From Existentialism to Taoism, the problem that made me look elsewhere.

Aloix · 5時間前

I agree with most of it, though I'm not certain Taoism invites you to just watch. Sure, that's a first moment, but the path only exists when someone walks it. The concept of wu wei is "no action" but it could be interpreted as "doing things without acting". That would just mean, the action without intention.

Pensive_Kitty · 2時間前

Absolutely. I know it might sound crass, but I think that so called "eastern philosophies" nail philosophy in such a more understandable and comprehensive way than anything "western". It's all so similar anyway, western/eastern, yet Taoism and Buddhism, for me personally, finally "explained life".

Putinlover23 · 3時間前

Took a different journey but ended up at pretty much the same point I'd guess. Zen and Taoism have always been the places I felt most at home, at least partly because there the whole mind-thing, the mental gymnastics and hypnotism of language are dismissed out-of-hand and the focus is on the immediate experience you are having, and not some theory about the Universe.

Gurdjieff ofcourse has similar notions but again manages to present some sort of super-belief system that I frankly am too tired to really dive headfirst into. Even though there is that flavor of authenticity to his ideas.

In the end I believe, and that is just me, in the idea that everything is pretty much spontaneous or automatic, as in Zen, and that there might be the possibility of some actual freedom or agency, but that this can only be developed through a long and diligent discipline involving lots of suffering probably, in any case something I am not willing to truly dedicate my life to.

DeliverTheLiver · 2時間前

This is word by word my experience ! From passive nihilism, to Sartre's existentialism, to absurdism, Kierkegaard's leap of faith, Wittgenstein, Stoicism, back to nihilism, to Spinoza, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and finally to Zen. I'm only 18 and not nearly as well read as some as other people, and have only fully read the Tao Te Ching, besides bits and pieces from the other philosophies, and commentary on them, so take my word with a grain of salt. Nevertheless this is were it led me.

My take is that we are all ( at least as I see it ) attempting to answer a question. It can be phrased and answered in many ways, depending on your mental framework, such as " Why am I here? / Who am I? / What is this ( reality ) ? / How to escape suffering? / What is the meaning of life? / etc. Essentially they're all the same question: given the Universe's apparent meaninglessness, what should we do? And the way most people, and philosophies answer it is either ignore it, invent meaning, suicide, rebellion, and acceptance. But it always feels like something's off. This is impossible to describe conceptually, so any attempt at describing it is necessarily metaphorical. All those answers still try to solve this mystery.

The problem, I found, is that everyone has assumptions, and we cannot know for sure if any of them are actually true: is my mind the only one, or are there others ? Am I real? Is reality real? So we pick and choose our answers based on intuition and our feelings, and rationalize them afterwards. For instance, the existentialists claim that if there is no God, and we have no reason to believe there is, then life is meaningless, and we are stuck trying to create meaning out of nothing. But that relies on the fundamental assumption that there is a self metaphysically separate from what is outside itself. If there weren't a self, then there is no one to seek answers, and nowhere to find them. This feels like the case, for most people. But what if that isn't true ?

That's what Buddhism claims, and what Taoism implies. They solve the problem by saying " The problem is thinking there is a problem. Stop assuming anything , and it disappears. " Or conversely: " the answer is NOW. Everything else is an illusion. " I think that's what Socrates meant by saying he knew nothing. Because that's the only thing we can know! Everything else is just words, and concepts. And what is the reality of those ? Nothing but a system that depends on itself, and means nothing outside of itself.

So then what are we left with? Philosophy tries to rationally find an answer based on logic, but what is logic based on ? Buddhism is a system to end suffering, and it claims that to end suffering / karma, you must stop seeking / grasping / attaching to things. But that asks the question: if I try to stop desiring, isn't that because of my desire to stop desiring? And there is no solution, while the separate self tries to find one, all it's answers will be insincere. So then what can we do? Nothing.

