[Gobbler]

I'm pretty much what you'd call a simpleton. As such, I take great pride in not taking pride in whatever it is I'm doing. And usually I try to avoid doing too much.

Lately, however, I've been trying - trying - to invest a little more time in acquiring some sort of overview of life in general. What I'm aiming for is a set of simple statements that summarize facts of life, rules and guidelines to keep in mind and maybe live by. So you see the problem there - life is complex as fuck and opinions will vary greatly on what is really important and what is really a good philosophy to follow.

Still, I'd like to see if we can somehow put together a list of stuff like that, discuss points in detail and maybe learn a thing or two from each other's experience. Here are a few of my own points to get things started:

• Strength is fear waiting to be overcome
  (You'll notice I'm trying to put some sappy pathos in those wordings, though I get the feeling that I'm doing it a bit wrong.)
  Fear is one of evolution's tools to keep us out of harm's way, and it's been pretty effective at that. Or maybe a bit too effective, because now we're not just afraid of the truly life-threatening stuff, but also of the stuff that threatens our general well being and stand in society. I try to make a point of not letting fear forcing me into inaction, since until now, pushing it aside and confronting my problems head-on pretty much always lead to a way better outcome than I would have imagined. It's alright to feel fear, but not to be hindered by it.

• Detailed plans call for detailed failures
  This is something an older colleague of mine told me when I asked him to share some of his life experience with me. I'm still struggling with it, because I just love to plan out things. A good plan will bring you a long way, true, but an all too good plan is usually blown apart by reality somewhere in the middle of the process. So I try to be a little more flexible, plan a few steps ahead and see what reality will come up with.

• Nothing is important, Everything should be
  This is derived from my growing nihilistic tendencies, which sometimes start to worry me. If you consider the vast expense of the universe, you're only a very, very, very, very tiny little spec of dust. You'll perish in a few years and the universe will have forgotten about you shortly after that. It's the same for even the greatest and most popular people of our time - Jesus may still be the talk of the town today, but just give it a million years. So, obviously, whatever you do isn't really of consequence. At least not to the universe and the flow of time.
  And yeah, I know, the easy answer is to enjoy what time you've got with the resources and company available to you. It just isn't always easy for me to value those things when I keep thinking that even humanity's "great" struggle for survival is completely and utterly unimportant in the end, if seen from a bigger perspective. So I try to remind and convince myself of the things that should truly matter to me and my life. Working my ass off for some random company isn't always part of that...

• Communicate goals first, then achieve them
  This is just a simple bit of wisdom. If you really want to accomplish something, telling others about it will put you at risk of not only failing in your own eyes (which is all too easily forgiven), but also in the eyes of those whose respect you want, should you not succeed. Gives you a whole lot more incentive to get to it and get it done right.
  Adds a bit of stress to your life, but that's still better than just being all talk, with nothing to show for it.

Alright, those are a few of mine - anyone else got something? Oh, and tiny stuff like this is also perfectly dandy with me:

• Cure brainfreeze
  Ate too much ice, stuck in brainfreeze - just push your tongue up against the roof of your mouth.

This post has been edited by Gobbler: 08 December 2010 - 03:59 AM

[civilian_number_two]

Gobbler, on 08 December 2010 - 03:55 AM, said:

• Nothing is important, Everything should be
  This is derived from my growing nihilistic tendencies, which sometimes start to worry me. If you consider the vast expense of the universe, you're only a very, very, very, very tiny little spec of dust. You'll perish in a few years and the universe will have forgotten about you shortly after that. It's the same for even the greatest and most popular people of our time - Jesus may still be the talk of the town today, but just give it a million years. So, obviously, whatever you do isn't really of consequence. At least not to the universe and the flow of time.
  And yeah, I know, the easy answer is to enjoy what time you've got with the resources and company available to you. It just isn't always easy for me to value those things when I keep thinking that even humanity's "great" struggle for survival is completely and utterly unimportant in the end, if seen from a bigger perspective. So I try to remind and convince myself of the things that should truly matter to me and my life. Working my ass off for some random company isn't always part of that...

This philosophy comes around from time to time, this sort of zen-like unengagement. "In another hundred years, no one will care," like that's a way to justify sleeping with your friend's wife. Ok, let's put it another way: do you care what the people in the next city think of your shoes? Was your decision to play basketball today influenced in any way by what they may think of it 30000 years from now? NO? Ok, then. So yes, what you do is unimportant to people in other times and in other places. It may even be unimportant to you in thirty years. But if it's important to you NOW, then there's no reason to worry about what a load of strangers in other times and places, or even yourself thirty years from now, might think (unless it's like, sleeping with your friend's wife, cause that's fucked up). The global and temporal insignificance of actions and events should have no bearing on their local and temporal significance. The same argument used to show how unimportant individuals are can be used to show how their "importance" is actually irrelevant. QED.

[J m HofMarN]

See, that doesnt really work for nihilism, because if youre going to consider things on a grander scale, well then, you should rise to the occasion and attempt to effect things on a grander scale, so that when they open the books one day, hey, there you are. That's the way I see it, though I havent been doing too good a job at that.

[barend]

As I understand it you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.

[Zatoichi]

Anger by itself is a good thing. It tells you that something is wrong. Now, how you handle that anger is a whole other story. (Of course this is scewed a bit because different people percieve different things as being right and wrong, and the severity of an offense.)

Harboring hatred though, isn't good. It just leads to a lot of bad things, both for yourself and the people around you.

[J m HofMarN]

Peace is a lie, there is only passion
Through passion I gain power,
Through power I gain victory
Through victory my bonds are broken.

Follow the code of the Sith!

[Zatoichi]

Everyone gets older. Most people never grow up. Especialy those God-forsaken Toy's R Us Kids.

[Gobbler]

People don't really change much. Those flaws you see in your partner that you expect to go away over time or through careful counseling, they're probably there to stay.

This post has been edited by Gobbler: 06 January 2011 - 08:18 AM

[Icey]

In most cases people have really good reasons for treating you like dirt. It however doesn't make it your fault that they are miserable. Unless you slept with their wives.

If you make an assumption, make the most polite one.