How do you deal with nihilism?

Does anybody feel like society has become morally bankrupt? It's like we're surrounded by competing lifestyle choices and moral systems and told to just be free and independent and choose one. It's like society no longer really believes in anything and we're expected to just make it up ourselves. But how am I supposed to choose? What ethical system am I supposed to live by? It's frustratingly difficult to choose! Sometimes I just feel lost. In ancient times, there was always a set of moral principles people tried to live by (think of Japanese bushido or Buddhist vinaya). But in the modern West, we tried to structure society according to reason, science and living as a free individual. Now, one group of people stick to this obsessive dogmatism dictated by science and reason while Gen Z don't really seem to believe in anything beyond individual choice and self-legislation. It's like we're stuck between this conservative dogmatism and nihilistic woke feel good culture where the only rule is personal preference and if it makes you feel good and both are pretty soul crushing imo Are there any moral or ethical codes fellow lains try to live by? How do you deal with the endless variety of lifestyle choices and the pressure to be original and creative? I'm pretty interested in traditional Buddhism but find it hard to reconcile with ordinary life and then feel like a failure.

>It's like society no longer really believes in anything This is definitely not true. I would rather say western axioms (a better description of the function of western believes) are so ingrained you don't even consider them believes as you think of believes as things that can be questioned and aren't certain. For example democracy good is a unquestionable truth for most westerners. Consumerism is another. The destruction of classical religion created a gap others were keen to fill. Who after all doesn't want loyalist followers?

>>67673 IDK, maybe you should just grow up and define your own set of ethics, instead of trying to follow herd ethics like some angsty teen or manchild. t. Kohlberg

>>67677 Dumb image. They're not developmental stages, they're layers. I lived at layers 5 and 6 since childhood, and just imitated the others where it was advantageous. However they're still all tied together into complexes. they're not "stages", that's ridiculous retard-speak. I'd had enough so I had to force myself back to the "stage" 1 and 2 layers. Why are people so retarded. Everything they create and believe is so obviously wrong.

>>67673 I don't think anyone confronted with this question has found a satisfactory answer - the only ones seem to be dogmatic. Indeed, following moral principles (individually), in many cases, is just shooting yourself in the foot. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ So my approach lately has been just to throw myself headfirst into whatever stupid brain-rotting planet-raping nonsense I'm working on. If I have energy and time at the end of the day to ponder such questions, I've failed. Survive and reproduce.

Every healthy human being implicitly understands what is ethical and what is not. If you lack such understanding just don't break the law and you'll be fine. No reason to complicate it.

>>67712 When the law is unjust, it is wrong to comply.

>>67712 There is a bit how most people break the law on daily basis unknowingly. You get away with it because nobody enforces it. So the law only matters when you reduce it to "rules actively enforced" but then you look at punishment and start thinking if i can afford the fine its essentially legal for the rich. This is also how large corporations operate. Fines are just business costs then when the benefits gained out weight the cost. >>67726 knowing this requires ethics however, his take "in absence of ethics the law is all that remains" is correct

>>67729 >in absence of ethics the law is all that remains I'd ammend that from 'law' to 'power'.

You are free to make your own decisions, regardless of whether they are right or wrong. You already know what is right/wrong, ethical/non-ethical. The most important thing to remember is that everything has a consequence and can either work in your favor or against you, in the end it is up to you.

>>67673 Society isn't without rules, we don't tolerate pedophilia for example, but liberal society tells us we are free to determine our own values so long as it doesn't violate some sacrosanct laws. So we have no ethical system, but we're left with the bits and pieces of older ones. So we tolerate same sex marriage but don't like polygamy or cheating because of the legacy of Christianity. So there is an empty hole where there is nothing for us to aspire to, nothing for us to share in, no ideal of what is good to work for. Just obey the law and do what you like. Individual life becomes dictated by personal preference and the result is an appeal to emotions and manipulation to justify our life style choices like: "This is who I am, I was born this way" soykaf >>67712 But that's clearly not true. If we just intuitively understand what is right and wrong, ethical philosophy wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be asking questions about it. >>67733 But we really aren't free. We're always being pushed, coerced or manipulated into making specific choices in many cases we are out right brain washed. Think about sexuality. We are told we can be who we want to be, but what if my sexual preferences fall outside the straight, gay, bi framework the authorities have set up? What if I am sexually attracted to inanimate objects or 2D anime characters? Well that's not a legit thing to be, it's not a real choice but a mental disorder and then I get sent off to a shrink for treatment. What we have is an illusion of freedom where we are given a bunch of per-determined choices and if we fall out of those boxes we get institutionalized.

