The End is Nigh

[Thundril]

My younger son used to say (just after he'd got over his Goth phase) 'Anyone who's still writing poetry after the age of twenty should have their pencils confiscated.'
A bit harsh, but I think I know what he meant.

[chaz wyman]

My younger son used to say (just after he'd got over his Goth phase) 'Anyone who's still writing poetry after the age of twenty should have their pencils confiscated.'
A bit harsh, but I think I know what he meant.

More than harsh. We would have lost the sonnets of Shakespeare, Homers Iliad and Odyssey, and much more beside.
However he is right that people should not keep bleating on about their "soul", and all that teenage angst.
A good antidote to that is Sartre and Camus.

[Arising_uk]

Hi Gary,
Sounds like you're having a mid-life crisis and may well be on the way to depression. It might be a good idea to think about seeking some professional help.

I think a lot of your questions should be slightly amended so that you have a chance to answer them. So,

"When I think of my own end being not too far off I really start to think of what is my life all about?" or "What would I like my life to be all about?"

"Life seems so incredibly short from my perspective right now. If we are simply a "flash in the pan" so to speak what difference does any of this really make to me?" or "What would making a difference be for me?" or "How would I know that I was making a diference?"

"Maybe I'm just in a meloncholy mood right now. But inevitable death puts everything in an all new perspective for me." or "What is this new perspective that my inevitable death brings to me?" or "What does this new perspective do for me?" or "What would I like this new perspective to do for me?"

"I sort of wonder to myself why I should even put forth the effort? I'm just going to die someday anyway." or "What would putting forth the effort do for me now?" or "Why do I wish to put forth this effort now?"

What's worse is I'll probably forget everything I learn within a few months anyway.

It sounds like you are very worried about going the way of your grandmother. Did all your grandparents get alzheimer's? I think you maybe need to talk to a counsellor about these fears. You could also try to address your sleep apnea as lack of rest can cause melancholic thoughts.

"What difference does it make how educated or uneducated I am? What difference does it make if I try to improve my life?" or "What difference would it make to me to be more educated or uneducated?" or "How will being more educated make a difference to me now?" or "How will improving my life make a difference to me now?"

There isn't that much more to go anyway. It seems like a wasted effort, all in vain. ...

Even by biblical standards you have another thirty-odd years and these ones are in full reason so about the same time you've already had. Do you think your life has been a waste so far? If so then I think you need to start answering the questions, "What do I want?", "What will it do for me?", "Whats stopping me?", "How will I know when I've got it?", "Is what I want compatible with my other wants?".

Yeah, more education will make me more "marketable". Is that what it's all about? Just doing what it takes to stay alive and prosperous a little longer. How depressing it all seems right now.

Take it from me, a philosophy course will not, in general, make you more marketable. If you are seeking more gainful employment then I'd choose something else.

If you are seeking a meaning to or for your exisistence and have a bit of spare cash and time and wish a very interesting phenomenological and philosophical experience and a skill-set that will make you more 'marketable' then I'd seriously recommend taking a course with this lot - http://www.ppdlearning.co.uk/ Its also a hoot!

Take the taster to see if it appeals, I guarantee it will.

[Arising_uk]

Perhaps you are suffering from the religion of atheism?

You seem to be assuming that death is final and that thus life has no meaning. You seem pretty certain that you know this. If this is your worldview, you are of course entitled to it, and it's not really our business to try to change you.

Speaking more generally about atheism, we can observe it's conclusions are based on nothing. We can observe that this worldview is every bit as much faith as any religion. We can observe that atheism apparently isn't ready to be honest about it's relationship with faith.

We can observe that this worldview has nothing much to offer folks at those moments in their life when they need it the most.

We can observe that many of atheism's most ardent advocates seem filled with negativity and cynicism long before their own personal encounter with mortality.

Is the problem disease and death?

Or is the problem the way we look upon these realities?

Any chance to punt your pet-theories eh! You are such a knob!

