Is there anyone worth meeting, anything worth doing?

[Doubt The Rabbit]

Even trivial knowledge like how to fix a hottub? I love talking to people who have a valid knowledge on something (and agreeable evidence to back it up), and happened to be acquainted to a man who was afraid our age difference would give us nothing to talk about.

So I asked him, "Well, what do you like? Tell me something you take pride in and we'll talk about it."

I was interested to find out that he fixes hottubs and learned all about it Totally useless knowledge to me, but it was very nice learning about it.

I'm sure that someday I will be trapped in a desert island inside the crust of a planet with a rum drink, a harem of green-skinned babes, and a nonfunctioning hot tub.

Invaluable specialist knowledge is invaluable.

Green-skinned babes...that's the dream, bro!

 

[JamaisVu]

Can anyone here answer:
By what criteria is someone worth meeting?
What makes an activity worth doing?

I have my own criteria for what makes someone worth meeting, but it's surely not the same as yours. Everyone has different values. If you seek highly intellectual people, you're not going to find many in your town while hiding out in your mom's house or browsing non-technical social sites. What are your genuine interests? Pursue them actively, and you'll find people that have more in common with you.

Nothing really matters, but I think you already know that. Actions lack innate value. It keeps people productive and happy to feel that their life has a purpose and that they're working towards something "worthwhile" (as defined by society). In the grand scheme of things there is no point to life, there is no activity that is "worth" anything except the obvious reward of happiness, derived from eventual monetary gain or a sense of self-satisfaction or self-improvement, contentment at doing good in the world, etc. Humans have short lifespans and our species will be long forgotten as eons pass. Is reading a novel truly more worthwhile than watching an idiotic television show? Life is whatever you make of it and nothing more. Maybe you'll win a prize for being smarter than everyone else or earn a higher salary or get "Dr." put before your name but what will you do with these rewards and why? Do those things if it will genuinely make you happy, and let others do what makes them happy. Average people may seem stupid for blindly following life's script, but at least they're content and occupied. Maybe it's just how they cope with reality and it's less discouraging than dwelling on an existence that can't be taken back. The upside to all of this is that there is a sense of freedom in nihilism. Do whatever you want, nothing is "right" or "wrong", you may as well pursue happiness and make the most of this strange existence while you've got it. We're in the game, may as well play it to win.

As for the therapy tangent, anti-depressants do help people. Pharmaceuticals may not work for you personally, but that is not everyone's experience. Drugs affect people differently. Likewise, if a person feels better paying someone to listen, let them. It's as worthwhile of a profession as any other, although I agree that the politics/motives of Big Pharma are shady.

 

[Thrasymachus]

@JamaisVu: I know that actions or activities lack innate value. That said someone who chooses to just drink and watch tv, is doing something self-destructive compared to another who eats healthy food and reads. I tire of the demoralization upon seeing everyone trying to live the most debased life possible around me and the alienation it causes me. I am sick tired of only having the recourse to the hoi polloi and their constant talk of their sports teams, the next drug fix, modifying cars and other venalities or total isolation. Perhaps total isolation is better than the company of those zombies, I know their type never helped me, despite the numerous times I helped them. Everywhere I look I see the most debased people are the most happy, the type who think getting screwed on drugs is the purpose of life. But those who battle existentially like I do, tend to be alone and miserly, it is not easy for my type compared to the type who will do anything that is already culturally patterned and not feel odd doing it.

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I was listening to a radio interview with Charles Eisenstein recently. He was talking alot about the structural problems of our society. Charles said that the things in you life you want to do, you most often don't, because there is no money in that, or you feel you don't have enough money to do it. Often you end up doing what you don't want to do because there is money there, you can earn a livelihood. Another thing I heard on a different radio interview is that people who take home a miserly salary like I do have a constant anxiety, an uneasiness about the future that won't go away and a feeling of inadequacy. I seem to spend so much of my time doing what I don't want to do, thus there is little upside to my life.

I still don't think I can ever do it what it takes to integrate and participate in this society, but I made a separate thread about that, so I won't go into that here. I often wish I had the bravery to kill myself and meet the lottery of the unknown, but I lack what that takes. I don't see how if I make it to forty plus years old how I will ever manage or that it will be worth it since the "best years of my life" passed and they were so horrorshow.