That's the actual answer Buddhism , Taoism, and specially Ze give us, If all there is is all there is, then the only way to find the answer is to stop seeking it, and hence realize it was here all along. They say: sit , and observe. Eventually, this results in the illusion fading away, and all that's left is who you really are: God. As in , the whole Universe is God. Or, you are what you seek. Stop resisting yourself, because that's insane. The more you attempt to resist existence, the more you strangle yourself. That is the cause of all suffering. Or, my favorite wording of this so far: the whole Universe is the smell of burnt almonds.

Does any of this actually matter or make any sense? Absolutely not.

sneysher · 2時間前

I highly recommend watching Peterson if you didn't already do. He cuts on alot of those exact questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrqsh-Nu7J8&

Sir_Ippotis · 2時間前

I agree with you on this. I say that when you realise the world is pointless, you should just watch and appreciate it. Just go with the flow, and by that I mean go with whatever you feel like doing. You don't need to be a pessimist and you don't need to construct your own meaning. Just enjoy the ride and don't think about it.

Ylajali_2002 · 1時間前

How it's all meaningless. And yet, in these two books, he's asking us to understand the absurdity but also be apart of it.

But that's not Sartre's argument (nor is it the argument of any other existentialist, for that matter). He's not asking you to be a part of anything. He's telling you that insofar as you exist in an atheistic world, you have no choice but to make yourself. There's a reason he says people are condemned to be free, and not that they can or might be free if they're so willing.

Also, Sartre doesn't think that "it's all meaningless." In fact his entire argument is built on the assumption that meaning exists, which he takes as self-evident (the word "human" or "person" means something to all of us, does it not?). To simplify this greater than Sartre ever did:

Things have meaning.
God doesn't exist.
What meaning that exists thus cannot come from God.
(simplifying greatly here) The only other way that meaning could exist is if humans somehow created meaning.

Sartre thinks that meaning is created by us through action -- because in acting we are ipso facto doing what humans do, in the same way that in cutting paper a paper cutter is doing what paper cutters do. Hence he says "we are unable ever to choose the worse." It's not that we are unable to make some choice which might be deemed worse by one standard or another. It's that the act of choosing is the very means by which a choice is affirmed by the actor as the best choice.

And so you can't really opt out of the meaning-making process. I guess you could choose suicide, but it would still be a choice, and you'd still be acting, and you'd still necessarily be doing what humans do. Insofar as you exist, however, you have to act, and so you're a part of the "absurdity" as you put it whether you acknowledge it or not.

Edit: I think a lot of the confusion around Sartre comes from the fact that he's sometimes seen as merely an ethicist, someone telling us how we ought to live our lives. At worst he read as some sort of self-help guru leading the path to enlightenment and happiness. While Sartrean Existentialism certainly implies an ethics (of authenticity etc.), ethics are not fundamental to it. Rather Sartre's ethical arguments are built on a base of ontological and phenomenological arguments about the nature of being and existence.

LucidEris · 2時間前

Discordianism, Hail Eris !

sixwingmildsauce · 2時間前

Have you ever considered reading any works from America's own Transcendentalists? I feel like you could find a lot of the answers you're looking for in the words of Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman. Being from the US, I think they can offer a perspective that you won't get from "old world" philosophers. Your words are familiar to me, I also thought that Existentialism aligned with my beliefs, until I started reading Walden...

2humble2yolo · 2時間前

I found myself on the same journey. But, I think if you want to just watch it, Taoism and the great thinkers are not what you are looking for. You are looking at ontological naturalism. This philosophy has long accepted the premises of nihilism and absurdism and says that the only thing that matters is observation. Understand what our nature is rather than trying to apply meaning to things. Maybe it is in our nature to feel restless until we give things meaning even when there's no inherent meaning. Most of philosophy is tied to our evolutionary psychology, constrained by the way our brains evolved to solve problems. Why were you born naked when you have to wear clothes? My point is there will always be philosophical questions as long as there are people who can ask them. Maybe not everything needs a meaning. Maybe a purpose is more than enough. What helped me accept absurdism was shifting from meaning to purpose.I don't worry about how and why I got here. I look at what opportunities and possibilities arise because I am here.

Thank you for starting the discussion!

Pappabombs · 3時間前

Try Alan Watts or even Terence mckenna? They both try their best to explain the phenomena that is language, which is the basis for all your thoughts (unless you can think in terms other than words)

2ysCoBra · 2時間前

Realise that the entire world is absurd but just watch it.

