# Existentialism - a crisis



## emiellucifuge

Hello all,

I recently read the novel _Nausea_ by Jean-Paul Sartre. I recommend it to people who have achieved a great deal in life and those who have earned a confidence of purpose. I currently wish I hadnt read it.

It wasnt bad, in fact, it was too good in conveying the authors message, it threw me into a spiritual and mental crisis (maybe the word crisis is strong) for the past weeks. Everything that i have done, and everything that has occurred _to me_ since, has been subconsciously judged and evaluated through the window of this book and through the nauseating experience of Roquetin. I have been unable to enjoy the enjoyment I have had, and I have been unable to justify any motivation.

The book ends with a brief window into a purposeful existence, an existence driven by the creation of art. I have realised that the word 'Art' is an artificial term used to describe the human experience made concrete in sound or image or word. The human experience itself, the full range and depth of possible emotions and everything else that inspires the creation of art, is something worth existing for. That is my conclusion. I can no longer agree with Sartre.
I have since sought refuge in comedy and Rachmaninov.

And in order to justify this post:
Would you care to describe any ways in which a work of art has had a profound affect on your life?

P.S: I hope his doesnt come across as too dramatic.


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## Polednice

The more dramatic the better! 

I haven't read this novel, but your reaction to it makes me very intrigued. I'll have to look into it when I have the time. Before I give any of my own anecdotes, can I just clarify something? When you say the following:



emiellucifuge said:


> I have realised that the word 'Art' is an artificial term used to describe the human experience made concrete in sound or image or word. The human experience itself, the full range and depth of possible emotions and everything else that inspires the creation of art, is something worth existing for.


are you saying that the creation of art is not an important endeavour, rather the most important aspect of life is seeking out the experiences that can inspire the creation of it? Or have I misunderstood?


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## emiellucifuge

What i meant was this:
Sartre makes the point that existence itself is pointless, but that *only* the creation of art can provide a meaning. I believe that the experience of life is such an incredible thing, that It creates its own purpose and meaning


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## Chris

As an antidote you should read Jeeves Take Charge, the first of P.G. WodeHouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories. In this, Bertie is engaged to a woman who intends to start him on Nietzsche, but Jeeves retrieves the situation.


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## emiellucifuge

Sounds perfectly light thank you


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## Manxfeeder

Chris said:


> As an antidote you should read Jeeves Take Charge, the first of P.G. WodeHouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories. In this, Bertie is engaged to a woman who intends to start him on Nietzsche, but Jeeves retrieves the situation.


Good old Jeeves. (I believe he was a Spinozist.)


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## Manxfeeder

emiellucifuge said:


> What i meant was this:
> Sartre makes the point that existence itself is pointless, but that *only* the creation of art can provide a meaning. I believe that the experience of life is such an incredible thing, that It creates its own purpose and meaning


I bet this would be a good time for you to listen to Mahler's 3rd.


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## Argus

Sounds like someone needs some HOUSE MUSIC.


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## Rasa

Another one bites the dust to angry, expensive and too small coffee sipping, (how can he not be angry, do you KNOW the price of coffee in Paris?) Parisian boulevard philosophers.

...

Honestly, there is no purpose to existence if you have to play 5 euros for an espresso.

One would become exitentialist on the Champs Elysees.


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## Couchie

Life has no purpose, and art has no purpose. I fail to see how a purposeless thing can bring purpose to another purposeless thing.

Life is really just reacting chemicals which got real complex yo, and made DNA and genes and ****. The genes want to survive so they made you - a fortress to protect them. They also gave you the will to have sex and keep passing 'em on so they survive long after you've bitten the dust. Oh yeah and they gave you a will to live, so even though life is so obviously meaningless, we're generally inclined to not kill ourselves, because the genes would die too and they wouldn't like that, which is why we are so conflicted with existential angst. Yup, that's pretty much existence summarized for you. Pick an arbitrary distraction: art, science, your career, etc., and allow it to distract you enough so you don't have to think about this.


