Beyond The Veil - Life Is Suffering.

[Tat_Tvam_Asi]

Hello,
My name is Michael, I'm 21 years old and would like to get a few things off my chest.

It'll probably be quite long, but hopefully someone will read it!

Eat, ****, Work, Sleep, Reproduce, Die.
After looking around and analyzing this life thing, it seems that out of nothingness, a self replicating DNA molecule appeared spontaneously and has been competing with itself ever since in order to pointlessly perpetuate itself... this has been going on for billions of years through evolution.
The DNA uses "you", a biological organism, programmed by nature to kill, consume and reproduce. We perpetuate this pointless cycle because we cannot override our own programming, and attach meaning and value to things where there is none.
We are like rats in a maze, foolishly chasing cheese and if one of the rats stopped for a minute and climbed up to the top of the maze they could see what was going on.
If one could rise above their ******** ego desires and deprogram themselves they would realise the absolute absurdity of this charade. A pointless meaningless existence with horrific suffering, where ego rules the roost.
I wouldn't even mind if the game was free, but it's not. It's extremely expensive, where millions of conscious beings experience unimaginable suffering for no good reason. Slaughterhouses, rape, murder, bullying, animals mauling each other, oppression, financial difficulties, health problems, birth defects, starvation, war, slavery, cancer etc.
We impose suffering on other sentient beings to feed ourselves to continue a pointless existence. We have yet to get off autopilot and realise we are nothing, going nowhere and thus we continue this pointless waste of energy as we are unable to break the spell of duality and step out of our "roles" and see beyond the veil of delusion.
There is no other mission here. It's just a bloodsport for no reason. It is nature eating itself to sustain itself. Animals mauling other animals. Like a snake eating its own tail. Not only in the physical biological game, but also mentally through ego games and other nonsensical strivings. From getting a "good" job and attaining a social status, acquiring more "things" so you can prop up your own ego, your own sense of self, whilst looking down on others less fortunate. Can't people see the massive elephant in the room? There is only one consciousness, experiencing itself through different biological organisms. Everyone is "you" , yet we treat others like **** due to our ignorance.
The only thing that is "driving" you is the built in competition inside of you. Your need, your ego, you're vanity. These are the things driving you. The fact that you see "victory" or "success" in seeing "dead bodies" or "losers" behind you as you climb to the "top" to satisfy your own cravings, vanity, ego and desires is the truth of your rotten being. There is no victory in this, it is a delusion in your head.
I'm extremely disturbed by life and find it hard to get much make sense of it all, it just seems like a grotesque and foolish dream. When you're intelligent, the game ceases to have play-ability. It's a game for dumb things, when you transcend your animal mind, you see it for what it is. A sick game, for dumb things.
Everyone my age is out at the weekend at nightclubs etc, and you just look around at a bunch of fleshy carcasses sticking their tongues down the other sex throat and it disgusts me. It disgusts me what we are. A vile an repulsive thing. I've been thinking about suicide, but there is no escaping this slaughterhouse. When the body dies, "you" return to nothingness, the place "you" were before you were born. But nothingness, being no-thing by definition doesn't exist, as when I die, life will still be here, there will still be more babies being born whether i'm here or not. Consciousness is still going to be here whether I die or not. Names will change, our faces will change, our bodies will change, but the pointless death and birth in this horrific nightmare of reality continues. When you realise you are not your ******** identity or ego, or personality, you realise that you are consciousness. And so you are everyone, and that means when you die, there again you will be, as another being, who knows where, who knows what, but you will be experiencing this horror for ever. A blood-sport for nothing, there's no escaping the game. What will the next roll of the dice be? There's no place for the game to go. The "winner" kills and eats the "loser", to gain enough energy to keep on killing and eating. A continuous cycle of pointlessness. Consuming for the sake of replicating a molecule. We're trapped.

 

[Human]

Using a single truth to crush all others is getting further and further away from actual understanding of anything. I'll leave it at that.

 

[Tat_Tvam_Asi]

Using a single truth to crush all others is getting further and further away from actual understanding of anything. I'll leave it at that.

