Thread: So Useless! (Everyday Life That is!)

People will try their hardest at school so they can get decent grades, go to University and then get a well paying job. You get that job so you can pay for the house that you sleep in. Though you have 40 if not more hours of work a week anyways. So the only time you have left is spent sleeping or paying bills. All this so you can go on working and sleeping in your house! It gets you nowhere and is soo frustrating. Just work till you die? I would rather spend life on the streets than the life that most people live. All that working gets you is the "luxury" of sleeping in a city. The only way to be able to live in the city is to work your life away. You don't get anything out of it! It all makes sense in my head but when I try to get it out it's all jumbled and doesn't make sense. Anyways maybe I'll make a follow up post and try to collect my thoughts. I hope you all get the idea I'm trying to make.

To those who do not believe in a higher purpose or God-- life is useless. A pity.

Life is useless. It's also fascinating and beautiful. You can find some measure of fulfillment living it in just about any way. Mainly, it's a matter of choice and practice.

Originally Posted by GestaltAlteration

To those who do not believe in a higher purpose or God-- life is useless. A pity.

Snide much?

Originally Posted by GestaltAlteration

To those who do not believe in a higher purpose or God-- life is useless. A pity.

All atheists are hedonists and nihilists. True story.

Learn survival skills. Get good at em.

Grab a lioncloth and go live in the jungle or something.

TAAAAARZAAN

Originally Posted by Alextanium

All atheists are hedonists and nihilists. True story.

Fine then. Life's point:

"Enjoying life to the fullest" followed by death.

"Striving to make the world a better place" followed by death.

Originally Posted by GestaltAlteration

Fine then. Life's point:

"Enjoying life to the fullest" followed by death.

"Striving to make the world a better place" followed by death.

I fail to see what is wrong with those two viewpoints.

Do either have a point in the long run?

Will humans even be here in a million years, and will those benifits matter to anything?

Will any single experience matter at all once in the grave?

Originally Posted by mindwanderer

People will try their hardest at school so they can get decent grades, go to University and then get a well paying job. You get that job so you can pay for the house that you sleep in. Though you have 40 if not more hours of work a week anyways. So the only time you have left is spent sleeping or paying bills. All this so you can go on working and sleeping in your house! It gets you nowhere and is soo frustrating. Just work till you die? I would rather spend life on the streets than the life that most people live. All that working gets you is the "luxury" of sleeping in a city. The only way to be able to live in the city is to work your life away. You don't get anything out of it! It all makes sense in my head but when I try to get it out it's all jumbled and doesn't make sense. Anyways maybe I'll make a follow up post and try to collect my thoughts. I hope you all get the idea I'm trying to make.

Thats why I'm never having the old "family life".

Originally Posted by mindwanderer

People will try their hardest at school so they can get decent grades, go to University and then get a well paying job. You get that job so you can pay for the house that you sleep in. Though you have 40 if not more hours of work a week anyways. So the only time you have left is spent sleeping or paying bills. All this so you can go on working and sleeping in your house! It gets you nowhere and is soo frustrating. Just work till you die? I would rather spend life on the streets than the life that most people live. All that working gets you is the "luxury" of sleeping in a city. The only way to be able to live in the city is to work your life away. You don't get anything out of it! It all makes sense in my head but when I try to get it out it's all jumbled and doesn't make sense. Anyways maybe I'll make a follow up post and try to collect my thoughts. I hope you all get the idea I'm trying to make.

No, it doesn't have to be like that. For one thing, there are 168 hours in a week, 40 of which are usually spent working and another 40 of which are spent sleeping. That leaves you with 88 hours of free time. Then there are more options. You can have jobs that you at least sort of like, and a lot of them involve traveling. You can end up in positions that pay so well that you don't have to work 40 hours a week, and you can even own your own business and not do much work at all after a certain point. Some business owners just check in once a week and spend all day getting drunk and stoned and listening to the Grateful Dead while the manager who works for them does all of the work. That is a true situation. Better yet, some people make so much money in business that they never work again. Plus, you can get a retirement income when you are 65 any way as long as you stay with the same job for long enough. And that 40 hours you spend sleeping every week can be partly spent on lucid dreaming. The money you make is not all spent on the house. It can also be spent on boats, awesome televisions and stereos, vacations to beaches and ski mountains, and lots of other things. Life does not have to suck.

