Thread: Are You Truly Self-aware?

Totally agree with above post.

I'm not 'happy' by societal definitions of the word. The large majority throw around that word like they throw around the word, love. Pretty much like it's going out of style. No one really knows what that word means, nor do they know what the word 'self' means. While this distraction is fun and everything, it's not true happiness. True happiness, like love, is found away from existence, away from this distraction, and within yourself. True happiness and love come from a love of 'self', and nothing else.

Any moment anyone spends living it up in this existence isn't true happiness. I'm sorry, but it isn't. Anyone caught up in the material lie, is just living in the intoxication of the dream. When you live on the surface, you get surface-level emotions. When you delve a little deeper, you realize how trivial those surface-level emotions are.

Think of an upperclassman high-school senior, who thinks they are on top of the world, never realizing how small their pond actually is. At the time, they may seem extremely happy. But is that real happiness? How could they know they are happy if they don't know the true meaning of the word, or realize the 'reality' and levity of their situation? Just as someone becomes infatuated with someone of the opposite sex for the first time...equally meaningless. not love.

That's what I really was trying to say. People are too quick to claim to find happiness outside of self. That's where, 'the less they know, the happier they are', comes into play.

It's more like, '...the happier they seem'.

I've told you this before. You're missing the meaning of life and focusing fully on the meaning of existence. Any given life such as this one is different from the whole of existence. We aren't in this given life now to think back on ultimate existence and sulk over nothing having meaning. That's what you're missing - the meaning.

There is no meaning to it, that's just it. We create meaning where there is none in order to keep ourselves entertained. Even me realizing that, is as equally pointless as you thinking there is all this deep-seated meaning. There simply is no point.

Just as a person in solitary confinement for long periods of time, becomes a paranoid schizophrenic and creates delusional characters to cope with the isolation. We all collectively create our coping mechanisms...nothing more.

I view my time spent in the current incarnation as simply taking a vacation. It is very much like the much wished for talent of total dream control. Once you obtain dream omnipotence it becomes very boring over time, such as 35 years worth. The irony is that once you reach that state you then spend time trying NOT to control your dreams. It is at that point that the beauty of randomness is truly revealed and fully appreciated. The hilarious aspect is that the destination that you were originally seeking ends up being right were you started. It is the experience of the journey(s) that becomes the reward. We desperately seek that which we already possess. A grand joke that we play on ourselves, not out of cruelty, but rather out of necessity.

I definitely feel you on that one. Well said.

I also completely agree with the above post.

To make my post nice and simple, I find myself in the number 1 category. Though , this thread did make me smile. Because I remember questioning this myself years back. Except without all the scientific words.

Oh, for blazes sake. If you all don't see the meaning of life in the concept of society then what are you still doing alive?

Suicide => enter a new life => realise it's "meaningless" => repeat.

Case in point, you live and you have those you care for, to any extent. Without anyone at all to the slightest degree special to you there would indeed be absolutely no point to life even from the subjective point of view (sadness/depression due to loneliness, etc.). Don't understimate the concept of other beings in existence, it's really quite insulting.

Insulting? Only a person who sees the meaning of life in human society could be insulted by a differing opinion. Seriously, society is the meaning of life? Wow, dude.

And just because I see life as a fleeting illusion does not mean I'm going to commit suicide because of it. When you become lucid, do you immediately commit suicide because it's only a dream? No, you continue and explore.

Personally, I see life as a wonderful experience but I try not to put any meaning where there is none to begin with.

The other day, while I was clearing my mind and meditating I was realizing that since we can't really confirm anything existing outside of ourselves, how can we confirm or truely understand the idea of movement? Especially, if there really isn't any separation between anything? We readily accept the current laws of physics that govern our rock without question, but we really don't understand the idea of movement or speed. Do you really think you are driving at 60mph because the car says so? Let's think about speed and movement on a grand scale and ask ourselves this question again...

We (as a whole consciousness) merely bend ourselves to accept what we perceive in front of us as movement. We accept the laws of physics that govern the movement of the car we perceive driving down the road at 60mph on Earth. We accept the laws of physics that govern our planet to keep us 'stopped' at a stoplight. When in actuality, The earth is rotating on it's axis at 1000 miles per hour. Not to mention, Earth is also moving around the Sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. And how quickly we forget, that everything in our universe, including our sun and earth, is expanding outward, away from the singularity that spawned it at the speed of light of 670,616,629.384 miles per hour.

