/sci/ - Science & Math

go to university
study humanities
even retards can pass the exams there

I'm majoring in Political Science with a minor in International Relations.

I basically figured that I'd would rather not be miserable my entire life by doing something such as Finance. I'll find a job if I'm willing to relocate anywhere.

>>6719577
Im not super passionate but I like physics, never thought i would go into research. Im like 10 weeks away from finishing math/physics double major. Ended up doing an applied math major as well because it's easy as fuck compared to physics, even though i hated math in high school.

The problem: i still have no idea where to go from here. I feel no real passion for any field which is particularly open to me; i guess i just don't really want to work.

I don't know either man, just sharing my situation. It would be great if you could try to find a specific career to aim for instead of "I dont know so ill just do a degree in something i like and am ok at" like I did -- but i guess i didnt have a choice because 4 years later i still dont know.

>>6719577

>>/adv/

This is very common today. I too went through the same ordeal.
Your problem has nothing to do with jobs or careers; what you are experiencing is a crisis in your soul. Now, there is a popular term for this crisis, "existential crisis", but I would avoid the literature that discusses these existential crises for a reason I may explain later. An existential crisis is the same as a "midlife crisis", only it can happen to anyone at anytime, and not necessarily in the middle of their life. It's caused by reflection, more specifically a reflection on the meaning and purpose of one's life. It was common to talk about a midlife crisis over the last couple of centuries because men would get cozy jobs and live their lives in blissful ignorance until they reached middle life and then for the first time began to question the value of their lives, at which point they would despair realizing that their love of material goods was vain, that everything they worked for would come to an end. The greatest text ever written on this subject is a book of the Bible called Ecclesiastes, which I recommend you read as soon as you have the time. However, over the past half century or so the material prosperity of the nations has been threatened and so men are experiencing these tortures before they even begin their careers. Now, the main cause of this mass phenomenon of general despair is, I contend, the godlessness and materialism that is so prevalent, and which has convinced many men that they are biological robots whose destiny is to live meaningless lives and die meaningless deaths. This despair caused by materialism has caused many to move towards what is today called "spirituality", which can mean anything from joining an ancient religion to messing around with meditation and crystal under the direction of so-called "New Age" texts.

Again, your problem is not about jobs or careers, it's a despair brought about by reflection on the ultimate value and purpose of your life.

>>6719602
> it's a despair brought about by reflection on the ultimate value and purpose of your life.

It's a peculiarity of the modern world that every man has to figure out this question for himself. In a sense it has always been the case that a man has had to find the meaning of his life himself, but in former times men were under the guidance of spiritual directors. Today, though, many people grow up either without any spiritual direction or with very inadequate direction that comes from a watered-down, modern form of a religion. This means that every man has to somehow juggle work life, family life, social life, etc, while becoming his own Christ or his own Buddha, and building his own Church - because every man has been abandoned to himself and if he wants to form a spiritual bond with God or with other men he most form them himself without guidance from above. The great disgust that modern man feels is that the sheer variety in churches, temples, sects, beliefs, worldviews, etc., which force him to ask, "how am I to distinguish which of these is true when there are so many to choose from, many of which appear to be as respectable as any other?"

>>6719602
- Could you explain again why that crisis happens earlier now than before?
- Apart from the theory and history lesson, do you have any advice?

>>6719607
Most people before they arrive at this question - "how am I to distinguish which of these is true when there are so many to choose from?" - are today indoctrinated in the metaphysical position of materialism, which states that there is no reality beyond the material, and a corollary often added to this is that there is no knowledge beyond the knowledge of the natural sciences. However, a lot of people realize that this position fails them completely in giving them spiritual consolation in life and in giving them a consistent set of morals beyond "do what you feel is right / follow your heart".

As an aside, the reason that men today are being indoctrinated in this metaphysical materialism is precisely BECAUSE it leads to despair and demoralization and emasculation; the political leaders and the wealthy business men know full well that a population that is weakened by despair because it sees no inherent meaning in life is much easier to control because it lacks willpower. Soviet Russia was strictly materialist, it was enforced on the populace. The modern western nations are not strictly materialist, but materialism is by far the most heavily propagandized position in schools and in the media; metaphysical materialism goes hand in hand with consumerist culture, because lacking any higher meaning in life men will naturally seek for happiness in mere material goods, commodities. Plato said thousands of years ago that when the tyrants took over Athens they found it necessary to destroy the families and morals of the people, because they knew that if they had strong bonds with one and other they would be impossible to enslave.

>>6719616
You know what the solution is? Get good, kid, and get the fuck of my /sci/.

>>>/lit/

>>6719612
>Could you explain again why that crisis happens earlier now than before?

