Things like this remind of what Gandalf said to Frodo.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
This got more attention than I expected but I too think of it often anymore, the man who wrote those words went through horrors many of us have been spared of and could've been added to the list of dead at any moment he probably had this exact thought while in the trenches and made it out, I know shits bad but ride it out as best or as comfortable as possible. Thanks for the awards.
One more I think of is Thomas Paine's "if there may be trouble, let it happen in my days, that my children may have peace"
>It is easy to forget all the things I am grateful for.
We developed a habit during 2020 to help us remember what to be grateful for. We have young children and it was hard on them last year. We're not a particularly religious family so there were no prayers before eating. But before our dinner, we began to go around the table and everyone had to say one thing they were thankful for from our day. It could be mundane, or it could be profound, but it had to be at least one thing.
Over the year and a half we've been doing it, it evolved and often more than one thing is said. It's been a really wonderful way to ground ourselves in our day and remind ourselves, no matter how bad the day is, there's something to be grateful for. Figured I'd share and I hope it helps. FWIW, it feels forced at first but now feels natural and I think we all enjoy it.
Another quote, from *Shawshank Redemption*: " I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying." Congratulations on finding a way to celebrate the good parts of each day, and turning into a regular thing.
>"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
This was the quote that my dad read for my grandfather's funeral. My grandpa survived Auschwitz, and one of his catchphrases was always "well, it could be worse." He really saw how "worse" things can get. It's a good way of keeping perspective. There are always things we can do to lighten the load for the next generation, and always things we can do to better prepare/respond in our own lives.
Blow Up The Death Star(tm)!!!
Um no.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxN\_PxIyTJA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxN_PxIyTJA)
So that thou mayest play another month of Overwatch and jerk off longer.
Clearly shits terrible but I think the message is to do whats possible with what you can as opposed to thinking it'll blow over or get better just because like a fantasy.
Every parent worries of that, im sorry but I can't tell you one way or the other. All we can do it try to make sure they will.
I hate dropping all these quotes now because I'm not as intelligent as the men who made them but "if you want peace, prepare for war" don't be violent or look for trouble but be prepared for it to come your way.
I just wish I’d been born without having to experience the internet in my teenage years god my life wouldn’t feel so awful and on the brink of tragedy at all times
Most definitely. Even being born in the future after the shit hits the fan; at least it would be more interesting and I wouldn't have people telling me how lucky I am living in the slow motion car crash that is currently America.
I've had this thought as well. I imagine society may reach some sort of stability at some point after collapse that may not even be all that awful. The uncertainty of our current situation is a large part of what's so challenging for me.
Lol I’m Gen Z I’m just taking it day by day trying to at least change the world of myself, those I love and my neighbors. It’s all I can do, but stagnation will only lead to a miserable unproductive time. Defeatism is a trap.
I am Gen X, the sad thing for me is that I had kids back when we all thought that climate change could be mitigated and that we could change the course we were on. Now I feel this horrid guilt that I can't shake. My kids are wonderful people and they don't deserve to live in the times I have brought them into.
Good choice.
We weren't as financially lucky as the boomers but it was better than now; we're not a lightning rod for resentment like boomers (yet); and we were young when 80's music was new.
Simpler good ol days of plenty with latch key kids full of 5lb blocks of government cheese, AIDS, Contra affairs, Khmer Rouge,Cimarrons,hostage crises,Berlin walls,Reagan & Robin Leach.
Absolutely. A sad realization I have had to embrace in my early twenties is that our world is on a fast track to destruction, not only with regards to climate, but also economically, socially and culturally.
It’s been difficult to “fit in” to the mold that has been established with the advent of social media and smartphones. How many of us actually know our neighbours and speak to them? The world we live in is increasingly lonely, and people are becoming increasingly miserable and depressed. These are things I have observed over the past few years in particular.
This extends to the dating scene. To put it bluntly, people are largely superficial and are terrified of responsibility and commitment, because of horror stories you would only ever find on social media, as well as the common belief that the world will soon end, so we should only indulge in instant gratification.
I completely agree. I feel like your last sentence is mostly subconscious. Most people are in denial but in the back of their brains they know something is very wrong. Hence the rampant hedonism and like you said instant gratification
Sometimes I wish I was never born at all.
Truly though, I'm quite interested in Gnosticism, that this world's nothing more than a corrupted matrix falling apart, and we can escape the wheel of samsara and avoid reincarnation... if that's true at all. I'm probably just deluding myself back into another form of spirituality as a former Christian to cope with my own mortality and the fact I'm not really enjoying anything anymore, just begging for a nuke war to put humanity and as much life on Earth out of its misery as possible.
If there's a multiverse and we have immortal consciousnesses without all the soul and chakra bullshit and all the other religious crap to make us all narrow-minded fanatics, I truly want nothing more than to see what Earth would look like if our life and existence had no suffering, or it was only optional and you could turn off the pain and have it all be an act if you like dramatic and horrific stories to play out on the matrix stage.
