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Why is life so unpleasant?

i was really much happier on the pacific northwest coast even though i had nothing and was killing myself. i left because of an intuition that i would die if i didn't, and it proved to be true (not of OD but of abscesses i didn't realize were abscesses). happiness really is relative. when i was making the most money i ever had and had a car and a 9 to five and could buy whatever clothes and makeup i wanted i just felt like i was never good enough and just needed more. losing everything taught me that my center is always there and i have to work for myself and i can't depend on losers and there are better places to be and people to meet than the miserable midwest and i don't have to be stuck here for all my life and i can live differently if only i choose to and stay on my meds. i mean i still have high maintenance issues but it's nothing like when i could afford whatever i wanted but still felt like stuck in this fucking rat race to contantly improve and be the best and it was all for ...fucking nothing. just some mind fuck.
 
alasdairm said:
what i'm saying is that i believe, for the most part, that happiness or misery is a choice.
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Then why, if I may ask, do I (and others) choose to be miserable?

alasdairm said:
i've met people who have had (what many others might consider to be) miserable, unlucky lives and who have a very positive outlook. i've also met people who have (what many others might consider to be) very comfortable lives and are miserable. my argument is that ones response to events shapes ones happiness (or otherwise) to a greater extent than the events themselves.
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Genetics may play a large part in this.

dresden said:
We don't truly have control over anything. Our daily lives and our destinies are fated. Free will is an illusion.
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Do you mean fate in a supernatural sense or in the sense of causal determinism? If the latter, then allow me to give you a like-minded high five (not that you have a choice in the matter).
 
i agree that people don't choose to be miserable in general. i mean perspective only gets you so fucking far if you are living in reality, in society, and conscious.
i'd be a fucking nutcase agorophobe without the right pills and i've never "wanted" or "chosen" that.
my boyfriend said the other day he believes in destiny but not fate and that implies a willing effort on your part to make things be how you want them, and the ease of which you can do that is really NOT a choice. i feel very sorry for people as crazy i am but less self aware and less helped and just left to fucking rot. and if anyone came up to those people and said "you chose to be this miserable" i hope they'd get punched in the fucking face.
 
Never Knows Best said:
Do you mean fate in a supernatural sense or in the sense of causal determinism? If the latter, then allow me to give you a like-minded high five (not that you have a choice in the matter).
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consciousness arising out of a purely impersonal, deterministic universe seems so bizarre to me.
 
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thenightwatch said:
consciousness arising out of a purely impersonal, deterministic universe seems so bizarre to me.
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you know i read books for days about existentialism when i considered grasping this concept and i really believe existentialism has prevailed and we all just need our own version of happy and that doesn't come from an outside objective standpoint but at the same point at a base level it does because of what we need to thrive in society.
 
Dresden said:
We don't truly have control over anything. Our daily lives and our destinies are fated. Free will is an illusion.
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I have been 100% convinced of that (99.9 repeating)... But I challenge it. The very fact that we might... See that- That we are all on tracks, provides fuel for that challenge.

Sometimes I wonder if we merely extend in ways we don't perceive, and we out of our limited perception can't see it as anything but fate.

Still, find it hard to believe that we can fight gravity.
 
Dresden said:
We don't truly have control over anything. Our daily lives and our destinies are fated. Free will is an illusion.
Click to expand...

I have been 100% convinced of that... But I challenge it. The very fact that we might... See that- That we are all on tracks, provides fuel for that challenge.

Sometimes I wonder if we merely extend in ways we don't perceive, and we out of our limited perception can't see it as anything but fate.

Still, find it hard to believe that we can fight gravity, the momentum of the "big bang"... our genes and everything behind us.
 
alasdairm said:
happiness and a desire to improve things are hardly mutually exclusive...

alasdair
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indeed

it probably requires a mix of happiness and unhappiness though

maybe a 90%/10% ratio

if you were 100% happy with everything then it would be straight up illogical to want to change things
 
Kinda like the fact that we have legs that move us.

