MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote: I can't help but feel that my unbridled passion went so far over-the-top that it completely lost any grounding in reality.

You stated what I felt when I read that you were claiming you would carve words in your bleeding arms to prove that you would stop at nothing to write... "Errr.....Seriously?" is what I was thinking... Otherwise, you did make your passion clearly felt

You shouldn't worry about it, Mugwump. The post was amazing primarily because itwas so passionate. You should let loose more often.

child of Lilith wrote:You shouldn't worry about it, Mugwump. The post was amazing primarily because itwas so passionate. You should let loose more often.

+1

Muggy, you're at your best when you're letting loose. I'd trade all my knowledge of writing, literature, and poetry for an ounce of your inspiration and passion. Like I've said before, that other crap can be learned, but you either possess inspiration and passion and have an ability to translate that to your art or you don't. You clearly do. I wonder about myself...

symbv wrote:You need encouragement too? I think you are doing fine though, no? Perhaps you have that sense of underachievement, sense of guilt of not really engaging in something productive, or concern over long-term?

You haven't been reading my replies to Xard, I see.

symbv wrote:you can always set some of your time to do something that can give you some sense of achievement or sense of contributing to the society... One thing though -- it is never necessary to work professionally on something that is your top interest or hobby.

Problem is that I think I've set the standard so unrealistically high for doing "something that can give me some sense of achievement" that I'd never be satisfied. As I said in my last reply to Xard, part of it's the Salieri Complex, and part of it's the lamentable state of the area I'd like to pursue anyway. I'm not concerned about engaging in my passions professionally, and I guess I should be grateful that my actual profession allows me freedom with my time as it does, but that doesn't really encourage me that I can/could ever achieve what I'd like to.

Xard wrote:

Whaaat? I can't imagine you not becoming anything but philosopher, you have brains, interests and mindset for it

The problem is, Xard, that the chances of me doing philosophy professionally are microscopically slim to none. The higher education here is garbage, and the general quality of that puny scientific output my university gives is horrible. The only chance is to pursue a PhD in the UK or the USA and stay there, but that's a pipe dream and not a real possibility. At most, I can hope that I'll teach philosophy in a gymnasium or ethics in a vocational school - something I don't want to and couldn't do for health reasons.

Most people in the world never have possibilites like I have and yet all I do is act like a self-centered, dispirited first world faggot who knows nothing about real problems or adversaries and hence can spend his time on trivial angst and "problems"

I didn't intend to bring you to this level of self-deprecation... :(

Cheer up, Xard, and use maximally what your country provides to you! :)

Eva Yojimbo wrote:You haven't been reading my replies to Xard, I see.

Well, I read that, and when I thought about your mention of needing encouragement I thought of what you wrote "I don't know, I get depressed at times too, feeling like I'm stuck in a rut and feeling like I need to make some serious, radical change." You also mentioned something about health problem and past passion on writing. If your need for encouragement mainly stems from the disillusionment of trying to gain success by writing, then my apology of writing about the wrong topic. I tried to discuss from a point of view of finding a direction and purpose in living the humdrum of everyday life.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:Problem is that I think I've set the standard so unrealistically high for doing "something that can give me some sense of achievement" that I'd never be satisfied. As I said in my last reply to Xard, part of it's the Salieri Complex, and part of it's the lamentable state of the area I'd like to pursue anyway. I'm not concerned about engaging in my passions professionally, and I guess I should be grateful that my actual profession allows me freedom with my time as it does, but that doesn't really encourage me that I can/could ever achieve what I'd like to.

When I said setting some time to do something that could give you sense of achievement, I am thinking of all the options that you might want to explore to give you that feeling. If it can be achieved by writing on your own and being satisfied with yourself, then it is all good and fine; but if you think you will not be happy with such "low standard" then perhaps it is better to look beyond and find something that can give you that feeling. One example is my friend who thought she was stuck and did not feel she was achieving anything -- she quit her job and worked in some non-religion-based charity for orphans. She will be thinking over what she wants to do longer term and may stay in where she is for good, or not. For now she is happy that she is achieving something.

planet news wrote:All in all, don't be a narcissist and think that just because you will not teach at NYU and get books published by Princeton University Press means your life will suck.

