You're not sick

[The Cloud]

Why does mankind insist on being heroic? What are we going to save ourselves from? There's no reason to follow our dreams. There is no example to set. There is no greatness that you have not already achieved by being able to be great.

People seem preoccupied with following their dreams and living up to the best within themselves, so much so that they miss themselves entirely. If you want to eat healthier, then eat healthier. But don't pretend superiority over those who do not eat healthier, or over yourself when you did the same.

I have come full circle back on myself. I started out being without a clue. Then I got a clue, and I started to buy out of society and its system of expectations. I saw that it was flawed. Then I saw that what I bought into was in no way superior to what I bought out of, and now I'm back to where I started, doing the same things the same way. The only difference is that now I know that these ways are not better than other ways. I am not better now than I was. I'm not even different.

I'm not sure what I am trying to say here, other than that there is no difference. You might thing that society is sick, and that you are sick for following it, but you wouldn't be right. You would be able to come right back to being yourself now in the future, and you'd be no more wrong for it then than you are now.

People everywhere are trying. Trying what? I don't know. They have nothing to gain by it. I don't know where they plan on going with effort and strain that can't be reached by a saner path. Nobody is waiting for you at the end. There's no one to win for. Being smarter or faster or stronger has nothing to do with it. If you masturbate less or make more money, you're not going to be a more perfect being, so why worry and strain about it?

Of course, you don't have to relax either. Strain has its purposes, I'm sure. Whether you relax or strain isn't the point. You can ask what the point is, but don't expect an answer. Everything is the answer.

[Karanime]

All that is is is.

/<3

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by Karanime

All that is is is.

That's cheating .

[James81]

The wonderful thing about personal development is that it teaches you that being who you authentically are is the key to living a happy life (that is, for those that actually GET it).

And we, as humans, tend to have this need to figure out or create who we are by first figuring out and creating the things we are NOT. Hence, this is why younger girls go through a ream of crappy relationships with guys who treat them like crap only to hit about 25-30 years old to discover that all they really wanted was a "nice" guy (not in the sense that PUA peeps use that term). Or why younger guys bounce in and out of several jobs/careers before they find one that suits them.

In other words, we have this tendency to need to experience what we are "missing" before we can be content with what we have.

Thus why a certain measure of life experience is necessary in a lot of instances for self-confidence and self-acceptance to really thrive.

[lifetimelearner]

Originally Posted by James81

The wonderful thing about personal development is that it teaches you that being who you authentically are is the key to living a happy life (that is, for those that actually GET it).

And we, as humans, tend to have this need to figure out or create who we are by first figuring out and creating the things we are NOT. Hence, this is why younger girls go through a ream of crappy relationships with guys who treat them like crap only to hit about 25-30 years old to discover that all they really wanted was a "nice" guy (not in the sense that PUA peeps use that term). Or why younger guys bounce in and out of several jobs/careers before they find one that suits them.

In other words, we have this tendency to need to experience what we are "missing" before we can be content with what we have.

Thus why a certain measure of life experience is necessary in a lot of instances for self-confidence and self-acceptance to really thrive.

very astute analysis James !

[Karanime]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

That's cheating .

Not if I'm right! XD

/<3

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by Karanime

Not if I'm right! XD

It's not right if you're cheating.

[sheffy4]

Originally Posted by James81

In other words, we have this tendency to need to experience what we are "missing" before we can be content with what we have.

Very well put James.

[The Cloud]

I never did say that the place I was at when I was clueless was particularly good. It simply wasn't better or worse than the place I went to get away from it. In fact, it's a place I would leave very willingly if there was any improvement to be found elsewhere. I simply don't see any opportunities that make me a better person than I was when I was miserable, so I'm arbitrarily deciding to be the kind of person I would be if I had never tried to get away in the first place.

[InterfaceLeader]

It doesn't matter who you are, so you might as well be the person who is happy and enjoying life.

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by InterfaceLeader

It doesn't matter who you are, so you might as well be the person who is happy and enjoying life.

But that doesn't make any sense. Why is "happy" and "enjoying life" superior to all other qualifications? It doesn't seem to make a difference to me, since I seem to do everything based on social and personal inertia. What makes me happy? Going along with the inertia, whether it's from a higher or lower source.

Higher sources of social inertia say "follow your dreams," lower sources say "do what everyone else is doing," but both are effectively saying the same thing and accomplishing it the same way. When I try to "follow my dreams," I don't do it separate from the social impetus to do so, so there's little difference if I choose a higher source or a lower source. I could follow your inertia and be "happy and enjoying life," but how is that superior to any other social force if it acts by the same mechanism as the lower sources? It's not. Effectively it's the same, the only difference being the message we're supposed to rally behind.

So it makes little difference to me what efforts I make on whose behalf. I'll just follow the path of least resistance, become what I was and become what I would have become. If being happy and enjoying life are the path of least resistance, I'll take them, but that doesn't seem to mesh with who I was.

[InterfaceLeader]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

But that doesn't make any sense. Why is "happy" and "enjoying life" superior to all other qualifications? It doesn't seem to make a difference to me, since I seem to do everything based on social and personal inertia. What makes me happy? Going along with the inertia, whether it's from a higher or lower source.

If you were inert, then you wouldn't have replied to my post. Instead you're trying to dialogue with the idea, which means there is some resistance to the idea.

If you were truly completely inert then you would just agree with everything above, switching frames of reference every few seconds.

I wouldn't say any impetus, higher or lower, is better than any other. I would say committing only to your own happiness conflicts with a lot of other, possibly more idealistic, commitments. But if you've decided there is no relative value between different attitudes towards life, then you have effectively freed yourself from the need to do anything.

But, being living creatures, we're born with certain types of instincts and behavioural patterns and inertia doesn't come easy....

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by InterfaceLeader

If you were inert

I'm not inert. I have plenty of inertia, just without anywhere to go. That's why I don't switch frames of reference or agree with everything you say; I have lots of inertia in the direction I'm going and it's not where you're telling me to go. I'm not opposed to your direction, I just don't see it as more appealing than where I'm already headed.

You say to pursue happiness, and by that you mean to pursue my own personal ideas of what would make me happy. But those ideas are all part of a social context. I'm already supposedly pursuing happiness, you just want me to do it in a way that appears to be more authentic to myself.

It just appears authentic, though. It's still a part of everybody else. It wouldn't be my own personal decision of what happiness is. It would be everyone's decision, with me simply being the one to choose who to listen to.

I'm saying I don't see any difference between the happiness you've chosen to pursue and the happiness I've chosen to pursue, both of them being a gestalt created by society and/or biology. Furthermore, I see no value in what either of us have chosen to pursue, but I see no other pursuits of more value. The simplest solution at this point is to keep doing what I'm doing until I do something different, since the differences really don't matter.

[InterfaceLeader]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

I'm saying I don't see any difference between the happiness you've chosen to pursue and the happiness I've chosen to pursue, both of them being a gestalt created by society and/or biology.

There isn't any difference that's why you don't see one.