to do. I don't need some long-dead Christian zealot telling me what to think, feel and do.

Yeah, I guess I don't think things like shame, betrayal, ect.. are morals. I was under the impression those are feelings, you know to be ashamed to feel betrayed. I would think you don't need a religion of any kind to feel them either, just a belief that mutual respect should exist between people. I would feel betrayed if a friend stole from me because I trusted him not because a long-dead christian zealot told me that I should feel betrayed. The "job" of a hooker is not to come to your room in vegas and tell you about her abusive father, meth addiction, and the fact that everytime she sees another women with a boyfriend she wants to take another hit of meth. Her job is to make you have "shitloads" of fun. I don't think any god needs to enter into the concept of feelings.

SO, my question is what kind of person is without the ability to feel shame? One who cannot feel betrayed? These are feelings that are normal and indicate someone has a healthy respect for other people. Because noone is going to tell me that I should feel okay if my wife sleeps with someone else. I should feel ashamed when I squander someone's financial hopes and dreams. I don't need a religious zealot to tell me how to feel. Would you agree?

 

[lusker]

... my question is what kind of person is without the ability to feel shame? One who cannot feel betrayed? These are feelings that are normal and indicate someone has a healthy respect for other people. Because noone is going to tell me that I should feel okay if my wife sleeps with someone else. I should feel ashamed when I squander someone's financial hopes and dreams. I don't need a religious zealot to tell me how to feel. Would you agree?

Sigh ... We've gone on a tangent. You raised the concept of a 'moral compass' and I was just responding to that. Of course I think people without morals can still feel anguish, despair, shame, etc. because (in my opinion) the root of those emotions is biological, not philosophical. They are all shades of hurt.

The social mores that underpin the accepted morality of western society all derive from ancient religious precepts: thou shalt not, et cetera. But I am an atheist, so why should I agree to conform to a set of fundamental rules for living when I don't agree with their legitimacy?

I prefer my ethics, which give me the right to decide for myself whether I am affected by events. Punch me, I bruise (and punch back!) but just try disappointing me. I choose to be invulnerable, because I choose not to feel these things in response to the behaviours of others. It's taken a lifetime, but it works for me.

 

[edgecrusher]

i have always felt fairly misanthropic since about mid way through high school. ive grown to be more indifferent though. in a "lonerish" kind of way. i keep to myself and i dont have to hear/deal with peoples petty nonsense that they complain about but that they almost always bring on themselves by being a drama queen or by surrounding themselves with those kind of people.

as for the discussion of morals, im also indifferent. i dont need some instilled sense of morality that was created who knows how long ago likely with some religious undertones in mind during a time when the human race was much more primitive then we are now. if someone NEEDS the fear of something like that to guide them through life then i say they are weak minded and probably not a good person to begin with because of what this implies as far as how they would be without something like that hanging over their head. however, if they use it to better themselves without letting it dictate every aspect of their lives and are able to keep it to themselves then more power to them. i have seen it first hand.

ive come to see "morality" as... there is just a level of common decency towards other people and regard for life general that has nothing to do with any of that. and i think that recognizing it like that is the best attitude one can have. from what i have seen and when it really comes down to it though, many people do not seem to think like this though.

 

[ardour]

Let yourself be angry, it will armour you against hurt. 'Impossible!' cry the bleeding hearts. Not so. I think you're halfway there already, by your own admissions. Turn every negative emotion generated by another person towards you into anger. Not face-punching berserker anger, but the annealing kind, like emotional scar-tissue.

Don't avoid pain, seek it out, because it can't hurt you twice if your not afraid of it. I learned this a long time ago, and now nothing distresses me anymore. I can't be provoked, goaded, disappointed, betrayed, shamed or upset because I've been there and done that so many times, and survived through anger, that I feel invulnerable.

Sure, there are new things on my experiential horizon that may test me, but I have the will to face it. Don't try to change, embrace it. Anger will burn you clean.

Hmmm... not sure I agree with this, I'm angry much of the time and it doesn't free me.


Anger is a temporary solution, I feel. Resentment is what follows, and ongoing resentment is one way of allowing others to have power over you.