Wait what? Where did you get the impression I particularly care about prestige? Besides, I'd like to remind that I live in Finland so I'd have to move to other side of the world for stuff like that anyway -______-"

The job description all around doesn't attract me for variety of reasons, not least of which is that last thing I want to do in the world is to become teacher.

Besides, you seemed to miss the "but main reason is that I don't think I could handle it psychologically" part.

I really want to have absolutely nothing to do with it.

planet news wrote:Teach at sh*tty school your whole life. At least you will not be a cog.

Yes you are. There isn't really any other part left in modern society, no viable alternatives. And it isn't really anyone's fault either.

NemZ wrote:Welcome to my world Xard, circa 2000. My condolences.

yeah as much as I laughed at your post in LeoXiao's thread it was kinda "gahh, that sounds dangerously realistic possibility"

Though becoming teacher is something I don't even consider...

NemZ wrote:On the other hand there's still no reason to fall to nihilism; you just have to realign yourself to finding a sense of purpose for yourself and not focus on the big picture from the view of some hypothetical outsider.

Wait what, I'm not nihilistic at all in terms of worldview or beliefs. The torturing feelings about fundamental emptiness of existence and valuelessness have been thing of a past for quite a while now. "Fortunately" I'm "only" in war with world and myself these days. Ideals can exist only for so long inside self-fullfilling fantasy bubble (affordable only by youthful naivete and pathos) after all and the deadline of breaking that bubble for once and for all is finally here. Doesn't mean I enjoy the process.

It's somewhat ironic I had much, much easier time on personal level as happy-go-lucky, "softly nihilistic" existentialist than now as someone who after hopelessly searching for the best, right thing to do has got absolutely sick of the world and myself following realization all considerable, realistic paths of life are horrible and only options are either to sell my values to some extent or kill myself. All the worse (and realistic!) for there being no enemy, no scapegoat to rail against. Only option left is to shut up or be a (even bigger) hypocrite and I hate that.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:It's not about English being a widely spoken language, it's about the fact that poetry book sales have sunk like the breasts of an out-of-shape, middle-aged woman who's nursed 20 kids and had a fetish for hanging boulders off her nipples. The state of modern poetry is just about as attractive, too. Seriously, name a famous poet that got their start in the second half of the 20th Century. Geoffrey Hill? James Merrill? John Ashbery? Henri Cole? Anne Carson? Find me one person amongst 1000 that know who they are. Most people's knowledge of poetry ends at Yeats and Eliot, and maybe Auden, Stevens, Neruda, Heaney, Roethke, Thomas, and a handful of others if they're 'cultured' or generally interested in literature.

Huh. I guess Finland is literate culture after all (I mean it's been said all my life that finns read unusually much but I've never bought it) because I can name few popular well known poets from modern era too whose books sell and are pretty well known. Now not necessarily enough to make living with it (in fact finnish language area is so small only bare handful of authors can truly make living with their books) but they're hardly complete unknowns outside circles of people who're interested in poetry.

symbv wrote:I thought you already abandoned them? I was talking about a practical plan of action in place of your single-minded pursuit of the top-most film school in Finland... (but reading below I guess you have at least started something)

Well my plan was to apply to Aalto and some other school this year and in case I (probably) wouldn't have made it there I'd go to some other school (where I could get in relatively easily), study there for a year and then try again. That was my plan still in beginning of March, now I just don't care anymore. But maybe it's for the best as it would've acounted for little more than escape from reality in the end, I guess.

symbv wrote:It's great you have started to do something in that direction, though I hope that deep down you would have a better reason to go that route, on top of a negative motivation like self-indulgence, might-as-well, since-I-am-already-on-it-anyway... At the end, whatever route you decide to pick you have to have a certain respect to the subject or job that you do.

At this point it's only question of choosing the specific poison to drink - what I'd really want to do has nothing to do with it. Kinda hard for that when I don't have any idea what "thing I'd like to do" would be either

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:It's very likely that the only person you're of any importance to, is yourself. The only things that should matter to you are the things you love, and the things you're forced to engage with in order to support the things you love. If you like something, it's important, and you shouldn't need to find any justification for it.

