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Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

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Re: Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

#231

Post by brokenmachine »

triangleman wrote: post #189
tasuki wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A faith in what? One definition of faith found on the internet: "Belief not supported by evidence or reason, but assumption alone." I have seen many people finding happiness and/or purpose in believing various things not supported by evidence or reason, and have always wondered: how to choose which of these I should believe?

Start small. I am going to refer you to some scripture but I am not asking you to accept it a priori as truth, only to investigate whether there may be any truth in it. Hebrews 11:6 says that he who comes to God "must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him". Essentially what I am asking you to believe is the truth of "seek and ye shall find"... that it is possible to find, prov…

What a load of codswallop.

I find it insulting to my intelligence to be asked to believe something with no evidence, and when I ask for evidence to be told that I shouldn't be asking.

If god is willing to prevent Evil, but not able, he is not omnipotent. If he is able but not willing, he is malevolent. If he is able and willing, then whence cometh evil? If he is neither able nor willing, why call him god?

Re: Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

#232

Post by pm90 »

apatters wrote: post #194
triangleman wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way? Are you sure, based on what the parent wrote? Perhaps he was not clear about the difference between "finding meaning" and "finding your own meaning", but few people are clear about that. A search for meaning, personal or otherwise, does not necessarily lead to hedonism--to get there you have to throw out all kinds of useful things, and it doesn't really get you very far, and eventually life loses meaning…

No, he's right. If you abandon the notion that there's anything which possesses an intrinsic or higher meaning, it's almost inevitable you'll end up gratifying your most basic instincts first because they're the strongest. At least until they're sated. The only thing I don't get is why more people don't do it. People walk around with all sorts of hangups and narratives about why they're denying themselves and they ta…

The answer to the "why" is mostly fear, real or imagined. Why don't most people talk to a another person they find insanely attractive? Why do they not take time to understand a religion or philosophy very different from their own? etc.

Re: Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

#233

Post by pm90 »

nibs wrote: post #206
gglitch wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Aristotle's view, there was a meaningful distinction between pleasure, which led to hedonism, and happiness, which is fairly abstract and depends on virtuous conduct performed with the right mindset. Edit: if I recall correctly. This is from The Nichomachean Ethics.

What if pain, in the traditional sense, makes you happy. I get pleasure from rebelling my hedonist parents in a way reminiscent of puritans. It has nothing to do with comparison to others - I just like denying myself pleasure (abstaining from alcohol, sugar, caffeine, drugs, sometimes sex, etc.). I get a lot of meaning from it.

Whatever floats your boat. As long as you don't force it upon others, I can't see why there should be any problem. The personal freedom for any individual to live as one finds the most happiness without harming others should be the goal of any fair/just society.

Re: Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

#234

Post by pm90 »

brokenmachine wrote: post #221
scalio wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this has to do with a certain short-sightedness concerning achievements, purchases, general life decisions... Is there a particularly good reason why a degree would make you happy? It'll land you a good post at a high-paying company, I'm sure. But what will you do with your money? Or are you the type of person who takes pleasure in big, positive numbers as their account balance? I often get on peoples' nerves…

I've found that a large percentage of people get annoyed when you ask them, "why?". I don't mean to be harsh, but this is the only way I can describe it: I think it's because they actually don't have well thought out reasons for lots of the things they do, and they don't want that exposed because it could weaken their already shaky worldview because then they'd be standing on shifting sand, not a stable bedrock of un…

No its not harsh at all. I've had almost the same experience, to the T, with a lot of the people I see around me everyday. I suspect that most of society continues to live this way, content in its ignorance and confused as to why despite doing everything "according to the book" they still end up in rather unsatisfying lives. This is even the more dangerous in some cultures where honor is so important that people lead delusional lives; they act as if everything is perfect in their lives while they are actually very unhappy and yearn for something better.

Being introspective is intellectually challenging and rewarding but can also lead to a lot of frustration and dilemmas. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable. It is required though.

