<p>So, I'm very big into existentialism.. I consider it to be part of my religion. Anyway, I believe that we're all adrift in this meaningless universe, subconsciously haunted by our lack of confirmation in anything we know (no definitive truth), and so we resort to distract ourselves with quotidian, "safe" lifestyle aspirations (college --> career --> money --> family), sensationalistic distractions (all entertainment), and we apply meaning to everything (life, our ideals, keepsakes, etc.) to distract ourselves from the ominous, subconscious prospect that our choices, our lives, ourselves, our world... don't mean anything at all. We go on because there is simply nothing else to do but do what we [think we] know -- how to live, day to day.</p>
<p>SO... How does this relate to school, college? Well after my readings, I can't help but find the rat race to college futile and naive. Studying out of obligation seems so pointless. So I would study what I wanted to at the time (often times existentialism, absurdism, other philosophy, sociology, psychology, evolutionary psych, etc.)... stuff I wasn't getting credit for, and disregarded, say, physics, which to me seemed like a self-fulfilling prophesy established to find some sort of a pattern in a universe which may be a chaotic, purposeless phenomenon with no pattern or purpose.</p>
<p>So.. Have any of you had similar thoughts? If so, how did you get them to coexist with your responsibilities, your schoolwork?</p>
<p>Um. No.
I believe (I'm not bashing you, don't bash me) that we all work in life for happiness. There is no great void. There may not be a God. But everyone works for happiness, the smart ones working toward long-term happiness and success such as family, a home, a great career, etc, and the dumber ones trying to get short-term happiness such as entertainment, the lottery, whatever.
The college "rat race" is stressful, but beneficial int he long run. If being in a great void is what you're into, then you're missing out on the happiness that life on this Earth brings.
People are good. Money is good, family is good, happiness is good, whether you get through money or family. A great big void is not going to change how we feel.
I think you're missing out on the small picture... Maybe in the end we are in a void, but why can't you just focus on being happy with your family, your career, and your money, instead of wondering, "Does it all mean something?"
Who cares? It makes (the majority of) people happy.</p>
<p>Is it any "smarter" to work toward "long-term" happiness? Doesn't that imply willfully purging one's mind of the reality that any of us could be struck down at any moment? This is of course open denial of the facts of existence, hardly very "smart" at all. It seems to me that if one were to make an assertion such as "the purpose of living is to work for happiness" (similar to what the Epicureans believed) then the only sensible behavior would to be to take as much advantage from "short-term happiness" as possible, as that is the only happiness one can be relatively assured of enjoying.</p>
<p>"Smart" and "dumb" were the wrong words. Maybe the smarter people are the ones that spend their entire paycheck on McDonalds (it tastes so good and it's cheap too!) on a whim. And the dumb ones are the ones who work out 3 times a week, even though it burns and hurts and isn't "producing happiness" in the short term.
That's a very small view of the long-term short-term debate. Sure, some short term happiness means a splurge on a huge TV, not getting fat on McDonalds. And some longterm happiness can be stupid and not worth it in the end. (Maybe you die tomorrow. Whatever.)
Long-term happiness typically means prolonging gratification and suffering through present pain and misery for a happier future.
Short-term happiness typically means having everything right then and now, and on a whim.
I said typically. Don't get me wrong. If short term happiness is for you, quit college. Work a gas station to pay for your nightly McDonalds or your splurge on a huge TV.
I'll be laughing it up in 10, 20 years from now, with a medical school degree, a family, a healthy body, and happy with what took 10 or 20 years of suffering and delayed gratification to earn. I want to spend that 10 or 20 years with the small, short-term happiness that everyone gets from a paycheck, a splurge, a random night of Mcdonalds. But what would keep me going through hardship (unemployment, bad grades, etc) would be the fact that I'm doing it for the healthy body, or the college degree, or the family I want to have. You can't get those things from just short term gratification.</p>
<p>Did I ever claim that immediate gratification was the path to a meaningful life? No, because I never made the assertion that "we all work in life for happiness." I merely pointed out the flaws in such an argument - specifically, what you described was not working toward "happiness" itself, but rather working toward a vision of an ideal (for you) future and taking the steps that appear (at the moment) to lead to it.</p>
<p>Now, here's the snag. Say your ideal vision, for one reason or another, is not realized. Say the random and chaotic nature of the universe takes its toll, and your career fails, or you never have a family, or you're injured in an automobile accident and crippled. After having definted happiness as te acquisition of these outside factors, does this mean that happiness would now be inattainable for you?</p>
<p>"We could all die at any moment" is a disingenuous claim and the only support you have for your shoddy argument. There is such a thing as life expectancy, and it's usually not "one second". To disregard the reality that you're likely to live approximately X years with a high probability and claim that you may die at any moment is plain idiocy.</p>
<p>In fact, it is easily provable that the default state of mankind is to work towards happiness - happiness is a mechanism that evolved as a reward for "good" behaviours (that is, ones that lend themselves to the propagation of genes). This is a known, as being happy correlates with making "good" decisions, and doing "well" for yourself. There's nothing further to this. While there are of course aberrant individuals who may not aim for their own happiness, just like some might choose to commit suicide or do other unproductive things, those individuals are the exception that the complexity of our brains allow and by no means the norm.</p>
