well this is the 5th time I've revised this comment because that's a real good point and you did get me thinking about this.
but I still think that whatever happens in anyones life is what will happen, and i don't really see how that's arguable unless you want to go into parallel universes that contain chance variations. I'm not talking about some divine predetermined purpose. and it doesn't mean that it's OK theres suffering in the world or that we should just accept it. and it doesn't mean we should stop working towards a better world. although I admire your relentlessness to that issue.
but you're right about the whole 'being frantic' thing i was saying. i don't have to struggle to stay alive, so that's just my thing i guess. and i was not keeping super underprivileged people in mind in that respect. (after all, they don't have computers to read my livejournal.) i was thinking more about a lot of people who are always worrying about the state of their lives, when they should just chill out.
but i think depending on pointing at all the impoverished of the worlds to disprove some ideas is a cop out. i don't know specifically what you've argued against, but a lot of ideas can coexist with suffering. there's meaning in suffering that shouldn't be discredited. and we owe it to those people to acknowledge the meaning in their life.
You're right in the sense that we're given the life we have at birth, and thus there are certain elements of that life that we're stuck with: parents, location you grow up in, genes. I'm not one to get into the quantum mechanic implications of it all, since there's so little known about them, either.
I guess I agree that there are a lot of people out there though, who ARE going to be okay if relatively bad things happen, and are still frantic about their daily life, at the expense of their quality of life, and health.
My thing is that I see a lot of people applying similar ideas on a universal level. Or ideas about perservering through the hard times and seeing a brighter day at the end of it. Those are the kinds of things that kind of make my blood boil, as they tend to compare their own suffering to those in incomparable situations. I didn't mean to negate what you were saying, especially since you weren't making a blanket statement about how one ought to live.
but I still think that whatever happens in anyones life is what will happen, and i don't really see how that's arguable unless you want to go into parallel universes that contain chance variations. I'm not talking about some divine predetermined purpose.
and it doesn't mean that it's OK theres suffering in the world or that we should just accept it. and it doesn't mean we should stop working towards a better world. although I admire your relentlessness to that issue.
but you're right about the whole 'being frantic' thing i was saying. i don't have to struggle to stay alive, so that's just my thing i guess. and i was not keeping super underprivileged people in mind in that respect. (after all, they don't have computers to read my livejournal.) i was thinking more about a lot of people who are always worrying about the state of their lives, when they should just chill out.
but i think depending on pointing at all the impoverished of the worlds to disprove some ideas is a cop out. i don't know specifically what you've argued against, but a lot of ideas can coexist with suffering. there's meaning in suffering that shouldn't be discredited. and we owe it to those people to acknowledge the meaning in their life.
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I guess I agree that there are a lot of people out there though, who ARE going to be okay if relatively bad things happen, and are still frantic about their daily life, at the expense of their quality of life, and health.
My thing is that I see a lot of people applying similar ideas on a universal level. Or ideas about perservering through the hard times and seeing a brighter day at the end of it. Those are the kinds of things that kind of make my blood boil, as they tend to compare their own suffering to those in incomparable situations. I didn't mean to negate what you were saying, especially since you weren't making a blanket statement about how one ought to live.
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