Living on the streets does suck. Do you know anybody who does that? I have known a bunch of them. They are miserable! They have no luxuries and no self-esteem. They are very bitter people who hate life. You don't want to go that route.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

No, it doesn't have to be like that. For one thing, there are 168 hours in a week, 40 of which are usually spent working and another 40 of which are spent sleeping. That leaves you with 88 hours of free time. Then there are more options. You can have jobs that you at least sort of like, and a lot of them involve traveling. You can end up in positions that pay so well that you don't have to work 40 hours a week, and you can even own your own business and not do much work at all after a certain point. Some business owners just check in once a week and spend all day getting drunk and stoned and listening to the Grateful Dead while the manager who works for them does all of the work. That is a true situation. Better yet, some people make so much money in business that they never work again. Plus, you can get a retirement income when you are 65 any way as long as you stay with the same job for long enough. And that 40 hours you spend sleeping every week can be partly spent on lucid dreaming. The money you make is not all spent on the house. It can also be spent on boats, awesome televisions and stereos, vacations to beaches and ski mountains, and lots of other things. Life does not have to suck.

Living on the streets does suck. Do you know anybody who does that? I have known a bunch of them. They are miserable! They have no luxuries and no self-esteem. They are very bitter people who hate life. You don't want to go that route.

Agreed, life is all about having fun and having to take responsibility for your own obligations that we were all born to fulfill.

I sometimes I personally feel I'd rather live in a simpler time though were I don't have to drive miles to everything and theres so many jobs available because machines don't take them all.

I want to do the things that don't involve making money, thus the only logical option is to make a lot of money. Lol!

Well... First we'd need to find the use.

A vacuum is useful when it does what it's supposed to do: cleaning your apartment well.
A hammer is useful when it does what it's supposed to do: hammering nails into the wall.

A vacuum is useless when it is used to hammer nails in the wall...


(Sidetrack alert!) So what is the use of a human? What is its purpose of life?

I don't know... Nobody knows... I don't think there even is one...

So if we are to discuss the usefulness of life, then we'll firstly have to define what the use of life is. (Or if there is any.) (End of sidetrack)


As for the usefulness of everyday life, this is alot easier: it is useful (if done properly).

According to the sociobiological anthropology put forth by Richard Dawkins, genes, and therefore you yourself (albeit unconciously), will focus on surviving, at every minute of every day...

Now... Everyday life generally consists of 2 things: working/schooling, and enjoying yourself/socializing. And what's the purpose of these things?

School prepares you for a good job with which you can earn good money, with which you can in turn, survive better than with a shitty job.

A job (as said above) earns you money, which increaces your chances of survival more so than, say, being a beggar.

Socializing gets you friends, who will (hopefully) protect you when you're in trouble (be it physically, mentally, financially, etc.). AND it puts you in a position where you can meet potential mates...

Having fun/doing hobbies makes you content, happy, and therefore, it makes you more friendly and attractive (have you ever been in love with a sadhorn? I think not). Therefore ensuring more friends, maybe even a mate. But more importantly: less stress, and therefore a healthy mental state. 'Cause let's face it: you're only going to jump in front of the train if you're depressed... Which having fun should prevent. Again: survival chance jumps up.

In short: everyday life's unconcious and ultimate purpose/use is to give you a better chance for survival.


Conclusion: whether your everyday life is useful or not, depends solely on the person. If YOU fulfil the use of everyday life, then your everyday life is useful. If not, THEN, and ONLY THEN will it be useless...



Do note, however, that this is only and just the sociobiological viewpoint of psychology and the explanation to everyday life... This is my preffered anthropology, simply because it makes so damned much sense, and I have therefore selected this one to counter your statement of 'everyday life... useless!'.

But it could be wrong...