Ok, so even if we supposedly come to that stoplight, don't forget; we are always moving at least 670,684,629.384 miles through space, every hour of every day. Hard to wrap your head around, I know.

Just think about that next time you 'think' you are only moving at 60mph down the road. Just how fast are you moving?...Perhaps, not at all

Nice input! I've been thinking about that too. It's strange we don't even feel the slightest that we are not moving so extremely fast, though

Originally Posted by BohmaN

Nice input! I've been thinking about that too. It's strange we don't even feel the slightest that we are not moving so extremely fast, though
[/b]

But it's quite reasonable that we don't feel it, it's all we know. The question is, what would it be like if it all stopped?

We're born into it. Just as a baby fast asleep wouldn't be able to comprehend or perceive a plane in mid flight if it were to wake up for the in-flight meal.

Yet we still attach meaningless digits to an idea we still can't comprehend. Funny stuff. We assign rational where there is none to begin with...

Originally posted by SolSky
Yet we still attach meaningless digits to an idea we still can't comprehend. Funny stuff. We assign rational where there is none to begin with...

So true...

Just joining after five pages of... I'm not sure what all this has been yet, really. But it's surprisingly orderly.

SolSkye, in complaining about how we make a big deal of 60mph while the earth is hurtling around at a hojillion miles a minute, I have to ask... are you valuing the cosmic perspective over our own? Is it actually petty of us to think in terms of inches and minutes and grams when the scope of the universe so far exceeds those paltry measurements?

...I mean, should we, as you suggest, treat the velocity of a car with disdain by dividing it by the speed of light? What does that serve, and what does it get us other than disillusionment and a sense of alienation and pointlessless in the world's grand schemes? We perceive the world in the minute terms we do because they serve us well, get us where we need to go, and give us a useful way to size up our surroundings. How is thinking on the scale of a planet, or a star, or a molecule, more worthwhile?

I wasn't complaining or saying something is more worthwhile, so I really don't see where you misconstrued my thoughts as such.

I was just attempting to point out to others that nothing here is of any more or less importance or value than anything else. We all collectively head in seemingly random directions in this infinite rat race ever-determined to make some sort of lasting difference or impact within the unchanging power of infinity. I just find every facet of this conundrum called existence, humorous and contradictory at the same time, so why not talk about the one fact that there simply is no rhyme or reason behind anything and it is all one big delusion of self?

When you realize existence for what it is, you can kick off your shoes and enjoy yourself. or hate it. Either way, no direction you take within the dichotomy of existence really matters. And that was my point, or rather, expressing the lack thereof.

Catch 22 universe coming at ya!

Thread necromancer! Burn him!

I think you should take your philosophy one step further. You end on the note, "ultimately, there's no right context to the universe, it's essentially meaningless." But I personally see as much teleology and betrayal of an assumed purpose in claiming that the universe is purposeless as I see in claiming that it's going somewhere, or many places, or backwards, or in on itself, or in any other direction or for any other end-goal imaginable. It's the same assumption of wisdom you can't have, and saying we're going nowhere is still an assertion that we're moving in some sort of direction, even if it's a nonexistent.

Anyways, I think you're claiming the universe is purposeless so you can veto human-manifested purpose: you're saying, "well check it out, you can walk a thousand miles and see a lot of things, have plans and values and schemes and dreams and act on all of them and make a grand narrative of your life, but at the end of the day it will fall to shambles under the inscrutable omnipresence of the universe's purposelessness." Why does the immutable lack of purpose driving the universe have to bar us from creating true purpose beyond that cosmic backdrop of nihilism?

You've already said no perspective is any better than another, so why value the cosmic perspective over the human in claiming that human purpose can never stick or be worthwhile?

And certainly from a subjective human standpoint (one we all experience), certain perspectives ought to serve us better and be valued more because they contribute to a greater or lesser degree to subjective experiences that, to us, have intrinsic worth: happiness, and the pursuit thereof. I've been content for some time to busy myself with things that make me happy, or at least less unhappy, and I've formed purpose out of my surroundings to suit that goal. Am I blindered to follow this route, narrower as it is than the cosmic viewpoint you want to drill the point home with?

