Hope us a useless feeling. So is despair. Neither will do anything.
You only get one life, you happen to be fucking born in a time when everything is about to go to shit. Well too bad, you still get to live and make the best of it. I don’t understand people who are so hung up on things they can’t control. If earth was going to get cooked by a supernova in 40 years, I would still live a normal, healthy life and the only thing that would be different is when I die, everyone else does too. Changes nothing.
I value knowledge and wisdom as its own end, knowing it comes at the expense of contentment/comfort.
We all get to choose what we value most, and usually it comes at something else’s expense. I would rather stare into the void so long as the void is something true then be deluded, blissfully ignorant and happy when that happiness requires willful ignorance, another way of saying choosing not to know what is available to know.
I think a lot of the “don’t think about it” willful ignorance is a big reason us sapient beings inflict such cruelty on one another and sentient creatures that feel real pain so easily. Empathy, knowing everyone else has an inner world and feels as deeply as you do, is something you have to allow yourself to know and feel that most don’t care about so long as they “get theirs.”
What you’re describing is exactly why we will go extinct, legions of people choosing to take what they can without the detriment of really internalizing who will be hurt and how deeply by it. Those best at that skill, sociopaths, run this world and are the primary reason our species’ time is ending so they can “win,” feel accomplished, and ultimately scurry into their little luxury bunker tombs to sip expensive bourbon and reminisce about how high their ego scores got and how awesome it was while luxuriating several feet of concrete under the fruits of their own fine work until their heart gives out or one of their very expensive air/water/waste/hydroponic systems fail.
Humanity should have been humanity’s business, not finding “rational self-interest” bliss. But we made our choice and our bed. 🤷
If you can’t understand that there is a very, very wide difference between choosing to live in and appreciate the life you have, and self-centered apathy, then maybe you should revisit your own thoughts on wisdom.
In fact I would argue it’s the people without nuance who will doom our species, the idea that if you’re not one thing, you must be the other, black-and-white thinking rapidly becomes reactionary thinking which rapidly becomes superstition, fear and hate and an embrace of authoritarian reactionary leadership.
Hope us a useless feeling. So is despair. Neither will do anything.
You only get one life, you happen to be fucking born in a time when everything is about to go to shit. Well too bad, you still get to live and make the best of it. I don’t understand people who are so hung up on things they can’t control. If earth was going to get cooked by a supernova in 40 years, I would still live a normal, healthy life and the only thing that would be different is when I die, everyone else does too. Changes nothing.
I value knowledge and wisdom as its own end, knowing it comes at the expense of contentment/comfort.
We all get to choose what we value most, and usually it comes at something else’s expense. I would rather stare into the void so long as the void is something true then be deluded, blissfully ignorant and happy when that happiness requires willful ignorance, another way of saying choosing not to know what is available to know.
I think a lot of the “don’t think about it” willful ignorance is a big reason us sapient beings inflict such cruelty on one another and sentient creatures that feel real pain so easily. Empathy, knowing everyone else has an inner world and feels as deeply as you do, is something you have to allow yourself to know and feel that most don’t care about so long as they “get theirs.”
What you’re describing is exactly why we will go extinct, legions of people choosing to take what they can without the detriment of really internalizing who will be hurt and how deeply by it. Those best at that skill, sociopaths, run this world and are the primary reason our species’ time is ending so they can “win,” feel accomplished, and ultimately scurry into their little luxury bunker tombs to sip expensive bourbon and reminisce about how high their ego scores got and how awesome it was while luxuriating several feet of concrete under the fruits of their own fine work until their heart gives out or one of their very expensive air/water/waste/hydroponic systems fail.
Humanity should have been humanity’s business, not finding “rational self-interest” bliss. But we made our choice and our bed. 🤷
If you can’t understand that there is a very, very wide difference between choosing to live in and appreciate the life you have, and self-centered apathy, then maybe you should revisit your own thoughts on wisdom.
In fact I would argue it’s the people without nuance who will doom our species, the idea that if you’re not one thing, you must be the other, black-and-white thinking rapidly becomes reactionary thinking which rapidly becomes superstition, fear and hate and an embrace of authoritarian reactionary leadership.
Wisdom is knowing how to use knowledge to make the world a better place. It seems like you value knowledge and look down on wisdom.