[Gary Childress]

Stop moaning then! Why are you living at all?

As the song goes, I'm tired of living but scared of dying.

Maybe it's a mid life crisis. I don't know. But I don't appreciate being told by certain people that I need to "grow up" or that I'm "pissed" when I'm not. I had hoped that philosophers would be able to relate with each other a little better. I post a lamentation and am soon attacked or belittled for it. I can go to use net and get that sort of treatement. I was hoping that a moderated group would be a little more civilized. I suppose this is another thing that makes me depressed. All the constant bickering and belittlement that people deal out to each other on the Internet is depressing. I don't know why people can't be more understanding of each other.

Anyway, thank you Bill Wiltrack, RickLewis and Arising_UK for some very humane responses. It's hard for me to be optimistic sometimes. I take medication now for depression but that doesn't always make me happy and cheerful.

It's sort of interesting that today we simply take a pill to change our outlook on the world. What a brave new world we live in! I wonder if anti-depressants aren't like laughing gas or something. When a person takes laughing gas they laugh at everything, even things that aren't funny become funny. I wonder if pills for depression don't simply take truly depressing things and make them cheerful in spite of being depressing for a "normal" person.

Another thing is evolution. I wonder if evolution rewards the cheerful and penalizes the melancholy. So perhaps it is cheerfulness that we will most predominately see in the world. Does that mean that impending death and such are truly cheerful things? I don't know the answer to that either. I suppose they are what they are perceived to be by the one perceiving them. So for instance suppose a person thought being tortured with bamboo slivers up the fingernails was just the grandest thing around? If enough people believed it would that make it a wonderful thing? I suppose it would. So perhaps there is a gulf in understanding. I see impending death as something to be fearful of. Someone else sees it as something less fearful. Perhaps that person and I are doomed never to meet in our understandings of the world.

[chaz wyman]

Stop moaning then! Why are you living at all?

As the song goes, I'm tired of living but scared of dying.

I want you to take this away with you.
In what way is being scared of dying different from being scared of living?
It seems to me you are actually scared of living.
Go out and do something! Do something different! Take up sculpture in your spare time! Remember you will one day be dead so it does not matter if you are shit at it.
Go and read a book from an author you would never have thought is reading. Find a walk in the country you have never trod. Phone someone you care about and tell them they are great.


Maybe it's a mid life crisis. I don't know. But I don't appreciate being told by certain people that I need to "grow up" or that I'm "pissed" when I'm not. I had hoped that philosophers would be able to relate with each other a little better. I post a lamentation and am soon attacked or belittled for it. I can go to use net and get that sort of treatement. I was hoping that a moderated group would be a little more civilized. I suppose this is another thing that makes me depressed. All the constant bickering and belittlement that people deal out to each other on the Internet is depressing. I don't know why people can't be more understanding of each other.

We all understand your angst. But if you came on here looking for answers - there are none.

Anyway, thank you Bill Wiltrack, RickLewis and Arising_UK for some very humane responses. It's hard for me to be optimistic sometimes. I take medication now for depression but that doesn't always make me happy and cheerful.

Ditch the meds. You are depressed for a reason. Figure it out, and figure yourself out.
After getting cancer 3 years ago, there is not a day goes by when I do not at some point think of the short time we all have, and how it is more likely to be shorter for me than most. But I made a rational decision through the tears, and remembered all the time I had wasted in my life; how lucky I was that I was not born in Ethiopia, and decided that being alive was too precious to mope about and feel sorry for myself. Bill, Rick and AUK, might mean well but all they are doing is enabling you to stay where you are by justifying and validating your depression.
Get off your but, turn off this fucking computer and go walk in the trees.


It's sort of interesting that today we simply take a pill to change our outlook on the world. What a brave new world we live in! I wonder if anti-depressants aren't like laughing gas or something. When a person takes laughing gas they laugh at everything, even things that aren't funny become funny. I wonder if pills for depression don't simply take truly depressing things and make them cheerful in spite of being depressing for a "normal" person.