>>67740 >ethical philosophy wouldn't exist maybe all / nearly all ethical philosophers are unhealthy people. >Well that's not a legit thing to be, it's not a real choice but a mental disorder and then I get sent off to a shrink for treatment. bruh youll get sent to a shrink anyway. Le Authority loves shrinks. If you're straight youll need couples therapy, if you're gay youll need gay couples therapy and probably also just normal therapy. If you're a troon youll need serious therapy even though you're officially recognized and gov basically supports you. Take ur meds kiddo I don't think you realize how bad things have gotten, and if you don't have meds yet well all I can say is: YIKES

I have an interesting image for this subject. I found it from 4chan /lit/ wiki.

>>67741 >bruh youll get sent to a shrink anyway What I mean is that liberals claim to believe in free choice, but when confronted by a decision they don't like they claim it's not based on consent. A hiki can't choose to stay at home and watch anime all day, he's mentally ill and his brain chemicals are forcing him to live that way. A polygamist can't choose to be a third wife married to one man, that's patriarchy and not a choice and if she likes it she's brainwashed. Liberals claim we are free to choose our own path in life, but when we make choices they don't like then they come up with a bunch of excuses for why they don't count as real choices. It's a classic case of you can do it your own way, if it's done just how I say.

>>67673 >>67743 it's worth noting that the advice given at "religion is the opiate of the people" are ideologies that replaced religions and gods after the rise of science and rationalism and the disillusion of spirituality. they are just another religion with promises of utopias and what not, same thing with science and the belief in the State. The still burning cinders of Christianity. god is dead and we have killed him. I suggest to have a watch of this video: https://invidious.lain.la/watch?v=169p5S3fXPE well while i'm here let's review the others as well! hedonism will kill you in the long run. go watch what happens when a human is left in a room for 15 minutes with a button that shocks him. or what happens when a mice is left in a room with a button that gives it pleasure but hurts him as well. spoiler: the mouse pushes it so much it dies. pleasure is the other face of the coin named pain. there is no pleasure without pain. you'll end up being a parasite and feeling nothing at all. buddhism and stoicism have a larger issue of being counter nature, which is made of friction and action, not resignation and stagnation. heat and cold, that's how the universe was born as well. it's basically wasting up the amazing potential of a human and giving up to entropy. but why should we waste the opportunity of this long-ago born disparity? It still will be long before the entropy will eventually stale everything, and the efforts of a life denying morality will not change a thing in the grand scheme of things, this is a religious thinking connected to my first point above. there is some very good advice in these philosophies, but i think it's best if we take it as a way to enhance ourselves. absurdism is eventually like making up your own values, which is connected to Nietzsche in a way. it's a rejection of current moralities and a fuarrrk it all to every norm. but this is somewhat the extreme counter-buddhism-stoicism, which is to waste your potential in a almost suicidal way. and it is also connected to hedonism in a way. this is really the first stage of the ubermensch though, and the next would be to make your own values. oriental philosophy is somewhat connected to buddhism and to Nietzsche as well. this is where i don't like the chart, because it's not at all separated like this. most things here should merge or share points. The ubersmensh and Nietzsche philosophy share a lot with oriental philosophies, with the life denying points removed. So my point is, don't restrict to one thing in this chart, everything can have good points for your life. religion is a controversial matter nowadays, and i feel like people should learn what exactly is religion and spirituality in a psychological way, and why we continue to be spiritual even when we think to be rational. I suggest to read Man and his Symbols by Jung as a start. Modern man feels a void because spirituality (which is a conversation with our unconscious and our collective, which is by the way very very connected to serial experiments lain) is being suppressed, while we think we are being rational. Even mathematics and the sciences have traces left by our religious and spiritual past. Also, everything we do has spiritual connotations (talking with the unconscious). For example, try to reflect what is the relationship we have here with computers. the SEL series makes a really good job of showing the spiritual potential of the new age of information. We live on myths and archetypes, and religions are a part of us. But, that does not mean that we should continue to blindly follow religions. God is dead and we killed him, but we are still here, surpassing God. We can become our own myths. For me, creating our own values is the last stage of everything here, the last powerful realization of our own potential and the most life affirming thing, and a struggle to remove illusions. I wholeheartedly recommend to read Nietzsche.

