Dylan Page

@Leo Gura man I’m not saying I want tyranny lol. It’s hard to explain this via my phone but just know I’m not a fuckin masochist who likes being whipped around. I don’t want tyranny, I still value democracy, I still care about government. I’m just saying it’s not effective at the moment in its current state.

I mean I don’t do the guilt thing that often lol but when it does happen, yeah, I guess I am a devil. There are tons of things I am afraid of and don’t like. Mostly because I don’t understand them. But, everyday I work towards further understanding, I’ll get there soon enough. @Leo Gura Just want to say thanks for the guidance, ur one of the only people I know that is legitimately honest with yourself and others and it shows.

You are not fully understanding what I am talking about and are being condescending. I am done talking to you. Don’t give me the common man bullshit. You either talk to me with respect or not at all. @Derek White

Haha what’s funny about it is that I literally feel evil when I act too selfishly. I feel like Gollum from the lord of the rings, just hoarding everything and being a complete douche, filled with shame, guilt, etc. I also have this weird confusion whenever I help people. Sometimes I’ll help someone and ask if I did it for a selfish or selfless reason. Like the difference between donating to charity because you actually want those people to have better lives or because you want to come off to the media as a good person. I pretty much never want to be the media guy. @Leo Gura

@Derek White @Leo Gura I’ve thought about this a lot. This has nothing to do with cynicism or laziness, nor do I believe it is a bad question. I’m calling into question the effectiveness of democracy and the individuals true impact on his/her government. I apologize if I am being repetitive as I have indeed made a thread on this in the past, but after a 2 hour argument with a friend on the matter, I really struggle to understand the reasoning behind even getting up to go vote. I truly do understand that it’s “not a big deal”, you know, it’s only 1 hour every 2 years. My problem is, that my vote literally is meaningless. No election is ever won by a single vote and given this information, I see no reason to try to, excuse the metaphor, create a tsunami by splashing the ocean waves with my hands. It makes no sense. Sure I can try to get other people to vote as well, but they can have the same logic that I am talking about above. I am starting the believe that voting should be made mandatory to eliminate this individual worth problem, as it is the healthiest way to continue our democracy. Again, no mal-intent here. I really am just trying to understand.

@Leo Gura Why do you value voting? I see it as a waste of time. My vote is droplet in the sea of others. My impact is effectively 0.

Do you all feel content, happy, satisfied, and accepting of the true nature of reality? Whenever I think about the true nature of reality, and I think how it might destroy the image I currently have of it, like how I have a belief that all livings things should work together. Sometimes I get really like, disturbed by something that could possibly be true. Something that disgusts me is living with a purely hedonistic mindset. Work pleasure sleep work pleasure sleep over and over till death. It seems so disgustingly meaningless it’s almost funny. So I guess I mean to say, when you reach the actual fundamental truth, is that sense of disgust still there? That disturbing feeling? Like truth and meaning are bad?

@AnTe how do you know there is a reason? How do you know sum total of all people created this reason? What is this reason?

@AnTe When I say disgust I mean more of like a visceral fear, like an extreme panicked realization that reality could be an infinite loop of hell from which one cannot escape. Sometimes I’ll get an idea that introduces the possibility of that and it’s scary as fuck.

I understand that things are limited and cannot do many things because of those limitations but I still don’t see why pain and the gazillion other kinds of suffering are necessary parts of life. What is pain’s function? Why would it exist? It’s fundamentally, conceptually something that just should not exist. Joy and other positive feels are self justifying, meaning they need to explanation to be understood and valued. I’ve kept an open mind and generally can at least conceptually agree with most of what I have heard from Leo, but I have never heard as satisfying response justifying the existence of suffering. It seems that no matter what, even if a lesson is learned or an achievement is got, pain and suffering can always be replaced by joy and beauty and the experience will be overall better. Like, why would god make itself suffer? What’s the point? Sure we gotta experience limitation and go through all incarnations in order to be infinite and shit, but those reasons seem so ridiculously dumb for justifying suffering. If I was going to love everything infinitely, why make my creations suffer? It really makes no sense at all no matter where I look.

I can see loving them when getting to know them. I can see understanding their reasoning, and would probably end up liking them. However, I don’t see why they couldn’t like something else, something that doesn’t cause extreme suffering to someone as a price for their joy or convenience. Why would god create it that way? And that was a really good story by the way, thank you for the effort you are putting into this conversation. @Serotoninluv

I have a friend who I’ve known for a really long time who I respect on so many levels, and I love being with him, but he has a lying and manipulation problem. He will tell little lies in order to get his way, even if it means others will suffer. I would say it’s really hard for me to love someone who finds joy at the expense of others. Empathy is probably the most important trait I look for in another person. @Serotoninluv

@Serotoninluv well I guess I just don’t get it right now. I am of the opinion that a world full of suffering is worse than a world that lacks it, because suffering is defined by a bad feeling while love is defined by a good feeling, roughly speaking. I understand the concept of conditional and unconditional love, but I really just don’t see how for example, a 27 year old girl getting tortured and raped for 44 days and then murdered immediately after is even remotely acceptable in gods eyes. Imagine the pain. She was begging to die. This actually happened, you can google it. It makes literally 0 sense to me. Hopefully with time it will make sense, because it’s really, really important to me.