Like I said above. You are pissed off for a reason.

Another thing is evolution. I wonder if evolution rewards the cheerful and penalizes the melancholy.

Evolution is all about death and breeding. If being happy makes you die before you have healthy progeny then happiness is a negative trait. If being sad makes you die before having healthy progeny then it is sadness that is the negative trait. Being 40+ evolution does not give a rats arse about you, generally speaking.


So perhaps it is cheerfulness that we will most predominately see in the world. Does that mean that impending death and such are truly cheerful things? I don't know the answer to that either. I suppose they are what they are perceived to be by the one perceiving them. So for instance suppose a person thought being tortured with bamboo slivers up the fingernails was just the grandest thing around? If enough people believed it would that make it a wonderful thing? I suppose it would. So perhaps there is a gulf in understanding. I see impending death as something to be fearful of. Someone else sees it as something less fearful. Perhaps that person and I are doomed never to meet in our understandings of the world.

Obsessing about an inevitability against which we have no power is a fruitless and depressing activity.
You need to get out more.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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I think that is good and helpful advice...



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[Typist]

I was hoping that a moderated group would be a little more civilized.

This isn't a moderated group. This is an anything goes group. Just so you know..

All the constant bickering and belittlement that people deal out to each other on the Internet is depressing. I don't know why people can't be more understanding of each other.

1) Do you want to understand that? If yes, then you or somebody has to dig in to it. That process usually involves turning over some unpleasant and inconvenient stones, as all the pretty stones are already on display for all to see.

2) If by "understanding of each other" you mean emotional support, then apologies, forums full of anonymous male logic nerds is hardly the best place to look for that. It's just not something we're good at.

It's sort of interesting that today we simply take a pill to change our outlook on the world.

Yes, psychology and philosophy will likely eventually be rendered obsolete by chemistry.

I see impending death as something to be fearful of.

Right, that's normal, and explains why everyone is so busy making up stories to wallpaper over the fear of the unknown. Theists do it, atheists do it, everybody does it.

The problem here seems to be that you've bought the atheist story, and it's a rather grim story. One solution might be to find a better story.

Another solution could be to become a real philosopher and embrace the fact that none of us know.

Us not knowing isn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, we don't know that either.

Just as an example, let's imagine that death were a really nice thing. And let's say that we knew that. I'm not proposing this to be so, I'm just exploring a hypothetical, that's all.

If death was nice, and we knew that ahead of time, that would tend to pull the rug out from under the glorious drama of life, eh? If we knew we could avoid every inconvenience simply by jumping off the roof in to something grand, all the things we're currently clinging to wouldn't even be here.

Why bother to invent the Internet? If death were grand, and we knew that, what would be the point? Why go to so much trouble?

[Typist]

Obsessing about an inevitability against which we have no power is a fruitless and depressing activity.

It could be a fruitful and inspiring activity if we take it seriously, and see it through.

If we just play around with it, and use it to create a victim story, then yea, depressing.

[Arising_uk]

... AUK, might mean well but all they are doing is enabling you to stay where you are by justifying and validating your depression.

Get off your but, turn off this fucking computer and go walk in the trees.

I seriously doubt I've done this in any substantial way. I think your 'pull your socks-up', talk a walk-in-the-woods, approach may work for those who've had a pull-yer-socks-up moment, e.g. a cancer diagnosis but it can be a little more difficult for those who haven't. Not that I don't think it honest advice.

[AMod]

Typist and Gary Childress,

This isn't a moderated group. This is an anything goes group. Just so you know..

This is a moderated group. Anything does not go. We just don't moderate to protect from harsh truths. Just so you know.

AMod.

[Gary Childress]

Obsessing about an inevitability against which we have no power is a fruitless and depressing activity.
You need to get out more.

I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis with cancer. It must be horrible to have such news dropped upon you. I truly hope you make it through OK and live a long and prosperous life.