Hi Human, thanks for the reply. I'm not trying to "crush" all other opinions by using a single truth... but by its definition there can only be one "truth" so to speak, there can't be a couple of truths. If I am getting further and further from an actual understanding of things, then please let me know what. I just feel like I have became too "aware" of reality, too lucid and that to "pretend" everything is great would be to shrink from being fully conscious, and one would need to compartmentalize their brain to do it, and embrace cognitive dissonance with love and open arms. I just can't do that. When one pulls back the curtain and sees the nature of things, it's hard to go about your day happily. Its hard to keep chasing after cheese in the maze when you see the futility of it all, especially when you see all the blood and guts over the walls! I find it hard to even comprehend the amount of suffering that has taken place on this rock ball in space since the beginning of time. Just animals eating each other alive for millenia. I just want the whole truth and nothing but the truth, anything less is a delusion. Unfortunately, I think depression could be a state where one is seeing without their protective lenses on. A very lonely situation indeed.

 

[WildernessWildChild]

When you're intelligent, the game ceases to have play-ability. It's a game for dumb things, when you transcend your animal mind, you see it for what it is. A sick game, for dumb things.

I think I just read the first rough draft of The Matrix....

That's a hell of a first post Micheal- kinda gathering you haven't outgrown your teenage angst yet. It amuses the hell out of me when some self-proclaimed intellect gets up on his podium and decides us dumb animal types are living a life of meaningless....my question to you is What have You contributed to the World that allows you to judge as you do?

While you're pondering that (I'm sure you will, all-knowing intellects can't resist showing their superiority) I'm gonna enjoy what the world has in store for me....the moments of laughter and joy I share with my daughter....late nights by the campfire looking into the night sky....the unexpected date I have this weekend....the challenges and rewards of my career....the next hike I'm on and what I'll encounter....

I don't think I'm in a sick game at all, I'm living life and taking the good and bad that comes with it What do I know though, apparently I'm a rat in a maze, maybe the next time I climb a mountain I'll look at more than the breath-taking scenery.

 

[TheRealCallie]

Using a single truth to crush all others is getting further and further away from actual understanding of anything. I'll leave it at that.

Hi Human, thanks for the reply. I'm not trying to "crush" all other opinions by using a single truth... but by its definition there can only be one "truth" so to speak, there can't be a couple of truths. If I am getting further and further from an actual understanding of things, then please let me know what. I just feel like I have became too "aware" of reality, too lucid and that to "pretend" everything is great would be to shrink from being fully conscious, and one would need to compartmentalize their brain to do it, and embrace cognitive dissonance with love and open arms. I just can't do that. When one pulls back the curtain and sees the nature of things, it's hard to go about your day happily. Its hard to keep chasing after cheese in the maze when you see the futility of it all, especially when you see all the blood and guts over the walls! I find it hard to even comprehend the amount of suffering that has taken place on this rock ball in space since the beginning of time. Just animals eating each other alive for millenia. I just want the whole truth and nothing but the truth, anything less is a delusion. Unfortunately, I think depression could be a state where one is seeing without their protective lenses on. A very lonely situation indeed.

Humans generally tend to kill and cook their prey before eating it, so I guess we are higher up on the animal chain than the other animals.

Life may be a maze of endless turns, but who cares? YOU decide which path you take, YOU decide what to do and when. So, long story short, YOU decide whether you are happy or not. Decide you aren't happy and you won't be. Decide you don't want to look beyond the doom and gloom to the good things about life and you WILL be miserable. There are plenty of things in this life to be thankful for, but some people don't feel the need to be grateful for what they have. That's on them.
Is my life meaningless? Perhaps it is, but I'm doing my DAMNEDEST to make sure my kids have what they need and want in life. No, not everyone goes to the "trouble" of helping others and/or saving this planet, but what does whining about it do? Absolutely nothing. It kind of annoys me when I see posts or images from people complaining about how the world is so horrible, but guess what? I know they do nothing about it, so how exactly do they have the right to bitch and whine?
I'm not saying I help the world much, but I help where and when I can and I make sure my children help when they can, also.

Oh, I forgot to add something. "Truth" can be subjective. YOUR truth may not be mine. Most people's TRUTHS are not actually truths anyway, they are opinions that they choose to believe are truths.