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## Aramis

Couchie said:


> Life is really just reacting chemicals which got real complex yo, and made DNA and genes and ****. The genes want to survive so they made you - a fortress to protect them. They also gave you the will to have sex and keep passing 'em on so they survive long after you've bitten the dust. Oh yeah and they gave you a will to live, so even though life is so obviously meaningless, we're generally inclined to not kill ourselves, because the genes would die too and they wouldn't like that, which is why we are so conflicted with existential angst. Yup, that's pretty much existence summarized for you. Pick an arbitrary distraction, art, science, your career, and allow it to distract you enough so you don't have to think about this.


Too much Richard Dawkins.


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## Polednice

emiellucifuge said:


> What i meant was this:
> Sartre makes the point that existence itself is pointless, but that *only* the creation of art can provide a meaning. I believe that the experience of life is such an incredible thing, that It creates its own purpose and meaning


Ah I see, well in that case I agree with you, and I'm glad that you reject the idea put forward by Sartre. As I said, I haven't read the book, but I don't even see - if we go down the severe road of reducing life to its complete meaningless - how creating art could make it any more meaningful. It would just be another way of wasting time. Thankfully, though, we know better. 

Personally, I have been affected on the grandest scale twice before: once by music, once by literature, both of which I fear I may have already mentioned on the forum. 

Still, in the case of the former, it was in the moment that I discovered what Romanticism was as an artistic ideal. Of course, I had been listening to the music for a fair while, and had known all along that it was precisely the kind of music that epitomised my feelings, but it was only when I bothered to search around for some history that I came to understand the movement itself. I remember vividly listening to Brahms's Third Symphony and reading about him and the Romantic movement he was a part of, then, when I read about Romanticism itself, I had that peculiar but wonderful feeling of having every ideal you've held close to you, every cherished thought that you've only ever had in isolation, suddenly voiced by a hundred other people. Everything I'd come to expect of life and want out of it and how I wanted to approach it - it was all suddenly laid before me in an artistic movement that I have since become obsessed with.

The literature that affected me greatly was Byron's _Manfred_. This was after suffering for two or three years from severe depression. As it's an indescribable experience, and something that only current or previous sufferers can imagine, the loneliness of it all doubles up on the sadness. Yet, again, in _Manfred_ I found that feeling of someone else mysteriously knowing my ideas and pains with the titular character struggling to find death, and Byron's poetry is just so beautifully written that there are a whole host of passages I have memorised as articulations of my innermost feelings which I would otherwise have never been able to put into words.


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## Almaviva

Couchie said:


> Life has no purpose, and art has no purpose. I fail to see how a purposeless thing can bring purpose to another purposeless thing.
> 
> Life is really just reacting chemicals which got real complex yo, and made DNA and genes and ****. The genes want to survive so they made you - a fortress to protect them. They also gave you the will to have sex and keep passing 'em on so they survive long after you've bitten the dust. Oh yeah and they gave you a will to live, so even though life is so obviously meaningless, we're generally inclined to not kill ourselves, because the genes would die too and they wouldn't like that, which is why we are so conflicted with existential angst. Yup, that's pretty much existence summarized for you. Pick an arbitrary distraction: art, science, your career, etc., and allow it to distract you enough so you don't have to think about this.


Given the above, I'd rather listen to Violetta in La Traviata: 
La vita è nel tripudio ...
Tutto è follia, follia nel mondo
ciò che non è piacer


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## Weston

Why must life or anything else have purpose?

Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." That's purpose enough for me -- to be like neurons for the cosmos.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

emiellucifuge said:


> The human experience itself, the full range and depth of possible emotions and everything else that inspires the creation of art, is something worth existing for.


Sounds ideal to me. But like many idealisms in life, whether artistic ones or otherwise, I wonder how often this is the artist's _raison d'être_ in practice. I don't know (I'm not an artist). Real world experiences and idealisms are not the one (as evident in many other threads here about social issues for example, not just artistic ones). Composers from the past often wanted to make a living by publishing "easy" music for a wide group of listeners and performers, too.


