FalseReality
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Reading comments on the second page of the thread about life on easy mode has pushed me to make this thread but I've thinking about this for a while.
In December I had a night where I stayed up late, and then couldn't sleep and thoughts of wanting to read philosophy came up. I'm on a leave of absence (year out) from my teacher training course and I wasn't sure if my student ID would still work but I had the idea to go to the library and get some books out. It was one of those thoughts that come to be motivated when you believe you can't be, I was trying to go to sleep so of course I can't. But after enough time of not being able to sleep I decided to go for it and headed out to the library with a list, if I recall correctly I'd started previously to that night.
I'd read a few books at that point but it was far and few. Right now I'm reading near enough everyday. After that night I started by reading Women by Charles Bukowski (not quite philosophy haha) but the next two books were the Epictetus' Discourses. He's a stoic philosopher and I found I agreed with more or less everything he thought, many ideas I'd thought of or agreed with before. My main disagreements were on certain views of the world and some of his reasonings for why to act a way I agreed with. The book had discussions with his students, which I noticed he was especially harsh on for asking to think before answering a question of how to act in a certain situation. I agreed with the answer Epictetus gave but it reminded me of when I did self-help videos on YouTube, around this time last year.
An acid trip at the end of January made me feel like I knew how to solve a lot of my problems and make myself happier and so I wanted to share this with others, giving my methods, tactics and thought-processes I used. I have no idea if I helped people (and even someone saying I did doesn't prove much, people call celebrities influential all the time and all that changed for the person really is they got addicted to something that made them feel better about themselves for a bit) but I kept going. This essentially went until another acid trip in May where a thought-loop about how there are memes for everything, wondering how Netflix can expose problems about everything being bad but also being very addictive and then coming to the realisation (which really I already knew) that everything is addictive. I can make videos telling people how best to live their lives, and (assuming they like the videos) instead they'll binge my videos and start talking about how their changing their lives. You probably all know some annoying self-help guy who gives life advice all around but has clearly not done anything for themselves let alone even make a start on something new. This put me off making self-help videos, abandoning a video I was in the middle of editing and soon after I ran out of ideas. I think this was due to other factors too, but soon after things got to me and I got depressive again, now feeling worse than to start as I knew how to be better but was acting oppositely.
I've also thought about a time with Josh Fluke, a YouTuber who quit his software job after his YouTube was going well and criticises corporate, was accused of taking advantage of people disgruntled with their lives. I see him as a genuine guy, but in a way it's true. I believe he wants to do the right thing, but most likely his fans are people looking out for evidence to support their complaints of life, rather than people making a change in their lives. It's not his fault, but that's the audience it would attract. I've wanted to do it too, I have a lot of good criticisms but haven't motivated myself enough to get round to it. After more reflection, I've realised it isn't what I really want to do, it's just something that seems like I could do well and not have to work a worse job doing.
Going back to Epictetus, I didn't finish the end of the second book (the edition I had was two books in each so I didn't finish the forth technically) because I felt like I got the point. Some point for different situations. I decided I'd rather read fiction. I more or less know how to live my life best, I've been looking for a reason to do so. That's the main reason I've been into philosophy about how to live life recently. After some reading I thought that maybe instead of looking for rational reasons, I'd think about the motivations and reasonings of these flawed characters. What causes someone to act well or not, to want one thing over another. I've also found that the different backgrounds and fictional people have put my mind in different places, giving me new ideas instead of endlessly thinking about how to solve my life.
So a few things I've thought about:
So yeah anyway that's my thread I felt like saying. If my thoughts made you think of stuff say or say other thoughts that may be relevant. I like conversations.
In December I had a night where I stayed up late, and then couldn't sleep and thoughts of wanting to read philosophy came up. I'm on a leave of absence (year out) from my teacher training course and I wasn't sure if my student ID would still work but I had the idea to go to the library and get some books out. It was one of those thoughts that come to be motivated when you believe you can't be, I was trying to go to sleep so of course I can't. But after enough time of not being able to sleep I decided to go for it and headed out to the library with a list, if I recall correctly I'd started previously to that night.