 

[Tat_Tvam_Asi]

Hello WildernessWildChild, thanks for your reply. I have not contributed anything to this world, but have became a vegan due to the fact that I would like to minimize the suffering I cause whilst I am here. Also, I have consciously decided not to have children, which again will prevent more unnecessary suffering and do quite a bit of volunteering abroad. I am glad you are enjoying the world and what it has in store for you, that is great... in fact I would love to be able to do so myself, but unfortunately I cannot derive any pleasure from it, hence the post. Although, I would also say don't be too optimistic about what the world has in store for you, because as time passes it could also have disease, cancer, strokes etc in store also, this is the issue for me I suppose. I know I can't complain considering I am presently in a non-blighted state, however... I can't get the echos of the worlds suffering out of my mind. I mean "you" could have easily came out of a west African woman's womb and been born into an aids infested slum. I have done some travelling in north and west Africa and after seeing some of the things I have seen, I am frankly disgusted by life.
I live in a very rural area, and judging by your name and the fact you mention hiking, I assume you have a love for nature. I used to have such a love myself and indeed still do get a sense of bliss whilst walking through a forest or wandering through a mountain wilderness, but the bliss is that of a melancholic bliss. A sort of tribute to tragedy, to quote Herzog,

" I don't see it so much erotic. I see it more full of obscenity. It's just - Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn't see anything erotical here. I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and... growing and... just rotting away. Of course, there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they - they sing. They just screech in pain. It's an unfinished country. It's still prehistorical. The only thing that is lacking is - is the dinosaurs here. It's like a curse weighing on an entire landscape. And whoever... goes too deep into this has his share of this curse. So we are cursed with what we are doing here. It's a land that God, if he exists has - has created in anger. It's the only land where - where creation is unfinished yet. Taking a close look at - at what's around us there - there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of... overwhelming and collective murder. And we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle - Uh, we in comparison to that enormous articulation - we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban... novel... a cheap novel. We have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery and overwhelming fornication... overwhelming growth and overwhelming lack of order. Even the - the stars up here in the - in the sky look like a mess. There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony as we have conceived it. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment."

 

[Human]

Using a single truth to crush all others is getting further and further away from actual understanding of anything. I'll leave it at that.

Hi Human, thanks for the reply. I'm not trying to "crush" all other opinions by using a single truth... but by its definition there can only be one "truth" so to speak, there can't be a couple of truths. If I am getting further and further from an actual understanding of things, then please let me know what. I just feel like I have became too "aware" of reality, too lucid and that to "pretend" everything is great would be to shrink from being fully conscious, and one would need to compartmentalize their brain to do it, and embrace cognitive dissonance with love and open arms. I just can't do that. When one pulls back the curtain and sees the nature of things, it's hard to go about your day happily. Its hard to keep chasing after cheese in the maze when you see the futility of it all, especially when you see all the blood and guts over the walls! I find it hard to even comprehend the amount of suffering that has taken place on this rock ball in space since the beginning of time. Just animals eating each other alive for millenia. I just want the whole truth and nothing but the truth, anything less is a delusion. Unfortunately, I think depression could be a state where one is seeing without their protective lenses on. A very lonely situation indeed.

Well that's a bit too complicated to get into all of it in a single or even a few post. You are like saying that the sun is a giant ball of gas on fire and thus in denial of it's role as source of all life on earth, it's that kind of thing. The perspective that something has for your own self is part of the truth. But in your case it goes a bit further. Let me tell you what your entire OP text appears like to me.

You have been playing with a rubix cube, but you portray it as a rubix square. YOU've played around until you managed to obtain 9 red tiles. Then you forcibly say at the same time that it shouldn't be red and that it is red is a tragedy that should be viewed emotionally the same way for everyone else. Finally the biggest mistake you don't seem to realize is exactly that you've been playing with the cube until you obtained all red squares. Reality in that case would be the cube, not the square. The 45 other tiles still exists, you have just blocked yourself from viewing them.

Everything you said for instance are not things I view as "wrong" but your REACTION to it is entirely in your own hands. It might be of a much larger scope, but you are still nonetheless in shock and despair to have learned that Santa doesn't exist. Not trying to be insulting but I don't really have a much better way to explain how what you say is wrong. Not to mention that this is basically a forum with many depressed people and encouraging them to say that existence is a mistake is not going to help many people, it is in fact encouraging extremely dark thoughts on people already filled with dark thoughts, as thus I may come out as rude, but I think you should be a little more careful where you throw that kind of thing around.