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## Meaghan

Oh, to hell with meaning. Perhaps life _is_ "meaningless" (whatever that means). I don't know about anybody else, but mine is worth living regardless. I find deep enjoyment in a wide variety of things, and I usually cannot explain why. Which used to trouble me, but now it doesn't. I don't think my "I'm so glad to be alive" moments, such as when I am standing under a large tree on a windy day, or teaching art to children, or playing Beethoven, are examples of me deluding myself into thinking that life has meaning. They are just things that I like, and as long as I've got life, I might as well keep it for the _purpose_ of enjoying experiences such as these, and hopefully helping others have a good life too.

I've been through a few "life is meaningless" phases, which can last a day or several months, and it's usually music that brings me out of it. The last movement of Beethoven's Op. 109 sonata has stabilized me in multiple times of turmoil.

Emiel, I'm glad you are recovering from your existential crisis. Comedy and Rachmaninov are good places to seek refuge.  _The 13 Clocks_ is also an excellent antidote to Sartre.
(see: http://www.talkclassical.com/5002-what-books-you-currently-35.html#post188358)


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## Couchie

Weston said:


> Why must life or anything else have purpose?
> 
> Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." That's purpose enough for me -- to be like neurons for the cosmos.


What a load of ****.  Love Carl, but wish he would've just come clean and told kids his real solution to dealing with life's angst: smoke weed. Smoke A LOT of weed.


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## clavichorder

Couchie said:


> What a load of ****.  Love Carl, but wish he would've just come clean and told kids his real solution to dealing with life's angst: smoke weed. Smoke A LOT of weed.


Or go legal and take atypical antipsychotics/antidepressants.


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## Klavierspieler

I am going to go ahead and make a lot of enemies by recommending that you read the Bible if you're going through an existential crisis. Other good reads are The New Answers Book, and The New Answers Book 2 (imaginative titles).


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## Polednice

Klavierspieler said:


> I am going to go ahead and make a lot of enemies by recommending that you read the Bible if you're going through an existential crisis. Other good reads are The New Answers Book, and The New Answers Book 2 (imaginative titles).


After all, if you're looking for comedy and Rachmaninov, what better comedy is there than the intricate self-contradiction and ludicrous ideals of the Bible?


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## regressivetransphobe

Yes, it can be terribly depressing that in all likelihood your only naturally dictated "purpose" is to pass on genes. But with the self-awareness to recognize this also comes the choice to live the way you want and pass on what you want. Nothing exists in a vacuum, so let the animality and meaninglessness of life just act as a framework for more "meaningful" (in a personal way) passions.

I liked Nausea a lot. I actually had to buy two copies because I left my first somewhere and it got stolen. I suffer from more angst after seeing Transformers or something because it makes me realize that more people enjoy crap like that.


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## science

I've put a lot of thought into this question. Until my early 20s I was really religious, and I assumed that the meaning of my life was mostly about obeying God (or serving or worshiping or loving God - pick your verb, the object was God). It was psychologically and emotionally persuasive, so that I never really felt any problem.

Then I lost my faith, and by far the hardest part of it was losing my sense of meaning. Not just that my own life was meaningful, but the entire universe seemed to me to lose its purpose. Everything will die, injustices will never be made right, the evil prosper and the good suffer, predators eat prey alive or they starve to death, life consumes itself cruelly until the sun blows up and melts the earth and then the sun dies and even if there is life anywhere else in the universe it will die too and then, eventually the universe will die and nothing will know nor care - so why should I?

But, perhaps absurdly (as Camus would say), I wanted to care, and I wanted the universe (or God or whatever) to care.

Eventually I had an experience - too long a story to tell now, but maybe I'll get around to it another time - in which I realized that regardless of how the universe feels _I_ do care. Regardless of how the universe ends, or whether my actions change anything in a grand scheme or even a small scheme, the individual moments of my life are meaningful _to me_, and that is what is necessary. It is also nice, maybe even crucial, that many of the moments of my life matter to a few other people - my parents, my wife, my best friends, and so on.

So now I think, regardless of whether there is a cosmic or divine purpose, and even if there is a God who declares that in his opinion my life is meaningless, so what? My meaning comes from inside me, and it is sufficient for me.


