rachMiel
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Posts posted by rachMiel
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10 hours ago, Letho said:@rachMiel you're not a nihilist you're a human being
Thanks for the reminder that 'nihilism' is a conceptual construct, a thought form. When your world is inhabited by thought forms, things get weird, tulpas and egregores notwithstanding. I tend to live in thought rather than 'raw experience.' And things do get weird.
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46 minutes ago, LastThursday said:@rachMiel The despair comes out of naively believing in absolutes and then through some process having to reject all absolutes, it's a form of grief.
Bingo.
46 minutes ago, LastThursday said:@rachMiel It's like treading water in the ocean, you're only held up as long as you keep kicking - and whether you stop or not, it's despair both ways.
This is quite the image. Desperately kicking to stay afloat (for what?) vs. giving up and drowning, neither are happy paths. Is there a middle way?
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1 hour ago, Nilsi said:Affirming your own meaning is no task for the faint of heart.
I would say living is no task for the faint of heart.
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2 hours ago, LastThursday said:we only ever experience relativity.
How is this related to the existential despair of nihilism?
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4 hours ago, LastThursday said:@rachMiel So you seek absolute truth, but use a relative tool to do it: storytelling.
I bemoan the apparent absence of absolute truth. I miss believing in absolutes, feel unmoored and unprotected. I use stories, non-story is too barren for me like staring into the abyss.
4 hours ago, LastThursday said:@rachMielIf you allow in absolutes then Nihilism sort of becomes redundant.
Given my definition of nihilism is absence of absolutes! No absolutes makes sense to me on all kinds of levels, it feels true, but I can't know for sure.
4 hours ago, LastThursday said:@rachMiel He gets to escape the loop, but I don't think we have that option IRL, the absurdity continues, changing our reaction to it only makes it more bearable.
Is there any way out? Is the person who knows the abyss forever stuck with this knowing?
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1 hour ago, gettoefl said:There is nothing worthwhile or important or learnable outside myself
Having grasped this, I can mine the true treasure
Me
And the deeper you mine, the vaster the 'field' revealed. Seen from this pov, all my prapanca about nihilism is 'much ado about nothing.'
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@Ajay0 Thanks for the response. What is the relationship between virtue and love? Is love the antidote for nihilist despair?
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@LastThursday Right there is definitely circularity in the assertion “There are no absolutes.“ But I’m not asserting this as an absolute truth, I am saying it’s what I strongly believe. It is my story of the true nature of reality. I don’t want to escape it, I want the truth. I just wish I could find a way to be more comfortable and at peace with it. In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray falls into the dark side of nihilism at some point in his endless succession of the same day. But he gets past it. I feel it’s time for me to get past the dark side, it’s lost its charm.
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6 hours ago, Hojo said:Have you tried to bear the consequences emotionally?
I work with the emotions at times, let them flower, rise and fade, without resisting them. But I have to tread lightly, my emotions are a bit out of whack these days.
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By nihilism I mean the view that there are no absolutes: meaning, purpose, good, evil, right, wrong. All of these exist relatively in consensus reality, but none exist absolutely and inherently. We're all making it up as we go along: storytelling, best guessing, speculating. This goes for everyone, from Buddha to Trump. There are people who are 'closer to the truth' perhaps, but like an asymptote, no view ever reaches the absolute.
It took me many years to arrive here, I never intended or wanted to find nihilism, it just sort of emerged from my self-work.
The good thing about nihilism is it can be deeply freeing, all rules/codes/morality is seen as fallible, especially the rules that are presented as inviolable!
The bad thing is the freedom can feel like free-fall: no up, no down, no control, no security. Just falling freely with no safety net. For people who rely emotionally on the feeling of security and meaning that belief in absolute authority brings, not having this can be nightmarish. This is the predicament I find myself in, I am deeply convinced about the (relative) truth of my nihilist view, I can't un-see it, but I don't feel capable of bearing its consequences emotionally. I can't handle the truth!
Thanks for listening. Feel free to share your take. :-)
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Bohm and Krishnamurti inquired deeply into the nature and limitations of thought. Lots and lots of links out there. Here are the seminal 12 dialogues:
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The author and anthropologist Ernest Becker theorized fear of death is the fundamental driver of human behavior, influencing everything from individual personal goals to collective cultural and societal structures. Makes sense onto me! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Becker
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I think it's fair to say any absolute conclusion you come to about anything is a form of self-deception. "Open your mouth and you're wrong."
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No past
No future
No present
No analysis
No control
Rest– Tilopa
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@Princess Arabia Resonates, well said. :-)
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@Ishanga I love the idea of sentient entities (which for me means: everything) being the sense organs of the Universe, the 'feelers' used to experience all the nooks and crannies of existence. The greatest perk of this view imo for us humans, especially the quasi-nihilists among us is this: Our experience matters, we matter, there is purpose to our thoughts and actions.
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@Ishanga Are there any precognitionistes in the house, we need your expert insider information!
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@Princess Arabia You had me at 'play'! Maybe the future is not what its lay definition paints it as? Native American rituals are often in sacred time, where past, present, and future are felt to co-exist. Not just metaphorically, but really. Perhaps they've got it right, they see what we miss? Or perhaps it's fairy tales all the way up, all the way down. How would we know?
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2 minutes ago, Ishanga said:I would equate BEINGNESS with Absolute
Pure being is definitely down there near the core of the onion. (Do onions have cores?) It may be the closest humans get to experiencing the Absolute. But there also may be layers 'beneath' pure being, layers for which there are no words or images or ideas.
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15 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:Your heading didn't specify on what level you were referring to;
I wanted the exploration to be open, not limited by biases of this or that level. All level biases welcome! ;-)
17 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:no one has ever experienced the future
I am open to the possibility that the future can be experienced and not just in a faux way as projection. Reality is strange, perhaps unfathomable.
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@Princess Arabia It's the infamous level confusion! ;-) Person A is speaking of/from the relative level, person B from the (as-if) absolute level. I agree absolute-ly regarded 'time' is meaningless. But I don't know if this is theory or actuality, the absolute truth is not available to me (cognitively).
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@Princess Arabia My feeling is projection plays a key role in precognition, but the future may exist in some way and be available to some people via mental time travel. I have no proof other than believable accounts that are hard to explain as pure projection.
I like the depiction of the precognition that Paul Atreides experiences in the Dune books:
Paul’s precognition is not a simple ability to see a singular, predetermined future. Rather, he experiences multiple possible futures, a phenomenon described as seeing through a "web of time." His visions are fragmented and kaleidoscopic, showing him various potential outcomes of events. This grants him insight into what might happen based on the choices made by him and others. – GPT
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@Princess Arabia Assuming like you said there is no future, how would you explain precognition?
in Personal Development -- [Main]
Posted
I doubt this is possible anymore for me. (Was once upon a time, I had my 'masters.') The ship has sailed. It's relative all the way up, all the way down.
The only way out of my nihilist cul de sac I currently see is love. (Pure awareness/consciousness does little for me.) Love may or may not be an absolute, but it's perhaps as close to divine as unenlighteneds like me get.