I'd read a few books at that point but it was far and few. Right now I'm reading near enough everyday. After that night I started by reading Women by Charles Bukowski (not quite philosophy haha) but the next two books were the Epictetus' Discourses. He's a stoic philosopher and I found I agreed with more or less everything he thought, many ideas I'd thought of or agreed with before. My main disagreements were on certain views of the world and some of his reasonings for why to act a way I agreed with. The book had discussions with his students, which I noticed he was especially harsh on for asking to think before answering a question of how to act in a certain situation. I agreed with the answer Epictetus gave but it reminded me of when I did self-help videos on YouTube, around this time last year.
An acid trip at the end of January made me feel like I knew how to solve a lot of my problems and make myself happier and so I wanted to share this with others, giving my methods, tactics and thought-processes I used. I have no idea if I helped people (and even someone saying I did doesn't prove much, people call celebrities influential all the time and all that changed for the person really is they got addicted to something that made them feel better about themselves for a bit) but I kept going. This essentially went until another acid trip in May where a thought-loop about how there are memes for everything, wondering how Netflix can expose problems about everything being bad but also being very addictive and then coming to the realisation (which really I already knew) that everything is addictive. I can make videos telling people how best to live their lives, and (assuming they like the videos) instead they'll binge my videos and start talking about how their changing their lives. You probably all know some annoying self-help guy who gives life advice all around but has clearly not done anything for themselves let alone even make a start on something new. This put me off making self-help videos, abandoning a video I was in the middle of editing and soon after I ran out of ideas. I think this was due to other factors too, but soon after things got to me and I got depressive again, now feeling worse than to start as I knew how to be better but was acting oppositely.
I've also thought about a time with Josh Fluke, a YouTuber who quit his software job after his YouTube was going well and criticises corporate, was accused of taking advantage of people disgruntled with their lives. I see him as a genuine guy, but in a way it's true. I believe he wants to do the right thing, but most likely his fans are people looking out for evidence to support their complaints of life, rather than people making a change in their lives. It's not his fault, but that's the audience it would attract. I've wanted to do it too, I have a lot of good criticisms but haven't motivated myself enough to get round to it. After more reflection, I've realised it isn't what I really want to do, it's just something that seems like I could do well and not have to work a worse job doing.
Going back to Epictetus, I didn't finish the end of the second book (the edition I had was two books in each so I didn't finish the forth technically) because I felt like I got the point. Some point for different situations. I decided I'd rather read fiction. I more or less know how to live my life best, I've been looking for a reason to do so. That's the main reason I've been into philosophy about how to live life recently. After some reading I thought that maybe instead of looking for rational reasons, I'd think about the motivations and reasonings of these flawed characters. What causes someone to act well or not, to want one thing over another. I've also found that the different backgrounds and fictional people have put my mind in different places, giving me new ideas instead of endlessly thinking about how to solve my life.
So a few things I've thought about:
- the issue of being smart (and trying to solve life) is the fixation on logic and theorising before doing something. Logic is easy to be rigid and flawed, and it's experience that aids logical understanding
- seeking out help removes our own responsibility, hoping someone will have the answer for us and thus we don't think for ourselves
- most answers come when I don't intend to, sometimes a random thought will link ideas from the past to a new conclusion
- you're not looking to solve your life, you're looking to be bothered to solve your life
- most people who think, and seeing what people talk about here that's probably you, could be great at self help ideas, all you'd need is to be paid to do it and you'd suddenly be an expert because the worry of security is gone
- trying to be happy is admitting to not being happy, which is not a motivational idea
- if sometimes you feel good and sometimes you feel bad, what's the big deal with feeling bad? You know it'll go eventually, and focusing on it (by trying to escape it) does the opposite effect
- I believe mental health problems would be significantly lower if people spent even 30 seconds staring at a wall when they felt bad before trying to figure out how to end or escape the pain (this is literally meditation, it's really not as big a deal as people make it out to be)
- your mind gives you loads of ideas of things to do, some unrealistic, some realistic, some for reasons like hope of money, sex or power. Doesn't matter really, gotta try something to get out of the trap
- most methods of self help put achieving more amounts (as quantity and time) of dopamine and serotonin as the goal. You can be motivated with a messy room, sometimes fighting your situation is the motivation to create and make change
So yeah anyway that's my thread I felt like saying. If my thoughts made you think of stuff say or say other thoughts that may be relevant. I like conversations.
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