Re: Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

#235

Post by Fraterkes »

taneq wrote: post #211
Fraterkes wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a large part of the problem is that when people talk about finding "happiness" they are actually talking about "winning at life". Which is impossible of course. Every time that you do something that you think will make you happy, and you ask yourself 'is this it?' you allready know the answer, because someone who's satisfied wouldn't ask 'is this it?'. And if you spend years thinking about "finding happiness"…

> [W]hen people talk about finding "happiness" they are actually talking about "winning at life". Which is impossible of course. Winning at life is a process, not an event or a one-off result. It can be anything from really enjoying a hot chocolate while watching a sunrise, to nailing a product demo, to that first (or third) date with your crush. Winning at life is not something you can be 'done with', except maybe b…

I don't disagree with you that what you discribe sounds like a good way to live. But I meant that talking about 'winning at life' is problematic because it suggests there is a finish line. Which is wrong, because as you say, being happy is a process.

Re: Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

#236

Post by apatters »

brokenmachine wrote: post #217
apatters wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he's right. If you abandon the notion that there's anything which possesses an intrinsic or higher meaning, it's almost inevitable you'll end up gratifying your most basic instincts first because they're the strongest. At least until they're sated. The only thing I don't get is why more people don't do it. People walk around with all sorts of hangups and narratives about why they're denying themselves and they ta…

But how much do you dial it back? The problem for me personally is that hedonism, while fun for maybe a couple of hours, inevitably leads to more complications and suffering than happiness over the next day, the next week or the next year. A more measured, but peaceful life with many smaller (not big enough to be disruptive) happy moments has been my solution and I've mostly been satisfied with that.

This doesn't sound like a problem to me at all - you found your sweet spot and dialed it back to a place that you're happy with, presumably with less regrets about it than if you had never gone a bit too far in the first place.

Re: Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

#237

Post by coldtea »

sireat wrote: post #198
scalio wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have found happiness when the idea "life is meaningless" seem obvious and irrelevant. Precisely. To the best of our knowledge, we're just robots. There is no meaning behind the universe, it just kinda, is . The realization that the only sense you can find in life is the one you create yourself, makes a lot of things clearer. This is also why it should be irrelevant that life is meaningless, since what do you ca…

We are back to Ecclesiastes without the tacked on Epilogue but with a touch of Blade Runner. I have two problems with this realization(not that it makes it any less true). First, anything truly goes then and we are back to "might is right". Any state/laws some subset of humanity creates is no less right than any other subset of humanity which includes various levels of psychopaths. First problem is not such a bad one…

>Unfortunately there is so little time and no time for any grand works unless you already showed some promise at early age (ala Thompson).

Well, there are several artists that started out of nowhere in their 30s or 40s or even 50+. Especially in novel writing, this has been quite common.

Re: Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

#238

Post by swombat »

fsiefken wrote: post #207
swombat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In one of his books he says the meaning of life is "about experiencing existence, in all its angles and glory, for the sheer and pure sake of experience itself! We don’t eat a nice meal, make love or travel to beautiful locations just to understand or make sense of something. We do these things because the experiences themselves imbue our lives with a kind of timeless meaning, independent of comprehension." -- Kast…

Hi Snowbat, I don't think Bernardo assumes such a simulation (a kind of solipsism?) or is this thought experiment for the sake of 'what if'? "Make love" as Bernardo says in this sense implies genuine meaningful relationship, even though both persons are dreams within 'the godhead', transcendent or ultimate reality or whatever you call this 'timeless meaning'. If so there's still both illusions of active agents (human…

Yep, you do make sense (though I would suggest more line breaks :-P ). Also my username is swombat not snowbat...

A great source for this discussion is Hannah Arendt's book "The Human Condition". I find it really heavy and difficult to read but full of incredible insights and powerful ideas about certain features/definitions/perspectives of human life. Highly recommended.

Re: Hunter S. Thompson on Finding Your Purpose (1958)

#239

Post by pimeys »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #186
pimeys wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, nice movies. But damn, read the books! Adding to those two, I'd definitely read: * Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1973) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_on_the_Campa... * Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1967) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%27s_Angels:_The_Strange_a... His ability to just push himself into the situations and into what…

> But damn, read the books! I tried reading it after seeing a lot of recommendations, but gave it up quickly; my sentiments are echoed by this[1] Goodreads reviewer (2nd most 'like'd review there, 1st most liked gives the book 5-stars though): > I honestly don’t remember the last time I was so bored and annoyed by a book. Barring a massive conspiracy, maybe I just didn’t get this book? This is what I got from the boo…

It's about the American dream, not about Hunter doing drugs in the desert (or a bit about that too). It's still not dated and it's very much hitting the target. Read his other work and you'll see that he is very good at picturing the current mood and what's going on around him.
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