That's hysterically selfish point of view. As long as I like something it's good, worthwhile and important? Really now? (

and your posts already are far more entertaining than many books I've read so as far as I can see it's just matter of time when you become author. Chill :)

Mr. Tines wrote:@topic
Well, this summer after a couple of very bad years, I will actually be taking Karen on holiday for a short break, the first as a couple since '05. For the rest, living in the moment is the best way to proceed.

That's really good to hear!

Congratz :)

Allemann wrote:The problem is, Xard, that the chances of me doing philosophy professionally are microscopically slim to none. The higher education here is garbage, and the general quality of that puny scientific output my university gives is horrible. The only chance is to pursue a PhD in the UK or the USA and stay there, but that's a pipe dream and not a real possibility. At most, I can hope that I'll teach philosophy in a gymnasium or ethics in a vocational school - something I don't want to and couldn't do for health reasons.

That's really too bad. Not much that I can do to help here...

Allemann wrote:I didn't intend to bring you to this level of self-deprecation... :(

Well you really didn't really bring me there, just made me again conscious of what lingers in the background

Xard wrote: It's somewhat ironic I had much, much easier time on personal level as happy-go-lucky, "softly nihilistic" existentialist than now as someone who after hopelessly searching for the best, right thing to do has got absolutely sick of the world and myself following realization all considerable, realistic paths of life are horrible and only options are either to sell my values to some extent or kill myself. All the worse (and realistic!) for there being no enemy, no scapegoat to rail against. Only option left is to shut up or be a (even bigger) hypocrite and I hate that.

I think this actually depends on how you think about the whole human thing -- I see human, being a heavily social animal while having a strong obsession at protecting his/her own individuality and privacy, necessarily needs to keep different faces for different situations, different groups of people, and different contexts. And it quite often means behaving differently at different times. But that does not mean you are sacrificing your ideal or something. You are just adding one more face (persona) to your repertoire, which is a very human thing itself. Actually I would instead call someone a hypocrite if he insists he can live by all his ideals by himself and does not need to make any compromises. The functioning of society and the interactions of people would always require people to compromise and work out things with each other. I do not see how this should be looked at as value selling. It is not always happy going and I for one often do not enjoy bending myself to blend in, but I also see the rationale behind it -- and I do not regret or hate such occasional shifts between "faces". I just consider that as a necessary action that goes to make the society work. That said, I can understand a bit of that "lost ideal" feeling as when I was young I was also adverse to having to change myself more than I was prepared in order to "join the world". But over time I came to a more balanced view of the self vs world struggle - they do not need to be on the opposite sides.

I must say reading posts about the lives of people here is always depressing (not just this thread, usually when people blurb something personal it's complaining about some bad experience), excluding a few members...

So I'm making it my goal to not post anything like this in the coming years - a success story is in the making. Thanks for the inspiration.

Well if that's really how you feel Xard, I suggest door #3: stop thinking like a Last Man and become the Übermensch! If the job you want to do doesn't exist or isn't available, create it. If the system gets in your way go over, around or punch straight on through. Compromise nothing, risk everything, and you'll either achieve victory or leave a proudly blazing ruin to better light the way for the next glorious bastard. Pierce the heavens, stand tall and embrace the fire of legend, etc. Haven't you watched enough anime and read enough MANLY philosophy to get this shit by now? Here, have a new personal theme song. Put that on a loop in your head then go out and kick the world a shiny new asshole.

Thank you. Finally someone with Nietzsche, the most inspiring philosopher I have ever read.

Or you could watch that movie Yes Man. It's terrible, but the main character is an Ubermensch: "say yes to life!"

And yeah, Muggy reads Rand which is just a huge misreading/misapplication of Nietzsche. Sartre is yet another huge misreading of Nietzsche. I see a lot of either mentioned here but rarely their true source.

planet news wrote:And yeah, Muggy reads Rand which is just a huge misreading/misapplication of Nietzsche.

Planet News, you despicable sexpot!

I've read Nietzsche, too. Well, I'm reading Nietzsche. Speaking of misreading, didn't Nietzsche change his mind a lot, and have to write about four books to explain Thus Spoke Zarathustra? On that note, isn't the whole point of the Übermensch to create one's own unique philisophical doctrine, and rise out of what came before it? There was a particularly lovely aphorism by Nietzsche that I recall reading . . . I don't remember it in detail, but it was something about . . . Fuck, hold on, let me find it.