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## samurai

* Life *itself is just one big existential crisis, and then we die, and it just keeps on going as it always has and always will. So, don't sweat the small stuff; enjoy what you can when you can {without hurting others, hopefully} and learn as much as you are capable of. Because in the end--for all of us as *individuals*--it is a short time that we enjoy/have on this earth indeed.


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## Jupiter

Of course life is meaningless. We are infinitely tiny bundles of chemicals anchored to a tiny orbiting ball of chemicals in an infinitely vast universe of unimaginable distances. 

It doesn't mean we shouldn't boogie.


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## Polednice

Jupiter said:


> Of course life is meaningless. We are infinitely tiny bundles of chemicals anchored to a tiny orbiting ball of chemicals in an infinitely vast universe of unimaginable distances.
> 
> It doesn't mean we shouldn't boogie.


We're cute little bundles of chemicals though!


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## Ravellian

I find some truth in that books idea that life can only be made meaningful through the creation of art. At the very least, it's a way to create something beautiful that will perpetuate into existence beyond our short lives. This is why I pursue the study of music so relentlessly, so that one day I will be able to make noteworthy contributions to the world of art - music, specifically. 

I'm also happy that most here are free of the intellectual shackles religion imposes on the mind. Having been basically forced by my family to embrace Christianity my entire life (with the threat of being disowned if I refuse), it was such a relief when I finally became fully independent...


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## regressivetransphobe

I think Christianity is just one delusion in a life full of delusions. If it's not God/Allah and heaven, it's the singularity, or astrology, or treating animals like people, or career as a life goal, true love (this isn't coming from a bitter single guy--just a bitter guy, maybe) or whatever. I used to be sort of an angry atheist, but I eventually realized how many secular people create their own little fantasies to cope with life. I'm tired of caring about what anyone chooses to believe now.


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## Kopachris

Existentialism? Art? I think someone around here said that you can't be an artist unless you're not quite right in the head. Existentialism fits the bill there, at least for me. Turning 18 (which I just did in July) has thrown me for the fifth or sixth time (I lose count) into an existential crisis. How do I cope with it? I don't. I've learned to just let it run its course, cry out all those stress hormones, and listen to some Tchaikovsky. I'll return to being happy eventually.

And, by the way, religion in all its forms is _all about_ coping with life. Therefore, my advice is to choose a religion *(or lack thereof)* which helps you cope best.


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## emiellucifuge

Science and Meaghan, I think we are on the same page.


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## graaf

Our search for meaning can tell us something about us. What is it that it tells us - is the real question. Not finding the meaning, but finding out why are we trying to find meaning.

In order not to sound too metaphysical (the word which is almost never used correctly, including this sentence), I'll just note that search for meaning is similar to many emotions we have - they are information, they are something to be leart from, and not to be indulged in, they are means not the end. And so is "the meaning thing".

But that's me, and I could be wrong.


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## TxllxT

Rotterdam has the statue of Desiderius Erasmus, so Amsterdam needed to have someone of their own too. They picked out the guy above, Baruch de Spinoza (1632 Amsterdam, died of tuberculosis at the age of 44). Not such a wrong place, I would say, for having to face 'Existentialism - a crisis'....


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## science

Kierkegaard (the original existentialist) in Copenhagen.

Knew a guy who made a pilgrimage to this statue. Then he became a corporation lawyer. Evidently he found a way to solve his existential crisis.


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## Ralfy

Also, try Ligotti's _Conspiracy Against the Human Race_.


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## Xaltotun

Two films that might help in case of an existential crisis:

A Man Escaped, by Robert Bresson, and
Andrei Rublyov, by Andrei Tarkovsky.


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## Lenfer

I am a big fan of *Sartre* first discovering him in my early teens. I have re-read his work many times, hopefully understanding it more with each read. I don't want to come off to nhilistic but everyone who has ever been born will die and in all likelihood all life will cease to exist at one point. Don't lose sleep over *Sartre*, long story short enjoy it while you can it won't last long.