@Serotoninluv do you disagree with the string of logic

I understand relativity completely and could ace literally any test on it. @Serotoninluv Ill write it out like an equation. Assumption 1: god loves creation assumption 2: god cares about the well-being of its creations. Scenario 1: 2 contradictory perspectives collide and both sides suffer. Scenario 2: they are put into different realities and allowed to be themselves without necessary suffering of another party conclusion: scenario 2 is better.

@Keyhole yeah I really have no idea. I just live my life and ask these questions and rarely get any sort of satisfactory answer. All I can do is keep trying, but if I don’t get there, I will not be surprised at all. If I had to guess, I think I’ll die with disappointment, because I don’t think I’ll ever get a reasonable answer. But who knows. Maybe I’ll get a pleasant surprise.

@Serotoninluv I’m saying that it’s fundamentally bad. From any possible perspective. Given of course, that the creator cares about the well being of its creations. Suffering is inherently bad, it’s defined by how bad it is. If you feel good when suffering, you aren’t suffering. That scenario isn’t bad in my head, or in my construct, it’s fundamentally bad with the assumption that the creator cares about its creations. If it finds joy in watching people suffer, then fine, it’s doing the right thing in its eyes, but if that’s the case, then I hate it.

@Moreira we do not need suffering to know love. Feel love, it can exist on its own, just like suffering.

@Serotoninluv I never said the killer was evil, I’m saying, why allow 2 beings with completely contradictory value systems exist within the same realm at all. I don’t care about my immersion in reality or my survival or perspective or ego or any of that shit, I’m talking about on a purely rational level. Put a and b into reality a likes to eat cake and b likes to watch people suffer as he smashes the cake in front of their face. Why allow them to live in the same plane of existence at all.

@Keyhole I’ve never really been sure what people mean by awakening. I’ve had many, many epiphanies over the course of my life, but I’ve never like, become god or whatever people talk about, I feel like the definition isn’t clear on what awakening is, and so tons of people run around claiming they had an awakening when in reality ones awakening is something totally different to someone else.

@Serotoninluv right, so why do I have to experience suffering then, I really don’t care about the serial killer, all that kind of person does is cause mass suffering for his own selfish motives. If I could exist without causing pain to others, I would. I try my best to be as kind and understanding as possible. Why did god make someone who loves to murder people? Why do humans like meat? Why is it that every time we take a step we commit mass genocide against microbes? It’s a pretty dogshit situation if you ask me.

@Keyhole well the possibility that we could be hit by an asteroid tomorrow and cease to exist permanently kind of destroys any hope for me that evolution is headed somewhere with an intelligent purpose. Maybe we are being shrouded by some karmic forcefield by god but I really doubt it. Also, anything formed cannot be objectively perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist except for in the realm of relativity. As I think about it more, the definition of “perfect” starts to become blurry, it’s hard to know what it even means. And to the “and we are also aware as well” point, like 99.9999999999999999^^^9999% of people don’t know that if it is true, so idk about that either. I will say though, on a side note, that that song is fire, lol.

Well, we could be born with knowledge of what we are from the get go, but in that case we would know that we are god and the illusion of self would become untenable. Given that we must stay in a shroud of ignorance pain is certainly an effective way of keeping us alive, but I can also conjure many other images of things being able to survive via positive motivation only. It would just require more ignorance and greater care. Like a baby bird in a mother’s nest, the babies most of the time don’t have a care in the world, they eat because they like it and they play because they like it. There is no suffering because it isn’t necessary. Why not make it like that for everything? @Leo Gura

The basic message is that in any scenario, if pain were replaced with pleasure, it would be objectively better, given the same outcome, same lessons, same everything. The only thing that changes is the raw sensation. @Leo Gura

@Leo Gura why is pain necessary for survival? Why can’t survival be fun? Many say the best lessons are the hardest to learn. Why can’t they be the easiest? Why include pain at all. God has infinite power, why couldn’t he make paradise? Why this constant battle. Why ignorance, why hate, why any of that. You can say “for love”, because god loves everything, but if god loved everything, why would he make his creations suffer? And I don’t mean to gender god, it’s for the sake of conversation.