Taoism does not teach all is absurd; just the opposite. According to Taoism, all that is is Tao, the One from which all things have their origin, in which all things move, and to which all things return. According to Taoism, all things move to the Tao, because all things are Tao, but humanity loses its way and deviates from its original nature by trying to assert its autonomous will on reality, and we thus do not live in harmony with the Tao. The object is to be in harmony with the Tao by practicing Wu Wei (conforming to the pattern of things, rather than asserting one's will against the pattern) and Qigong (balancing yin qi and yang qi) to be in right relation to the world, and hopefully attain eternal life.

it doesn't rely on mysticism

Taoism is heavily mystical, especially its most original and earliest form. The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao..He who speaks does not know, and he who knows does not speak..etc. Apophatic theology is a key characteristic of mysticism. It's often called by comparative religion scholars 'nature mysticism'.

Taoism, in its more philosophical forms, is very fascinating. It also has intriguing near-parallels with much Christian doctrine (cosmology/cosmogony, anthropology, eschatology, etc.), and in Chinese translations of the Gospel of John, the prologue reads, "In the beginning was the Tao, and the Tao was with God, and the Tao was God." But I digress.

Anyway, Taosim is not absurdist and neither is it not mystical. Rather, if anything it's teleological, and fundamentally mystical.

UnfortunateDuck · 1時間前

Have you read Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning? I was in a similar situation as you coming from existentialism and absurdism, slipping into a nihilistic perspective over time. There is a lecture series by the same name as the book which sort of delves into a rational alternative to nihilism.

GoldenApple23 · 1時間前

Check out Discordianism, if you have a good sense of humor. It's Zen and Taoism in a clown suit.

captain__sock · 2時間前

I think it is incorrect to say that Taoism doesn't rely on mysticism. The language that the Tao Te Ching uses is characteristic of the eastern mystic traditions. In fact, Taoism was one of the core components of Zen, a mystic tradition. Let's take a look at the very first line:

"The Way that can be named is not the eternal Way."

Here, we are already diving headfirst into mystic concepts. First, we have the problem with language. Most mystics assert that the experience of Truth cannot by conveyed in language, just as this opening sentence does. Second, we have the suggestion of eternity, or the metaphysical quality of being underlying, formless, and permanent, just like the mystical truth of enlightenment.

Let's take a look at a a full poem, Rich with mystical weirdness:

"The Tao is no thing, thus everything is possible

It contains nothing, this everything is contained

It cannot be cut, grasped, caged, nor stilled

It has depth but no end; it is limitless; eternal

I do not know whence it came

It has been before the beginning"

Lao Tzu is not suggestion to take a look, see that everything is absurd, and end it there. He is pointing to the experience of the Tao. This is not nihilism, in fact, it couldn't be more opposed to nihilism or absurdism. This is more than a philosophy, it is the claim that beyond everyday experience, there is the Tao, the essence of mysticism.

Again, let's look at the language. We see great paradox: the Tao has no contents, yet contains everything; it is no thing, but gives rise to all things, etc. This may be the strongest evidence that the Tao is, according to Lao Tzu, mystical. This paradoxical description accompanies almost every description of the mystical, especially in the Eastern traditions. I'd come up with more arguments, and maybe I will later, but I'll end on that point for now.

TJamesV · 2時間前

I feel exactly the same about Taoism. It has that existential/ absurdist stance without trying to make a grand conceptual framework about it. It's a very simple idea.

greatconcavity · 1時間前

I see why you're comparing Taoism and Existentialism because of the related ideas of Nothingness, the Absurd and Tao (one might add Buddhism sunyata - emptiness). And the late Heidegger's Gelassenheit (letting-be) may be the most close to Eastern philosophy of all Western philosophical ideas.