Another mistake there : "It's just a bloodsport for no reason. It is nature eating itself to sustain itself."
There is a reason, you just dislike it, and don't consider it a valid reason - yet you named it yourself. Also it is not because you do not enjoy the bloodsport that it is impossible to enjoy or wrong to enjoy (or rather, by definition this is simple a completely subjective opinion). That is an opinion entirely 100% subjective and personal, there is no "absolute truth" there.

I personally am into taoism, which says as humans we need to harmonize ourselves through nature and accept ourself as part of it rather then trying to fight the nature of the universe. That same mentality claims that "day and night" is only a local perspective of a global phenomenon that loses meaning entirely if you try to view it from an higher perspective, such as the solar system or the galaxy. Yet it is most ridiculous to claim that it is currently not "night" or "day" where you lie because of that higher perspective. Plato said a long time ago that illumination was a waste if you weren't able to come back down to this local perspective. As for the matter of truth, I'd suggest reading Descartes' discourse on the method, if you can read such a book (it's very small but possible the hardest to read book I've ever read, not sure between this and Thus Spoke Zarathustra from Nietzsche - another incredible book that deals very much into the nature of the non absoluteness of things - at times I feel quantum field theories are quite easy to understand in comparison).

"Truths" are basically properties that something possess, they are ways things can be perceived. The sun can be viewed as a god, the "view that it is a god" is part of reality, as human thoughts are part of reality. Being able to view it as such is not a "lie" even tho it is not a "god", and ultimately seeing it as ONLY a giant ball of gas ablaze is fundamentally not different from seeing it only as a god. If you want to have a better example or perhaps simpler to understand, you are basically denying that someone is "your friend" (subjective relation) because they are "a slab of meat" (objective nature with a negative subjective interpretation attached to it). There have been many geniuses in history that have deplored that language by definition tends to not communicate the POV from which an understanding is given, and instead state "probabilities" as fact. It is in the nature of strong minds to be able to accept that reality is not absolute, while not living in constant denial of everything as a result.

I will finally add that reality is far more too complex to be explained in a single post as you have done with your OP. What I am seeing ultimately here is a entangled mix of emotions, expectations, illusions you had being shattered and having a hard time dealing with a multitude of facets and possibilities on a single topic. Im not really blaming you there, but I think you need to realize such a thing. The level of emotions and subjectivity that is contained in your original post should be very obvious, I'd suggest trying rereading your own self.

Humans are like moth, attracted to flames burning during the night. Once we find a flame that attracts us, we tend to run toward it, blinded that it will burn us when we reach it. This is what I call fanaticism, and it doesn't matter how well and logical your argument is - to treat a truth in a fanatical way is always going to be an enemy of proper intelligence and reasoning.

 

[Tat_Tvam_Asi]

Thanks for the reply, I must admit I too subscribe to a lot of the wisdom of the Taoist perspective and have read a lot about it, from the Tao Te Ching to Wandering on The Way by Chuang Tzu, not to mention Alan Watts audio. However, the main teaching of the Taoist perspective is that there is no "self" so to speak, and the sage is one who rids himself of the notion of self and thus "harmonizes" with the Tao. I've had a few experiences of this state, whilst meditating on psilocybin mushrooms and it felt like "I" was sucked into an all devouring great void of emptiness and was then "gone". Ego-Death/Nothingness. After the experience, I came to realise that there is indeed no "thinker" of thoughts or no "doer" of deeds and that the nature of the universe is without "self"/sunyata, void of ego. All there is, is a mechanical expression of matter and energy moving spontaneously (the Tao). Modern neuroscience is now coming to the same conclusion and is proving that there is indeed no free will. You say "Plato said a long time ago that illumination was a waste if you weren't able to come back down to this local perspective", and I agree, and would say that I have came down to a "local perspective", and that is why I have wrote my post. If I had not came back down to a "local perspective" I would be sitting on "Cold Mountain" with mushrooms in a meditative state so I could dissolve "self" and exit this suffering existence. It's nice to read about the Tao and wandering aimlessly around in a dreamy state, but that's from our non-blighted state. The Taoists of the past has no dentist to go to when they got tooth ache, no doctor when they got sick... just a decaying, rotting away life of torture. The Buddha took a walk around his village and seen an old man, a dying man and a sick man and uttered the words "Life is suffering". So it would seem to be, true nirvana would be extinction, or not to procreate. I understand following "The Way" of the Tao or nature, but nature also created the higher mind capable of empathy and higher understanding, and to just be neutral in the face of so much suffering is sick in my opinion. Maybe evolution is suicide? Maybe nature is becoming aware of its own absurdity and wants to put an end to itself.
Tao Te Ching - "The people of the world are merry-making, as if partaking of the sacrificial feasts, as if mounting the terrace in spring; I alone am mild, like one unemployed, like a new-born babe that cannot yet smile, unattached, like one without a home.
The people of the world have enough and to spare, but I am like one left out, my heart must be that of a fool, being muddled, nebulous!
The vulgar are knowing, luminous; I alone am dull, confused. The vulgar are clever, self-assured; I alone, depressed. Patient as the sea, adrift, seemingly aimless.
The people of the world all have a purpose; I alone appear stubborn and uncouth. I alone differ from the other people..."
I also understand what you are saying about reality tunnels and that the happy man lives in a happy world and the sad man in a sad world, but I think if one transcends all reality tunnels and looks at the world from outside your own reality tunnel (if that were possible) one would see that there is far too much suffering to justify this life thing. How many holocausts should we endure? World War 3? When will enough be enough? Surely we have to transcend our biology sooner or later and say enough already.

