mumbo jumbo

[mo_faux]

i can distinctly remember one time, when i was about 10 years old, experiencing a flash of sudden awareness which led to my initial understanding of the absurdity of human existence. the catalyst for said epiphany was watching lipstick, bold bright red, being applied to a woman's lips in no unusual fashion. for whatever reason it struck me as both

Comments

[mo_faux]

ah, guess i should've been more clear with the "this sounds more depressing than intended" part, and my entire post in general. i was seriously just rambling. in actuality, i find a lot of comfort in my very firm belief in existentialism. turns out i really LIKE having epiphanies, and i tend to have them pretty often, so it works out fairly well. i had my first extended existentialist crises of sorts first semester last year and it definitely shook me, but not necessarily in a bad way. it was just so intense and so real, two things which can be hard to come by these days. as a natural born skeptic, i'd never been so convinced of anything before in my entire life, and that just blew my mind. you could even call it a religious experience, but that'd probably lead to some confusion, so don't do it.

i certainly don't want to kill myself. i'm not here wallowing in self-pity and depression. i agree with what we're talking about in philosophy this week, epicurus, which basically claims there's nothing to fear in death, because in death there is nothing. no sense-perception, at least. we can't waste away our lives dwelling on the inevitability of death, something we cannot truly prepare for and won't experience (i mean, eventually we'll all experience the act of dying in some way, but not death itself, in my opinion). he also asserts death will be much like our existence prior to conception in the womb, aka before we even existed, and i tend to agree. i think that's the closest description to my interpretation/prediction of death i've come across. i don't know how this got so morbid. wtf. seriously, i promise i'm a relatively content human being, i just come off as a cynical douche sometimes. it's the realist in me, i suppose.

i like your last paragraph in this comment, particularly the last sentence. it sums up the positive and completely-freeing side of my existential realizations. seeing the world and life as they are: gritty, real, and open to individual interpretation, is definitely not an entirely bad thing. sure, stuff sucks sometimes, but i could never buy into the whole "ignorance is bliss" notion. while that's fine for some people, i'm sure, for me the search for truth is of ultimate importance. i may never reach any kind of universal truths, because i, too, doubt their existence, but forming my own understanding of the universe is a very driving force in my life. i sound like...a really pretentious hippie? writing about philosophy never works out particularly well for me, but i plan to continue doing it, if only for my own benefit.

related sidenote: last night, right before you came over to nate's, i decided (my new, working summary of) the meaning of life is simply "to be happy without infringing upon the happiness of others"

i'll probably re-read your post again later and may add mo'. who knows?

[thebeatpoetess]

I've been finding comfort in science, and I don't see why people feel that it's so threatening. Honestly, the idea that everything we experience was the result of some perfect accident, and that the world we live in now is a result of billions of years of morphing and molding to its present shape--that all seems really miraculous to me.

And there's the fact that by the laws of science, energy never dies, it just changes its form. That's why Einstein believed in life after death. I don't know if I would term it that, because "life" denotes sensory perception, but it makes me think of that scene in I Heart Huckabees when Jason Schwartzman and Mark Wahlberg are hitting each other with the ball and they become like the rock and just sort of be. To quote Aldous Huxley:
"According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet."

It's sort of the idea that our energies are all-knowing in the simple state of being. I guess in a strange way you can equate that with non-existence, I don't know. Basically, I like the idea of our energies always being recycled and of there being a pure state of existence in non-existence after death, but I could live with (no pun intended) the Epicurus theory too that there's just nothing after death as there was nothing pre-natally--either way there isn't anything to be afraid of. It really doesn't seem morbid to me.

Ideas of Heaven and Hell just seem so foreign to me now, and I feel more and more inclined to just laugh at Christians these days.

I like your definition of the meaning of life. You don't sound like a pretentious hippie, either, you sound like a Dharma Bum--we both do, in fact--and I'm excited to take that Buddhism class with you next semester, because we both seem to love this stuff.