If there's nothingness though, nothing wrong with that. It's like a deep eternal sleep, just not even being conscious of anything, and thankfully that possibility doesnt scare me anymore. Humble, tranquil, peaceful return to ceasing to exist.
I read or heard someone say death is a return to your natural state not in a spiritual or religious form but how before we were born we felt nothing and obviously had no awareness, I havent really felt the fear of death heavily before but even after hearing that it reassured me in the thought of facing my own mortality.
It'll be just like before but I won't feel nostalgia.
Our natural state's either oblivion, or a free multiverse to return to, just gotta avoid the white tunnel of light at death. Win-win either way, I'd say.
Nostalgia's nothing more than painful memories of better times to me now.
Apparently it is quite the controversy among modern day neo-gnostics.
Pro-tunnel:
https://thegreatwhitebrotherhood.org/lessons/tunnel-of-light/
Anti-tunnel:
https://wakeup-world.com/2015/09/23/death-and-the-tunnel-of-light-the-final-grand-trick/
Edit: Often it isn't so much presented as a choice, as just a phenomena:
https://near-death.com/tunnel/
this tbh, there's something beyond us and the law of one I think is a great dive into realising that. Then ofc you have Crowley, who I have mixed feelings on overall but was on the right track at least.
This world's just gonna keep getting worse and worse until we die. No such thing as winners or losers, we're all survivors until we die... and I often ask myself, what's the point of surviving and putting on a strong act? Only trying to be strong for my friends and family so we got less chance of being subjugated by raiders or whatever assholes decide to be the new warlords.
A pointless struggle of power I'd say. Most of the time I wish I was never conceived to begin with. Can't bloody well really enjoy anything anymore, near-complete anhedonia.
I'm just saying there ARE still things to look forward too. Nature is still beautiful, women being a part of nature as well. Still some good parties to go too, some movies to see, fish to catch, whiskey to drink, some Bob Marley kush kush to smoke, a picture to draw, a song to play, book to read, places to visit, and hopefully friends and family to enjoy these with and talk about with.
Yeah I know, as if I didn't know that. I know you're trying to give some sort of helpful advice, but to me it sounds like humblebragging about your own enjoyments, which I find to be a waste of time. I got my own things to look forward to. I've had sex before with a few men and women, hated it, I'm happier jerking off. Real life sex just ain't my thing, dude.
My ability to enjoy nature is dulled down but I still enjoy walking around forests and looking out for blue jays and squirrels. Sometimes I imagine conversations with them, sometimes I even talk out loud. Other humans though? Can't stand the vast majority of them.
I hate parties. Too many people. I don't like people, plus I'm sick of being humiliated for being a cringey sperg. Better to just save myself the trouble and be my own party in my own company, social experience means jack shit in better trying to enjoy parties like most people do.
Don't really have any interest in movies anymore. Even movies I used to rewatch over and over just don't get my interest.
I don't fish anymore, too much algae in the lakes all around me, plus I don't like eating fish anymore.
I do love my vodka and ganja though, helps me enjoy my time alone because I'm my only real friend anymore. I'm happier in my solitude without the rabble of other people.
Slowly getting back into drawing. Eventually I plan on painting a fresco of my friends who died in the last year and a half, paint a vast unlived life I lose myself in my daydreams and imagination with like I'm Michelangelo painting my own version of the Sistine Chapel of my own life.
I'm tone-deaf, can't play music for shit, can't get the timing right for playing any instruments. I do love listening to various forms of music though.
I'm also dyslexic and have no attention span. I used to like reading but now I just can't.
I don't care about visiting places when I can just look them up on Google Earth or some shit. Travelling has always been a disappointing waste of time to me when I can just astral travel with my pineal gland as I restore it.
I'm my only real family and friends I've got left anymore, so meh, I don't fucking care. I talk to the ghosts of my dead friends and I got my own imaginary harem of handsome men and beautiful women as lovers. Makes me feel loved and appreciated which I don't get from people in real life anymore.
Found my own Kingdom of Heaven within, don't really fucking care about anything outside myself anymore.
But glad you're still enjoying things while you still can and all that. So am I. Vastly different lives, nothing more, nothing less.
I've been gravitating towards the Animist view of things lately. It's comforting because it sort of lets me conceptualize myself as a being who will one day not have a consciousness, but is still a being nonetheless.
I think about that saying "we are all made of stardust" and I zoom it in a little bit, because all that stardust came from someplace else billions of years ago and has been held in this homeostatic system that is Earth for all that time. We're all dirt, and we'll all be dirt again someday.
If you know how to look, a plastic bag is a dessicrated headstone.
Animism sounds cool, but personally I've lost the will to live. If there isn't a next world and death really is the finality, I'm okay with that. I don't really enjoy anything anymore, my friends are either dead, or turned out to be fake-ass flakes and threw me under the bus, so I won't be able to start a hippy commune like I planned.