The same reason why the "American Dream" is dead. The American Dream is the belief in a materialist paradise; that man can be made happy by work and material goods alone. The American Dream is dead because the wealth of the nations has been cut back, which has meant that people no longer are as easily convinced that a materialist paradise is possible; it was in a sense always dead because it fundamentally, i.e. men CANNOT be made happy by work and material goods alone, he has a certain desire for something transcendent that goes beyond the material world, as he knows in his heart of heart that the material world is a passing thing and that in the end all of the material accomplishments of man will mean nothing. I remember being 16 and my friend saying how he was reflecting on the idea that the Universe is this gigantic and lifeless thing and that in the end his life will have meant nothing. 16 years old and he was already speaking like a man having a "midlife crisis", and this guy wasn't a particularly reflective person, he was ordinary.

>>6719616

This bewildering and dizzying sense that there are an infinite number of beliefs and sects and that it is impossible to select which one of them is true, is a result of A. The Protestant Reformation which said that the Bible alone is the basis of religion (as opposed to the Catholics who said that it is the authority of ancient traditions in addition to the authority of the Bible that is the basis of religion), which lead to numerous Protestant sects proliferating based on varying interpretations of what passages in the Bible means, and B. The Separation of Church & State, a policy adopted by the revolutionaries in France and by the American revolutionaries, which lead to a situation where the State was the greatest authority in the country, and religion was merely down to personal choice as though it were a kind of hobby or social club.

>>6719602
It's just scary to realize how average, replaceable and meaningless one is.

One will never contribute anything big to science, one will never invent something revolutionary and one works on projects not alone so one is just one small piece.

>>6719616
I arrived at that question but I reject consumerism/materialism. I can't see how there can be a connection. Any intelligent person can see that with a huge number of mutually exclusive beliefs present, in the sense of finding truth they all essentially are wrong, or may as well be. Although I have found some degree of use out of buddhism/meditation to calm my mind and reduce negativity-- but that doesnt solve the issue of what to do with my life.

>>6719616
If I only want to get mad pussy, is that materialism according to your theory?

Anyway, let's get a little more practical with OPs thread. Or rather leave it alone.

>>6719612
>>6719623

- Apart from the theory and history lesson, do you have any advice?

The history lesson is leading to the advice.
The period when the French threw off the Catholic Church and embraced a secular State, and when the American revolutionaries founded a State based on the separation of Church & State, is the period known as the Enlightenment. The fruits of Protestantism and the Enlightenment are the cutting off of man from the divine. Protestantism has some notion of God and the divine, but it is very diluted and unclear - it is more about feeling, whereas in the Catholic religion it is a matter of conviction.
So the sum of this history lesson is so that I can make this point: the project of the Enlightenment has failed, and was doomed to failure from the start because it was built on the false principle that man can be happy without God and that man can build a secular State which does not recognize God, but which only recognizes Man. This failure of the Enlightenment is manifested in your despair and in the despair of millions of others just like you who are harbor secret and inward anxiety about the value of their lives. What the Enlightenment ultimately leads to is a totally godless State which believes only in the power and authority of the State itself, i.e. totalitarian Communism.

So my advice is, in short, to become a Catholic, because it's the true religion, and because it's the solution to your spiritual anguish, and your hope of salvation. I said earlier that modern man is bewildered by the sheer number of opinions which leads him to believe that nothing is true, all is a matter of opinion.

You're going to die anyway OP.

Find a passion and follow it.

>>6719641
>So my advice is, in short, to become a Catholic, because it's the true religion, and because it's the solution to your spiritual anguish, and your hope of salvation.
>mfw read all of that for that

>>6719643
>Find a passion
how

>>6719641
Well, the polar opposite of this belief that all truth is a matter of opinion (which really begins with Protestantism which built as many different churches according to the variation of opinion concerning the Bible) is the Catholic Church, which says that it has the truth and that this truth comes from God. In other words, the Catholic Church is the ultimate anti-modern institution (which is why it has been so discredited by the modern world).

>>6719633
>Although I have found some degree of use out of buddhism/meditation to calm my mind and reduce negativity-- but that doesnt solve the issue of what to do with my life.

Ultimately your issue here is that you have a desire to be something in the world. When you say, "what to do with my life", you are really disguising a desire to live some kind of a glamorous life. The proof of this is that if you were content to live a very average or poor life, totally unnoticed by the world - not famous, not significant, not popular - you wouldn't despair over what to do with your life. You just would do what ever you had to do and bear it with humility. I know where you are coming from though, you think that you have to get a job that you are passionate about (when you aren't really passionate about work at all), or that you have to contribute to the world in some way, and you are afraid about wasting your life doing something meaningless or unenjoyable - this is due to materialism, not moral materialism / consumerism, I mean the belief that the material world is the only world that there is. If the material world is the only world then it becomes of a paramount of importance to "make the most of your life", and if you can't do something significant in the world's eyes then you have obviously wasted your life.