If you like *Sartre* I recommend *Albert Camus* and *Simone de Beauvoir*.


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## johnfkavanagh

Lenfer said:


> I am a big fan of *Sartre* first discovering him in my early teens. I have re-read his work many times, hopefully understanding it more with each read. I don't want to come off to nhilistic but everyone who has ever been born will die and in all likelihood all life will cease to exist at one point. Don't lose sleep over *Sartre*, long story short enjoy it while you can it won't last long.
> 
> If you like *Sartre* I recommend *Albert Camus* and *Simone de Beauvoir*.


Sartre is the better philosopher, but Camus is the better writer by far.


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## Shamit

I know little of art, i do enjoy complex music but my knowledge is severely limited(part of the reason i joined this forum). Physics is my area of expertise and i find meaning in life studying about things that make universe work, and music allows me the emotional stability to overcome the limitation of my society and continue to live my life the way i wish to.


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## johnfkavanagh

For an alternative take on existentialism, try the existentialist psychotherapists: Viktor Frankl's _Man's Search for Meaning_, Irvin Yalom's _Love's Executioner_ and Ernesto Spinelli's _The Mirror and the Hammer_ are all more positive and humane explorations of existentialist thought.


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## Almaviva

Lenfer said:


> I am a big fan of *Sartre* first discovering him in my early teens. I have re-read his work many times, hopefully understanding it more with each read. I don't want to come off to nhilistic but everyone who has ever been born will die and in all likelihood all life will cease to exist at one point. Don't lose sleep over *Sartre*, long story short enjoy it while you can it won't last long.
> 
> If you like *Sartre* I recommend *Albert Camus* and *Simone de Beauvoir*.


I like all three of them.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Deep, deeper and deepest


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## Guest

This is kind of relevant and highly recommended, from 3 minutes:


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## Guest

You could do a lot worse than listen to this poised and elegant intellectual: he's one of a few concerned with the topic of existentialism at the present time.






This is also very interesting if you have the time and inclination:


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## Larkenfield

An amazing man named Viktor Frankl wrote a book called _Man's Search For Meaning. _ He was a Holocaust survivor and practiced existential analysis. Frankl's insightful book has sold over 10 million copies and been translated into 24 languages. Frankl could have become embittered by his catastrophic experiences and suffering but turned it around and wrote his classic:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009U9S6FI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1522199355674

What I got from Sartre regarding existence in life is like what I got from listening to absolute music without worrying about meaning, context, or a script, or a projection onto someone or concerns about background information, analysis or anything but the direct experience-that it can be enough if one is conscious and present in the moment without leaning on a god. But I never felt that this precluded the existence of a spiritual dimension in life, and I doubt if Frankl did, either.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

the real problem in life is that my hair 98% of the time looks like a dead animal


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## science

Worth bumping, I suppose. Here's a contribution from a guy named Michael Kelly:



> *French Intellectuals to be Deployed in Afghanistan To Convince Taleban of Non-Existence of God*
> 
> The ground war in Afghanistan hotted up yesterday when the Allies revealed plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into the country to destroy the morale of Taleban zealots by proving the non-existence of God.
> 
> Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or 'Black Berets', will be parachuted into the combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential anomie among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual battles fought during their long occupation of Paris's Left Bank, their first action will be to establish a number of pavement cafes at strategic points near the front lines. There they will drink coffee and talk animatedly about the absurd nature of life and man's lonely isolation in the universe. They will be accompanied by a number of heartbreakingly beautiful girlfriends who will further spread dismay by sticking their tongues in the philosophers' ears every five minutes and looking remote and unattainable to everyone else.
> 
> Their leader, Colonel Marc-Ange Belmondo, spoke yesterday of his confidence in the success of their mission. Sorbonne graduate Belmondo, a very intense and unshaven young man in a black pullover, gesticulated wildly and said, "The Taleban are caught in a logical fallacy of the most ridiculous. There is no God and I can prove it. Take your tongue out of my ear, Juliet, I am talking."
> 
> Marc-Ange plans to deliver an impassioned thesis on man's nauseating freedom of action with special reference to the work of Foucault and the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
> 
> However, humanitarian agencies have been quick to condemn the operation as inhumane, pointing out that the effects of passive smoking from the Frenchmens' endless Gitanes could wreak a terrible toll on civilians in the area.
> 
> Speculation was mounting last night that Britain may also contribute to the effort by dropping Professor Stephen Hawking into Afghanistan to propagate his non-deistic theory of the creation of the universe.
> 
> Other tactics to demonstrate the non-existence of God will include the dropping of leaflets pointing out the fact that Michael Jackson has a new album out and Oprah Winfrey has not died yet.
> 
> This is only one of several Psy-Ops operations mounted by the Allies to undermine the unswerving religious fanaticism that fuels the Taleban's fighting spirit. Pentagon sources have recently confirmed rumours that America has already sent in a 200-foot-tall robot Jesus, which roams the Taleban front lines glowing eerily and shooting flames out of its fingers while saying, 'I am the way, the truth and the life, follow me or die.' However, plans to have the giant Christ kick the crap out of a slightly effeminate 80-foot Mohammed in central Kabul were discarded as insensitive to Muslim allies.


