This is something I've been struggling with for years.

I'm no philosopher.

But I do think about life, consciousness and our existence a lot. And I assume that most people on earth have given their existence a deep thought or two.

So the question I ask OOT is: How do your personal beliefs effect your day to day life?

For me - they are significant - I can't stop thinking about my insignificance.

My philosophies are directly related to almost every decision I make. I'm not even joking - taking out the garbage invokes a mini philosophical debate in my mind.

From what I've read on here it seems a lot of people have motivational problems. I'm inherently lazy, but at times have great moments when motivated. The problem is this motivation comes by scarcely as I constantly weigh my incentives to act one way or another vs my insignificant life.

Ie.
Why study and graduate when I can be just as happy doing nothing? The end result is the same: I die and no one cares.

I see some of my friends grinding through life, seemingly without giving anything a second thought. They are "successful" in terms of societies standards, but I can't help but question their motivations. Where do they get them and what are they trying to obtain?

I know we are all just cogs in a massive mechanism and that its +ev to just accept that, play by the rules and move on, but unfortunately I am crippled by this thought process.

I rarely articulate my feelings perfectly, but all I want to know is:

How effected are you by your philosophies?
How do you justify your motivations in life?

My philosophy on life has an opposite effect: I know I can die at any time, so while I am here on Earth I want to become the best human I can be. To me that means experiencing as many things as possible (insert gay jokes ldo) and gaining as much knowledge as I can. Putting my best foot forward in everything I do takes on even greater importance. If there's nothing else to do here, why not put some effort and become the best Reup Gang I can become? My two cents.

i agree, that same look on philosophy has made me interested in pursuing academics and hopefully contributing something that will last longer than i will.

My philosophy is basically I do what makes me happiest. Strangely enough, success and love and fun and all those things make me happy so I pursue them instead of moping around worrying that I am insignificant or nobody will know who i was 300 years from now.

i went through the same thing for a few years almost nonstop and still have my moments to this day. after all the epiphanies and mental roadblocks ive finally come to realize that it all comes down to chemicals in the brain. either youre born/raised into the good ones or you take drugs or alcohol to combat your genetic disadvantage. or you could just give up altogether ldo

43.8%

See I get this thought process, and at times can follow it, but what ultimately holds me back is the level of contribution. I mean, even if you can accept that earthly accomplishments (advancement of human race, or whatever grand accomplishments you hold) are meaningful, the likelihood that you will in fact be one of the few who actually make a difference is almost zero.

I know its an incredibly pessimistic view, but volunteering at the local soup kitchen might help some people get by slightly easier, but you can't deny its insignificance on the whole.

this is kind of a sad reality I'm beginning to realize - and the fact that I enjoy recreational drugs much more than my friends leads me to believe my future isn't bright. I know a lot of people would read this and say "grow up you lazy pussy" and I absolutely agree. I mean, everyone does things they don't want to do but at least they have some long term goal in mind when they do them. For me the options are

a. do things I don't want to do
b. get no reward as its all meaningless anyways

Or I could

a. do the things I want to do
b. be a happy failure

i think the celebrity culture contributes to the sense of inertia that you are talking about OP, and i feel it at times too (although my reaction is a bit different). i think there are a lot of influences out there telling us that we don't matter if we don't grab peoples' attention or do something memorable, and it makes a lot of people miserable.

Whenever I can't decide, I just ask, "What would Jeremy Bentham do?"

have you read any Kant? think of it this way: if everyone had the mentality of "why bother, my contribution won't likely be worthwhile" then nothing important would ever get done.

edit:lol, i didn't see the bentham post after mine, whatever floats your boat

indeed - and this is also the reason I don't vote - 1 vote (ie mine) is meaningless. I know if everyone had this mentality it wouldn't work, but they don't. But I just simply can't wrap my head around why it works - and why people attach significance to insignificant things.

everyone doesn't have that mentality but enough do that it really hurts the system. the problem is you seem to be stuck in the view that your action is insignificant. the idea is to imagine each moral decision you make as if everyone were taking it, which makes it very significant.

No, it still doesn't. It only feels like it does.

But then knowing that once again removes the feeling, so we're back at square one.

Easy question. What do you like to do. Try to do more of it. LDO.

Yeah, philosophy affect big decisions sometimes, but it's not gonna affect how much you want to bang a 9.-that's set in your genes- do what your genes want and you will be naturally-chemically rewarded in da brain!

Why do you think your actions are insignificant? Every act of good will has some effect -- that's better than having no effect... A teacher can impact thousands of students, a whole community really. That's an impact that will have reverberations for dozens of years.

In the end, you do something for yourself, not because you think you're making a huge impact.

about tree fiddy

ironically this is the best answer so far


in the end its about how much you laugh and nothing more

affect. with an a.

Because people aren't robots and like to experience pleasure and avoid pain?

Let me ask you a question--do you enjoy watching sports? Sports are basically pointless and silly at their heart, but they're a lot of fun to get into if you allow yourself to, and are truly great fun if you can simultaneously be very invested in them while acknowledging and even embracing their meaninglessness. Life's kind of the same way on a much grander scale.

no

Pretty sure he's right. "Effect" as a verb doesn't make a whole lot of sense there. If it were "how does your philosophy on life effect change in your life" or something like that it'd be a different story.

claunchy is right

What if someone gets more pleasure out of emotions other than laughter. Like the instinctual joy of seeing those closest to you fail.