/lit/ - Literature

the fate of us all is death. nothing else is certain

>>11732087
t. philosophical dilettante

>>11732087
Are you certain?

>>11732079
Where did the road take you? Did you think you would find some ultimate truth? Does it make your life any happier? Did you expect it to?

>>11732079
>after a long fight with disorienting, paralyzing and wholly unhelpful nihilism

Sounds pretty insane to me anon

>>11732231
Never intended to find ultimate truth, just to escape the void of devaluation nihilism represents. In doing so, I inadvertently developed a closer relationship between myself and the world around me, so to speak, coming to refute reductionism, and recognizing that the validity of ambition is entirely personal. I'm pretty happy with that.

>>11732242
Another crucial step is in embracing not absurdity, but uncertainty; there are truths in the world, but there are also some things which, despite what we might hope, we will NEVER understand using pure rationality. The nature/origin of existence is a trite but immediately effective example, as upon considering the problem, a thoughtful person either:
1) finds God or
2) acknowledges a similarly acausal, but not necessarily deific force which also eludes human understanding.
Both are humbling and interesting conclusions, possibly life-changing in themselves.
Also stepping back and asking why one would wholesale abandon normative claims is a nice exercise - viewing ethics not as some necessarily higher good but as instrumental and a redemptive quality of humanity puts things into helpful perspective.

>functional normie-ism
That is but a renunciation to philosophy, a submission to the "disorienting, paralyzing and wholly unhelpful nihilism" you claimed you sought to escape, made all the worse by the fact it would be a willing one. More kindness, skepticism and perspective only make him more distant and hateful. The normalfag doesn't want Vattimo's tolerant pensiero debole (weak thought) that goes easy on the strong metaphysical and normative claims, the normalfag wants obedience and conformity, that's why he is so quick on disciplining your behavior and choices of haircut or shoes.
Normalfag has the same etymological root as norm. The normalfag appears to you as having some sense of belonging and direction because he has the norm, the norm rewards him with the entertainment that comes from doing harm to those that fail to follow its prescriptions. You treat the normalfag as some sort of model sage of virtue ethics, when all he has is hatred, schadenfreude, and violence for the dissimilar, difform and disobedient.
You were running in circles all along: your goal was to get the normalfag to mistake you for one of his own, but no matter how much you get on your knees and implore, he will not.

what other fate than insanity can you reasonably expect should you be confronted with "ultimate truth"? (whatever the hell that may be)

>>11732299
I agree with what you're saying, generally. But don't think like the normalfag, meet him only on your own terms. Unfortunately, the mind is no home for a human being, and the world of the normalfag bears this most dreadful burden. The drive for normalcy is not for the philosopher an aspiration towards the cruel and hollow power the normalfag holds, but a place to be, to rest, after a long journey of thought.

>>11732299
I'm not OP but am sympathetic to his attitude. What do you do to avoid being put in the situation you described? If they can't be helped or understood in a way that is more complex than barely above base mammalian reactionary responses, does that mean I should become emotionally parasitic as a response or defense mechanism since they are basically robots?

No philosophically minded person would still be clinging to the 'normie' dichotomy

>>11732079
rejoining the masses. eh. you wont just be another person, and depending on the extent of your philosophical reading, you wont be making friends with just anybody. its very important to be selective with who you open up to, and in what ways you open up to whom. life today is very compartmentalized, some of the compartmentalization needs to be respected; others need to be unified. it takes a discerning intellect to know what is what, especially today. continue reading, reflecting, and looking within, and youll be just fine. time is a curious thing, it passes faster than we think it does, but it takes longer for understanding to occur than we think it does.

>>11732255

ya sure. i think of it in terms of unanswerable questions, or questions that dont have any place being asked. the real killer example: "why life?" good luck with that one.

you can ask any question, but true answers are limited to very few questions. we have cognitive limitations, kant is recommended for this.

im glad youre leaning towards some higher power, i finally opened to it too after a few years of philosophy. either direction requires faith, is what the atheists are too dense to see. and there is no requirement for dogmatic subscription inherent in faith. judgment is a metaphor.

and i personally have seen evidence. not miracles, but coincidences that occur consistently enough to, i think, be considered miraculous, and enable me to continue believing. i also cant shake the feeling im being prepared for something, and people i respect have come to similar conclusions independently. what for or why is unknowable, the feeling is what matters.

something is going on. we're fucking here arent we? lul

an issue for you will be letting go of your previous methods of categorizing. "normie" isnt a thing, you need to be careful with your generalizations if you want them to be robust, and your concepts need to be thick. normie is a kneejerk reaction to an opposing set of ethical subscriptions. you can critique it all you want but its not going anywhere, you need to learn how to take what you need from the majority. they've always been like this, and we've always been like we are. nothing has changed.