I'll never forget the line, "Take your tongue out of my ear, Juliet, I am talking."

This is what my mental furniture is like.


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## ST4

Religion/Occult, Science, Philosophy, Practical experience/techniques, use it all. There is so much to learn from so many fields, all as relevant as each other each with their own biases. We will likely never know everything but that is what truly makes us human, is that we are always left speculating. The great mystery of life is perhaps what makes life so real. 
All those areas of study, all have so many opposite directions of opinion, ideology, system, analysis etc, existentialism is the thing that opens us up to really gaining something out of this, on a personal level. 
Existential crisis' are definitely scary experiences, particularly when you lean down the pessimistic altruism path - which is interesting in philosophical hypothetical situations to study but is just a path of self-destruction.


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## Capeditiea

ST4 said:


> Religion/Occult, Science, Philosophy, Practical experience/techniques, use it all. There is so much to learn from so many fields, all as relevant as each other each with their own biases. We will likely never know everything but that is what truly makes us human, is that we are always left speculating. The great mystery of life is perhaps what makes life so real.
> All those areas of study, all have so many opposite directions of opinion, ideology, system, analysis etc, existentialism is the thing that opens us up to really gaining something out of this, on a personal level.
> Existential crisis' are definitely scary experiences, particularly when you lean down the pessimistic altruism path - which is interesting in philosophical hypothetical situations to study but is just a path of self-destruction.


:O are you sure you are not a capeditiean?


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## ST4

Capeditiea said:


> :O are you sure you are not a capeditiean?


Never heard of it, but I see that it's an actual thing?


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## Capeditiea

ST4 said:


> Never heard of it, but I see that it's an actual thing?


most folk don't *nods, it is really an amazing experience, everyone is secretly a capeditiean... they just haven't gained enough experience yet.  it is like the last step on a ladder where there are beasts that are gnawing at the lower part of the ladder, which as you probably guessed it, hungry... 
certain folk can consider them inflicted by the curse of greyface, or the demons of hell, perhaps the deep ones... their forms are quite ambiguous but they really are scary... so you keep climbing to the top and boom you are face to face with the overlords whom are from the Ursa Major... and they teach you a few things. thusly you find several schisms have already occured with in the spaces of the internet.  which you find that those around you are so many steps below you... and they are progressing like snails or turtles... i would say sloths but sloths are super cute...

Later you run into me... the final boss...  i grant thee a task that you learn who i am Eris Sophia Capeditiea... and suddenly you accidently become enlightened.  which later you are wondering what happened... and you realize something is wrong and a tree starts randomly growing from your pinky toe.

Doctors all around are enamoured by this. You simply cut the tree off... but then the tree keeps growing... thusly later you find that some other human starts climbing on your pinky toe tree...


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## Desafinado

As far as I'm concerned the realization that life is meaningless is when _it all begins_. What a life you'd have if you spent the entire time shrouded in dogma.

The real problem with having this kind of knowledge is boredom, if anything.


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