I would like to know them. do YOU know them ?:oogle:

I know people that act like 'em. Turns out? They bleed, too.

Their motivation to go on living is to gain life merit badges.

My fellow human beings, so mysteriously similar and yet so alien, providing constant entertainment and anxiety, are a constant source of perspective.

There are still people out there I haven't pissed off.

I am a sum of quantum events allowing for particle interactions which constitute the bulk of physical reality. These events give rise to a vast chain of chemical reactions which ultimately support the biological and electrochemical processes that are necessary to facilitate some degree of cognizance and the ability to interact with the rest of the previously mentioned particle interactions.

I am a bipedal hominid on a small rocky planet orbiting a standard main sequence star in a relatively unassuming corner of the universe, a universe that is incomprehensibly vast.

Attempting to get a handle of what lies between the astronomically small and the astronomically huge is a good exercise in gaining perspective. It reminds me that the sum of my existence, as well as the sum of all our own, is a very tiny thing. It's hard to take our trivial matters seriously in the face of such vastness.

My sphere of influence my not reach very far, but it is my hope that any influence on my part will further our ability to understand our surroundings. Because it is that which ultimately makes us special.

Seriously?

You were part of my belief system. Perhaps I need to re-evaluate, because you haven't pissed me off yet.

Looking down from the apex or up from the depths, we're lucky to be here.

(My perspective varies from moment to moment, lending additional interest to this experience.)

Just one part of the many aspects that make the whole. Spend enough time around me, I *WILL* piss you off. Ask JimmyTheHut. Then I'll make you laugh your ass off the next moment. My personality seems to be solidly grounded in a state of ever changing chaos.

You're a lawyer?

no, but I did sleep with one. that count?

Yes, but only if you screwed their mouth-hole.

To the original:

Why would I stop?

I'm amazed that no one responded to this post yet... I love it, Professor Mayhem. For me, I came from a place where everything had meaning due to a divine presence in my life, etc etc... and now I've come to a place very much like yours, a realization of the pure scientific reality of our situation here on earth, and it's kind of a cool place. Religious people might find it terrifying, I suppose, but I find it remarkably liberating. Thanks for sharing.

All three holes, to be exact.

Yeah. I tend to think that people sell out the wonder of physical reality all too quickly for the sake of painting themselves into some sort of grandiose supernatural scenario.

I find the reality of what science teaches us to be far more awe-inspiring than any cultural notion of divinity we could ever dream up. It's a unique place to be in, and it can teach us quite a bit.

It's kind of depressing to think that there are people who feel "unfulfilled" or "trapped" by, well...everything in existence.

Do you think religion is still that popular in major world power nations?

...

We are what we do.

I'm not a table. I do not need function beyond my form. Sum, ergo sum, if you will.

I have a very real illness that places adversity in my life. I'm currently on a disability leave from work, and I constantly check various aspects of my health (heart rate, temperature, etc) to make sure that I'm not having any major complications. I keep having people tell me how hard it is and how unfair it is that I have to deal with this so young, but to me it's just what I deal with. I don't attribute it to some higher power or deeper meaning. I just live my life. I don't know how to do anything else.

I'm taking liberties by replying in defense of what willravel said, but I reckon we're on the same page on this one (and know for a fact he'll correct me if we're not).

Roulette wheel theory regarding life:

a life outlook?
i dont have one.

i have processes that are important to me, so i do them.
i try to protect them as well, but with variable success.
if there is a disposition or idea at the heart of these processes, i guess it'd look like this: discipline at the level of routine or structure; openness to emergent possibilities in the doing. attention to craft throughout--precision, detail. if you're going to try to do new things, precision is fundamental. it has to be clear on its own terms, whatever it is. clarity is linked to structure. structure is enabled by clarity.

learn your own system characteristics--which ones to fight, which ones to accept and accomodiate. i am not a terribly organized person, for example. i keep thinking that i should organize stuff around me more, but i dont do it.

life outlook...protect what you are doing. the cultural order within which we operate is not a rational place. protect what you do, then. protect it so that you can keep going. what matters is that you keep going.

i dont share the committments to "science" that alot of folk have expressed so far--not that i dont believe there is science, or that it cannot know about phenomena, but more because like any formal system, each scientific procedure is not closed (in the way mathematics systems are not closed---godel's theorem applies to most forms of knowledge. it is entirely possible to be interested in what is discovered or known and not take seriously all the claims about what is doscovered or known. galileo wrote in "the assayer" that he found an inverse ratio between what people actually know and the claims they make: they less the know, the more sure they are, the more sweeping the claims. the more they know, the more cautious the claims.
i think it's like that, these beliefs in "science", these assumptions about what it does, what its for. science is no more separate from other areas of social being than the economy is separate from other areas of social life. it is not a space that generates "objectivity" that enables anyone to hitch themselves to it at the level of claims as a device to get them off the hook: we are embedded phenomena, recursion does not get your outside of your own embeddeness necessarily--more often it simply repeats the parameters of one's embeddedness in the social-historical.

faced with stuff like that, you just move. you do what you do. you try to be clear. you try to keep going. it doesnt really matter what people think of it, or of what you produce through it. just make stuff and keep going.