My point is that this interpretation could use some more concern with the political and social aspects of existentialism. Calling society absurd and everything meaningless doesn't cut it. A good chunk of 20th century philosophy concerns itself with society and politics. Existentialism is often rejected because it lacks this deep understanding of the social developed by critical theory (from Adorno to Zizek), but Sartre became a Marxist and de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is one of the most important treatises on gender. Sartre's philosophy of freedom is a situated freedom, situated in the possibilities and conditions of society - not a creatio ex nihilo. I've always felt that Eastern philosophy is lacking with regard to the social domain: Most of it is a monk's philosophy - renouncing living in society (once again, a comparison with Heidegger seems natural), whereas Western philosophy has been political almost from the start.

vijucat · 1時間前

OP, you may find listening / reading to some UG Krishnamurthi useful, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zalJcNsaItM

stretchmarx20 · 54分前

I found Taoism at a point in my life when I was unhappy, confused, without purpose, and stuck in a career I didn't enjoy. Taoism was essentially a philosophical anti-depressant. It allowed me to accept the world around me for what it is. When shit got heavy, I popped on Alan Watts and drifted off.

This only worked for about a year. It was a phase. I finally quit my job and engaged in a lifestyle that is more in line with my values and now I am happier. I needed Nietzsche and Marx to push me into action rather than something to sedate me. Throughout my journey I've come across dozens and dozens of pseudo-enlightened Buddhists and Taoists who have all these trippy cool things to say but deep inside I know they are no less confused than I was. I think sad and confused westerners use eastern philosophy to cope with a society that has lost its way. In my opinion, dedicating our lives to fixing society is our only salvation. In short, Taoism is the Blue Pill. It was probably more relevant in another time/culture.

nerf_herd · 2時間前

Basically, though reading %99.999 of "philosophical" lit and "arguments" is nauseating for me as they sound like total BS and unfounded assertions and axioms and endless jargon, and emotional manipulation, but I've arrived at similar conclusions.

I would say nihilism isn't pessimistic, though. It just is, and pessimism is an asserted attribute, and observation is really doesn't change that. Though I would rank careful observation as the most important tool to knowledge (without which you cannot have wisdom, only dumb luck).

Adam_Warlock · 2時間前

I have actually had the same criticisms of Sartre, Kierkegaard, and Camus. Love has always been my answer to that more; not just the feeling, not just romantic love, but total, unbridled compassion for those around you. This is the highest call to action I have found, and it ironically calls you to observe more than anything else; how can you feel/utilize/act with your utmost compassion when you do not understand or recognize those around you?

Naturally, this is deeply rooted in my religious worldview of things, but I believe anyone can take to it in a healthy manner. This is my response to postmodernism. I think this is coherent with the new metamodernist tunes.

zlide · 2時間前

In my understanding by "watching" existence you are by default "accepting" it for what it is and not trying to make anything more than that or generate meaning where there isn't any. Basically, what I'm getting at is that the differences you're inferring between these things is your sense of self and longing for purpose getting in the way of accepting existence and consciousness simply as it is. If you've managed to come to peace with your understanding though that's really all that matters in the end. You might be interested in mindful meditation if you want to explore the essence of simply "being" and change your view of what the "self" really is, as well as the fundamental nature of consciousness. Just as aside, I don't think this understanding necessarily means you should literally "do nothing" either, just that you shouldn't be searching for a deeper meaning to existence when experiencing existence is the meaning itself.

adminsuckdonkeydick · 1時間前

Straw Dogs - John Gray

Handnail10 · 1時間前

Bhagavad Gita is the supreme philosophy. Pick it up.

Handnail10 · 1時間前

Consider the fact the question of god will never be able to not be brought up

Vmmon · 1時間前

For me I'm at an elixir of Camus' Absurdism and Hard Determinism.

I began at Stoicism, reading Marcus Aurelius' The Meditations and went on to research Taoism and to me they seemed to overlap a great deal; Requiring a lot of emotional sacrifice and a some disdain for the human condition (nods to post-humanism)

Your conclusion to it all was to "just be", as is mine, and its a sentiment that I have heard echoed by many throughout my life and I feel like the whole journey is just to find a way to give yourself permission to do just that, ironic really...

intellectual_ · 1時間前

I never took the Camus Absurdism as a rebellion against the absurd. For me, live "per si" is a absurd. We have the option of resign of this live, or accept it, and contemplate the absurd. We are a spark of conciouness with the capability of feel the absurd, without be the "rock" of Sartre. For me this is the answer. Our existence is meaningless, we have a timer before our "expiration", and we have the possibility (a very rare possibility, look the size of the universe), to "discover" the absurd and fell it.

