From: sbate@atl.ge.com (Stephen)
Newsgroups: alt.angst
Subject: Re: No meaning
Date: 4 Jan 93 09:18:00
Organization: ATL
Reply-To: sbate@atl.ge.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: mary.atl.ge.com
In-reply-to: llama@tramp.cc.utexas.edu's message of 4 Jan 93 01:42:48 GMT

In article <86112@ut-emx.uucp> llama@tramp.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine) writes:
> : Happy, sad, scientific, unscientific, ... it doesn't matter. If you
> : look at the length of our existence compared with the age of the
> : universe, you'll see that we are so insignificant that we practically
> : don't exist at all. 
> 
> if you look at the length of our existence compared with that of a
> mayfly, we live forever and a day. and being dead might mean your
> consciousness has ceased, but does that mean your influence has ceased
> also? so if you define meaning in terms of influence you have on
> others, you still have meaning after you die. it all depends on what
> you value.

So... mayflies are in even worse shape than us. We're comparing humans
to the cosmos, not humans to a mayfly. Big difference.

Does *your* influence cease after death? I guess it depends on the
definition of *you*. You will no longer interact with the world - it will
have no impact on you and *you* will have no impact on it. Maybe the
side-effects of your short existence will persist temporarily, but
I don't believe *you* will have any influence when consciousness ceases.

The existential side-effects are also ephemeral. Even if the
influence of side-effects last for 10,000 years, it's still insignificant
on a cosmic scale. I've been able to use this realization to be more
aggressive in taking risks and managing negative emotions (e.g. worry). 
Just ask yourself, "what difference will it make in 1000 years if...".
I've had great success with this approach.

> : We march hazy-eyed to our doom with
> : only a vague feeling that something is wrong -- a feeling that maybe
> : reality is not what we think it is. If that vague feeling increases to
> : a certain level of intensity, then it becomes "angst". People try to
> : avoid angst, but real angst is the threshold of our salvation. Don't
> : avoid it.  Don't "resolve" it. LISTEN TO IT! It's trying to tell us
> : something.  
> 
> so what? even if you were right, you've just spent half this article
> explaining to us how nothing we do can change anything. so what if
> angst is a clue that we should wake up? are you saying you're better
> off and somehow less doomed if you realize that you're doomed? cows
> that fight get just as dead as cows that march quietly to the
> slaughterhouse.

I never said we couldn't change anything. I used cattle as a metaphor.
Don't take it too literally. I also mentioned a significant difference
between cattle and humans -- we have the ability to escape our fate. (It's
amazing how our consciousness filters certain messages.)

Acknowledging your fate doesn't save you. It only gives you the
*possibility* of escape. Without realization of the "terror of the
situation", escape is impossible.
 
> the only meaning in life is what you assign to it. i choose to try to
> make my life please me. what it means to anyone else really isn't in
> my control or anything i care about. that's how i deal with angst and
> the meaninglessness of it all in the cosmic scope of things. 

If you can *make* life please you, you are definitely a special
creature.  Almost everyone else, *hopes* life pleases them, or
*imagines* life pleases them, or stays so intoxicated in infatuation
or other chemical addictions that they don't *care* if life pleases
them. 

> --
> sine | deb
> there isn't a direct correlation between suffering and nobility.
> i admire people who know that life sucks and insist on enjoying it anyway.

Do you feel the same way about people in abusive relationships,
dead-end jobs, self-destructive chemical dependencies, etcetera?  All
these situations "suck". Should people just insist on enjoying them
anyway? I don't think so.

--
Stephen