---

Quotes -

What are we to make of creation in which routine activity is for organisms to be tearing others apart with teeth of all types - biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one’s own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses residue. Everyone reaching out to incorporate others who are edible to him. The mosquitoes bloating themselves on blood, the maggots, the killer-bees attacking with a fury and a demonism, sharks continuing to tear and swallow while their own innards are being torn out - not to mention the daily dismemberment and slaughter in “natural” accidents of all types: an earthquake buries alive 70 thousand bodies in Peru, a tidal wave washes over a quarter of a million in the Indian Ocean. Creation is a nightmare spectacular taking place on a planet that has been soaked for hundreds of millions of years in the blood of all creatures. The soberest conclusion that we could make about what has actually been taking place on the planet about three billion years is that it is being turned into a vast pit of fertilizer. But the sun distracts our attention, always baking the blood dry, making things grow over it, and with its warmth giving the hope that comes with the organism’s comfort and expansiveness.” - Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death


“Yet, at the same time, as the Eastern sages also knew, man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with. The lower animals are, of course, spared this painful contradiction, as they lack a symbolic identity and the self-consciousness that goes with it. They merely act and move reflexively as they are driven by their instincts. If they pause at all, it is only a physical pause; inside they are anonymous, and even their faces have no name. They live in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being. This is what has made it so simple to shoot down whole herds of buffalo or elephants. The animals don't know that death is happening and continue grazing placidly while others drop alongside them. The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it. They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over. But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one's dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that's something else.” - Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Look at your body—
A painted puppet, a poor toy
Of jointed parts ready to collapse,
A diseased and suffering thing
With a head full of false imaginings."
—The Dhammapada

 

[Human]

You continue to be blind to the fact that a truth doesn't come with an interpretation and that this later part is entirely subjective and in your own hands.

When you fight a dragon, you must learn to expect that you will be wounded on the way. Mental exploration is another form of adventure, and you are simply in despair because fighting the dragon is not very easy. You are unable to imagine that someone could enjoy fighting the dragon for the sake of it, and instead can only think that fighting the dragon is a "chore" that should lead to an happy ending. Because you are only thinking of the result, and not enjoying the process of your own thoughts, you are suffering.

You also didn't address even 1/5th of the points I made, I'm going to hope it's because you are considering them, and not brushing them off. You say you came back down to a local perspective as well, but I have quite a hard time believing so. Are you "locally" aware that you are telling a community that has many suicidal person that life is a mistake? How is that for a lack of local perspective, and empathy among things?

Also going to add that it's nice to be interested in taoism and other philosophies, but if you are only following the "guidebook" it is entirely pointless. These are things that exists in order to make you think on your own and not things that exists to accept entirely as such. You may have forgotten this very basic principle, but outside of the Tao itself, everything is considered a "theory" in taoism.

In short you have a hard time to accept that suffering is inevitable. It is something that is personal of you, not a universal truth. Along the lines of having finally reached level 1 and be about to drop the game. If the lack of things such as absolute free will bother you, then I would definitively suggest you stop thinking about this, and even less so to preach this to others. There is very little I find more evil then trying to spread your own personal despair and believe that everyone should suffer the same pain you do. This is not why adventurers go to fight dragons, they are trying to protect others, not trying to make it so that the wounds they obtain while fighting the dragon are endured by everyone else. This is why you appear to me as someone who isn't very well suited to go dragon hunting.


