What do you think of this life

[the.dark.lord]

?

And, by the way do you people know any good online articles about life or the truth or such?

[orange2k]

?

And, by the way do you people know any good online articles about life or the truth or such?

I used to read Nietzsche a lot, so I read most of his works, including some manuscripts that were never published as books when he was alive. I would also recommend Soren Kierkegaard, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Franz Kafka, Akira Kurosava (in movies)...

[notwen]

It's too expensive. Money makes the world go around and it's a sad thing. *nod*

[runningwithscissors]

I am tired.

[maniacmusician]

I am tired.
As am I.

Still, there's a lot of stuff I still have to do, so I suppose I must gather up the energy somehow.

[Drifter]

Life is not fair. where did the word fair come from. Define fair. Fair is a man made word.

[PatrickMay16]

And, by the way do you people know any good online articles about life or the truth or such?
I've got a whole site of it right here.
http://thebereancall.org/

[Tundro Walker]

I think a lot of folks are jaded by life these days, because survival is so easy. As long as you have a job, or are in a family that makes due, then you have a lot of the lower parts of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm) fulfilled automatically for you. All the time, blood, sweat, tears and sense of accomplishment that our ancestors had to put into those lower levels of the pyramid are taken away from some of us, and I think, for those who feel a sense of accomplishment through survival, they feel like they have no purpose in life.

Home lives tend not to be quite what religion or "TV" would like us to think it should, which adds extra strain on the middle layers of the "Belonging and Feeling Loved" layer. Few families follow the "June Cleaver" / 1950's perfect household. This can put a strain on the middle-layers of love and belongingness, along with having to deal with an increased desensitization to human violence and bullying, which can whittle down one's self-esteem.

Parents in tribal regions of Africa and South America are probably the most likely to fulfill the love and sense of family, because they spend 2-3 hours a day hunting and gathering, and the rest of the time with their family. In "developed" countries, parents work majority of the day, kids go to school majority of the day, and then all this extracurriclar activity stuff can get in the way of any family involvement (mom and dad have their friends, kids have their friends, everyone has computers and internet and cell phones to use, etc). This is quite a different version of "family" then in the past. Add in the stigma's of single-parent households, gay parent households, divorce or being born out of wedlock (all of which are common occurances, and aren't as dramatic as they once were, yet are still seen very negatively these days), and it adds more strain to fulfilling not only family / love / belonging, but self-esteem as well. (EG: a child may be born to a family that gets divorced once the father comes out of the closet. The father later finds a life-partner, so the child goes back and forth between seeing his single-mother, and his father and life-partner. All of them provide a loving, caring, nurturing environment for the child, so the child has a sense of love and family, but at school, other kids tease the child for having a gay father and being the child of a divorce. This can act as a detriment to fulfilling self-esteem, but not due to lack of family reponsibility, but due to modern age stigma projected onto the situation from others.)

So, by our modern world making it easy for a lot of us to fulfill those bottom layers, a lot of the sense of accomplishment is taken away. But, it springboards us to those upper layers which were hard to reach in the past unless you were nobility or such. Many people can pursue a college education, or surf the web for information, etc...personal fulfillment, which is at the top of the pyramid.

I think one more layer could be added to the top of the pyramid, where once you've achieved personal growth and fulfilment, you want to help others achieve it too. I'll use Bill Gates and Mark Shuttleworth as examples. They've achieved much, and pretty much got the whole pyramid covered. But, there must be something else out there that they feel they're lacking, otherwise Bill wouldn't have started a non-profit charity, and Mark wouldn't have started Canonical and Ubuntu.

EDIT: after writing this, I looked over the cited hyperlink, and it indeed had a modified version which pretty much states that wanting to help others to achieve self-actualization is a major goal after you've accomplished your own goals...go fig.



1990's adapted hierarchy of needs including transcendence needs

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
5. Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, etc.
6. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.
7. Self-Actualization needs - realising personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
8. Transcendence needs - helping others to achieve self actualization.

Even though I point to Maslow's hierarchy of needs to reference from, don't fall into the trap of thinking it's the "7 step program" to ultimate fulfilment. Like I said earlier, some folks are wired to feel "accomplished" at different layers of the pyramid. The "modern primitive", who is usually tattooed and pierced, usually has the sense of accomplishment from just surviving. Folks like Bear Grylls, too (the guy from "Man vs. Wild") feels alive and at peak when he's surviving. If you take away the need to survive, folks like that whither and diminish. So, civilized life can be detrimental to them, since it usually makes survival easy.

Others, who strive for love or family, will only feel accomplished once they have that. They could be wall-street tycoons, but if they don't have someone to love or a family to cherish, they feel unaccomplished. Others only feel accomplished if they build something in life, or contribute to the overall. Architects, computer programmers, etc...these people want a lasting reminder that they were here, or something that helps everyone.

If you're at a cross-road in life, wondering what's the point of all of it, it may be that you're on the wrong path for yourself. You might want to look into taking a personality test. These help you figure out what type of person you are, and what kinds of professions you'd do best in. I think a lot of folks gets so wrapped up in making the most money, or marrying into money, or gaining some kind of power, that they forget that that isn't the goal in life. The goal is to figure out what makes you productive and happy, and do that.

[Tundro Walker]

Only when the lower order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied are we concerned with the higher order needs of influence and personal development.

Conversely, if the things that satisfy our lower order needs are swept away, we are no longer concerned about the maintenance of our higher order needs.
I found these statements interesting, because it explains a lot of the human behaviour in "apocolypse / world is ending" type movies. Saw "Transformers" recently, and I always found it funny how when the world is ending, all social and law structure seems to take a back seat. IE: It's ok to loot from a store if it means getting food to survive, it's ok to ignore a complicated command structure if it means getting the right folks to the right place at the right time to save the world, etc.

When something threatens the bottom of the pyramid, then folks usually disregard things at the top of the pyramid in order to correct the bottom. And it's not because Maslow says so...it's because we're hard-wired to instinctually respond like that. Thus, situations like the Donnor Party eating their own kin during the snow storm to keep from starving to death...

Just thought that was interesting.

Side Note, you're OP question was vague...were you looking for spiritual advice? psychological advice?

[nocturn]

The meaning of life, the universe and everything is answered very adequately in 'The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy'.

[mezukku]

ive been bored for the past 5 months , i am thinking of going back to school..can somebody tell me where i can find a better cost effective online education??? :)

[sffvba[e0rt]

The meaning of life, the universe and everything is answered very adequately in 'The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy'.

Strange, the first thing that popped into my head when I read the OP was "42"...


404

PS - Only after the close did I look at the OP date >.<

[BlinkinCat]

ive been bored for the past 5 months , i am thinking of going back to school..can somebody tell me where i can find a better cost effective online education??? :)

On this Forum - :)

[BlacqWolf]

On this Forum - :)

^Win

[cariboo]

What I want to know is why mezukku resurrected a 4 year old thread. Closed.