Originally Posted by CryoDragoon

Do note, however, that this is only and just the sociobiological viewpoint of psychology and the explanation to everyday life... This is my preffered anthropology, simply because it makes so damned much sense, and I have therefore selected this one to counter your statement of 'everyday life... useless!'.

But it could be wrong...

wow


the sociobiological view point is pretty damn stupid the things we do for fun are so diverse, and neither do they automatically make us 'friendly' or even 'attractive' or even 'social'. they don't have help us survive the least

human beings are creative and emotional people, we have a desire to be individuals and to express our free will. its pathetic always trying to explain with survival or sex. just accept you are an emotional and free willed being.

wow


the sociobiological view point is pretty damn stupid the things we do for fun are so diverse, and neither do they automatically make us 'friendly' or even 'attractive' or even 'social'. they don't have help us survive the least

human beings are creative and emotional people, we have a desire to be individuals and to express our free will. its pathetic always trying to explain with survival or sex. just accept you are an emotional and free willed being.

Okay... So I might've gone a bit too far with that.

So let's clear up some misconceptions (that I have brought upon myself, sadly)...

On the deepest level we are biological machines. We are the survival mechanisms for our genes.

HOWEVER... We humans have evolved. We have developed huuuge brains. And with those brains, we have 'transcended' our biological heritage, so to say. In stead of mindlessly attending our emotions and our primal instinctive drives, we now have a way to keep them at bay. We now have a way to contemplate them, even, and search for the best course of action, even if it goes against our primal drives. We have now even come to a point where survival isn't an everyday care anymore, so we can do hobbies now. At least more so than in the past.


Now... About that emotional and free will part: I'm not saying at all that we AREN'T emotional or free willed.. I'm just saying that somewhere in the line, there's a survival aspect involved. And if we are to look at the purpose of everyday life, it is (mainly) to survive (again: school, jobs, etc.).
So yeah... True, we are biological machines developed to survive, but again: we have transcended this level of mindlessness. We have acquired ratio. And WITH that we have gained a certain point where we can actually keep our primal drives at bay, where we can express ourselves differently, where we can judge things, etc.

Still: if you were to look at even psychology, you WILL find that many, MANY things, including emotions, friends, violence, etc. can be deduced to a more survivalistic purpose, to a more individualistic purpose (yes, even behavior in car-driving can be deduced to this level).
If you look at a person having a fight with another person, for example, he is clearly angered by that person. Why? Because he feels threatened by his target (ultimate deduction: survival chance has been brought down). He feels that either his personal value, or those of his friends or his family have been lowered. OR he has been stolen from (personal possessions --> recources --> higher chance of survival). And he does not accept that. He will try to gain more self-value, by lowering the value of the person that he's having a fight with, eliminating him as a threat.
Indeed, if you look at even the situation at home (how that person has been raised, and how the family condition was), you will see that most aggressive persons would have had a low value forced onto them (they were beaten, cursed at, or simply hadn't been paid much attention to). This urges them to acquire a higher one, by looking for trouble, and 'artificially' raise their own by lowering others (for example).

Also: please note that while our culture has evolved at an EXTREMELY fast rate, biological evolution is SO slow that our biological brain is still adapted, and wired to the time when we were 'cave-men', so to say... This is why we still have those ultimate survivalistic drives. We simply haven't evolved to be comfortable in this society... This, again, explains much phenomena such as violence, shyness, friendliness.


Also: we don't have a totally free will. The genes are the blueprints of our bodies, and therefore, the blueprints of our brain. So somewhere, those genes have had an impact inside our brains as well.
Therefore: one person will be more tempted to do one thing, while the other is more tempted to do the other, just as one person has blue eyes, and the other one has brown. All thanks to the genes that make up how our brains will look like... The size of the brain, the sizes of the areas of the brain, the structures, etc. Homosexual people do not have a real choice. This has been repeatedly studied, and it is a nice example. Their brain structures as well as certain genetic and cellular structures are different from those of heterosexual people. They can do it with women, but it just goes against their biological yearning. So: you could, technically speaking call this 'free choice'... But is it really?