<p>MelancholyDane, you get it. Now, how to make these 2 opposing "responsibilities" (self-imposed) coexist? Getting things done and my ideals as an existentialist?</p>
<p>I wish I could ask Sartre how he finished his books, believing what he did. Or why exactly he wrote in the first place.</p>
<p>Saer/Fel, you're making a few valid points, though more fit for the argument MelancholyDane is making, as opposed to yours. Nevertheless, it's not the point of this thread -- learning how to coexist with 2 self-imposed responsibilities which oppose one another is.</p>
<p>A solid first post, Fel. However, the possibility of an imminent demise wasn't my sole argument. There were others, but you apparently ignored the second paragraph of my (typo-ridden) last paragraph, including the question I posed at the end. To recap, I said that the primary problems with Saer's hypothesis were 1), that it defined the sum of "happiness" purely as external gain, an attitude which the majority of people would probably rebuke if they examined it logically, and 2), the assumption that hard work inevitably leads to the things he listed. Success in a career like medicine owes itself as much to good fortune as it does to determination, if not moreso. Apply to a college for an example of the principle in action. As for the family theme Saer kept stressing, how exactly does one "work" to get a family? Reducing it to such terms throws the humanity out of the equation, appearing (to me) to nullify the reasons for wanting one in the first place.</p>
<p>Your argument about "the default state of mankind is to work towards happiness" doesn't hold water. All you asserted was that humans (like most successful animals) are endowed with the drive to reproduce, and that ideas such as "happiness" are intellectual constructs created as byproducts of our sentience to preserve our collective sanity in a meaningless universe, and not real at all, the exact point the OP was making.</p>
<p>The main flaw in existentialism (in my eyes) is that it raises the fundamental questions about existence without satisfactorily answering them. However, as I am a nihilist and don't believe any such answers exist, I am willing to cut it some slack in this area.</p>
<p>To the OP: Have you read Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett? My vibe is that you'd like it a lot, if you haven't.</p>
<p>I've been through existentialist meltdowns, too, the lowest of which have tempted me to end it all; of course, I usually overcome this mindset quickly. My rationale for continuing to exist, given my lack of *raison d'</p>
<p>(didn't read Poseur's reply before writing, by the way)</p>
<p>No, that's not what I said at all. It's not an intellectual construct. It is not something that each of us wills upon oneself. It is something that is inherent in our minds, just like our propensity for speaking, kindness, or any other evolved behaviour. It's as much of an intellectual construct as intellect itself.</p>
<p>I don't think he defined happiness as external gain. To pretend that anything internal is based purely on something external is indeed absurd. External factors can provide a good evaluation of internal achievements, however. Hard work certainly doesn't inevitably lead to anything, however it provides a very large increase in the probability (this is pretty evident, yes?) of accomplishing stuff, which suffices for the argument.
"Getting" a family is of course a factor of work. If you sit at home and do not interact socially the probability of you succeeding goes down; if you go out and actively date and look for people you like, it goes up, right? Nothing complicated in it. You see more people, so you're more likely to see someone whom you like...</p>
<p>TL;DR for my post: I attain personal pleasure from attaining socially-constructed goals, but I put other personal goals above these things (i.e., at this stage in my life, temporary entertainment above the busy work necessary to succeed in academia) and try to achieve everything in an order according to my priorities; so far, I've succeeded. </p>
<p>Don't read the whole post unless you're bored. XD</p>
<p>Poseur, great post -- exactly what I was looking for. I am sort of a perfectionist, but on the other hand, I'm like, "well, what the hell, it doesn't really matter anyway, why put myself through all of this hell if I should make the most of today?" At that point I listen to music, enjoy every minute of it, or grab one of my friends and go on an adventure of some sort. But in the end I'm upset that I didn't do what I know I have the potential to do. And part of me, a logical part of me, wants to do away with perfectionism all together for health and sanity and logical ideals.. like knowing perfection can't be attained, and that i shoot myself in the foot with it sometimes... most of the time... like spending 5 hours on English homework, analyzing every quote and really savoring everything the reading has to offer, or perfecting my writing because I hold a lot of pride in my ability to write really amazing essays, so much so that mediocre (good enough to pass or get a b) work is embarrassing and I will throw away all of my other work to hand in a perfect essay, disregarding my physics homework or whatever.</p>
<p>I'm not that motivated by money... at all, really. Could waste time explaining why, but the point is that that's not a sufficient motivator at all.</p>
<p>Yeah, I know those feelings all too well. And the frustrating thing is that sometimes I have "moments of clarity" in which I realize that all of my priorities are meaningless and I should should give up on all the stuff I don't enjoy doing... then I have "moments of clarity" during which I realize that these things are going to make me happy... and I don't know what my personal "truth" is, yet.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm not that motivated by money... at all, really.
[/quote]
It just depends...but I cannot really believe some people that just say "oh money doesn't motivate me at all and I don't give a damn about it".</p>
<p>I assume you're rather rich, or high middle class, or whatever the case, you don't have any financial problems with anything or some sort of situation related to. If you've ever had a financial problem, you can't say stuff like that.</p>