Not to be the one stating the obvious, but a lot of thought process and background goes into such a non-existant perspective as this. I also stated, not in as so many words, nor obvious implications, that I as well do not hold a definite perspective, but yours and mine are the same. Though I can utter and claim that I have none, in actuality, I embrace them all, reject some, and combine various, all in order to use whichever most aptly fits in my theory of mind.

So goes having no discernable view, yet 447 words in addition, there it is. Behold.

:thumbsup:

Our very being is most complicated when we work to avoid complication.

Hope.

What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. To know joy, I must also know sorrow.

Unseen Truth. Until now. Thank you.

For me, at least, I am not seeing science as being separate at all... it operates in me, through me, outside of me... it is reality that I am thoroughly embedded in. Perhaps "science" is the wrong word to use, I don't know. But it is opposed to a kind of metaphysical embeddedness that used to be my life perspective... which no longer applies. I see little inherent meaning in anything anymore, and I find that strangely refreshing. We are just... here. Atoms crashing around, cells pumping, trees breathing, rocks sitting... take your pick, it is all just HERE, and that's what makes it worth it to me, every day. Finding out what's here.

"What is that old zinger? Ya know... that old one. What doesn't kill me... puts me in a hospital bed in a vegetative state!" - Henry Rollins

the people around me like my family and close friends are there to help keep me going. I look up to a lot of influential and inspiring people and many quotes keep me going. for example-
'sunny days wouldnt be so special if it wasnt for rain, and joy wouldnt feel so good if it wasnt for pain'.

like it says, we wouldn't be able to enjoy our good experiences if we didn't have something bad to compare it to. This is why sometimes people with such pampered & wealthy lifestyles have some of the worst problems like those of depression and loneliness and acoholism because they are missing that sense of striving for something and going against the tide, and therefore they unconciously seek unhealthy substitutes for it.

also, -'life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning how to dance...in the rain.

Sometimes I find myself constantly focusing on the bad things and all the shit I have to deal with here and there, but this quote puts into perspective how theres always going to be shit happening in one's life, but one just has to make the best of it.

Never heard that one before, but it does make a lot of sense.

you hear some pretty broad claims like those talking to people about cars or bikes...friggin morons


to the OP...really...what the hell else is there to do?

has anyone said beer yet?

Hahahah!

(tips a Sam Adams at Casual User)

Amen.

My ancestors. Some worked low-paying factory jobs to provide for their children. Some gave up what little they had to move to this country and try for a better life. Some were used as cannon fodder in pointless wars. Some had to flee their homes in the face of advancing armies. Some had to leave their homelands because they followed the wrong religion or spoke the wrong language. Some were bound to their lords' land and used as slave labor with no hope of changing their condition. Compared to what they endured, the shit I have to deal with is nothing.

nope.
but my answer is dinner.
(with a beer if you must)

and now my son.
and his dinner.

Love... laughter, family, friends, helping others, good movies...

Lots of things keep me going... if we didn't have a little adversity, our lives would be boring, indeed. :)

I agree with Pig, there is no other choice. One can run away from that adversity but one runs because one obviously wants to keep going.

I just remind myself that it is nothing more than a temporary state of being. Back when I would become depressed or anxious or angered, I just reminded myself that it would end eventually. I like to think my stress has gone down considerably once I adopted that perspective. I have stood by my friends in order for them to realize there is some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, and it isn't a freight train coming their way. Sometimes, one just needs to be reminded that one is not his sickness, or his depression, or his battles.

Some Responses:
@ratbastid-
Of course. How do you want something when it is available to you at all times? And just because we have something does not mean we stop wanting it. Example: do you stop wanting your lover? Of course not, you want them alot!

@ProfessorMayhem-
Brilliant outlook on the universe. Often I contemplate the vastness of both the microscopic and macroscopic worlds we are parts of.

Personally, there are three things that I love to learn about: physics, psychology, and philosophy. Physics details for us the framework for this universe. Psychology is the study of human thoughts and behaviors and humans are just part of this verse. Philosophy then is the search for how we ought to be not taking into account anything else. When I throw these three topics together, I always get this feeling (shivers down my spine) that the three are intimately interconnected, each is just a different perspective of the same thing. With that in mind, I could never end myself in a time of adversity without giving a good college-try at first figuring this out.

I have not run out sincere smiles.
When I receive one, I am fully fed.

When I reciprocate, I am fully fed.

Because whenever I've got something bad happening, I know that someone I've met needs me to be strong for them. Lifting other people up and lending a shoulder to cry on always helps me forget my own problems.

That and my children, and the prospect of grandchildren. Okay, and even more hope.

Yeah I agree with you about it being somewhat interconnected. Although the only thing I can remember that had a common connection is that theory about 4th dimension in Physics and Philosophy as well the theory about different the different paths that we take from point y to get x and z and when x and z meets it is still y or something in relation to that.

Anyway my philosophy in life at this moment. Alway do something with your life, since you'll never know when you'll cease to exist in this world.