>>11732299
isnt wrong in his assessment, but he is wrong by generally categorizing. anyone can be a fucking normalfag, and any normalfag can be not a normalfag. derrida? u guys need to stop convoluting your writing and really get inside of Aristotelian and hegelian logic. a healthy dose of hume and kant is also recommended.

you dont have to be friends with everyone, and not everyone is a nightmare, though ive gone through periods of self imposed isolation because its just not worth dealing. but thats not a life to live.

the environment in which you live your daily life is the primary factor in your life. it determines everything about your existence. you can choose where to live, and its probably the most important choice to make, considering free will is a lie.

>>11732255
>Another crucial step is in embracing not absurdity

I should bloody well hope not. Do kids these days still have early 20th century style existential crises? this comes from repression, lack of embodiment and idleness. what you're looking for has nothing to do with rearranging bits of language in various category slots in your brain (i.e. more intellectualizing) - anyone who thinks this is PROFOUNDLY asleep. most "thinking" is useless and accomplishes nothing, certainly not what you are looking for. You will always (ALWAYS) be threatened by despair and nihilism if your preferred tool for getting out of this is more thinking.

judgmental stuff you guys are saying about "normies" and "normalfags" is simple vanity too btw, lots of 'normal' people are either not as normal as they seem or equally/more intelligent and talented than you are. stop defining yourself in relation to a straw man representative of the Tribe, the man on the street, whatever you want to call him. this is more obsolete thinking.

insofar as the "normie" bashing has a grain of truth, you are talking about less reflective, less neurotic, less intelligent beings, with a healthier flow of 'animal spirits' so to speak, which makes their lives easier in various ways, especially re: sociality, sexuality and not wasting their time on fucktard navel gazing. this is a matter of the flow of energy through the body from the tips of your toes to the top of your head - you aren't going to aid that process one bit by synthesizing brittle little syllogisms.

do something else. have a love affair, go traveling, learn to meditate. work hard, not an office job but manual labor, preferably something outside. study the dappled light on forest canope. GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD. when you do that successfully you will spontaneously connect threads of understanding that 100 years of introverted speculation would never find.

also "intellectual consistency" is a trap, you should abandon this notion completely. a great spirit can brook contradiction. all of the greatest geniuses dealt in paradoxes.

i'm sorry to hector you like this but i feel like you are really screwed up right now and most of the other people here are going to give you bad advice

>>11732087
taxes

>>11732310
What rest? The normalfag knows only strife.
>>11732327
If only they were simple machines made of a select few algorithms, if only they were base mammalians instead of land dolphins! Look closely and see the very sophisticated cunning operating in their afinalistic cruelty. You spent your youth wondering how could all those atrocities, genocides, tortures evere be performed by your fellow sapient beings, yet at some point, if you are philosophically minded enough, the wonder over this inventiveness and creativity stops. It is very, very, very satisfying to perform these things. No, the problem is that they aren't robotic enough: if you beg the normalfag for mercy he'll be all the more stimulated to give you shit, so to answer your question, of course the solution here can only be prevention, survival.
Among normalfags, watch yourself, disguise yourself as a member of the in-group by wearing the appropriate tribal markings on your body, do not advertise yourself as an expert on a topic (students of economics on Facebook eventually learn to pick this one real quick), avoid provoking them. The point is not to eliminate your social network but downsizing it, choose your friends, keep the normalfags out whenever possible with neologisms, tests, abnormal behaviors and tastes they would find repulsive, and whatever else you can think of. There's your moral directive: resistance until the end.

>>11732355
It's a useful generalization more than it has ever been a serious categorization on /lit/. For all of this board's apparent retardation, /lit/ is unironically pretty intelligent on the whole.

>>11732299
What scares me about the lemmings is it's not that they don't think, they also don't feel. I'm convinced they don't even actually love their children. They are mentally inept, spiritually dead AND emotionally retarded. I would honestly take the lobotomy if it meant I didn't have to sacrifice the highest highs to get rid of the ubiquitous lowest lows.

>>11732371
They are robotized by their reliance on lower brain and social/moral/sexual circuitry to interact. They dont often dip into sorts of processing that might veer from those spheres of influence and when you make them do that they become uncomfortable. Saying the normie lives in strife is like saying that a fish who lives in water somehow suffers against an environment completely concocted and designed to keep them sealed in their stupid fucking suburbs until they retire to a floridian condo and die. If normal fags really suffered everyday in any meaningful capacity, they wouldnt be fucking normal fags. I agree resistance seems to be the answer here, but I dont see how they arent robots.