Aside from the genes and the brain, you should not forget to, again, also include the cultural influences and the way we are raised, as this also hugely impacts our rationale. Just look at fundamentalist muslims (just an easy example as we've all seen these... haven't we?)... They have been raised in such a way to behave like they do. Their brains have been shaped in such a way that they behave like they do, and therefore their free will has been manipulated. Tampered with. That is not to say that they can't act differently, that they can't think differently. It's just that their ability to do so has been severely decreased, and that they'd have to 'rewire' their brain someway or another to stop doing what they do. Again: even though this is totally possible, we can't really talk about free will here, anymore, can we?


So: NO-ONE has an absolute free will... Not even the nihilist of the child, the Übermensch, who has de-attached herself from the bonds of religion and culture, and who 'just accepts things as they are', simply because she would still have genes, she would still have experiences to shape their thinking process, and she would still be biological machines that'd be like any other animal on this planet: a survivalist...

"In stead of mindlessly attending our emotions and our primal instinctive drives"

our emotions are not primal. a look at human emotions will clearly show they are far advanced, and shit complicated than any other living thing on earth. it is attending to our emotional needs that gives us the most pleasure, the most happiness, the most peace on earth. when I said we were emotional beings, I am saying we have an EMOTIONAL NEED that is not about - survival. We have an emotional desire to find happiness. Its our idea of what happiness is it what will ultimately drive your life. Happiness however is not survival, you will not drop dead if you are not happy.

Our drive for happiness is what sets us apart from animals. We've even go so far as to manipulate the temperature in our homes should the temperature outside make us unhappy.

"I'm just saying that somewhere in the line, there's a survival aspect involved. And if we are to look at the purpose of everyday life, it is (mainly) to survive (again: school, jobs, etc.)"

of course, you don't got a job you don't have a home, you don't have food, you can starve right? but no one drops dead either when they retire. the majority of what we desire to do, has no survival aspect behind it.

and many look forward to early retirement. people work hard, to transcend the need of working. to do the activities they find more meaningful in life. of course that doesn't always work does it? sometimes its just feels like all our hard work goes down the drain and we can never escape a shitty job. but certainly our real desire for working hard IS TO TRANSCEND WORK.

"Still: if you were to look at even psychology, you WILL find that many, MANY things, including emotions, friends, violence, etc. can be deduced to a more survivalistic purpose, to a more individualistic purpose (yes, even behavior in car-driving can be deduced to this level)."

you can deduce anything and find any arbitrary meaning. im sure a fundie can deduce life and conclude all activities on earth are satanic. an individual purpose in life is not the same as a survival purpose. our desire to be happy, to find peace will drive is thousands of miles further than our desire to live. and many times, our individual goal will CONTRADICT our survival needs. architect students for example will actually go with out sleep or proper food and water for DAYS, literally DAYS just to finish a school assignment.

because becoming an architect, was more important than their own health. and I knew an architect student, whose hair was falling out by the handfuls. who in their bloody mind would work on a SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT for three nights straight, even when there is no guarantee it is an assignment that will even be graded. They didn't do it just to graduate just to have a job, just to feed themselves. THEY DO IT BECAUSE THEY LOVE ARCHITECTURE.

survival? being an architect student has had my sister IN DEPT for two years now and she has three years more to go. she could have graduated with an EASIER degree and could be making 50,000 a year. She walked away for that to pursue HAPPINESS.

"This urges them to acquire a higher one, by looking for trouble, and 'artificially' raise their own by lowering others (for example)."

Beating the shit out of people doesn't higher anyones self worth, most of us understand this. There are many people who have evolved past such animalistic behavior. They are very easy to spot. THEY DON'T HAVE ANGER OR VIOLENT ISSUES. Mankind is evolving. And those who are still trapped in this idea that beating the shit of someone proves anything, or going to find themselves out of place in society.

