Or, ya know, science. :)

Does anyone else wake up feeling the weight of nearly 8 billion human lives worth of suffering?

Does watching others inflict more suffering on children who have no choice but to be born into our overcrowded and severely broken world fill you with the deepest sense of dread and disbelief?

Does anyone else feel as though human consciousness has been wasted on a fundamentally flawed creature who has only managed to use such a random gift as a tool of their own self-destruction?

Does anyone else see the futility and narcissism of thinking we have meaning or purpose in the context of the larger universe?

And finally, does anyone else say “fuck it, I had no choice in being born to this shithole, I’m gonna still make the best of it”?

If so, I see and respect your struggle.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Thank you for your reply and for thinking about what I wrote.

I am the first to admit that I don’t know anything for certain. In fact, if I ever become certain about anything, it’s usually the first sign of being wrong.

As a person with kids, I applaud your ability to even think about whether it was the right decision. With something so permanent and consequential as creating another life, one that must live in the world around us and then (in the best case scenario) become old, frail, and ultimately say goodbye to everyone and everything they love, I can see why that would be a very tough thing to do.

Having grown up very poor, it has become obvious to me over time that the perspective poverty offers relative to my now very comfortable life has been a necessary condition for my overall happiness.

Had I grown up middle or upper class, I would have faced many of the same challenges (school, figuring out jobs, relationships, etc) but would have struggled only to regain the security that I knew as a child, not capture said security for the first time.

Poverty also means that you have to become pretty creative to still find joy in life (you can’t just buy an ersatz version), and this was truly useful for me. It was how I found nature, exercise, creativity/art, good relationships, accomplishment, efficiency, etc. All the actual sources of joy that life has to offer.

Also, since humans do far better with improving circumstances than deteriorating ones, poverty has been a distinct advantage for me over many middle class people I have known. My life has been a steady state of leveling up instead of just a slow grind or decline towards death.

I am becoming more aware that people who have only known wealth and security simply don’t know how to be happy, so they do the things society tells them will bring happiness (like having kids, believing in God, consuming garbage products and experiences, practicing brand and political tribalism, etc).

They then get trapped by the system that knows exactly what it’s doing. The kids they bring into the world keep these people distracted and obedient, as do their political and religious leanings, and the debts they incur to afford all the other garbage they bring into their lives. They are creatively barren, and most can’t even start to think for themselves, let alone begin to examine their own behavior so that they may one day escape the prisons they live in.

It’s sad to watch really, and there’s really nothing that can be done about it.

Good luck out there.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Alcohol does significantly impair sleep quality. Even when you drink regularly and don’t have the typical hangover effects the next day, it still results in many micro awakenings (transitions from deeper stages of sleep to lighter ones) and interferes with the restorative functions (cellular repair, short to long term memory transfer, emotional content processing, etc) that good sleep provides. The tricky part is that your brain has no memory of the micro awakenings so you think everything is fine.

Good for you for recognizing this and making good choices for your health. I’ll still have an occasional cocktail or glass of wine but limiting alcohol intake is one of the simplest and best things one can do to towards better health.

Omfg that’s adorable.

What problem does faith solve for you exactly? As someone who wasn’t raised with any sort of belief structure (or parenting at all for that matter) I am genuinely curious.

Congrats and welcome.

Hope can be a form of procrastination.

#grownostr

Big pharma’s profit model: prolong the most miserable possible existence for as long as possible.

For something so very, very natural, it never ceases to amaze me how naive about and afraid of death and dying we are made to be.

I’m sorry your experience was such that it left a negative lasting impression. The palliative care ward in US hospitals (I sure hope no one else so callously refers to it as the death ward) is simply a place for people who choose comfort-based over life-prolonging treatment. Yes most are near the end of their lives but not all. Trust me that we all reach the point where living as well as possible outweighs living as long as possible. A good physician understands this but it is sadly not a well taught concept in US medical schools. The goal in the US after all is usually to exploit the sick and infirm for as long as possible.

Acceptance of death and dying and an understanding of what it involves is a closely guarded secret because if more knew that it was nothing to fear, we wouldn’t make such good captives.

#grownostr

#deathanddying

Big brother has gone to a lot of trouble to convince the masses that fame is something desirable and worth seeking.

Yeah, put all your inner thoughts out there and tie them to your identity. That can never lead to you being exploited.

Anonymity will always be my primary goal.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

It can be hard to separate what is depression, a personality disorder, or simply realism.

If you can’t find joy in anything in your own life, you are likely depressed and this can probably be fixed by restoring a chemical balance with medications such as SSRIs etc.

If you can’t find joy in your life and can’t stand it when others find joy in their lives either, you probably have a personality disorder. Unfortunately, these are almost impossible to treat and other people likely think you’re an asshole.

On the other hand, if you can acknowledge all of the meaninglessness and futility of human existence yet still find joy in the few things that make life bearable (such as exercise, nature, good relationships, efficiency, accomplishment, art/creativity, etc) and don’t mind it when others find joy in things you don’t, you are not depressed.

You are simply a realist.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Eliminating shift work/good sleep hygiene.

This is the winning solution.

The concept of expertise in creative fields like fine art, music, literature, etc is interesting.

On the one hand, it is impressive to see what humans can achieve with untold hours of training and hard work.

On the other hand, creativity is a natural human tendency that gets unnecessarily suppressed when we are taught/told what art, books, or music is good or bad. In this sense, our creativity gets poisoned and sold back to us.

The fact is that there is a massive benefit to the human psyche that comes from doing creative things. In other words, don’t miss out on one of life’s few legitimate pleasures just because you aren’t the next Van Gogh or Mozart.

Be creative in order to use your brain and see what it can come with just because it’s fun and rewarding.

Note, like all my posts, this is mainly a reminder to myself, but I write it here in the hopes that someone else has an interesting take on the issue.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Now that’s a fun project.

Yours or someone else’s?

Another amusing paradox of human existence revealed itself this morning.

Because there are so damn many of us, even when you finally figure some stuff out for yourself and get to or near the point of beating this pointless game called “life”, you still are left having to contend with like another 8 billion idiots in this world.

Then you have a choice to make. You can a) let it get you down as you witness others dither about their silly paths, b) find joy in the misery that is nearly everyone else’s existence and feel superior, or c) try to not let it bother you and instead focus on the things about existence that aren’t so bad like exercise and nature.

I admit to still doing all three at times. If I were still stuck living life in future mode, I’d probably try to choose option c more, but present-living me is content to now just have an awareness of the issue.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Well said.

Keep going with that line of reasoning to discover other lies we have been fed by those who seek to enslave us.

Religion, children, hope, longevity… the list goes on.

The fnords are becoming easier to see thanks to #bitcoin and #nostr.

This is called enlightenment.

When you can see the world and yourself as they truly are and still find joy, you have won the game.

Always beware of false “truths” though, as the second you are “sure” of anything, you should know you are likely wrong.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously