Reasons why life isn't just a dreadful trudge toward death

[Treedbear]

....

... But an honest engineer would say that design is a process of trial and error including a fair amount of random brainstorming. Not something an omniscient being would need to bother with. But that is the creative process, and for me that provides the purpose that leads to happiness.

I was with you until the last sentence. To me, the fact that evolution has produced something as complex and self-aware as human beings is certainly amazing, but above all else it is tragic. We have emerged from a fully natural process with the ability to reflect upon it, and in doing so we find that it has burdened us with a great many needs that can never be satisfied. Evolution has made us into beings that long for significance, permanence, and security, because our ancestors survived long enough to reproduce by chasing those things. The universe does not provide any of them, quite the opposite in fact. So, from the get go, we have to deal with the fact that our most basic desires as conscious organisms are destined to be frustrated over and over again. If we hadn't developed our wonderful intelligent brains, we wouldn't have to endure the depression and anxiety that usually accompanies this realization. So much human activity (and as I said earlier, so many of the good things in life) is essentially our way of coping with how reality falls far short of what it has "engineered" us to want.

I think what you're saying is that it's not so much the fact that life is largely struggle, it's that we have become aware of it as such. Our culture has come up with a uniquely human work-around called religion. The idea that it's all worth it in the end. Especially with regard to the individual's inevitable death. So there are those who find comfort in faith and there's the small minority who are unwilling to compromise in the search for truth. Both paths serve as a way to reduce anxiety and no doubt both serve some current purpose in society. I believe the latter is the more noble and certainly entails some sacrifice. The best solution I've found for depression (aside from my daily dose of wine) is on forums like this in which I find the company of others striving for the same goals. Society needs to find other outlets for this kind of need other than by reliving Restrepo.

 

[Speakpigeon]

It's just a bad case of over-thinking. If the restaurant doesn't propose chicken it's not use ordering chicken with ketchup.
EB

The analogy is not quite apt, because not everybody is born craving chicken, and there are may be other restaurants that serve it. My point is that we are all predisposed to chase the things that reality either cannot provide (permanence) or is actively in the process of destroying (security, health, order, contentment). We can train ourselves to forego our psychological attachment to these things, but it's not easy and may be impossible to fully acheive. Perhaps a restaurant that doesn't serve water located in the middle of a desert would be a better comparison. Patrons might be able to settle for the warm milk on offer eventually, but it doesn't make the situation any less crappy.

I'm sure warm milk feels heavenly for the truly thirsty. Me I think people tend to slip into shoddy lives through carelessness. If life is not difficult enough for you to feel that warm milk is made in heaven then just get up and do more challenging things. Seeking a comfortable life is just an instance of keeping up with the Joneses as if it was a worthy goal in life.
EB

 

[Perspicuo]

Two reasons:

1) Life is amazing.
2) The opportunity to love and be loved... the fact that if I died I would be terribly missed always made me go on when I was in the depths of depression feeling worth=0.

 

[ronburgundy]

There very fact that you can worry about the meaning and inevitable end to your life is amazing and something to be happy about. Related to Genesis' point about consciousness, not only is their infinite things to ponder, but your ability to ponder is remarkable and a rare improbable occurrence in the Universe. Don't waste it either by being too depressed to bother or by forming irrational feel-good beliefs (e.g., religion) in order to eliminate all the uncertainties about which you can ponder.

Also, the OP asks "What are our reasons to be happy, hopeful, filled with gratitude?" I think there is a widespread error underlying that question, which pairs happy and hopeful as though they go together. A common and unhealthy way many try to manufacture happiness is by being "hopeful", which refers to a future-focused outlook where you are not finding happiness in the present and only holding out that things will become something worth being happy about. They won't. If you can't find a basis for happiness in the present, you won't find it in a tomorrow either. You'll just keep holding out for the next tomorrow. Such hope is self-delusional. Nothing magical is going to happen to change the world in any fundamental way that would give reason to be happy where none currently exists.

Combining these two ideas of finding happiness in the present and in your own consciousness leads to a kind of simplistic hedonism where there is no need for things to have any "meaning" or "purpose". They simple sensory experiences of everyday life and the feelings they provoke are more than enough, plus they are so easy to obtain (just wake up) that you are never without that which can make you happy and its doesn't require any particular thing or other person.

Some people might mistake this for a kind of Eastern spiritualism, but it is really the opposite of spiritualism. The whole notion of "spirit" refers to some presumed thing that is unseen, beyond, more than, and/or higher than what is in front of you. There is nothing more. It is about appreciating what is visible in front of you and below you and that we ignore because it seems too "mundane". In fact, "mundus" is Latin for "the world", and "mundane" means both "of this world" and "boring, lacking excitement". That speaks volumes to our unhealthy "spiritual" mindset and the source of so much misery.

 

[rousseau]

I think the above pretty much sums up where I'm at. The present moment is all we have, so might as well enjoy it.

I'd add that if you're particularly well equipped to navigate life's challenges, and were lucky enough to be born into a wealthy nation, then living is more often than not actually pretty fun.

- Spending your afternoon cooking your family dinner
- Trying new beers on a patio downtown
- Going for a walk in the sun
- Exceeding people's expectations of how a person should behave
- Communicating and sharing ideas
- Personal intimacy
- Witnessing the development of civilization
- Being able to look deep into the past
- Being able to understand the universe

And on and on.

To add to that I also really liked the summation of how physiological stability is really the defining point of happiness. There isn't really a consistent 'reality' so to speak, there is just various realities that we experience depending on how good we feel at any given moment. A rich depressive might hate his life, a poor optimist might love theirs. We're material beings and our orientation depends quite a lot on the nature of our system at any given time.

Going even further, having something of a universal perspective myself has added quite a bit of depth to my life. The realization that my life, in the grand scheme of things, is ultimately not really that important is actually way more liberating than depressing for me. It's allowed me to take my time less seriously, not more. It's allowed me to sit on a park-bench and watch the sunset for an hour. It's allowed me to avoid the usual rituals and routines of 21st century life. It's given me an individualism that's allowed me to spend my time, to a large extent, how I want.

 

[PyramidHead]

There very fact that you can worry about the meaning and inevitable end to your life is amazing and something to be happy about.

I disagree, and I would be interested in knowing why you think existential angst is amazing.

 

[rousseau]

There very fact that you can worry about the meaning and inevitable end to your life is amazing and something to be happy about.

I disagree, and I would be interested in knowing why you think existential angst is amazing.

I took it to mean that it implies that you are actually experiencing your existence. We are the only animal with the cognitive capacity to imagine both our past and our future.

Whether that's a good thing is debatable, but I'd agree that it is, at least compared to the alternatives, which are basically either having no sense of self, or death.

 

[Perspicuo]

If there is someone who knows how to keep alive while having every motivation to quit at it, it's suicidal people.
So, if you want to know good reasons to stay alive, ask suicidals: https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080521110540AA5XG6Q

The summary: They didn't take their own lives because of connections, i.e. loved ones, according to most answers.

 

[rousseau]

I think the above pretty much sums up where I'm at. The present moment is all we have, so might as well enjoy it.

I'd add that if you're particularly well equipped to navigate life's challenges, and were lucky enough to be born into a wealthy nation, then living is more often than not actually pretty fun.

- Spending your afternoon cooking your family dinner
- Trying new beers on a patio downtown
- Going for a walk in the sun
- Exceeding people's expectations of how a person should behave
- Communicating and sharing ideas
- Personal intimacy
- Witnessing the development of civilization
- Being able to look deep into the past
- Being able to understand the universe

And on and on.

To add to that I also really liked the summation of how physiological stability is really the defining point of happiness. There isn't really a consistent 'reality' so to speak, there is just various realities that we experience depending on how good we feel at any given moment. A rich depressive might hate his life, a poor optimist might love theirs. We're material beings and our orientation depends quite a lot on the nature of our system at any given time.

Going even further, having something of a universal perspective myself has added quite a bit of depth to my life. The realization that my life, in the grand scheme of things, is ultimately not really that important is actually way more liberating than depressing for me. It's allowed me to take my time less seriously, not more. It's allowed me to sit on a park-bench and watch the sunset for an hour. It's allowed me to avoid the usual rituals and routines of 21st century life. It's given me an individualism that's allowed me to spend my time, to a large extent, how I want.

All in all, though, for most people being alive is inherently a challenge. We're thrown into the game and are forced to play it, and if we don't play it things can get pretty bad. And that's why many have a tendency for anxiety and depression, because life by definition is a series of problems you need to solve before you die. So the thought that one can just be endlessly content despite the competitive nature of the world is probably a bit optimistic, if not unrealistic. Eventually hard shit will come down the line and we'll have to push through it.

 

[ronburgundy]

I disagree, and I would be interested in knowing why you think existential angst is amazing.

I took it to mean that it implies that you are actually experiencing your existence. We are the only animal with the cognitive capacity to imagine both our past and our future.

Whether that's a good thing is debatable, but I'd agree that it is, at least compared to the alternatives, which are basically either having no sense of self, or death.

rousseau pretty much got what I was going for. It isn't so much that fear of death is "amazing" but that this fear and your awareness of your mortality only arise because of your self-awareness and cognitive abilities to reason and predict the future (in which we all will die). There may not be another species in the Universe capable of it in the way we are, and our species is a breif blip in time that will be gone eventually. So, it is rather improbably amazing that you are here not only existing but aware of your existence and it the reality of its temporal nature.