[mo_faux]

whether the universe exists was created by a "perfect accident" or precisely and consciously by some divine being(s), i still say it's supernatural.

i am as close to certain as i'll ever be that heaven and hell do not and cannot exist. admittedly, i don't know as much about the bible and christianity as i probably should, but of what little i do know, most of it seems hypocritical, or outdated (i feel like basic religious doctrines shouldn't really go out of style and be re-written and disputed ad naseum), and, perhaps most importantly, downright impossible, even beyond just the science of it. i have, however, already ranted/questioned/theorized about the subject of what i shall now call "the impossibilities of most organized religions (specifically christianity) and why i think they are poop" quite a bit once before in a facebook note, which i know you deleted quite some time ago. still, it's there should you ever decide to re-join teh internet life. claire and i actually had an amazing conversation based on it over the summer, just because it served as a semi-controversial and very disjointed springboard for discussion (much like, say, THIS)

...which reminds me of something else that i've mentioned before-- if and when there is a SAS reuinion i feel like we should/could make it a bit more broad. it wouldn't have to be structured discussions or anything like that, but i'd be interested to find out where people stand on (un)certain issues like religion, politics, metaphysics, current events, whatever. uh and we could watch "thinking" movies, too. or highly-acclaimed foreign films that i've been meaning to get around to seeing. i love shit like that, even if i may not be the most knowledgeable or best debater...how better to grow intellectually than with my very smart, hip, interesting, deep friends over a bottle of wine (except none for me because i don't like the stuff, but you get the idea). i went parenthesis CRAZZZZYYYY up there, my b, i'll chalk it up to being easily excitable when it comes to correspondences like this. no lie, they make me all giddy. remember that time (when you od'd for a second time?), when nate and dan had that uber controversial but respectful and well-argued debate last semester? it was lunch, i think, and dan gave reasons for why he refuses to vote while nate tried to convince him to embrace his suffrage rights. i was barely involved (you and i threw in our two cents saying something along the lines of voting democrat, at the moment, is kind of necessary just to get the neo-cons out of the white house), but i still felt invigorated afterward. like it was a real and intelligent college experience. just what i wanted (and, truthfully, expected more of) from our school.

the thing with taking this philosophy course is that it's shifting my beliefs twice a week. i'm hoping that by the end i'll be able to further develop and take away my very own conglomerate of ancient beliefs and combine them with what i already know (or believe. but, to some, what's the difference, really?). on one hand i realize that waxing philosophical is, in a way, pointless. there's no real tangible result from thinking deep thoughts. still, it is human nature to question, and is in fact what separates us from other animals-- our ability and need to reason.

i haven't read the dharma bums. i should. the buddhism course has the potential to be the best thing of all time. you, me, nate, julia, dan, cvw, tex, and i believe zach have all expressed a pretty serious interest in the course. i can't even imagine what that would be like...absolutely LUDICROUS, probably. it might be overwhelming to be surrounded by so many awesome people, have the course taught by one of my favorite profs (despite her challenging classes), and discuss an endlessly fascinating topic. weeee!

my comments on my own lj may be getting out of hand...

[mo_faux]

whoops. forgot to expound upon that first sentence. oh well, the last post is plenty long as is, but for some quick clarification...

what i mean by supernatural: "not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws"

based on that definition, i can't think of any non-supernatural explanations for the creation of the universe. it always seems to lead back to the question of "well then where/when/how did THAT come into being?" whether it be God or the sun or atoms or thoughts or everything and anything at all...it had to start somewhere, according to basic logic and natural laws, but no matter how scientific i try to be, i continually end up with a big "well NO ONE knows that," and i don't think anyone ever can or will, and we're probably not meant (ps- fuck meaning. i'm not even touching on WHY we're here and what our purpose is, just who or what made all this? it all seems so impossible, but empirical knowledge is the only thing i can rely on and prove, and it tells me i exist and so does the universe but howwww?! it's so goddamn maddening!). anyway, i think i just typed long enough to convince me that there may be a higher power of some sort so it's time to stop before i spin myself in more circles.

[thebeatpoetess]

Yeah, no matter where you stand, it always seems to come back to a supernatural explanation. The Big Bang theory (which seems to have a reputation as the most atheistic theory for existence out there, maybe I'm wrong) claims something along the lines of, "The universe started in one ball of matter, which exploded/came apart, blah blah blah," and of course that begs the question, "Well, who/what the hell put the ball out there in the middle of nothingness?" So yeah, I've just convinced myself that there's a higher power too, so, yay. As far as purpose goes, I don't know. The existentialism in me says there's no such thing.

I like your ideas for SAS--I think incorporating philosophy and such things could be, to use a Dan phrase, mad cool. I could really use your help as far as SAS goes, however, because it seems like everyone's pretty much ready for it to start, but I lack motivation these days--plus, we're good at planning things together. I think as a whole group we've talked and speculated long enough, and it's time to just go ahead and start having meetings. It's just a matter of who (new freshmen members?)/when/where/how.

What are you doing tonight? I'm calling you now.