Here it is! I bookmarked all of the aphorisms that I thought were particularly bad-ass. This is #357 from Mixed Opinions and Maxisms.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote:Unfaithfulness, a condition of mastership. Nothing avails: every master has one but one disciple, and that one becomes unfaithful to him, for he too is destined for mastership.

What interests me about Nietzsche, is that he didn't seem to want to people to follow him blindly, he wanted his readers to use him as a jumping off point for their own betterment. Rand was a Nietzschean disciple who rejected his philosophy, in favor of her own. I doubt Nietzsche would have wanted her to just reapeat everything she said, and I bet Rand would hate it even more. Sure, Rand screwed up and misinterpreted the hell out of things sometimes, (I'm not entirely sure what's up with the whole Gail Wynand = Deconstruction of the Übermensch thing) I think most of the differences between the two of them are just disagreements. I've already demonstrated Nietzsche's approach to teaching, so let's go with Rand's. She was so far up her own ass, and rigid in her thought, that she would essentially excommunicate anyone who disagreed with her. They really don't approach things the same way.

Point is, yeah, I'm sure a good chunk of it is misapplication, but I'm sure that an even bigger chunk is Nietzsche's philosophy being flexible, and leaving room open for its own succession. Don't a lot of philosophers complain about Nietzsche's dogma being inconsistent and not particularly dogmatic?

Xard wrote:That's hysterically selfish point of view. As long as I like something it's good, worthwhile and important? Really now?

Of course. If you need a more hyperbolic example, I'm more than happy to indulge. Let's say, ten fifteen, twenty years pass, and you fall in love with a nice three-dimensional girl, get married, and have a son. That son will become the center of your entire world, because it will be filled with your love. But why? It's just a baby. There are countless other ones just like it, and you can always just make another. They're dreadfully common, and easy to make. Just take a sperm, an egg, shove it in a womb, and wait nine months. The child will grow into one of the equally useless billions of people on this planet, and he will die, probably miserably, and in obscurity, just like you. But for the rest of your life, this useless creature will be one of the most important things to you. Why? Because you love it, and for no other reason.

I haven't read all that much of him really, just Zarathustra as an audio book (probably should listen through that again, actually) and a series of taped lectures offering an overview of the many ways in which he thought Schopenhauer's "I read some eastern religion lol" plagiarizing ass was depressing and useless.

Nietzsche certainly wanted everyone people to become their own persons, thus why he never actually says what the Übermensch should do and why he never makes any attempt to claims that elite title for himself (Rand's greatest mistake; if you think you're elite then you probably aren't... and if you don't think you are then you still probably aren't). There will always be a great seething mass of "superfluous ones" simply by the competitive nature of life, and this is actually a desirable state because by following other Übermensch they create a status quo for the next to rage against and thus continually improve humanity by steps. An entire society of Übermensch would be no society at all.

As for Xard's problem with good defined as what you care about... he's still hung up on an objective sense of the word. What I think Mugsy is saying is that it's good TO YOU, not that society or whatever larger view standard you choose would necessarily agree... but also not to say that the larger view is correct.

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:Point is, yeah, I'm sure a good chunk of it is misapplication, but I'm sure that an even bigger chunk is Nietzsche's philosophy being flexible, and leaving room open for its own succession. Don't a lot of philosophers complain about Nietzsche's dogma being inconsistent and not particularly dogmatic?

In so much as they simply complain that it isn't philosophy.

But I think you're only thinking of Nietzsche as an immoralist and not as someone who made a name for himself by going against the philosophic traditional in a specifically anti-Kantian way, even if his actually resulting ontology is only implied or presented through negative definitions. Rand and Sartre's interpretations, or rather misuses, of his ideas are largely what I was referring to, though all are "existentialist" in their ideas about how life should be lived.

Even so, the idea of following a philosophy blindly is sort of strange, since there are arguments presented; not just claims. Nietzsche may have been aphoristic, but he also detailed out a lot of specific arguments---albeit in a rather lively way that sometimes seems not perfectly serious.

