The problem with capitalism is that it has no concern for the good life. It just wants growth. It wants interstellar imperialism at all costs. Unfortunately, it seems that my occupation is no different. They want more sales with less people. I can't tell if they are hollowing it out on purpose or that is just the nature of things right now but I don't like it. I want to sit at the patio with my friends on a Wednesday night and not feel a heaviness from the rush, the hectic, frantic day. I was overcharged, over-cooked. There were sparks and not good ones. I do not want this.
I don't want to obsess about the good life but I don't want to be stuck in the bare life either. How are you doing? I'm surviving... Just survive for too long and become undead. I don't care. Eat your vegetables and fruits. Exercise. Meditate. Whatever dude. There is more to life than just survivin'. I am not even talking about yachts and private jets. Fuck that. A flourishing spirit. Individual activities, patios, the Other. Not being so god damn rushed all the time.
Everyone is different. Everyone may have a different conception of the good life. We've been discussing this stuff since the Greeks and probably earlier. The problem is people caught up in the whirlwind of capitalism don't see it and they most likely never will. The burnt out and the depressives stay there because they don't understand and they never will. They are trying to accelerate even faster when the answer is to slow down and not just slow down so one can accelerate even faster the next trip. I know all this and I still get caught up in it all. Philosophy is a luxury and a leisure experience. People working 60 hours+ a week have no time for it. It's hard to truly digest it after a slammed day even if one has all night. What fits better is whatever is easiest and will get one through the time and duration away from work in order for work performance to improve. That's not philosophy. I read about the good life and go shit I have to get away from work somehow. Somehow I need to slow down and not try to one-up my perfect score from yesterday. How do I beat 100/100? Why do I feel like shit? I'm survivin' though.....
I want madness and passion in my love. Not just pleasant feelings. I want to risk my life. I don't want to just take my medicines and work away my life as a slave. It really seems like there is no way out. Is playing the guitar and going down to a patio enough? I've been accumulating money but there is always a fear there. Since I don't make a whole lot it kind of always feels like I am in a precarious position. But, should my goal be to max the limit on how much I am making? That is a scared slave survivin' position.
A friend of mine showed up at the patio yesterday and I have never seen someone so depressed in my life. I'm surprised he could even make it out. He said he hasn't experienced joy in 8 months and just works and goes home and stares at the wall. I shared some of my own experiences but he didn't seem to give a shit. Just said his life is over, etc. The only thing he seemed interested in was I suggested he watch Melancholia by Lars Von Trier. He didn't seem to want to kill himself but he did wish he was dead. I thought suggesting Cioran The Trouble with Being Born might have been going too far but that book has helped me with multiple depressions. The emphasis of his problems would be that he has no one in his life and he feels like an outcast. I was trying to suggest that the remedy to that would be to slowly get people in his life and then he would no longer feel like an outcast but he is in total despair. It's a tricky situation because it is tough to go from outcast to not outcast. Any suggestions on how to help this guy are welcome.
everyone i know that is living on benefits and are "free" are depressed as shit too and I don't think it has anything to do with not having much extra money. Even I got a volunteer job and I'm feeling much better. That plus gym.
What depressed people want most is understanding. Advice rarely helps, unless there's been a lot of understanding prior to that. There is not much to say to your friend, except that if he wants to talk you're there.
Going deeper into depression like Cioran did can be a good thing if you have the mental resilience and spiritual depth, but for some it can just make them lose their minds. It's not always possible to know what type of person the guy is.
Anything that can take us out of ourselves and our thoughts can help. Volunteering is a very good option for a depressive.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
On July 30 2022 06:28 CurbStomp2 wrote:
everyone i know that is living on benefits and are "free" are depressed as shit too and I don't think it has anything to do with not having much extra money. Even I got a volunteer job and I'm feeling much better. That plus gym.
Being retired is closer to free unless you have to live in a closet and eat cat food to survive. Being on benefits is trapped. I am happy that you are feeling better. Volunteer and gym will definitely do that.
On July 30 2022 07:23 Loco wrote:
What depressed people want most is understanding. Advice rarely helps, unless there's been a lot of understanding prior to that. There is not much to say to your friend, except that if he wants to talk you're there.
Going deeper into depression like Cioran did can be a good thing if you have the mental resilience and spiritual depth, but for some it can just make them lose their minds. It's not always possible to know what type of person the guy is.
Anything that can take us out of ourselves and our thoughts can help. Volunteering is a very good option for a depressive.
I did the best I could to understand him and I understand why he is depressed. Lost his mom, doesn't have anyone (family/girlfriend), he's over dating because of bad experiences (he blames not drinking), works too much, feels like an outcast, etc.
I mostly listened but I did suggest the movie and I suggested doing something different experience wise. Volunteering is a good suggestion.
I asked if he's seen a doctor and he said the doctor didn't listen and just wanted to poison him with pills so I didn't counter that especially because I believe him when he says it's a situational thing. He's 46. Getting older. He seemed humiliated that he couldn't lift a 40 lb bag or something the other day. Works, works, works, and then goes home to his dead mom's old house with nothing to do and no hope.
I didn't actually suggest the Cioran.
Oh well, it's not the first depressive person I have been in contact with and probably won't be the last so it's good to maybe be of some help because I've been depressed enough times to know that it's awful. Never been depressed 8 months so I felt a little inept.
On July 30 2022 09:42 Stroggoz wrote:
Tell him that people with ADHD are narcissistic and that Baal is on the autism spectrum. Then say you practice misinformation as art.
How much for you to go through Byung-Chul Han's entire library and point out the misinformation?
His library is probably less than 1,500 pages.
