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Joshua Derrick's avatar

I wonder if reading some Thomas Nagel and/or playing Dark Souls might be helpful to you NLF.

Here is relevant quote from Nagel

"[That our lives seem absurd to us] need not be a matter for agony [as insisted by Sartre in Being and Nothingness] unless we make it so. Nor need it evoke a defiant contempt of fate [as advocated by Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus] that allows us to feel brave and proud. Such dramatics, even if carried on in private, betray a failure to appreciate the cosmic unimportance of the situation. If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that doesn't matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair."

In the end, despite the best efforts of the demiurge, this reality will decay into nothingness, and probably long before that, this civilization will go the way of Rome. I enjoy and agree with your posts immensely, but at the end of the day they are really an attempt to drain the ocean with a straw. No matter what you or I do, the vast majority of the masses of this world will always be easily programmable fools. And even if we could change all those hearts and minds (which I believe is possible on an individual level with determined work, doubt it can be scaled up though), the laws of physics make entropy and decay an almost given. You can despair at this things or rail against them, but ultimately that is a choice you make built of the assumption that the world should behave differently.

I can't say that I'm the most practiced person at adopting this mode of thought in my day to day life, but it has helped in being almost completely unconcerned with national and international politics and refocusing on how funny all of this is when you look at it a certain way.

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Rob (c137)'s avatar

Your friend is correct.

Do what you enjoy, whether a hobby, exercise, qi gong, video games, reading.... Whatever works.

https://robc137.substack.com/p/fix-the-foundation-before-the-roof

We are a few steps ahead from the crowd and even the predator class. Sometimes this can immobilize us when we see doom and gloom. Fear is useful to keep us sharp but sometimes we gotta realize that we can't do anything until the bad stuff happens. Thankfully, a lot of times it doesn't happen.

I've also stopped watching long podcasts and instead read articles like yours. Hearing people babble with half assed crap audio quality can get on my nerves and I read faster anyway.

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