>>11732365
Thank you anon. You seem genuinely insightful, and interested in helping.

I get what you're saying. I'm currently re entering normie life after 4 years of imposed isolation. I enjoy it for now, life needs contrasts. In a year or two I'll get sick of it and retreat back into solitude, and the cycle will continue until death

>>11732365
>stop larping
Jordan peterson tier advice

Some people aren't reprobates and are actually in revolt against the modern world, even if they are even less suited for the world as it ought to be rather than how it is. Not everyone is so egocentic they are simply dissatisfied with their life and not the world in general.

>>11732389
Saaame. Got a ma and pa convenience store job a month back after 2 years with no job and minimal socialization. Its fun for now but I can feel myself being drained by every person that lays eyes on me.

what do i do when i see that the way 80% of this thread thinks is so clearly based on unresolved psychic trauma but no matter what i do i cant help any of them because the books written to help people with these thought patterns have been branded under the negatively connotated "self help" label that causes violent ideological reactions in anons?

leave your abusive household. say goodbye to those people pretending to be your friends. get out of the fucking small town. move to a major city, get a fucking job, take on some mild responsibility, find a hobby or two, live a life, and heal from the unknowable amount of damage living in an abusive environment has inflicted upon you. you didnt deserve it, but you got it, now youre in an adult body, entirely capable of being a self sufficient, self loving, living being. youre not a kid anymore, youre stronger than you think.

>>11732365
spot on

>>11732387
i'm glad you got something out of it.

I'd add as an addendum that there is increasing evidence that a significant casual factor in depression is oppressive verbalization (default mode network), often paired with strong habitual tendencies, repetitive and stale thoguht loops... always remember that consciousness is incredibly rich and multivarious, the discursive-thought "I-me-mine" module is only one of many parts, of mind and BRAIN... we are biological beings, existential crisis is a brain sickness as much as anything else... 'embodiment' means activating brain stem, disrupting tyranny of overstimulated DMN

i'm not telling you or anyone else to completely stop thinking and studying - i'm all for education and conceptual clarity - but you must understand, this is only one of many tools, perhaps not even the 2nd or 3rd most useful tool in your particular situation

speaking of study, i think a useful study for the existentially fraught could be some basic neuroanatomy, find out how much of your brain is activated in visual processing, balance, cognition. a good concept to develop is the total human organism, the mind and nervous system, the sentient being as physical being. maybe some people find this depressing or threatening but it has liberative potential

as a final aside somewhat along the above lines i would even suggest try getting a really good massage on your neck and skull. stress stores in the body physically, you can see how tension in muscles innervating peoples faces warps them in older people - their wrinkle patterns tell you what mental states their physiology afforded them in life. i had problems with headaches and depressive tendencies for a years that turned out to be almost entirely due to muscle tension, this stuff can have MASSIVE impact on your state of mind, and if it's part of the problem then spending a lot of time on concentrated thought will probably make things worse

anyways i hope you have the sense that there are many tools, many weapons. mind forged manacles have many weak points

>>11732394
>some people aren't reprobates
im trying to wake suffering people up a little bit and you come at me with more moral vanity. whatever buddy

>>11732394
As all young kids are. Then they grow up

>>11732439
If you are only interested in helping failed normies who themselves are the problem you're better off on /r9k/, You can't comprehend any other perspective.

>>11732087
Define death

>>11732446
what I comprehend is that you're a sulky puppy nipping at my heels

>>11732413
>this Jordan Peterson regurgitation
Yikes. That's the problem with psychoanalytics, all is jaundiced to the yellow eye.

>>11732361
>>11732365

id like to clarify, given the proximity of these two, i am the former, in regards the the latter: i dont think you were intending to oppose some of the ideas i was presenting, but, given the proximity, and similarity of terminology, it can be construed by readers that they are contending posts.

my comments about categorization i think are qualitatively separate from the other anon's, we are using the terms differently. he is speaking of a process of healing, and understanding, that can occur, i would say, emotionally, in opposition to intellectual categorization.

categorical thinking is limited, and can be a spiral into itself to a place of homogeneity. where nothing is real, everything equally valid. it doesnt seem as though hes read kant, he seems like someone with a penchant for the eastern persuasion. but the vehement rejection of intellectualization i think is a bit brash. we are thinking animals, i say.