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PoorUser United States. Jul 30 2022 20:44. Posts 7471
Could tell him to see a psychologist instead. His comment seems like that would be a better fit for him. Sharing your experience with therapy might help. Getting him to do stuff with you/others without making him feel like a burden can help. For yourself, I'd just make sure not to make the entirety of his mental health your responsibility, which it seems like you haven't.
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Stroggoz New Zealand. Jul 30 2022 20:58. Posts 5329
On July 30 2022 09:42 Stroggoz wrote:
Tell him that people with ADHD are narcissistic and that Baal is on the autism spectrum. Then say you practice misinformation as art.
How much for you to go through Byung-Chul Han's entire library and point out the misinformation?
His library is probably less than 1,500 pages.
I havn't spent more than about 2 minutes on his work and i'm a very slow reader. I just have a reflex reaction whenever i see a lie. I'm not sure i'f i've ever gotten through a Jordan Peterson video, (who admittedly makes me about 30x more mad than Byung does). I remember watching one of JP's video and someone asked him about climate change and he straight up lied and said "no one knows what to do about it". I mean seriously, there are thousands of suggestions from scientists, engineers, even economists, and he just says that. It's perhaps one the worst lies anyone can say in the world. Far worse than holocaust denial. I almost broke my laptop closing it. The rage is real and those memes about people raging hard typing at their laptop until their fingers are bleeding are basically true for me. Also the futurama meme about not wanting to live on this planet anymore is another one i feel hard.
I'm currently reading a book called Hartshorne (algebraic geometry). It's taking me 2-10 hours to read every page and its 400 pages long lol. So got a lot on plate haha.
One of 3 non decent human beings on a site of 5 people with between 2-3 decent human beings
It wasn't a lie. Jordan believes what he's saying. It's very clear that he's dug himself into a position where "free-market" capitalism has no alternative, and therefore "we don't know what to do about climate change". It's the softest way of saying that we can't have a solution, because alternative systems would be immediately worse, whereas climate change is more of a distant concern (at least for its worse effects). We also know that he doesn't trust the science around it, he's said things like climate science models are fundamentally inaccurate because the farther away the prediction is the more inaccurate it becomes. He is ideologically committed to this due to his pro-capitalism stance, which he is known to make a lot of profit to advocate for.
Again, there is no comparison here between him and Byung-Chul Han. Han is a counter-cultural thinker, and his thinking is too refined to be able to attract the kind of thoughtless admirers that Jordan profits from. Han is a real philosopher with a genuine concern for love, beauty and truth. People like me who read all of his works aren't doing so because we feel good pretending to understand them, but because we recognize this, and because his works can have a direct impact on the way we live our lives. That's what philosophy used to be about, living well, and encouraging others to live well. Not just making arguments about niche topics and writing papers that 5 people will read.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Last edit: 30/07/2022 23:55
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PuertoRican United States. Jul 31 2022 03:49. Posts 13127
On July 30 2022 19:44 PoorUser wrote:
Could tell him to see a psychologist instead. His comment seems like that would be a better fit for him. Sharing your experience with therapy might help. Getting him to do stuff with you/others without making him feel like a burden can help. For yourself, I'd just make sure not to make the entirety of his mental health your responsibility, which it seems like you haven't.
Yeah, he has to do something. I am not sure he had any fun at the patio. One of the guys was really aggressive with him on AA stuff. Another guy just told him to go to meetings. There was only so much I could say and then I socialized with other people and he just sat there in his own pity party staring at the table. So, it's not in his head entirely. He is currently an outcast but I never considered him an outcast from like 2 years ago. Yeah, I'm concerned about him but definitely don't feel responsible. Although I would be sad obviously if he killed himself. There was a guy I gave a ride home from another job almost every night and we became close and I could tell he had a hard life and plenty of cynicism in him but I had no idea he was depressed. One day I show up to work and find out he shot himself in the bathroom of the grocery store we worked at. I always hoped my own cynicism didn't push him over the edge but I felt like we were both coping with shitty positions. That really tore me up for a while.
All my friends have problems with their selves
We don't talk about it, nothing helps
We tuck it deep inside, so no one can see
Then we think about it later in our fucking dreams
Where are all my friends ?
All my friends are dead
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
On July 30 2022 19:44 PoorUser wrote:
Could tell him to see a psychologist instead. His comment seems like that would be a better fit for him. Sharing your experience with therapy might help. Getting him to do stuff with you/others without making him feel like a burden can help. For yourself, I'd just make sure not to make the entirety of his mental health your responsibility, which it seems like you haven't.
Yeah, he has to do something. I am not sure he had any fun at the patio. One of the guys was really aggressive with him on AA stuff. Another guy just told him to go to meetings. There was only so much I could say and then I socialized with other people and he just sat there in his own pity party staring at the table. So, it's not in his head entirely. He is currently an outcast but I never considered him an outcast from like 2 years ago. Yeah, I'm concerned about him but definitely don't feel responsible. Although I would be sad obviously if he killed himself. There was a guy I gave a ride home from another job almost every night and we became close and I could tell he had a hard life and plenty of cynicism in him but I had no idea he was depressed. One day I show up to work and find out he shot himself in the bathroom of the grocery store we worked at. I always hoped my own cynicism didn't push him over the edge but I felt like we were both coping with shitty positions. That really tore me up for a while.
Talking about stuff that is a bummer still tends to be far better than not touching it at all. That's a rough one though.
I never have the inclination to go super fast on a guitar although that is super impressive mastery level shit. If I had to minimize the amount of songs that inspired me to originally get my guitar they would be:
They have similar themes in that it's similar guitar tones and more emo. One good thing is that my guitar and amp has similar tone. Not good for going heavy at all but also good for the Cream songs that my instructor keeps giving me.
Guitar is an interesting form of expression and I am glad I have it but at times it is frustrating because I can't fully express myself through that medium yet like I can with painting or writing songs or singing or screaming.
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