As I stated twice before I'm not "pissed" at anything right now. There's a difference between being pissed and just feeling down about something. I'm curious why you're trying to accuse me of being pissed? Are you perhaps the one who is pissed? Maybe you're trying to read your own emotions into me???

When someone tells me they are depressed I usually tend to sympthize. I've been there on many occasions and know what it's like. I don't tell them, "Well I have paranoid schizophrenia so you have no right to feel down." I'm not in a contest to out tragedize anyone else. People feel down about different things at different times. There are plenty of things in life to lament as far as I'm concerned. Lamentation is just as legitimate as any other response to ill fortune. I don't understand why we always need to be happy and perky. I'm happy and perky when I'm happy and perky. But I also have my down moments. All of this is a part of life, the good and the bad.

[Typist]

We just don't moderate to protect from harsh truths. Just so you know.

Well, ok then, here's a harsh truth which we won't protect anybody from. And to be fair, this is a harsh truth that applies to most forums, not just this one.

Just about anybody can join and say just about anything. There are no real content standards, other than we can't spam or upload our porn collections. Death threats may be out, but that's not really clear.

The result of this editing philosophy here on PhilosophyNow and many other forums is that all the best posters have wandered off one by one by one.

Neither the forum owner, mods or PhilosophyNow writers participate here, leaving the field to be dominated by immature and often highly inarticulate typoholic bozos like myself, chaz, arising etc, who have become the public face of PhilosophyNow magazine on the internet.

You aren't running a philosophy forum anymore, but managing an insane asylum. Which you already know, but are too polite to say.

I hope this is harsh enough!

But is it depressing like old age, disease and death etc? That's entirely up to us.

Do we embrace the reality, or reject it? Do we embrace our immaturity, our inarticulateness, the fantasy poses we have created for ourselves, our typoholic mania? Do you embrace the fact that this forum makes PhilosophyNow magazine look like a Saturday morning cartoon show?

Or do we smile, shrug, pass the popcorn, and get on with the business of our hilarious imperfection?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Well articulated post...


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[chaz wyman]

Obsessing about an inevitability against which we have no power is a fruitless and depressing activity.
You need to get out more.

I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis with cancer. It must be horrible to have such news dropped upon you. I truly hope you make it through OK and live a long and prosperous life.

I'm in remission right now. But thanks.

As I stated twice before I'm not "pissed" at anything right now. There's a difference between being pissed and just feeling down about something. I'm curious why you're trying to accuse me of being pissed? Are you perhaps the one who is pissed? Maybe you're trying to read your own emotions into me???

I did not say you were 'pissed', I said you were "pissed off". It has a more general application in English English.

When someone tells me they are depressed I usually tend to sympthize. I've been there on many occasions and know what it's like. I don't tell them, "Well I have paranoid schizophrenia so you have no right to feel down."

My brother's got Schizophrenia. He spent 20 years of his life shouting at a wall. No amount of sympathy ever did him any good.
Clozipine worked for him, and although he can never had a job, luckily he lives in the UK where they pay his rent and enough benefit to keep him going.
Sorry if you think I am unsympathetic, but I just think your problem is pretty small on the scale of things.
Read some Nietzsche and jettison the self loathing and self pity!


I'm not in a contest to out tragedize anyone else. People feel down about different things at different times. There are plenty of things in life to lament as far as I'm concerned. Lamentation is just as legitimate as any other response to ill fortune. I don't understand why we always need to be happy and perky. I'm happy and perky when I'm happy and perky. But I also have my down moments. All of this is a part of life, the good and the bad.

I imagine you live in the "have a nice day" land, of the USA? When Adorno spent time there he got pissed off at everyone expecting him to be happy all the time - sometimes you just want to be yourself. he also said if you feel happy all the time then you are not paying attention to what is happening in the world.

But as far as I can see, aside from a bit os sleeplessness, you are healthy and currently wasting your life with self loathing.