To what extent is care for someone reasonable?

[IceQube]

<p>Siriuss, your post is magnificent. Don’t think otherwise :). </p>

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@Siriuss

Well put.
Yes irrational but as you stated not necessarily wrong. Our world is made of illusions this has always been so. It’s what we feed ourselves to keep ourselves going. The lies we promise, knowing as we say them that we can’t keep them.

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<p>Yes. Humans have an unfounded sense of optimism. Tomorrow is always brighter. When God closes a door, he opens another one. There is always a silver lining. These eternal sayings, these figments of our culture, these memes, embody what you are expressing (so elegantly). </p>

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@Siriuss

It’s the cheap thrills we seek just to feel alive. We exploit our emotions because we feel them. It keeps us from believing we are small and unimportant. The idea that we could be important to someone sometime. Just the idea.
Where would we be without the illusions?

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<p>Self-centeredness. Ahh. The entire intellectual trend of the last 500 years has been emphasizing the individual. The Renaissance, to classical liberalism, to transcendentalism, to existentialism. </p>

<p>We’re attention-seekers, and I’ve but skimmed the surface of this facet of the human condition in my essay titled *<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/1356173-stage.html[/url][/i]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/1356173-stage.html*&lt;/a&gt;. We all seek attention in our own ways. From a baby’s wails for his or her mother. To an adolescent’s displays of affection in the movie theater. To an adult’s striving to be at the top of the hierarchy at work. To the elderly person’s funeral. No one wants to be forgotten; instead, people want ceremonies, even for their deaths. From the beginning to the end, the human condition is one of a desperate search for attention. As you’ve iterated, we want to feel important; we want to be more than just another one of 7 billion or so, wandering this world. </p>

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@Siriuss

Lost in all probability. Hopeless. The realization that everything we do is for naught. Eventually there will be a time when humans don’t exist and everything that they have done will be forgotten.

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<p>I view this fact optimistically. Sure, we’ll be forgotten. </p>

<p>Our ephemeral lives mean nothing in geologic time. How many of you know the details of your grandfather’s exploits? His chasing of girls in high school? His first experience holding someone’s hand, his first kiss? I’m sure that if he would subconsciously want you to know, especially if you weren’t so closely related. Bystanders and witnesses provide him validation. We don’t want experience in a vacuum. </p>

<p>In that we will be forgotten, nothing really matters. Why hold back? Take a few missteps. Be bold. Say the things you’ve wanted to say. Reach out to that person. Be whom you really are. Relish the zeniths.</p>