>>67740 >>67741 It doesn't have to be one or the other. Humans can have a set of base ethical instincts that sometimes go astray or don't make sense. They're heuristics based on things in our evolutionary past; they fuarrrk up in novel situations or edge cases they weren't built for (see: fear of harmless spiders, existential dread, etc). which is where ethical philosophy and societal morals come in to fill the gaps. I believe in a higher power. I understand that my choice is arbitrary and probably biased by the culture in which I live, but the feeling exists on a gut level below my actual reasoning. It's truer than true, if that makes any sense. If traditional Buddhism inspires that same feeling in you, go for it -if not, the dissonance will probably eat you alive. I'd also say that you shouldn't give up on a belief because it's difficult to reconcile with modern life. You recognize yourself that it's a souless pseudo-religion; struggling to reject the evil that surrounds you is a good action with good intentions, regardless of how often you fail.

>>67746 > They're heuristics based on things in our evolutionary past; they fuarrrk up in novel situations or edge cases they weren't built for (see: fear of harmless spiders, existential dread, etc). You know, I don't get why people act so difficult about these stuff. I think if we try to take a "alien" look on stuff, we would find things that are unethical and not because it's just "evolution". It doesn't take a genius to imagine that if I now went outside and started stabbing random people that would be bad. Not because I would be just a danger to society, but because I would be inflicting pain and suffering on others. You can't really debate that. Everyone who has felt pain knows what it's like and it's cruel to cause it in others without much reason. To me these issues of "ethics" being made up just don't exist. Everyone has had some good and bad times and can feel the difference between them. It's not some arbitrary thing we made up. You might say some topics are vague to define. Like if aborition is right or what not. Which they are, but it doesn't make them not real or anything. Pretty much everything in the world is very vague to define, not just ethics, and where we draw the boxes is a bit of an arbitrary choice, but that doesn't make the choice not real or the thing about which the choice is about not real. I don't really get because of that why people fall into nihilism. Or well, I do get it. Because some things in the present are really bad. It's just weirdly the same people who treat something like "feelings" as fake or naive take the present as real. Even though the present is pretty much as vague too. Even the so called "objective facts" of the world have that. Classical physics was truth for far less longer than any widescale religion. Political or economic ideas that are taken as stone hard facts can become a laughing joke within decades. If you feel depressed about the state of things I would suggest you sharpen your bullshit detector because I feel most of the things one can be sad about are essentially bullshit. You just have to point it out, which on the flip side, is pretty fun to do

>>67747 Okay, but why is it wrong to be cruel? Why is pain bad? Why does a reason make it okay? I can absolutely imagine aliens (or even other humans) that have "might makes right" where I have empathy. I wasn't trying to argue that ethics aren't real or that they're arbtitrary, just kinda speculating about where they came from and why some things are obvious while others aren't.

>>67745 Honestly I think you just don't know much about these different philosophies you are talking about. >hedonism will kill you Not necessarily. Being stupid will kill you. A thoughtful hedonist would have a very long and happy life. >stoicism is against nature Stoicism is an almost totally naturalistic philosophy, unless you mean the BS "stoicism" marketed to men these days.

>>67753 a "happy life" is the epitome of using "BS things marketed to men these days". you're being hypocritical. having a happy life is not only an ambiguous concept, but also very personal. OP and me are the kind of people that want meaning, not just to be "happy". Full Hedonism is being a parasite and I have no respect for people that follow it. A thoughtful hedonist is one that lives and dies with no meaning at all. On the death bed, what will you think of your life? No, rather, what do you think of your life NOW? Stoicism IS against nature, because it commands not to take action. Unless you mean something else with a "naturalistic philosophy". I don't really know what is marketed to men these days, unless you mean having a beard like a roman emperor and a look of seriousness? >Honestly I think you just don't know much about these different philosophies you are talking about. Honestly i don't think you do either. You didn't make any other counter points!

>>67754 Again, its clear that you don't actually know much about hedonism or stoicism as philosophies. Hedonists can be very productive and stoicism actually commands action in many situations.

>>67755 my man, instead of feeding your ego repeating i don't know much and make this yet another thread derail on i am right you are wrong, try to actually suggest to everyone and to OP in particular why should he pursue hedonism and stoicism instead of what i said. you know, i wrote that to help OP in focus. please, make an actual effort to write a proper long post with some proper arguments, like i did.