"please note that while our culture has evolved at an EXTREMELY fast rate, biological evolution is SO slow that our biological brain is still adapted, and wired to the time when we were 'cave-men', so to say... This is why we still have those ultimate survivalistic drives. We simply haven't evolved to be comfortable in this society... This, again, explains much phenomena such as violence, shyness, friendliness."

modern day life has ignored the emotional needs of a human being. people try to live like robots. performing the same meaningless tasks day in and day out. this causes stress. stress builds up over time. if the individual has not found an outlet to express their creativity or emotions, the stress will either kill them slow by severely lowering their mental and physical health. or the stress can blow out of proportion, causing depression, anxiety or anger problems.

modern.day.life. does.not.satisfy.the.needs.of.an.emotional.being. culture is not more evolved. it has degraded and de-evolved the value of our emotional needs.

humanity does not have to adapt to modern day life. modern day will change to meet OUR needs as more people wake up and realize, WE HAVE EMOTIONAL NEEDS that are more important than our survival. In fact, when people don't satisfy their emotional needs and only their survival - THEY QUESTION IF LIFE HAS ANY MEANING. and this makes apathetic towards death, including their own.

"Also: we don't have a totally free will. The genes are the blueprints of our bodies, and therefore, the blueprints of our brain. So somewhere, those genes have had an impact inside our brains as well."

blue prints. tendencies. do not dictate our choices. people are pathetic and will turn to anything to blame outside of themselves for the poor choices they have made.

in the past it was satan, today its genes. the new researches into the brain show us differently. your thoughts, your memories, your self identity, none of them are so permanent that YOU can not change it. you can choose to become a new person. the brain is capable of rewiring itself. people can and have changed. genes have given us the ability to choose who we want to be, not to dictate it.

"They have been raised in such a way to behave like they do. Their brains have been shaped in such a way that they behave like they do, and therefore their free will has been manipulated."

no one said free will was easy, or something you exercise the moment of birth. you give up your free will when you don't realize you have it. and you claim it when you do. children do not exercise free will like adults. their free will is put on hold, because biologically speaking, they are meant to be under the guidance of adults. but I don't care what religion someone was raised in, day in and day out. AT ANY MOMENT, they CAN stop believing.

and this moment normally happens in adulthood, when we have the personality to exercise free will. sound familiar? is this not how most atheists are born? AFTER childhood?

"NO-ONE has an absolute free will..."

you can choose to believe in anything. has not religion shown you this? you have choose to believe no one has absolute free will. and I have the free will to believe other wise.

you. can. believe. anything. and while people think this is dangerous because of religion. it is our ability to believe anything, that also gives us the ability to NOT BELIEVE. culture. religion. yes these things make it difficult. but they don't stop free will.

there are people who grow up in religious dogma. and they choose to believe other wise. and their version of why others choose to believe, is not brainwashing. but a fear to be different. and when fear is involved, you need to be careful to conclude they all believe without question.

in places where people are swinging guns, do you think they feel its safe to so publicly and openly admit - if what they believe is different? some would rather die than live a lie. but its true, most would rather live and lie.

Thanks for all the replies. Yea, in the title I said EVERYDAY life is useless...not life. I love life. So it may have sounded to you like I'm depressed or suicidal but I'm not. I'm just saying that nobody gets anywhere living the way most people do. All you do is work to pay off your bills. And by paying off yours bills you're basically paying to stay where you are, and to stay where you are you have to work to pay off bills...get it? I'd rather be homeless or live alone in the woods than this stupid routine (which to a certain extent I am and do). Like I said it all makes sense in my head but words fail me(like always). I think(hope) that you get where I'm coming from.

Originally Posted by CryoDragoon

So: NO-ONE has an absolute free will... Not even the nihilist of the child, the Übermensch, who has de-attached herself from the bonds of religion and culture, and who 'just accepts things as they are', simply because she would still have genes, she would still have experiences to shape their thinking process, and she would still be biological machines that'd be like any other animal on this planet: a survivalist...

I agree with everything you say.. but, thats only for animals. Humans however, have reached a new purpose of existence. And our purpose of existence, imo, is to realize our dreams irl.

Just living your life for fun, friends, family, is useless in the end. If you have the potential to change this world, why not? And imo, every human has the potential, they just think they don't.

