The futility of our time here on Earth

**Andres** · 02-25-2011, 15:16

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I have no goals or objectives or that I don't strive to achieve things, it's just that I'm sometimes amazed about what people want. I talk to a lot of people in my kind of work and it sometimes amazes me about what their goals are, what they want to reach, how they can get worked up over trivial things. How much value is added on money, status and more generally on what others think of you. There also seem to be many people suffering from what I call the "self importance syndrome". At best, we're important in relation to our closed ones. Of course, to our parents, children, close family and friends, we're important, but apart from that? No; we're not important at all.

Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost

Where, I would think, will I fit in times to come? Amongst those tombs wherein lie men who made a difference, or in the undisturbed corners where the spiders laugh at the unremarkable lives mouldering below their thickening webs?

Not long ago, I came to realise that it really doesn't matter - we're all dust one way or another - and that the opportunity to shape history rather depends on history.

Worrying about what people who aren't even born yet will think about you seems like a bit of folie de grandeur, no? You're absolutely right that, in the end, it doesn't matter. There are things that matter, but what history will think of you, is not of one of them.

**Rhyfelwyr** · 02-25-2011, 15:48

I'm having a mini early mid-life crisis right now. I feel I've got my priorities wrong. I'm about to be finished my Uni education with a degree from a top Uni in a few months time, and I ploughed straight on with my education, so I'm as young as you can be to be in such a position. I've got a job and I've built up savings for when I move out after Uni, so I have no debt worries or anything like that.

And yet I've had no social life, no hobbies until very recently. I know people working dead-end jobs (without future prospects for a better one, before anyone points out where I work

), but they are married. I have friends who have no jobs or education, yet they still go on holidays and see the world. I literally haven't been without a 30-mile radius from where I live in the whole four years I've been at Uni.

idk how to feel. On the one hand, my life is kind of boring and crap so that's meh. But on the other hand I am very happy because I am in pretty much the perfect situation for where I need to be in terms of building a future.

The OP is right in that people worry too much about goals. A lot of people work so much they never have time to appreciate what they work for, so I don't want to be one of those people.

Man, I have no idea what to do with my life right now...

**Ronin** · 02-25-2011, 17:13

Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

I'm having a mini early mid-life crisis right now. I feel I've got my priorities wrong. I'm about to be finished my Uni education with a degree from a top Uni in a few months time, and I ploughed straight on with my education, so I'm as young as you can be to be in such a position. I've got a job and I've built up savings for when I move out after Uni, so I have no debt worries or anything like that.

And yet I've had no social life, no hobbies until very recently. I know people working dead-end jobs (without future prospects for a better one, before anyone points out where I work

), but they are married. I have friends who have no jobs or education, yet they still go on holidays and see the world. I literally haven't been without a 30-mile radius from where I live in the whole four years I've been at Uni.

idk how to feel. On the one hand, my life is kind of boring and crap so that's meh. But on the other hand I am very happy because I am in pretty much the perfect situation for where I need to be in terms of building a future.

The OP is right in that people worry too much about goals. A lot of people work so much they never have time to appreciate what they work for, so I don't want to be one of those people.

Man, I have no idea what to do with my life right now...

someone needs to get laid.

**Rhyfelwyr** · 02-25-2011, 17:28

Originally Posted by Ronin

someone needs to get laid.

Not only am I accussed of making everything I say about women, now when I don't, people still find that what I am saying is really somehow all about women.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Strike For The South** · 02-25-2011, 17:16

Oggi a te, domani a me

Death use to worry me until very recently, My consciousness thinking about the end of itself produced a primal fear in the pit of my gullet. I went through a period where I would lay awake and worry about the end of it all. Not coincdentally this happend the same time I "left" the church.

I am simply going to try and take everything in knowing I could've been dealt a much worse hand

What else can you do? Demanding time halt is a most fruitless endavor, some men waste a lifetime on it, only at the end to beg for more

Dont be that guy

**Banquo's Ghost** · 02-25-2011, 17:42

Originally Posted by Andres

Worrying about what people who aren't even born yet will think about you seems like a bit of folie de grandeur, no? You're absolutely right that, in the end, it doesn't matter. There are things that matter, but what history will think of you, is not of one of them.

A burden that you are not perhaps familiar with, maybe.

I'm sure that you are concerned with how your child will think of you, and perhaps how your parents think of you. Extend the principle through generations, fore and aft. When one inherits a set of expectations and responsibilities, bequeathed by a set of historical events, one can either shy away or take up the challenge.

What history (in my familial terms, not the grand picture) thinks of me does matter. To me, and I hope, to my descendants. It may not matter to you, of course.

**Megas Methuselah** · 02-25-2011, 18:54

I just want to get my family out of the hole, man. I just want to get us out. We deserve better than this.

**Hooahguy** · 02-25-2011, 19:42

Whenever I think of these things I just pull a nice cold one from the fridge. Makes it all better.

**Togakure** · 02-25-2011, 20:44

I agree with many of the sentiments expressed, but keep in mind that some do not have the luxuries that some of us do have. Take the homeless, for example, or the oppressed. Maslow's Needs Hierarchy etc., etc.. For the longest time I felt as has been expressed in this thread. But I had made a life for myself, I had family and lots of friends, there to pick me up when I stumbled. Fate had been kind to me. Thinking within my own box, I couldn't understand why so many were less enthralled with life. I took for granted the feeling of safety that my family and friends, my career and income, provided.

That changed. The life that defined me in my own mind was taken away by a series of events over which I had only partial control. I got to experience homelessness for a short time, personally--recently, in fact--during my tenure here at the Org. I lost almost everything. It was a real eye-opener, and changed my perspective drastically. It was absolutely the scariest, loneliest, most helpless period in my life. Before, when I saw homeless people, I wasn't indifferent--I'd take them to a nearby place for food when they were willing if I had some time, or buy them some food and non-alcoholic drink. But now, when I see them, my heart feels like it will break. There are so many, and I can do little to help them ....

It is good to strive for happiness, recognize its importance. Just consider that we live in different shoes, and it's not so easy for some. More important than personal success and happiness now, is the need to help others in need when I am able. To do this, I must first help myself, to be in a position to assist. But I see a greater purpose now, because I have directly experienced, and hence, understand better, a greater need. Thus, I am grateful for the hardships I experienced. It's made me a better man. That being said, I hope I never have to experience such utter fear and self-deprecation again. The fear is still here, and I don't think it will ever go away completely. In a New York minute, everything can change ....

**Megas Methuselah** · 02-25-2011, 22:29

Originally Posted by Hooahguy

Whenever I think of these things I just pull a nice cold one from the fridge. Makes it all better.

Yeah. Yeah, it does.

**a completely inoffensive name** · 02-26-2011, 15:44

Life isn't about having fun. Life is about living. Some people get off on living their lives as a crusader for social equality, some people just get drunk and **** women. Do what you want, and hope that stem cells will give you another 50 years.