>>67673 Think about what Nietzsche meant by the Ubermensch, and go from there. He's already asked this question and gave a pretty good shot at an answer.

>>67673 I'm currently going through a crisis of meaning so I'm probably uniquely unqualified to help, but I'll give it a shot. The external world is a, straight-up, void of reason. Nothing objectively matters. That doesn't make life meaningless it simply follows that meaning is something that has to come from within your mind without hope of external validation. Independent subjective experience is the only thing that can create meaning, and therefore must be worthy of preservation. I wouldn't call myself a hedonist but I think suffering should be reduced if it serves no higher purpose. In a purely rational world I can only think of the existence of beings with qualia as the result of some sort of horrible accident. The scientist Enrico Fermi theorised that over a long enough timeframe this mistake was self-correcting and the natural state of the universe was a sterile, un-observed blank-slate. The world wont care or move to stop us if we virus-bomb ourselves or deplete our own atmosphere or enslave ourselves to a system that lobotomizes, cripples and tortures us... Yet we can't seem to stop making tools for explicitly these purposes. I think were we given free choices to not do these things we would recognize the folly however, as things are, the mechanisms of our extinction are seen as a necessity. Most major powers in the world today are, at their core, constructs of stationary bandits: Monopolizations of theft and coercion. Although generally convenient for day to day life these power structures do not have the best interests of individuals or humanity in their DNA. The games played between them have reached a point where existence itself is at threat. I don't yet know how but this is a model that should be disrupted & unified against. >>67690 You sound like you've given up, MoM had a huge impact on my thinking. How does anyone read it and then decide to follow amoral individualism?

Society can't be morally bankrupt because such ideas that made it as "objective" "valid" etc. to the one are all just doesn't really exist, so the morality, in their mere nature. I like the flavour of getting lost in an endless mysterious abbys which probably not gonna end. The morality you believe¿ is just shaped by the interactions between your "self" and the "outside, the things beyond your self" , which shapes the inner desires and pleasures of you in possible infinite forms and differently in different athmospheres, so, there is no objective morality , if you imagine two persons, one of them stealing a bread from the child, and one of them giving a bread to a child, one may proclaim that they are doing such actions because of polar opposite reasons, as the one who gives the bread makes it because he lost himself to the religion etc. and doesn't think himself. But that's false, their core reason for doing this is actually lies in the same thing, to please the spirit, and escape from the bitter pain. Who steals the bread probably thinks the idea of stealing is more pleasing above the others within complex sparks emerging in his brain, as he tries to do what it seems pleasing to him by his ideas/reasons that looking pleasing. On the other hand, about the one giving the bread, it's a cry for searching for inner pleasure , as he wouldn't do it if he wasn't pleased before/after doing it, or pleased by the thought that it will "religiously purify him" etc.

>>67758 not that lain but you clearly are clueless about what you're talking about, if lains want to know more about these philosophies they can just look them up and get to know more without getting biased bullshit opinions about them

>>67921 Are you saying that you don't believe actions can have selfless motivations?

>>67931 Mhm, I think so, no matter what actions you take in your existence, I can say that it is the mere reflection of a spark that ends in yourself, that a thing the master in your heart desired. :<

>>67921 How do you feel about doing the right thing in unpleasant situations? i.e. "I want to spend $5 on me, but I'll push myself to give it away instead" or "I fuarrrking hate that dude's guts, but I can't stand to see someone suffer like that". Is that just one pleasure outweighing another? What about martyrdom?

>>67935 Yes, it's just a matter of one pleasure being influenced/affected by one thing over another and finding another pleasure which outweigh it, at least the idea of it. Martyrdom is probably from one of that spooky ideas like "patriotism" ingrained/embraced in one's mind which somehow gives him some kind of pleasure, or a kind of hunger in his soul for desiring to hear the orchestra of war, tired from the war, So with the last orchestra he can finally acquire the most peaceful sleep he thinks... or it will be from the other thing, but still, it ends in yourself.

>>67933 Does it really end in yourself? People do something without knowing why and think, "there must be a story of me here, a phantom that can be outlined by the traces it leaves, I just have to piece it together". What if that's fake? If someone does something entirely because they have been posessed by a meme, I'd say that's selfless whether it's a kind or careless action.