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

I agree with everything you say.. but, thats only for animals. Humans however, have reached a new purpose of existence. And our purpose of existence, imo, is to realize our dreams irl.

Just living your life for fun, friends, family, is useless in the end. If you have the potential to change this world, why not? And imo, every human has the potential, they just think they don't.

Well... Isn't the only purpose of realising our dreams just to become happy? Even if it's a 'calling' to do stuff in politics, you'll probably have an urge to make a positive difference in people's lives, you want the world to become a better place, and when you get round to actually doing that, then isn't that where you get your happiness from? Isn't that how you would fulfil your emotional and intellectual needs?

When I help a sad person to cheer up, I automatically feel like I've done something important, and thus I feel happy... Isn't that with all altruistic behavior? Doesn't it feel good to help someone? Even if it's just giving a few bucks to a homeless person? Or to charity? We feel like we've done something important to another person, which makes us feel better for and about ourselves.

That, or I'm just incredibly selfish ^^


And I do agree with you about the political part: everybody has the ability to make a difference. This is something I've been thinking about for a while now: everybody DOES make a difference one way or another.
A world without you would NOT be the same, simply because you've already left an impression on at least someone. You could've taught him a valuable life lesson (like now... I'm forming my opinions by the means of discussing stuff with you guys), be it conciously or not, you could've just cheered the person up. Whatever it is: you've made an impression in some way or another, and you will continue to do so until your death (or, if you're lucky... even until after your death).

So... Nobodies life is without meaning, and you can make yourself live your life in such a way that you create a purpose for yourself, but is there really a purpose of life? of human life? I don't really think there is one.

So... I guess I only partially agree


Bye!

-CD

Originally Posted by mindwanderer

People will try their hardest at school so they can get decent grades, go to University and then get a well paying job. You get that job so you can pay for the house that you sleep in. Though you have 40 if not more hours of work a week anyways. So the only time you have left is spent sleeping or paying bills. All this so you can go on working and sleeping in your house! It gets you nowhere and is soo frustrating. Just work till you die? I would rather spend life on the streets than the life that most people live. All that working gets you is the "luxury" of sleeping in a city. The only way to be able to live in the city is to work your life away. You don't get anything out of it! It all makes sense in my head but when I try to get it out it's all jumbled and doesn't make sense. Anyways maybe I'll make a follow up post and try to collect my thoughts. I hope you all get the idea I'm trying to make.

I failed at school, have a HUGE learning disability that was caught in grade 6, i'm 23 years old and spent 2 years after alittle college at a learning center...my english is almost grade 10 worthy, although it was good because i could never use commas or periods, now i can but it's not perfect.

I failed being good around girls, hell even now. But i can talk to them now unlike before. It's more knowing what to say then anything at this point, they love my offline sense of humor and my character. A guy, sure! i spent most of my life around guys. Girls you can't talk like a guy to them.

I failed after school. I barely get over minimum wage, the jobs ok but not something i love. 2 years ago i quit a job i had for 3 years being a janitor...absolutly hated it. Kept it because i do not like interviews, nor can i sell myself to save my life.

I fail at doing things i wanna do, and get told i do things i don't wanna do because that's being "responsible", and you got to pay the bills nomatter what. Most things i wanna do i decide not to do them, it's a habbit. I want to get into a trade just so i can get alot of money but that requires doing something. I used to wanna get into the Army, but that failed as my knee injury did not heal correctly. I wanted to be a navy guy...serve my country, a girl in every port, travel the world. What's not to love? but i got over that.

I am failing at life, and most days i question if "is this all life has to offer???" No, i'm not a full out depressed guy who wants to commit suicide. Been there, tried that. I'm about half and half and getting used to knowing i'm always going to be a failure, so i just live with it and try and move on. I usually don't talk about my life, i hate when people feel sorry for you, and hate drama.



I lately have been talking about why do women get pregnant REALLY young? seems like it's a trend. Not fair for the kid to barely get by, you need to have a career before you should even consider thinking of starting a family.