>>6719645
>how
"Listen to what your penis tells you, for it is well versed in the way of the Tao" - Lao Tzu

>>6719647
Stop shitposting you faggot. You sound like those Jehova witnesses that come nockin at my door

>>6719645

Here's what I say

1. Read! Yes READ! Go to the fucking library right now and pick up ten books up on something that interests you. Get some Martin Gardner get some Hawking (If you think physics or math sounds cool). Sit down with a nice cup of hot tea or coffee and read the fuck out of them.

2. This is most important...When you read appreciate the little things. Really think about what you're reading about.

Take for example Infinite Series.

In short you can sum an infinite amount of things up and have it converge to a single thing.

Start to feel what that is, and start get captivated by it. Once you appreciate the beauty of the little things in life...That is when your passion will come to fruition.

>>6719641
I can see how a religious person could be more happy than a non-religious.
But that's not advice, because you can't just manipulate yourself to believe arbitrary bullshit, even if believing it makes your live better.

>>6719647
This despair is extremely prevalent. Julius Caesar is said to have wept when he saw a statue of Alexander because he thought his achievements were worthless in comparison to Alexander's. See, even this supposedly great man suffered from the exact same despair which results from wanting to "be something in the world". If you want to be something in the world you will be in despair until the day you die, and the reason for this is that the world is nothing and nobody becomes something in the world. Even the great Caesar is a big nothing whose fame is slowly fading with time like the decay of an old statue, and soon enough nobody will know even his name. There was once a time when everybody in Europe dreaded the name Caesar; now that name shows up in history classes and quizzes. Like I said, the world is nothing. It's self-defeating to want to be something in the world because the world is so ephemeral it barely exists.

>>6719639
>If I only want to get mad pussy, is that materialism according to your theory?

Materialism is metaphysical; what you said is a moral statement. A Catholic man did say though that sex is the mysticism of materialism, i.e. if you believe that matter is all there is then sex becomes the most important and mystical thing in life.

>>6719655
>But that's not advice, because you can't just manipulate yourself to believe arbitrary bullshit,

Yes, I know. You should inquire into Catholicism yourself to discover its reasonableness. I grew up atheist in an atheist household. I discovered it for myself.

>>6719658
>You should inquire into Catholicism yourself to discover its reasonableness.
Are you for real? I seriously cant tell if you're trolling or not

>>6719661
He's trolling. He's a little bitch who tries to get a rise out of the largely atheistic /lit/, failing miserably 99% of the time.

>>6719661
I'm not trolling. Catholic thought is actually the most comprehensive and consistent system of thought ever developed (partly because it has been developed so perseveringly over the course of centuries, partly because it was built on solid foundations).

>>6719656
I don't know why what I said is a "moral statement", but the quote which comes after (I looked it up), given all the shitposting you did above, is actually an interesting answer.

>>6719662
Yea I can see that now>>6719663

>>6719654
I am >>6719596 lol

DAILY REMINDER THAT JUDE THADDEUS IS A CATHOLIC DIMWIT THAT USES THE SAME MANIPULATION AS "muh materialism / consumerism" TO CONTROL THE WEAK (ie. You)

>>6719577
Nothing says that you can't learn a trade now and go to school for something you enjoy as well.

>>6719577

pussy doesn't matter, money doesn't matter. Find something you like and follow it. All that matters is that you are happy. Go to the university and find something that interests you but don't only do it because you think you'll get money. Finding you passion in life is really the only thing that makes it worth living.

>>6719577
Take the assignment test for career. They'll tell you what kind of personality you have. You use the given knowledge to find out what career is best you for
You should be able to narrow down your choices to 5 careers from the list given.

>>6719851
But what's the point of accomplishing stuff when I die, it won't matter because I won't be alive.

>>6720964
Your legacy.

>>6720967
>>6720967
u are mah legacy son

OP, I was in your position at 18.

Just... Realize that life is not just your job, it's about survival. Get out there, realise something on your own, just look around. Get a different perspective on life. One day you will die and most of the things you did will not matter. Look at relatives or older friends, do you have any dead ones/older ones? Check where they are in life and avoid/mold yourself around that.

Tl;dr just ball out and get a solid paying job and have fun and celebrate life (whatever way you can)

Get something with a decent balance between enjoyment/cash, doesn't have to make you cum your pants or be 300k/year but you should aim high.

>>6719577
>It would be nice to contribute something to making the lives of others better.

Almost every job makes somebody somewhere's life better. Hell, just about every job in existence. The guy that bags your groceries makes your life better. People in the 1st world have just gotten too used to luxury. We live like kings compared to royality of the past generations.