There have been a whole slew of philosophers in the twentieth century---especially late twentieth century---who chose to interpret Nietzsche in a certain way, the most important of which is Heidegger, and there have been a whole slew of philosophers who expanded and modified his ideas, the most deviant of which is Sartre. Now, it seems rather foolish to claim that all of these readings hold equal affinity with Nietzsche just because he was open minded and ironical. To be honest, I'm very confident right now just what exactly Objectivism is, but it doesn't necessarily seem too contradictory with the views of the French-Heideggerian line---rather just an enormous simplification of the issues by leaping to easy conclusions like selfishness being the ultimate virtue or Capitalism as the freest economic system.

Anyone who's read Anti-Oedipus knows that you can be a Nietzschian and not be a Capitalist. Dare I say that it is the right one because it is simply better developed?

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:The child will grow into one of the equally useless billions of people on this planet, and he will die, probably miserably, and in obscurity, just like you. But for the rest of your life, this useless creature will be one of the most important things to you. Why? Because you love it, and for no other reason.

Maybe this is Rand and Sartre---live life because you love it. But I really do not think this is Nietzsche.

I don't get precisely why everyone falls for this---it could even be called "comforting"---leap to the conclusion that your life is useless/meaningless just because it is brief and isolated. Your life is a PART OF this universe nonetheless. People become extremely discouraged emotionally when they realize that they are just random bits of matter pattered about by the fundamental forces. They don't get how they are, however small a part, INTEGRAL part of the becoming of the universe, which, as we all know, will come to a cold, dark, bitter end. Still, the idea is that to be an Ubermensch or a Body without Organs is to embrace the utmost creativity of this cold, dark matter, which exists only inside humans and sentient beings because of their infinite imagination.

This idea that great works of art only matter because people selfishless find enjoyment from it will always be truly pointless, because people die. But the universe will always in sense "own" that great work of art in its history. It is quite possible that no humans could have developed in the universe, and perhaps then it's more obvious why human creativity and accomplishment is inherently valuable as an expression of WHAT IS POSSIBLE out there, not only a selfish exploit to temporarily satiate your desire for power.

The idea is the Ubermensch creates FOR the universe, not for himself. He lets the universe speak through him in the most creative way possible.

But of course, Nemz is correct in that you can only have a handful of these elite people, what Deleuze calls nomads or Bodies without Organs, because then society could not fail---i.e. society only exists because of a fundamental striation of human potential into self-reproducing machines, etc. etc.

But for Xard, the options of sitting around the house all day and going out and making a breathtaking work of cinema is in some sense his duty to the cosmos itself and realizing just how creative it can be THROUGH US. The reactive sense of fulfillment at the end is just a chemical bonus.

I'm just taking classes at Howard Community College and I'm taking some Anime class soon in May. I still plan to be artist for Image Comics in the next few years but I feel like I can't draw the way that I want to, no matter how hard I try.

symbv wrote:Well, I read that, and when I thought about your mention of needing encouragement...

I was semi-joking, I just liked what you had say to Xard and thought maybe you would be willing to spread some of the good advice around.

symbv wrote:When I said setting some time to do something that could give you sense of achievement, I am thinking of all the options that you might want to explore to give you that feeling. If it can be achieved by writing on your own and being satisfied with yourself, then it is all good and fine; but if you think you will not be happy with such "low standard" then perhaps it is better to look beyond and find something that can give you that feeling.

I think my problem is that I have a very bipolar sense of self-worth when it comes to my more creative outlets. With poker, I make money and that's all that really matters, but when it comes to my criticism and poetry/writing I veer wildly between the opinions that I'm genuinely good/great and I'm barely mediocre and basically suck.

The worst thing about this is that I seem to have the same feeling whether it's something that I worked really hard on or something that I just hammered out quickly and unconsciously. I can be satisfied with the work I put in, but not satisfied that it ultimately is what I wanted it to be, which is where I think my desire for the praise of others comes in. But that's just usually frustrated by the fact that no "real" critics have critiqued either my criticism or poetry, and it's not like theirs would be the last word on quality anyway. It's even worse because usually the pieces I'm most proud of don't receive many comments or just receive very superficial ones. So I basically get stuck in a limbo of not having any adequate gauge of whether I'm any good or not.