>>67938 Your desires and thoughts are yours, even if you make a sudden decision in a critical situation, it was actually made by your master in your heart. There is no mystical factor here other than yourself and your heart bumping for the things, it's just a sweet pleasure that your surroundings somehow created on you, and then you hug it carelessly, because its what pleases you. You do not need to think it~ At that moment, in deepth doing something carelessly looks the most pleasing thing for your spirit. And you do it.

>>67921 I have to disagree. Yes, within the rational framework you described, it is very hard to take choices outside self gratification. However I do not think this reflects human reality. If I read you correctly all actions are selfish even if they are helping others or furthering a worthwhile ideal as they still lead to positive emotions. Therefore true altruism is not possible. Consider the limits of the theory and it becomes absurd, the model you describe doesn't do what you think it does: Selfless actions are still possible here if you help a person you consider evil or further an ideal you disagree with. Its not even unlikely that this would happen, people make stupid choices every day. No one in their right mind would define these acts as selfless but there is no emotional pay off they retain moral purity under this system. The vast majority of people don't question the accuracy of their sense data when performing acts of kindness. Its taken for granted that the noumena of another human being is at the recieving end of that kindness. There is an argument that the selfish intentions of these acts are directed subconsciously. I don't think this holds up either: People willingly pursue all sorts of ideals at great personal cost without hope of recovery, and take emotionally tortuous decisions to avoid the path of least resistance. For better or worse people arn't as rational as you describe.

>>67942 Oops, that was meant for >>67933

>>67942 >If I read you correctly all actions are selfish even if they are helping others or furthering a worthwhile ideal as they still lead to positive emotions. Therefore true altruism is not possible. The thing is, the pleasure I meant, is not considered and in the barriers of "positive emotions", as the self forms relationships with the things it could intreact in the all absurdness, even the most gloomy feeling would give a flavour, and would make the one be pleased from it, from it's meaning it gave. >Selfless actions are still possible here if you help a person you consider evil or further an ideal you disagree with. Its not even unlikely that this would happen, people make stupid choices every day. You can help a person you consider evil, but why would it be because of some selflessness when it's a strange desire affecting you for it. A desire formed by your every past and so on affection of self and the outside of it. And it's merely the oughweighting pleasing action, that's why you take it, because the master in your heart desires it, it's beyond any reason or "rationality" you would say, it doesnt need to be trapped in the barriers, the hunger of heart may long for everything, and "you" can affect "you" too... >No one in their right mind would define these acts as selfless but there is no emotional pay off they retain moral purity under this system. There is no objective morality, even if you believe in some kind of morality because its somehow pleasing like the OP says that the OP feels somehow empty and desires to find a pleasing meaning. So, morality, is just an abstract idea you may embrace or not. If you embrace, you may consider the actions your heart innerly desires for "selfless" but as you see, it's just a reflection of complication of the things you embraced. >The vast majority of people don't question the accuracy of their sense data when performing acts of kindness. Yes, because pleasure is not a static thing, and can't be trapped under your barriers of "rationality", such things doesnt really matter like all the others. >There is an argument that the selfish intentions of these acts are directed subconsciously. I don't think this holds up either: People willingly pursue all sorts of ideals at great personal cost without hope of recovery, and take emotionally tortuous decisions to avoid the path of least resistance. Yes, they would do that, because within their embraces, it's the most pleasing decision it seems to the spirit. Beyond any barriers of the language such consuming desires could defined.

>>67939 >for the things Why does it have to be for anything? Why should purposeless chaos be beyond us and not what we are made of? Yes, often action correlates with pleasure, but all mechanisms are not a striving self, and any such driven actor is an imperfect abstraction built atop our base mechanisms.

>>67945 >Yes, often action correlates with pleasure, but all mechanisms are not a striving self These are, if you simply wouldn't get pleasure from it, you wont do that thing. And this idea of pleasure isn't just a physical and thought based one. It's about what the master in your heart merely desires for, and its desires aren't static at all and may drown into chaos. So, like when you gift to someone that matters to you, if you wouldn't be pleased by it's idea, you wouldn't do it. >Why does it have to be for anything? Why should purposeless chaos be beyond us and not what we are made of? We can't know , but I think it doesnt matter as purposeless chaos wont lead "selfless acts" as such thing is just another thought you may proclaim it's existence because imagining such a thing pleases you. You see, the term of pleasure I use isn't a spesific one, but like a warmth that the one would always strive for. It isn't static, So you may fall in love with the one which killed all your family. And it isn't selfless, it's simply now what your self inherently longs for. There is no such thing as putting something else above you with as you do an act risking your life for that something else but as you see, it's because in deepth, sailing in the ocean of pain for the meaning of yours is what pleases you in the end. Also, the one couldnt create without forming a relation with a thing, like if you were born in an endless void where there is no anything else , how would you think things besides it?