In addition, the human ability to learn from experiences and combine them into abstract concepts and reason about them, means that every person is shaped in infinite ways by every single random event in each moment of their lives, to a degree that is also beyond what is true for other living things. Even if you have an identical twin or if someone clones you, there never has been and never again will be another you who experiences yourself and the world in just the way you do. The greatest human minds are still farther away from really understanding and being able to produce a conscious mind on par with ours than they are from understanding anything. We know its produced by the physical brain and have some leads on what parts are involved but we don't have a theory that is much better than the first humans about as how it occurs or even any way it could be possible. Thus, without having to invent total bullshit to make yourself feel good, you can know that you as rare, complex and amazingly inexplicable as anything could be.

Finally, although existential angst is an unpleasant sensation, there is a way to sort of get kind of "on top" of your emotions and experience a kind of meta-emotion of the thrill of riding your feelings like a wave or roller-coaster. Emotions have roots in cognitive processes outside of our control. We can control our attention in ways the heighten or dampen an emotional response, but there are things that are going to trigger some degree of a sad, afraid, or happy response in you that you just cannot stop. But you can put part of your awareness into a meta-level where it is almost like watching a sad or scary movie, where your have uncontrollable reactions but its on some level an exhilarating ride which we why we intentionally expose ourselves to such movies, rides, etc..

In sum, come on baby, make it hurt so good.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I disagree, and I would be interested in knowing why you think existential angst is amazing.

I took it to mean that it implies that you are actually experiencing your existence. We are the only animal with the cognitive capacity to imagine both our past and our future.

Whether that's a good thing is debatable, but I'd agree that it is, at least compared to the alternatives, which are basically either having no sense of self, or death.

Do you honestly think humans are the only organisms with a sense of "self?" That certainly does not match my observations.

 

[rousseau]

I took it to mean that it implies that you are actually experiencing your existence. We are the only animal with the cognitive capacity to imagine both our past and our future.

Whether that's a good thing is debatable, but I'd agree that it is, at least compared to the alternatives, which are basically either having no sense of self, or death.

Do you honestly think humans are the only organisms with a sense of "self?" That certainly does not match my observations.

I guess what I was trying to get at is that no other animal experiences a sense of self to the degree that humans do. For instance, a cat certainly has memories and an affinity to other living things, but I don't think it's able to put the entirety of it's life into context at any given time.

I wouldn't say humans are completely distinct from other animals, but I think we are distinct enough that our experience as living things is an outlier.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Why worry as long there are oceans to swim in, sunsets to marvel at and fluffy kittens to beat to a bloody pulp.

 

[PyramidHead]

I took it to mean that it implies that you are actually experiencing your existence. We are the only animal with the cognitive capacity to imagine both our past and our future.

Whether that's a good thing is debatable, but I'd agree that it is, at least compared to the alternatives, which are basically either having no sense of self, or death.

rousseau pretty much got what I was going for. It isn't so much that fear of death is "amazing" but that this fear and your awareness of your mortality only arise because of your self-awareness and cognitive abilities to reason and predict the future (in which we all will die). There may not be another species in the Universe capable of it in the way we are, and our species is a breif blip in time that will be gone eventually. So, it is rather improbably amazing that you are here not only existing but aware of your existence and it the reality of its temporal nature.

In addition, the human ability to learn from experiences and combine them into abstract concepts and reason about them, means that every person is shaped in infinite ways by every single random event in each moment of their lives, to a degree that is also beyond what is true for other living things. Even if you have an identical twin or if someone clones you, there never has been and never again will be another you who experiences yourself and the world in just the way you do. The greatest human minds are still farther away from really understanding and being able to produce a conscious mind on par with ours than they are from understanding anything. We know its produced by the physical brain and have some leads on what parts are involved but we don't have a theory that is much better than the first humans about as how it occurs or even any way it could be possible. Thus, without having to invent total bullshit to make yourself feel good, you can know that you as rare, complex and amazingly inexplicable as anything could be.

Finally, although existential angst is an unpleasant sensation, there is a way to sort of get kind of "on top" of your emotions and experience a kind of meta-emotion of the thrill of riding your feelings like a wave or roller-coaster. Emotions have roots in cognitive processes outside of our control. We can control our attention in ways the heighten or dampen an emotional response, but there are things that are going to trigger some degree of a sad, afraid, or happy response in you that you just cannot stop. But you can put part of your awareness into a meta-level where it is almost like watching a sad or scary movie, where your have uncontrollable reactions but its on some level an exhilarating ride which we why we intentionally expose ourselves to such movies, rides, etc..

In sum, come on baby, make it hurt so good.

The first couple of paragraphs are good justification for why awareness of one's own mortality is amazing in the sense of 'inexplicable, unlikely, unique,' but in the post I originally responded to, you said that it was also 'something to be happy about'. I'm not sure your final paragraph has convinced me of this. The situation you describe is one where we are burdened with something negative and have to squirm or meta- our way to dissociating ourselves from it. If we manage to do so, THAT accomplishment might be something to be happy about, but the existence of the original problem, self-awareness, is not.