I dont know if this helps, but at least for me, this is how i get some meaning to my live....

goranstoja · 1時間前

Then you will love Wayne Dyer. Go and watch all his ytube videos. Find move about G.I. life to its so good!

EmperorWizard · 1時間前

I believe Kaiji Nishitani wrote about this

c-lo-user · 1時間前

I took a very similar path to yours. I detoured a bit more into Heidegger and Derrida. Suggested reading, if you cared to backtrack into the western stuff a bit. To me, they read very much like a genuine discovery of the Eastern intuition using Western philosophical assumptions and tools.

Also, have you listened to Alan Watts at all? Another figure at the nexus between East and West. He gave great lectures on Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, and as a philosopher and theologian, makes great analogies to more familiar concepts.

kothecrooner · 1時間前

I think that absurdity of reality is that it works. The probabilities of everything we experience is open to total chaos. We aren't gauranteed any stable existence yet we are somehow sustained it a coherent reality. It's like a play with no script yet each line improvised makes sense and makes the play more beautiful. The contentment comes to an individual by understanding their role and realizing there is no such thing as small parts.

ibSkyBlue · 1時間前

Well put, Bravo!

I too conquer fictions my brain derives from discourse by watching.

One tends to let fictions dominate some higher level fiction that somehow informs that one is just a prescient bag of snot that dies and is forgotten if not famous. Oh how meaningless!!!

Rubbish I say!

The ability to witness the dance of life IS the meaning.

sk3pt1c · 48分前

Try The Denial of Death too, great book.

I think western thought presumes that it's advanced enough to figure shit out but after all the analysis and minutiae ends up where eastern thought has been for millennia, or something to that effect.

Junosian · 42分前

A brief overview of early western to existential philosophy does seem to intertwine with Eastern philosophy. I've always felt a common head space with Camus and Sartre, however while I do read much of Buddhist and taoist writings, I can agree on Camus and Sartre's side more - more so Sartre's premise and Camus conclusion. Eastern philosophy asks us to reflect on the world and of ourselves and deem what would make us suffer less. Both philosophies examine that if one were not realise the obscurity and absurdness of ones surrounding - and in eastern philosophy; the world within us.

We can meditate, write or discuss life with peers, or do whatever we want that is our desires. Both Nietzsche and Camus speak of desires as pointless objectively and it doesn't matter - but subjectively it's all that matters. We create what we see to matter. We follow our desires to make that our reasoning for life. By doing whatever and acting however you see fit does not matter objectively, but to you, if you are doing it - it should be everything that matters to you, and therein lies the key to a good life.

mrsjenkinsIV · 41分前

To search is to neglect

Totality-Infinity · 31分前

"The sun rises in the east and sets in the west."

Perhaps you looked towars Taoism and other Eastern philosophy as a means of understanding yourself better, and subsequently, a means of understanding of Western traditional thought, be it existentialism or even Gnosticism, Kabbalah, etc.

It's all about integration and balance.

arrozzz · 30分前

Anyone can quote/link the part of the book that OP talks about in "ever before had a writer so eloquently described how I'd felt before."?

roylennigan · 27分前

I'd be careful about saying Chung Tzu (Zhuangzi) is the same as Lao Tzu (Laozi). Zhuangzi resonated better with me specifically because it has less of an implication (in the traditional sense) of watching and meditating. It may seem like this is the message, but only upon first reading. Zhuangzi can be extremely subtle and even sarcastic, in a way. So its harder to pick up on his intention.

Its been a while since I've thought about Zhuangzi because his work was specifically what led me to abandon philosophy in pursuit of learning more pragmatic skills, and I think this is at the heart of his teachings.