>>67944 I wasn't intending to claim objective moral authority here (although I naturally think my ethics are the best ethics on a subjective level) I was poking holes in the logic of dismissing selflessness as just a straight value judgement. Again you appear to be saying people do what they want to do. And because they want to do it, that action (no matter what that action is) is tinged with self-interest. This extends to any decision made by any person in history. This is the ideological core I'm attacking, because it leads to ridiculous conclusions. You've accidentally defined selflessness as: all the things nobody wanted to do

>>67948 This is true. Even in extreme sacrifice, like dying in the act of saving someone else, it's still something the dead individual wanted to do. Enacting his desires isn't selfless; Selflessness doesn't exist. In abstract, what the concept of "Selflessness" denies is virtue; discrete social value that, from an even further sociological vantage point, is beneficial to the society at large. And so heroes are remembered. Calling them "selfless" is spitting on their graves.

>>67950 this is just defining things such that you obviate the usefulness of the word selflessness. Sure, under your definitions selflessness doesn't really exist, but there is a divide between ego and xeno centric behaviors that ought to be acknowledged, but perhaps its more about the orientation of wants and desires than their root motivations; maybe a selfless person cares greatly about i.e. his kids and would readily die to save their lives whereas a selfish person's wants are more strictly self-oriented.

Genuinely read Stirner's Unique and its Property. It helped me come to terms with the same perception that you're going through.

>>67673 Your mistake is thinking modern society is structured according to reason, science or living as free, it's based on greed, ignorace and slavery. Your problem is that you are a nihilist yourself first, you believe it's all just nonesense, materislism is the reality and you need some sweet lies whispered in your ear so you can deal with psychological pain you are experiencing. First purge yourself from nihilism and materialism, then open yourself up to knowing.

>>67673 You should read about stoicism (the works of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations are a good start). You need to invent goals for yourself and you need to try to focus on things that you can affect. >https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html

>>75922 I love the interest in Stoicism on this board lately

>In ancient times, there was always a set of moral principles people tried to live by *some people tried really hard to live by while folk philosophies and religion made ethics and even the law very geography-dependent We still have sacred cows and culture heroes. The "Founding Fathers" are basically elevated to demigod status in America, for instance. It's all manufactured of course, but you could say the same about quite a few cultural touchstones (e.g. christianity) >How do you deal with the endless variety of lifestyle choices and the pressure to be original and creative? I ignore them. >I'm pretty interested in traditional Buddhism but find it hard to reconcile with ordinary life and then feel like a failure. "Ordinary life" means whatever the consensus philosophy/worldview is. It is not empty, it is filled with very specific dictums. For instance, we have a growing class of untouchables, and we are told they deserve it. You can never be a Buddhist, or anything else, while clinging to it. Trust me, I've been too scared to leave it behind for years, its tendrils will just grip you harder over time. >>67946 This is a classic argument. Essentially you have redefined words so that selflessness is impossible. Cartesian dualism is pretty wack in general. The notion that people even have a unified, indivisible self, or a coherent will, is pretty clearly false. Heck there's a whole show about that, it's called Serial Experiments Lain.

Stoicism is like kicking dead whales down the beach Confucianism is the way.

>>75935 I like how everyone who practices stoicism never knew that Marcus Aurelius was basically gone off opiates 24/7. Being high on heroin daily would make sure that even the most anxious retard would remain stoic and unbothered by tradegy

>>75937 That's fuarrrking based if true. I can definitely relate.

>>75937 sounds like post mortem character assassination cause people dont like getting compared to a famous dude who wasn't bitchmade.

