Marcus Agrippa
Prowler
I believe that societies live in a self-made illusion, comprising of all the aspects we’ve come to know as daily life. We’ve created a way of living based on nothing; how can we tell if humanity is progressing or not? It’s impossible, since we don’t even know why we are here. As I understand the world around me, humans have been stumbling along since they started these so-called societies: we marry, have children, get jobs and so on, but what’s the point of it all? Do we really have a reason for all of this or are we just picking up where our forefathers left off?. Does a serious discussion exist in which some humans have stopped and said, "We need to go back to basics and try finding the reasons for our behavior, AND REALLY IMPLEMENT what we find out."
You might argue this is what philosophy is for, or that these questions are for scientist or theologians to argue and examine, but that’s precisely what I’m against; these are questions for all of us to try to answer and pass on what we find out, this is not something interesting to read once in a while, but serious enough to implement in our lives. The absence of this is what makes societies so homogenous; the majority of people do the same thing because that is what they are taught, not by people that choose to examine these topics but by people that choose to just go along with life.
The people that make changes in the structure of societies are those who don’t belong to them, those on the margin that do not conform to the status quo, but are intelligent enough not to deform their existence to the point of uselessness; they take the opportunity to leave something behind that is a testament to their reality, to the way they see life after examining it, to themselves as a person who really lived.
The only two things that you really have in life are experiences and achievements, everything else is an illusion, from money to social relations, all can be lost, or better said, if you think about it, you don’t have it: What do you think is keeping someone who hates you from killing you? Security provided by society’s structure and its cohesion, both of which sometimes seem to disappear into the irrational act of crime and disorder? But are these aberrations of our societies or reality showing its ugly head? Every day at work and at home, we fight for our survival by fighting a more "civil" struggle for life that doesn’t have anything to envy that of our ancestors'. But somehow we perceive life at home and at work as safe, as a linear work in progress that assures us that we are not wasting our life. For me both the work life and home life are nihilistic in themselves, the true value has to be found in the experience or achievements we get out of them.
All this might sound depressing, but for me is empowering, the fact that no one knows what is right makes you free to determine your own path thru life. Life is what you make of it.
You might argue this is what philosophy is for, or that these questions are for scientist or theologians to argue and examine, but that’s precisely what I’m against; these are questions for all of us to try to answer and pass on what we find out, this is not something interesting to read once in a while, but serious enough to implement in our lives. The absence of this is what makes societies so homogenous; the majority of people do the same thing because that is what they are taught, not by people that choose to examine these topics but by people that choose to just go along with life.
The people that make changes in the structure of societies are those who don’t belong to them, those on the margin that do not conform to the status quo, but are intelligent enough not to deform their existence to the point of uselessness; they take the opportunity to leave something behind that is a testament to their reality, to the way they see life after examining it, to themselves as a person who really lived.
The only two things that you really have in life are experiences and achievements, everything else is an illusion, from money to social relations, all can be lost, or better said, if you think about it, you don’t have it: What do you think is keeping someone who hates you from killing you? Security provided by society’s structure and its cohesion, both of which sometimes seem to disappear into the irrational act of crime and disorder? But are these aberrations of our societies or reality showing its ugly head? Every day at work and at home, we fight for our survival by fighting a more "civil" struggle for life that doesn’t have anything to envy that of our ancestors'. But somehow we perceive life at home and at work as safe, as a linear work in progress that assures us that we are not wasting our life. For me both the work life and home life are nihilistic in themselves, the true value has to be found in the experience or achievements we get out of them.
All this might sound depressing, but for me is empowering, the fact that no one knows what is right makes you free to determine your own path thru life. Life is what you make of it.