Daoism teaches wu-wei, which can be loosely described as non-action.

wei wu wei is almost literally action of non-action, or non-dual action, and is more in line with the teachings of Zhuangzi, and perhaps Laozi as well. The two terms are often used interchangeably, although I prefer the term wei wu wei because it connotes a more paradoxical and non-dual sentiment.

wei wu wei is ambiguous in the sense of how we can't define it literally, and yet it is implied by the texts to be a very specific and enlightened way of life.

The reason we cannot define it is also the reason why Zhuangzi's writings are so important -- because wei wu wei can only be lived, neither defined nor intuited.

The story of Cook Ting comes to mind here. He is very skilled, and thus useful, though there are many others which can do the same job, which makes him appear useless. This is good for longevity, according to Zhuangzi. The passage makes me think of what we often call 'the zone' or a deep, absorbed concentration on a skilled task. This, I think is a worthy cause in life. When Zhuangzi says, “speech which enables argument is not worthy,” I imagine he means that this kind of skill is the speech which is truly worthy. Being good at a task which is essential and common to humanity, and thus not wasting effort digging for answers to questions which are inherently self-defeating, is to “leap into the boundless and make it your own”

kelsobaby · 22分前

I have Read all those authors, and, in the end, decided to enjoy life through hope, faith, and love.

rnisson · 21分前

I totally understand, here is my personal take:

I've always had the conviction that things exist for a reason, everything has cause and consequence in science, so why not reality / life?

It took me many years of searching and studying the sciences, but I now sincerely believe that the purpose/ nature of life can be described scientifically and is evident over very long timescales of evolution. It is a fractal pattern, that repeats across scales, and lines up with the common conventional wisdom of the world philosophies, the golden rule, which is essentially symbiosis.

If you look at the earliest records of life, we know single cells existed, and competed to survive, they were individuals, and through their competition they advanced the individual self and evolved via natural selection. This process improved the individual cells until something interesting occurred, they achieved such a level of advancement that they became capable of working together, symbiosis, which yielded greater advantage than selfish behavior.

This shift led to multi cellular life, which grew and advanced and scaled up, with cellular society members taking on different specialties and professions if you will. This process advanced so much, that eventually the system achieved such high levels of inter connectivity and shared information via a nervous system that it became essentially as one being. A collective consciousness emerged, and in fact, that's what all of us are, a unified consciousness of cells.

It didn't stop there though, these macrocosmic individuals, collective consciousnesses, became the new selfish individuals who fought and evolved and advanced the individual, in the same way the individual cells did. The process had gone through a full cycle, and now the group individuals advanced and became more complex, their organs changed just as cellular organelles changed. This continued until yet again the same anomaly happened, they became capable of symbiosis, and formed packs, tribes and societies.

Society itself is the effort to achieve symbiosis on a large scale, to create an even larger collective consciousness. It is a force of nature that I don't think can be stopped, and it's what evolution is driving at. Look at society, we have inadvertently created organizations that mimic organs and organelles. The Internet is the nervous system, roads are the circulatory system, the government is a primitive brain. If you look at cities from the air, they look very similar to neural networks and other biological systems.

The conflict we see between 'good' and 'evil' is really a conflict between the old operating system of individual interest, and the next level, which is symbiosis. All struggle in civilization is essentially us trying to achieve unity, and being held back by old ways of thinking.

There is a clear pattern here, and it explains a ton of what is occurring in society. The pattern in my opinion will continue, society will achieve one-ness of identity, and this oneness will then become the new individual, and the cycle will continue upwards towards galaxies and more. Personally I think the life itself can realize this pattern, and avoid the selfish individual phase, and just embrace symbiosis, but I am not certain of this.

I personally think the Fermi paradox can be explained by the fact that our planet has not achieved unity yet, thus aliens are essentially isolating us from the more advanced level of life they exist in, like a chicken hatching from an egg, it would cause great harm to get involved.

All world religions in my opinion are an attempt to explain what is essentially biology, psychology and sociology. They all at their core preach the golden rule, don't do to others what you yourself dislike. This is basically symbiosis, or mutual benefit.

The problem is human beings have lacked scientific knowledge for ages, until now. We have always had a need for purpose and meaning, which means we evolved to. Why? Because this symbiotic unification ultimately is the best survival solution, it's evolution, but it's also very meaningful in my opinion.