>>75937 For some people including myself, stoicism is just a tool to get on with life and not let imaginary problems inside my head get in the way. Werks on my flesh-machine

OP, i used to be directionless like you. there's no book ideology or dogma that could help you or tell you what to think, your despair is because you seek one to follow. doing so & becoming disenchanted, reading and consuming so much "high brow" media, books, to get there too is your shortcoming. the underdevelopment you see in all of these ideals and things being sold to you are precisely the consequence of your own understimulation and despair. you should be reading constantly, but start with this. its a bit dated but it changed my life - it explains everything. >>67677 id agree with like all of your post except the image. the social contract is the most codified rationalization of society to exist. i understand this is recognized but i simply dont think these ideals are so distant - they are the rationalization of the united states and the united nations respectively. while many do not really get them its simply a lack of historical understanding or priority to do so, but they are also obviously contrary to the reality of most experience. they're inaccessible. >>67729 >>67731 >>in absence of ethics the law is all that remains both of you are wrong. the entire rest of the world is waiting for you, you have no need to dwell in such violent abstraction

honestly a struggle ive noticed in the more individualistic solution, creating your own ideology, and even in searching for an ideology to be a part of - that is, to be unitary and master of one's own world or to be a unit in some greater order is the unit. it is all directives given to individuals, structurally, the same even if the message passed to you is one of self-empowerment. likewise choosing an ideology to follow presented as transcendent of the norm. both are deeply hypocritical things to advocate. we lack communities that exist as more than cope for the lack of fulfillment we get from them, that is, "communities" make up "the world" which is itself a community, or the idea of one. neither are often experienced, all of these follow the same pattern of malindividuation, instances of the whole, they are not constructed from the base desires of say, you and your friends, to say nothing of the "inhuman" world around you. "go for a walk" is advocated as a form of self-correction or therapy, so to is "make art to express yourself" there is no art for the sake of art, there are no walks for the sake of walks. why is that? is it so wrong to get lost, to indulge those desires, to indulge with others? why is there so cardinally the sin of intimacy. to write as you please fate with others, not simply to do as you love, but also the love of what you're doing. there are cults which claim to offer some transcendent belonging, but more often than are cheap scams meant to extract labor or capital for a class within them. could there exist such a cult dedicated only to understanding and freedom. i suppose im looking for an exclusive collective, knowing and accepting its inexclusivity

The method that's worked for me in adolescence is 1. Accepting everything the way it is (Dokkodo first quote!), including everything that's soykaf in your life that you'd rather skimp over. 2. Look to the present and what you want to achieve, regardless of the viewpoints of anyone or those imposed on you. 3. Begin to define your own worldview. The one sitting with me right now is that you must be defined by your capability in skill. Whether that is knowledge, tenacity or determination against the unfairness of the world, it is cosmically impressive. The morally bankrupt nature of society is getting grinded into "being hot or not". It's pathetic in my eyes, not that I'd deride anyone for it. My point is that if you take 2 people, like Brad Pitt and Albert Einstein, if you put them into 2 different bodies, no one would know who Brad Pitt is but everyone would still recognise Albert Einstein as Albert Einstein as his 'being' came from intellect and capability rather than superficiality.

> It's like we're stuck between this conservative dogmatism and nihilistic woke feel good culture where the only rule is personal preference and if it makes you feel good and both are pretty soul crushing imo this is jibberish, conservatives are nihilistic, they killed god and replaced him with their own ego, racism and nationalism are an expression of that, it why it is DOA. The left offers a future and vision of self and social improvement. Youre in the wrong communities that tell you these things. Loving yourself, loving others, living to make things, learn, and embrace the ecstacy and suffering that comes along with being a person. Online communities have this weird right wing tendency because they are isolated and hate life and themselves. I even think theres a NSBM thread on here right now ffs. It's not hard to live ethically if you see yourself as no better or worse than anyone else, in fact its the only way, but people these days are too mentally weak to handle that idea so they end up with this freak nihilism, but it only really exists online. Look at how many people are obsessed with hating trans people online when in real life nobody cares. Most people have never met a trans person, theyre such a small group, so why the irrational hate? because they have nothing but hate for themselves, and that manifests outward at the easiest targets. its pathetic. Check out Wes Cecil on youtube for some intro lectures. Read philosophy and draw your own conclusions.

>>77192 >there is no rational reason to hate a movement promoting bodily selfharm lmao

become a religious fundamentalist.

No moral system can be ultimately justefied. Practice the Buddhadharma, become free of 'having to' anything.

>>75960 Look, the problem with this idea of the super-man creating one's own worldview is that people are not that bright. They will produce weak worldviews and will just frustrate themselves when the world confront them and they find themselves unable to handle whatever is happening. This doesn't even take into consideration that worldviews are fundamentally forms projected onto clouds. This whole game is rigged. Practice the Buddhadharma.