Acknowledging that universal standpoint is fine, but I just see no reason to dwell on it or return to it as a home base when there are more relevant (to my sense of worth, to my happiness) viewpoints for me to see the world with. One isn't objectively better than the other, but I believe one - mine, the human perspective - subjectively is.

I suppose when you think with an ego (not that I'm not guilty of that sometimes) you would have to think in terms of one method of thinking being better than the other. But, I simply don't think in those terms (most of the time). I am not telling people how to think or live but rather to realize that their way is not only an inevitable one, but necessary. It's futile to fight the current you created or didn't create for your 'self'. Now, if you also realize yourself as that current you can allow your 'self' to be swept with the infinite flow.

The universal construct is more a way of thinking of; 'live, and let live' or 'go with the flow', and the ability to truely let things slide. Even as I type this, Im reminded of how I force myself to interact with my other selves and how this intriguing nature of the unknown (regardless of the result), is the gift I gave myself.

I'll say it one last time, your way of thinking is no better than mine, or a serial killers' for that matter. Your sense of separation, and self-worth is just a tool to help you sleep at night and drive forward with confidence in a given direction, just as my realization of the nature of all things is to me. I'm not asking you to dwell on it, I'm asking you to do what feels comfortable to you, because that's all you or anyone would've done, anyway. I find that from the universal standpoint I can't be so easily caught up in the small things... or as I put them, 'the finite figments...'

I find the small things the only ones worth dealing with, day-to-day.

Anyways, we're in a roundabout race, both coming to the conclusion that we don't know anything and yet betraying ourselves in acknowledging that we at least know that, the fault of which prompts the other to cry ego alert and try to negate the transgression by saying it themselves, back-and-forth.

i am not you . it is lonely though . but monks that all look like they are the same light , exactly, they tripping, we all have the same light plus our self. that why i rap bout flowers and homeboy rap bout bees. um yeah iv thought like you, but look at girls , girls know more. we like god, but we aint . philosophies in general suck, it takes all that clear light that every one rappin about, and it turns it into a maze.

yeah it does seem like somthing is about to happen. good+evil+time+ selfactualization and high speed conections +fate+ chance+ randomness+ and love = somthing big .

Originally Posted by fairytale

i am not you . it is lonely though . but monks that all look like they are the same light , exactly, they tripping, we all have the same light plus our self. that why i rap bout flowers and homeboy rap bout bees. um yeah iv thought like you, but look at girls , girls know more. we like god, but we aint . philosophies in general suck, it takes all that clear light that every one rappin about, and it turns it into a maze.[/b]

As unusually as that is worded...it's exactly my point.
The essence of this topic is that you're telling everyone to forget their lives because they have no meaning in the end.
But that is their meaning! What is happening now! We strive for goals in the future, yes. But as we do, we live our lives and experience them. If you want to look at it from the "mechanical"/technical perspective: the meaning of existence is in experiences - simple. From the human perspective: the most meaningful experiences are interaction with others.

Originally Posted by fairytale

i am not you . it is lonely though . but monks that all look like they are the same light , exactly, they tripping, we all have the same light plus our self. that why i rap bout flowers and homeboy rap bout bees. um yeah iv thought like you, but look at girls , girls know more. we like god, but we aint . philosophies in general suck, it takes all that clear light that every one rappin about, and it turns it into a maze.[/b]

You completely lost me with your lack of organized thought, but if your point was to convey the complete randomness and pointlessness of it all then I agree with you! If not, I think you need to spend more time getting your thoughts together before you post in a thread let alone a philosophy one. I appreciate the effort, though.

Originally Posted by fairytale

As unusually as that is worded...it's exactly my point.
The essence of this topic is that you're telling everyone to forget their lives because they have no meaning in the end.
But that is their meaning! What is happening now! We strive for goals in the future, yes. But as we do, we live our lives and experience them. If you want to look at it from the "mechanical"/technical perspective: the meaning of existence is in experiences - simple. From the human perspective: the most meaningful experiences are interaction with others.[/b]

We've been over this multiple times, that is YOUR self-imposed meaning of existence, but the hard reality of it is- there is NO meaning behind it. It's about as meaningful as watching an episode of 'Family Guy'. End of Discussion.