Try to look at society in this context, and I think a ton of things will start to make sense.

Also, there is one other issue, the meaning and purpose of life may be clear from this concept, but what about the meaning of our personal life? Now that is a question of freedom and choice, and honestly there is no answer, because no one has the right to tell you how to live, but you yourself ;)

Ps: google SuperOrganisms, some research has been done on the subject

James_Flamingo · 20分前

In late middle school I went through a few years struggling with nihilism. I became somewhat crazy and fervently religious, I put all of my meaning into this one girl and didn't leave her alone. I felt like if she reciprocated my love that it would prove there is a god. I eventually smartened up and just got over it, since I kind of realized how useless the actual truth was to me.

Honestly, ignorance gets a bad rap. To just believe "whatever" has been the most empowering realization for me. I change my philosophy whenever I want, I get to decide who I am and what values actually mean to me.

People are inherently irrational, truths are mostly contradictory, and everything you will ever create will fall into the sea. But it's ok, you get to pretend. You have imagination. You are still a child. You can dream.

Xudda · 7分前

This. Eastern philosophy has always attracted me much more so heavily than western philosophy (the two are about as different as can be) and I love the Tao te ching, it's a fantastic work. Daoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism imo all rest on the same general idea albeit with a few twists. Daoism is much more organic and material that the vedantic thought process which is much more mystic. But they still hinge on the fact that identity is found in the whole of the world, not just In the cranium. "The world", or universe, is treated as sui generis in these religions, and it is a source of their wonder, admiration, and awe. The creative and expressive power of what ever there is (tat tvam asi) that is drives them and shapes the perception of a unified continuum that envelops and constitutes literally everything.

Granted this philosophy doesn't get us very far practically in the scientific fields, but it sure does change the way you feel about the world and about existence.

foxeyedman23 · 2時間前

so the purpose you chose for yourself is to observe it all without judgement? isn't that going back to choosing a purpose in a purposeless world? I believe that to continue living is more a decision based on character than on any rational motivation, some of us kill ourselves , some of us can't. Just as Nietzsche pointed out, for most theories instead of trying to rationally justify them we should just stop and say what kind of man would think such a thing? Well the kind of man with an instinct towards death and decay would envision a path of hoping for an after life different from this life, while the man with the impulse to live would say make u your own purpose even if it only matters to you in this brief experience. My point is rationally there is nothing to gain, but life is not rational.

I do think we can make a choice to stop living or keep going but all of this responds to emotional drives, rationally there is nothing gained in living, but again as Leibniz said the heart has reasons reason cannot understand.

nufrututu · 4時間前

Yup. Christian to Nietzsche to Buddha to Lao tseu. Now I'm happy about the universe and never worry about bs like afterlife. I also really enjoyed the treaty of perfect emptyness by liezi. But then my quest for philo turned to politics and well after a journey I have two people I admire more than all the rest together Ayn Rand and Guy Debord. Never could stand Sartre he defended Stalin as only a monster could.

Antics1981 · 2時間前

Well, how do I put this in a kind way...you cannot read about a book and expect to know it, you have to read the book and go through the experience. I've read The Tao Te Ching, I've read Albert Camus novels, short stories, plays and essays, I've read quite a bit of Nietzche's works...and in the end I left with nothing you left with, these are things you read about online which are inaccurate but are not the book itself.

I've tried to read Jean Paul Sartre's Being and Nothing but I'm disheartened when he essentially writes, "none of this monumental book has any meaning if there is a God." He writes that at the outset, I have to dig up my copy but I will if you want the page number. Again, Sartre was the same man who wrote, "No Exit," which is an intellectual hell more consistent with modern psychological torture than a primitive medieval one.

If you reply I can go into more detail about what I got out of these books. I'm a graduate of Columbia University with a degree in Economics and took many philosophy classes both Western and Eastern.

I know you will not write back but I think you need to read the books and not read about them.

humanisticjeww · 3時間前

What are the starting assumptions he makes for you to buy into his philosophy and why do you accept them?

philosophy

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