>>77236 Is this western "secular buddhism" or actual polytheistic buddhism

>>67673 >>67744 We tried to structure society according to a different dogma - Science not science. The "scientists" became high priests that didn't need to make sense, merely agree with each other to get government grants. As proof, look at Keynesianism, the economic theory behind all governments in the west. Start thinking of the Zeitgeist as a cult without a god, and things start making sense. I'm Asatru, the Norse/German religion. Basically, independence and capability are valued highly. Weakness and incapability, doubly so if self-inflicted, are despised. Be strong, strive to be as independent as you can be, do not betray friends or family (unless they do it first), don't take attacks/insults lying down. As for nothing to aim for, practice some spiritual path for spiritual attainment. I'd avoid the Abrahamic stuff because it worships weakness and mandates self-enslavement. Taoism (of the interior alchemy/sorcery kind, not necessarily the religious kind), Zen, even some of the less-edgy edge LHP stuff is good (Look into Odinism/Runes, The Nine Gates of Midgard are good). Not all spiritual stuff is bunk, but a lot of it is. Avoid New Age crap like the plague, cause it is. >>77192 People wouldn't care if there weren't people trying to legislate it.

>>77192 >Strawmen strawmen strawmen, the [other_side] peoples are stupid and emotional and hate life Do you have any idea of how common this cancer is on the internet? Sure, everyone want to be intelligent and it require either to work hard on yourself of to see people who disagree with you as idiots. If you are sure the people who disagree with you do so because they are uneducated/stupid/emotional, then I have a bad new for you. Take the opposition to trans for instance. If they didn't had activists trying to insert the thing everywhere, no one would care just like no one care about furries, but nooooo, they have to force themselves everywhere, they are used as a tool to divide the population (why do you think Joe have one in his government), the investments funds make it so they have the tools do destroy anyone's career by simply complaining to HR and they absolutely have to come for the kids. Of course there is an opposition to this.

> In ancient times, there was always a set of moral principles people tried to live by... But in the modern West, we tried to structure society according to reason, science and living as a free individual. > we're surrounded by competing lifestyle choices and moral systems and told to just be free and independent and choose one You're stuck in a 20th century paradigm there, lain. The 'modern' period was characterized by science, reason, [insert ideology here] etc. was superseded by post-modernity in which there is a general mistrust of such meta-narratives. Previously, the general mass of people didn't have access to the technologies of (rapid) brain-change without it coming from the top down by some priestly or military class figure-head (like your examples of the vinaya or bushido code). It took some futurist freak taking tons of drugs, going megalomaniac mode, then imposing his version of the world on the masses through psychological/emotional manipulation. Now that your average Joe can take some mind altering substance or have access to the most esoteric yoga practices via a quick search online, they can make up their own mind and create their own reality, more or less. > Are there any moral or ethical codes fellow lains try to live by? Morality is [seems like] a spook [to me, based on my experience and the available data]. Any moral system is 'made up' by another human nervous system that thinks they're God. SEL and Texhnolyze go into this subject very deeply. > How do you deal with the endless variety of lifestyle choices and the pressure to be original and creative? “Simply accept that the universe is so structured that it can see itself, and that this self-reflexive arc is built into our frontal lobes, so that consciousness contains an infinite regress, and all we can do is make models of ourselves making models… This is what the Hindus call Shiva-darshana, or the divine dance. You are still in life, or life is in you, but since there are infinite aspects of everything, especially to the ‘you’ who is observing/creating all these muddles and models, there are no limits. The only sensible goal, then, is to try to build a reality-tunnel for next week that is bigger, funnier, sexier, more optimistic and generally less boring than any previous reality-tunnel. And once you have built that bigger, funnier, happier universe of thought, build a bigger and better one, for next month” t. RAW > I'm pretty interested in traditional Buddhism but find it hard to reconcile with ordinary life and then feel like a failure. So either accept the role of Lay Practitioner or join a monastery. What you're experiencing is the brutalizing id that cannot meet the expectations of the limitless super-ego. > The use of the term Nihilism in the title & post Gen Z 'doesn't believe in anything' in the sense that they too young to form an opinion themselves, or are heavily propagandized and educated to be stupid and neurotic so as to be easily controlled, not in the sense that they've consciously grappled with meaning to the point of rejection. polite sage because its a year old thread and can be summed up in that the op doesn't understand the postmodern condition or nihilism