Xard wrote:I guess Finland is literate culture after all (I mean it's been said all my life that finns read unusually much but I've never bought it) because I can name few popular well known poets from modern era too whose books sell and are pretty well known.

Well, I admit that the situation is much worse in America than it is elsewhere in the world. There are certainly other countries the value poetry and great poets. Russia has always held their best writers up almost as gods. In fact, Yevgeni Yevtushenko, arguably the most important and controversial Russian poet of the 20th century, actually lectures on poetry and European cinema at the University of Tulsa, not too terribly far from where I live.

planet news wrote:This idea that great works of art only matter because people selfishless find enjoyment from it will always be truly pointless, because people die. But the universe will always in sense "own" that great work of art in its history. It is quite possible that no humans could have developed in the universe, and perhaps then it's more obvious why human creativity and accomplishment is inherently valuable as an expression of WHAT IS POSSIBLE out there, not only a selfish exploit to temporarily satiate your desire for power.

The idea is the Ubermensch creates FOR the universe, not for himself. He lets the universe speak through him in the most creative way possible.

It seems rather silly to me to think that universe or anyone/anything besides ourselves gives a flip about our creativity and what we do with it... If creativity didn't fulfill some basic desire either on the part of the creator or audience then creativity wouldn't exist to begin with.

planet news wrote:But of course, Nemz is correct in that you can only have a handful of these elite people, what Deleuze calls nomads or Bodies without Organs... some sense his duty to the cosmos itself and realizing just how creative it can be THROUGH US. The reactive sense of fulfillment at the end is just a chemical bonus.

Reminds me of what Keats said about poets: "The poetical character has no self – it is every thing and nothing – It has no character – it enjoys light and shade; [...] What shocks the virtuous philosopher, delights the camelion [chameleon] Poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things any more than from its taste for the bright one; because they both end in speculation. A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity – he is continually in for – and filling some other Body – The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute – the poet has none; no identity – he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God's Creatures."

This year I plan on being less timid. I was picked on quite a lot when I was younger so I never really learned how to talk to people. The worse came in middle school and got to the point where when ever I would try to start a conversation with someone they would just make fun of me. Or they would give me the "Why are you even talking to me," look. So from the start of high school until now I just haven't gone out of my way to talk to people.
This has screwed me over more than once, not only in relationships but just general social interactions.

Even with all the terrible crap that happened last year I still have a good feeling about this year. I'm applying for a job a Staples. I'm getting my license soon (although I'm not looking forward to gas bills). I'm also getting in much better shape (Lots of running)

Despite the shitty childhood I had I still wouldn't trade it for anything. My number one rule in life is "I will never put, or let, anyone go through what I had to go through."

Xard wrote:condition of my feet got so bad I couldn't even get shoes on...(not to mention that inward growing nail that had digged its way through flesh of my toe and eventually came through the middle of my big toe, ouchhhhhh)

Definitely an ouch. Having had my dominant hand(chemically) burnt and then frostbiten last year I can really feel for your foot's pain.
I'm glad to hear that foot and you are on the road to recovery.
(Oh and if it's not too much of me to ask, how did it happen.)

Xard wrote:Philosophy I just...well, I have my hangups and feel slight disgust about what the hell has happened to the practice over long period of time but main reason is that I don't think I could handle it psychologically. Then reading this kinda sealed it.

Don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I started reading some of this guy's papers for whatever reason and he's blatantly a Randian (no, not Nietzschian, not Foucaultian, not Deleuzian... RANDIAN). I just though this was slightly relevant, because you can now get a sense of his psychology in that HE WANTS YOU TO FAIL.

I plan on joining the U.S. Coastguard. I took the ASVAB a few weeks ago, passed it, and experienced the thorough examination soon after. I'm fully qualified. I go to boot camp in Cape May, New Jersey July 1st. At the moment I'm actually making an effort to lose weight and getting back in shape. I'm also looking forward to my prom and I've been organizing the limo with two other people in my limo group.

Joseph the PRPD wrote:I plan on joining the U.S. Coastguard.

As a recreational boater, thank you for what you guys do. I don't know any USCG folks, but I do know a merchant marine.