healing occurs by "occupying" the body. thinking is occupying the mind. the dichotomy is false, but you get the idea. but sometimes our understanding can get tangled, ideas of one thing invade those of another, and dissonance can arise. this can be "felt" away, in moments of serenity, but not always. ive had great emotional resolutions after intense discussions about things that were conducted entirely categorically. we found the crossover that didnt belong, uncrossed it, and the problem was solved. this is something id spent years working on, but old, forgotten, romantic ideals had to be identified and buried before i could see that truth. meditation would not have gotten me that answer. they each have their place.

my intention was not to say become a more categorical thinker, but rather to refine ones methods of categorization, lest it becomes dangerous. you cannot escape thinking categorically, it is the fabric of our cognition. with meditation you can transcend it; you can recognize what it is unto itself, and feel what cant be thought. but it exists for a reason, it has a purpose, and a function, and when used properly it is very powerful. but it can become overdeveloped relative to the emotional, overrelied upon; its limitations can be forgotten or ignored, and the ego can run just fucking rampant with useless thoughts.

yes most thinking is useless, but thinking itself is not useless. we will never stop thinking. telling someone to stop thinking is fruitless. you can point out how ineffectual it can be, the over-reliance of many men of a certain disposition, to over thinking, and the dangers of this process.

i agree largely with what the other anon has to say

this is the east/west divide btw. another false dichotomy, but you get the idea.

>>11732487
Thinking in itself isn't really destructive, it's just procrastination, what is potentially unsavory is an internalization of certain beliefs and values, but internalization isn't achieved only though thought.

>>11732413
>self sufficient
there is where you're wrong

>>11732492

well we'd have to define thought.

it can be avoidant, yes. ours is an age of reflection...

but its not something we can just say goodbye to, as far as getting some understanding from it goes. the intellect is equally vast an ocean as the emotional/spiritual; the body is just as important as the mind. to even draw the line is silly, duality is an illusion of appearance, which shares the structures of our cognition (this is half kantian). it needs to be done because thats how we communicate verbally, its how we cognize. communication and understanding (so we can connect with ourselves and others, is the ultimate goal/context) necessitate categorization, delineation, precision. but this /can/ become too dominant; it has a place. this is the east west dichotomy, but they are two sides of the same sphere, if you see what i mean.

id say your "internalization" could be restated as understanding, which is different from the Understanding, btw. this subconscious internalization where the "knowledge" becomes blood and transfers directly to action with no thought intervening happens when understanding has been acquired. but no internalization is necessarily permanent, you can choose this, but you dont choose whether or not you get to internalize, or how that internalization will occur when it happens, its all context. different things take different routes to the soul. we are also "set up" with a set of internalizations from our environment, from when we were children, and in order to rework those environmental internalizations, we need to work through the same route they took in the first place. not necessarily via similar stimuli, but certainly via similar cognitive structuring.

"living in the body" or emotionally, is a struggle for me, i am intensely cerebral. but i have developed a relationship with the emotional, a deep connection with my body and motion, and a meditative practice.

i simply want to say; we need both.

and for a metaphysical plugt: there being both is a lie, its all one. it appears variegated, as we are variegated, so we need a variegated approach to understand the variegated (intellect). and a unified homogeneous approach (emotion) to understand the unified homogeneity. but in reality, its just one. no duality/unity, just unity. but we can dualify unity, because. oh boy

we are the dualification of it baby because 1 is the loneliest numberr

>>11732079
>he doesn't establish an orbit in the void between
pfft amateur

>>11732079
"Rejoining the masses" has this fatalistic notion that I find distasteful, as if you're imprisoned between that or insanity. But try seeing these excursions as an adventure, never giving in to this world but not unwilling to savor normie satisfactions with all your being.

>>11732578
nice album, but miles david is too popular ie. 'normie', the true intellect should listen to something more obscure but not too obscure, something perfectly balanced between the threshold of obscurity and popularity.
Might I suggest the following.

>>11732439
Are you regurgitating buddhist bullshit to us?

>>11732451
we work in a different ground, anything you say means nothing to me

people who buy into this "solitary genius" bullshit as an image of the philosopher didn't get the memo that romanticism ended long ago. these people should stop thinking that they're a """""profound""""" thinker when they're just some run-of-the-mill suburban nihilist.

the best remedy would be to start (again) with the greeks. philosophy begins in wonder, a child-like state, not in brooding sophisticated thinking. there is nothing more endemic to thinking than sophistication aka germanism. the greatest philosopher was an extremely vulgar man who confronted normies all the time and had no aversion towards them even though they put him to death.

