Introduction: The Pursuit of Happiness and the Meaning of Life by celticcracker on Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:09 pm
Rightio, guys! Welcome to my world! It's great in here, albeit the landscapes may appear a little cerebral and neurotic sometimes. I lead the fine young life of an Irish student. Yes, student life is... well, chaotic. Effective organisation is always precluded by the necessities of student life (i.e. sleeping erratic hours, inconsistently meeting inconsistent deadlines, and an all-round simultaneous lack of planning and spontaneity). I am doing what I love (that's binge-reading on metaphysics and critical theory and writing highfalutin essays on it all), and even if it doesn't make me happy, that's okay, because I'm doing the right thing with my life right now. Clarity helps.
Happiness (whatever it is) is a thoroughly overused term these days. Why on earth should I be happy just because I have everything and my life is pretty darn good?! 'Erm... perhaps because you have everything and your life is pretty darn good...?' This is called circular reasoning, a logical fallacy. In fact, the entire pursuit of happiness in itself is both illogical and pointless. For a fact, nothing makes me happy. Ought I be stricken now by an avalanche of guilt? Not really. It's okay to feel whatever you feel and it is absolutely ridiculous to feel what someone else (or society, in fact) tells you to feel, because that's even more absurd that not feeling good, when life's good. In fact, the pursuit of happiness makes people depressed, because it's cheating logic and breaking down the faculties we rely on to make clear distinctions between things!
I like my life. I don't like my depression. I live life with depression. I do not live a depressed life. When I am really depressed I am not living my life, but this has nothing to do with my life and everything to do with my depression. It is important when I am very depressed to never wish my depression to end, because this would mean ending my life. And I like my life. It is much more likable than my depression. It only makes sense to say, then, that I like my life more than I can ever dislike my depression, because depression requires life in order to exist and wishing my life to end because it will end my depression is completely absurd, because it denies the origin of depression, which is not life, but absurdity. Yes, depression is absurd, but life is not and in order to affirm what is true and meaningful (i.e. the fact that depression is absurd) we must affirm life.
Of course, it may appear to be problematic when philosophers say that life is absurd and melancholia is a natural reaction to the absurdity of life. This may be true (and if it is it becomes difficult to distinguish depression from life), but even these philosophers find a way of affirming life, even if only in spite. For Camus, absurdity must be affirmed because our lucidity is the basis of all that we have. According to him, we must continue to push the boulder up the hill knowing it will fall back down, because acknowledging the pointlessness of this task liberates us to accept it. For Kierkegaard, it is defiance: rejection of help or escape which gives us strength to be our own and endure. For Nietzsche, life, suffering and all the tragedy in the world must be relished in order to rise above the adversity of slavery and become masters of ourselves through strength and creativity.
Self Hatred by hoping4answers on Sun May 06, 2012 4:58 pm
I find that my hardest days are days like today where I wake up just loathing myself. From the moment my eyes open the flood of negative thoughts drown out any positive I can see. In these times even my children laughing and smiling outside my bedroom door cause me tears. I feel alone, which is hard to do when you live with five other people but there it is. I can never seem to pin point just why some days the pain is so overwhelming and all consuming that lasting the next five minutes seems impossible. I am worthless, unloved, and discarded. These are the thoughts that are an unending cycle in my mind. The more I attempt to distract myself from these thoughts the more invading they seem. Any advice out there?
WTF? by asoulfragmented on Sat Oct 19, 2013 9:48 am
Mood: Exhausted Listening to: Blake Shelton - Sure be cool if you did It is one of those nights where I cannot get my mind to shut up. I am so sleepy but alas it manages to escape me. Racing thoughts and the like, This is my first time online today and it is 4:45 am so I guess that would technically mean that I was not online at all yesterday. I have not been able to focus enough on one thing to read a book. That is very stressful as reading is an outlet for me, I have my youtube playlist playing on shuffle so I don't even have to make a decision about a song cause right now my mind won't let me even think on it enough. I thought coming on here and writing for a bit would make me feel better or at least give me something to do but even now it is difficult to focus enough not to stray the subject. I love music there is rarely a time in my life that music is not playing. I listen to just about every genre I can think of with the exception of polka. Lately when I try to go to sleep paranoia takes over, it seems like the moment I become "still" the $#%^ hits the fan so to speak. Paranoia,agitation, conversations in my head with more than one voice. WTF? I moved across the country and have yet to see a therapist or mental health professional for that matter. I have been off meds since roughly June. I sometimes feel like I am watching my life play in front of me like a movie without the option to react. I mean my body is reacting but I am not, what the hell is that about? The other night I went to bed around 3 am to try to sleep but the moment I stopped listening to music and reading articles online and settled down in my bed with the lights off it got ugly. First the paranoia set in, it was extreme. I felt like I was screaming inside my mind but no sounds escaped me. It seemed endless then a soft little crying voice was in my head like a thought but not my thought. Then the weirdest thing happened.... I got this mental image of a little girl crying holding a teddy bear curled up in a corner. I don't know how I knew but the little girls name is Sophia and she is 6. I have never seen this little girl before so how would I know her in my mind? Let me say this, My name is not Sophia and I have never personally met anyone by that name. After the image of the little girl left the "screaming" in my head started back up. I don't know.... I am lost and not sure what is going on. After that night I called and made an appointment with a dr in the new town I am in. I am nervous about going to a new dr, I do not trust easily and I don't know if I can open up to them. 
What Now? by shortsnorts on Mon May 19, 2014 11:19 pm
So, my step brother took the plea. What now? What happens next? I have been preparing for the worst, and now I'm suppose to be happy? I don't understand.
Fighting. by shortsnorts on Mon Jul 21, 2014 6:00 am
I am a victim of sexual abuse. Most of my previous posts were usually pretty short and very vague about my situation. They were mainly used for ranting, so I didn't expect anyone to read them. Then, I began to realize from being on this website, that this would be a safe enviornment to talk about things. So, here it goes; I am a teen girl, who began getting sexually abused by my step brother in the seventh grade. It went on for two years, until I finally told my mom, which she refused to do any thing, because she didn't want to leave her boyfriend. I am now living with my Dad, and my mom and her boyfriend are now married. The last couple years have been a huge roller coaster of events, from my maternal grandmother dying, my Dad getting custody over me, my little sister getting beaten by my mom, and me finding the two things that I have eternally fallen in love with; Zachary and roller derby. I want my junior year to be the mark of my synapse. I know I still have a long way to go, and I will still have troubles ahead, but this time, I will fight.
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