Edit : "Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster; and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes into you."
There, I believe this quote is what represents your state the best right now.

 

[thegreyman]

When you're intelligent, the game ceases to have play-ability. It's a game for dumb things, when you transcend your animal mind, you see it for what it is. A sick game, for dumb things.

I think I just read the first rough draft of The Matrix....

That's a hell of a first post Micheal- kinda gathering you haven't outgrown your teenage angst yet. It amuses the hell out of me when some self-proclaimed intellect gets up on his podium and decides us dumb animal types are living a life of meaningless....my question to you is What have You contributed to the World that allows you to judge as you do?

While you're pondering that (I'm sure you will, all-knowing intellects can't resist showing their superiority) I'm gonna enjoy what the world has in store for me....the moments of laughter and joy I share with my daughter....late nights by the campfire looking into the night sky....the unexpected date I have this weekend....the challenges and rewards of my career....the next hike I'm on and what I'll encounter....

I don't think I'm in a sick game at all, I'm living life and taking the good and bad that comes with it What do I know though, apparently I'm a rat in a maze, maybe the next time I climb a mountain I'll look at more than the breath-taking scenery.

What I think that you may be overlooking is that you have a relatively privileged existence. For most humans, life is pure survival and little else. The OP was rather bombastic and supercilious, but life IS objectively a meaningless accident.

 

[jaguarundi]

Before enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water.

After enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water.

You have a life. You get on with it. It's what it's for.

 

[ardour]

The eternal pessimist, refusing to see anything outside of a reductive truth. How does suffering cancel out joy? That's not been explained.

People give their lives meaning beyond eating, shitting and reproducing. Reason, creativity and happiness exist outside of the basic biological imperatives. Very sad that you can't get over the malaise to see that.

 

[painter's radio]

"I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."

Rust Cohle - True Detective.

 

[jaguarundi]

"I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."

Rust Cohle - True Detective.

The 'honourable thing for our species' can go **** itself..... I'm sticking around to see what happens next!

 

[Naleena]

but have became a vegan due to the fact that I would like to minimize the suffering I cause whilst I am here. Also, I have consciously decided not to have children, which again will prevent more unnecessary suffering and do quite a bit of volunteering abroad. "[/i]

What kind of volunteering do you do? May I ask?

 

[Naleena]

"We are cosmically insignificant, a speck in space and a blink in time, inconceivably unimportant—except to each other, to whom we should therefore be unspeakably precious” - Dale McGowan

“Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.”
-Ben Okri

We are more than our biology. We are greater than our suffering. Yes, life is hard. but this is life on life's terms. As DH Lawrence wrote,"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself" We can live this life and all it brings us with grace or we can bitch, moan and groan about our perceived injustice of it all. Either way, we will all face it. However you view our existence is irrelevant, but how you live your existence, now that means something.
Why war against what you don't like when you can use your energy to bring about what you do like?

 

[WildernessWildChild]

What I think that you may be overlooking is that you have a relatively privileged existence. For most humans, life is pure survival and little else. The OP was rather bombastic and supercilious, but life IS objectively a meaningless accident.

IF it's the "meaningless accident" you view it is why not make the most of it? I'm pretty sure there's a hell of a lot more to my existence than a glib response like that....

 

[thegreyman]

What I think that you may be overlooking is that you have a relatively privileged existence. For most humans, life is pure survival and little else. The OP was rather bombastic and supercilious, but life IS objectively a meaningless accident.

IF it's the "meaningless accident" you view it is why not make the most of it? I'm pretty sure there's a hell of a lot more to my existence than a glib response like that....

No reason why you shouldn't make the most of it, and my comment wasn't about you personally. But just remember that there are a lot of others out in the world who are living a hand to mouth existence and living from one meal to the next. If they can get a meal at all, that is. When you're dead, it won't make any difference to you how much you enjoyed life, or whether any day was a struggle. You won't have any regrets and you won't be thankful for anything, either. But life can be pretty sweet, while it lasts, if you're able to have memorable experiences with people that you love. That just isn't an economic reality for most people.