>>11732972

>thinking flanagans trio with tony playing straight away blues has shit on miles smiles

the real effect of narcissistic delineation. i feel fuckin bad for you if youre srs.

here take something actually patrish because jazz is bourgeois

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFIGoB7rK70

>>11733516

any real philosopher today is out living life, talking to people, seeing how they think, learning about himself from how people can be short circuited. connecting, loving, combating, defending, attacking. magnanimously willing to power while delphic questing. he doesnt call himself a philosopher, he doesnt consider himself under any label, like artist, or philosopher, or worker, or man, or surfer, or runner, or grad student, researching assistant, etc. he doesnt define himself by his doings. he merely is. and it is the depth of this experience of being, and his daily work of exploring his relationship of it, of this is-ness, that is his primary interest.

youre right, the romantic age is over. the isolated genius is a narcissistic fantasy.

>>11734559
>Being an actual spastic over subjectivity and deriving taste based entirely over 'public perception'

here listen to this you fucking autist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4

>*tip* *tip*
>*tip*

>>11734668
Music is for kids
▬
Le Pétomane is for men

>>11734865
>Le Pétomane
a man of culture I see, hats off to you
>tip

I pose as a normie. I do fleet maintenance for a trucking company. I don't relate on an intellectual level with my coworkers. I'm not a snob or anything. But we have totally different interests. They are the normie guys. I just pose as one. I've written novels and these guys don't even read. A lot of them are great mechanics though and I learn from them. I'm not a natural mechanic.

>>11732079
>philosophically minded
>nihilism
OH NONONONONO

>>11734935
Overcoming nihilism pretty much necessarily mean realizing how retarded nihilism is. Did you not read what OP wrote?

Was socrates a normie?

I gave up after I realized that free will doesn't exist desu

I'm a full time degenerate now, hoping to live long enough to see the singularity.

>>11734946
if you're "philosophically minded" you're never going to be a nihilist in the first place, because being "philosophically minded" means you actually read philosophy.
op is just a posturing teenager

>>11735090
OP here. I actually read a very great deal of philosophy. My crisis was probably neurological more than it was explicitly philosophical, looking back - I was constantly anxious over the idea of a "wasted life" and wondered if for all the things I'd learned and done, any of it meant anything to me or anyone else. It wasn't the traditional life-bending death of values, it was pure disorientation and inability to identify truth, not the denial of truth wholesale.

ya'll mf'ers need Jesus

unironically

>>11735090
>if you're "philosophically minded" you're never going to be a nihilist in the first place
This is not really true, you can read a shitload of philosophy and decide it's all bullshit. There are academic nihilists obviously, Brassiers' Nihil Unbound does a good kind of roundup of contemporary nihilism

Note I am not personally a nihilist but I recognize the legitimacy of the position. If I didn't have religious feelings I would maybe have come around to that way of thinking, and there are days when I wonder even about that.

>>11735149
Being able to slip in to christ-comciousness amongst people makes them very pliable and accepting, are you sure you want to give them the keys to that particular kingdom if you perceive them to be reprobates?

>>11735154
the jesus anon never called anyone that

>>11735090
damn you are dumb

>>11735152
jesus fucking christ, it's obvious that i meant the facebook version of nihilism so popular with teenagers nowadays (the void, everything sux, etc etc) not the "academic" nihilism in the same way that when one on the internet refers to "hedonists" he is obviously talking about normies and not epicurus
>>11735171
no u

>>11735195
i didnt actually understand that's what you meant, because i have seen people genuinely treat actual nihilism in that way. My apologies

>>11733516
>people who buy into this "solitary genius" bullshit as an image of the philosopher didn't get the memo that romanticism ended long ago
lmao defining your self by what the masses have deemed "over" and "current". You sound like a slave. And the solitary genius is a theme repeated by cultures all over the world for thousands of years, it is not some made up manifestation of a recent western artistic movement
>they're a """""profound""""" thinker when they're just some run-of-the-mill suburban nihilist.
Nobody in this thread is repeating nihilistic philosophies. Do you know what that word means?
>philosophy begins in wonder, a child-like state, not in brooding sophisticated thinking
The practice of philosophy requires the untainted eye of the child but the disciplined rigour of an self actualized adult. Furthing any understanding of the subject needs large chunks of time dedicated to 'sophisticated thinking'. All philosophers played and fucked all day and then wrote their thoughts for 5 min before sleep right??? hahah just be a kid!
>the greatest philosopher was an extremely vulgar man who confronted normies all the time and had no aversion towards them even though they put him to death.
Socrates entire philosophy was ruining the lives of normies, they put him to death for a reason

>>11732413
>self-loving
Get out, faggot. "Love yourself" is the ultimate normie tidbit, spouted only by people who have no desire to ever be anything above mediocre at anything.