Life is unpleasant because we aren't smooth rocks in a riverbed.
 
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overcoming adversity can give a sense of accomplishment. sometimes when unchallenged, people seek out things to cause themselves harms and difficulties. it can even be an addiction.
 
According to buddhism, we live in the "saha" world, which means the world of suffering. I think this is true. This whole place is like a testing ground to see just how strong we are, and more importantly how often we can stop worrying about ourselves or trying to please ourselves and work for pleasing others and imparting joy to others. It can be done, and I've definitely felt it at work in my life.

But fuck, this world is a mess right now. I think last year, we all wanted something to happen because of the whole 2012 thing. And here we are in 2013, and the overall "mood" of the world just seems to be going down the shitter, as in we are in SERIOUS need of some extreme upheaval and revitalization. Before I rant on anymore, yeah the world isn't the way I'd like for it to be but I realize that 80% of that is what I am choosing to do with my own life day to day.
 
L2R said:
overcoming adversity can give a sense of accomplishment. sometimes when unchallenged, people seek out things to cause themselves harms and difficulties. it can even be an addiction.
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I don't think many people would dispute that we have been "programmed" in such a manner. But why the fuck were we programmed in such a manner?

Not only is life full of suffering, but even if it didn't exist, we are so fucked up that we need to suffer if suffering is absent. That answer simply begs another "why?" rather than serving as an answer in itself. It's just another thought loop.
 
we live in a dynamic environment, and our bodies and minds are equally as such. i don't think a static situation, that is an unchanging and unchallenged state, is very compatable with this nature. death is static, life is dynamic. resisting change is kinda like welcoming (asking for) death.

in a way
 
Ponds that don't move are "yucky" compared to oceans.

Men who retire early die earlier... Nature rewards work/activity, with the ability to do more activity/work. If you get in a wreck and mess yourself up you aren't going to get totally better with an IV and morphine. You are going to have to stand up. It will hurt.

Really, no pain no gain.

If you didn't feel unpleasant when something bit you, first you have a problem... but if nobody did, you simply wouldn't exist.

They say the more intelligent an aware a creature is, the more pain it can perceive. Do you want to be a tree? This is merely my attempt at some illustration. Not to argue about the intelligence of things.
 
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This thread reminds me of an interesting anecdote.

I recall, as a kid being raised in a religious private elementary school, the concept of "heaven" was actually off-putting to me. Even as a child, the first time I heard of a place of eternal bliss and happiness, free from negativity, I recoiled. I didn't want to go there. I knew, instinctively, that positive is relative to negative, and that one would lose all meaning without the other.

A little joke I heard:

A preacher was asked what he expected to follow death. He replied, "I'm perfectly certain I shall enter into eternal bliss, but I really wish you wouldn't bring up such a depressing subject."
 
TheAppleCore said:
This thread reminds me of an interesting anecdote.

I recall, as a kid being raised in a religious private elementary school, the concept of "heaven" was actually off-putting to me. Even as a child, the first time I heard of a place of eternal bliss and happiness, free from negativity, I recoiled. I didn't want to go there. I knew, instinctively, that positive is relative to negative, and that one would lose all meaning without the other.

A little joke I heard:

A preacher was asked what he expected to follow death. He replied, "I'm perfectly certain I shall enter into eternal bliss, but I really wish you wouldn't bring up such a depressing subject."
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I know a lot of people that feel that same way about someone experiencing ecstasy without experiencing the lows of life

but I kind of disagree, although I disagree with the christian concept of heaven entirely and rely more heavily on the buddhist concept of the possibility of reaching nibbana through the exploration of self for many lives

the thing is that if God is Love, and if our ultimate purpose is to spread love with everyone, i know that if i'm in a state of sadness then I am less capable of following that ideal.

so imo to have reached a state of bliss and liberation and to be able to spread it with everyone around you, is a beautiful thing
 
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