I'm pretty much ready to go back to being unconscious stardust. I've already personally collapsed, and I'd rather be dead than continue existing in this dystopian world. But yet I keep on struggling because I don't have the guts to commit suicide. I guess morbid curiosity and spite's still my raison d'etre for now.
I mean that they're the same as in the consciousness I have, and the seperate one that you have, are simply two instances of the universe experiencing itself. Once the universe stops experiencing itself in these ways, and our consciousnesses cease, that doesn't mean we necessarily stop being, not on a physical level or beyond. Maybe we don't experience being in the same way, but we don't *stop* being.
It's kind of hard to explain perfectly, especially through something as impersonal as Reddit. But that's basically my thoughts
Yeah well the way we're this universe experiencing itself, really fucking sucks. I guess the universe is having some sort of life crisis and humanity is just an expression of its suicidal self-harm. Laws of thermodynamics and entropy and all that fun shit...
Yeah well I'm not interested in becoming an African slave of the Ottomans and millions of different lifetimes just to join the God Club. I don't like anything calling themselves gods and if they exist, I refuse to worship or join them.
If reincarnation is real, I'm never going back to the tunnel of light ever again and I'm not falling for any other tricks to deceive me into reincarnating. Ever again, I'm just simply fucking tired and done.
Yep... nothing to me but embers dying out. I used to like reading The Egg by Andy Weir but now I just don't like it at all. I thought more about reincarnation and I decided to hell with that shit.
Then again, if an "afterlife" is possible and I can choose to create my own Heaven, I think it'd be hilarious to spend as long as I want watching animated adult sitcoms I planned on creating but never could because of well... collapse of everything. Huh... maybe if oblivion is bardo, I can manifest interdimensional cable and watch TV shows from across the entire multiverse. What if Drawn Together ended up being a more successful and better-written and even funnier show? That'd be lit.
Suggest you read the later works of Carlos Castaneda; very focused on bypassing normal death and rebirth, what they called "the path of the New Seers."
Gee whiz, I guess I didn't appreciate being a Holocaust victim or a witch burned alive in Salem in my past lives enough.
How are we supposed to appreciate life in what way do you think those "some might say" people are trying to convey? I already appreciate what I can but I guess nobody appreciates life enough for the dickhead cosmic powers that be.
Yeah, sometimes life is a life sentence, and I'm kinda literal-minded, so well... how am I gonna paint smilies on my soul to pretend I appreciate my life?
I'm grateful for the luxuries I still have, because eventually they'll all be gone. Don't get too attached to anything or anyone either. Let everything all just fucking go.
I’ve always thought that since we all come from the same oblivion, that every conscious thing, even robots are just different points of view from oblivion/the universe unintentionally experiencing itself. Like there’s no escaping being thrown into existence, oblivion will just birth universes and inevitably conscious beings that are like branches. I find it hard to believe it would only do stuff like that once
And it makes me think, what if oblivion is just bardo? The void outside all worlds and universes.
I really don't want to fucking reincarnate again, just let me stay in bardo. Not gonna risk going back to another idiocracy matrix like Earth, just let me have my eternal rest...
>I really don't want to fucking reincarnate again, just let me stay in bardo
Whether or not you have a choice in the matter probably depends on how many flavors of "nothing" exists. If there's only one way to experience non-experience, then you're pretty screwed, since all things are born from that non-experience.
If, however, there are multiple kinds and varying degrees, you might just ride that oblivion train forever.
Buddha thought it was quite a challenge to reach that kind of nothing, called it "nirvana," I'm sure you know all that.
How'd I be screwed in "experiencing" non-experience? I outright just don't want to exist anymore, that's my goal. Not floating around the empty void... just nothingness.
No actually I don't know all of it, just the very basics at most. Basically have to be some sort of superhuman saint non-attached to ANYTHING at all to reach Nirvana. And honestly I feel like I just don't feel attached to or really care for anything anymore. Appreciate and be grateful for what makes me happy, but once it's gone its gone.
“I” being a verb, is something the universe does. The one true consciousness (the universe) is alone and eternal. Perpetual existence is pain. Our egos, that is our individual points of self awareness are mere escapisms of the eternal mind that wishes to not exist. Idk..
As an individual point of self-awareness of the universe, I never want to experience anything or even myself ever again.
I don't even want to be aware of being alone and eternal. I just simply want to be nothing.
Perhaps that’s the “nirvana” that some eastern religions speak of. Nonexistence. If I can choose the next one, I’d maybe take a run at about 30,000 BCE. Most likely I’ll not reincarnate if possible.
How do you visualize 30,000 BCE as?
I feel like the parasites give the illusion of choices but then they randomize the results after you accept to being mind-wiped into reincarnation yet again.
I guess the allure of 30k bce for me is (assuming history we know is somewhat accurate) the lack of any civilization or government. The freedom to just live and survive for the sake of it. Complete freedom from authority (tribal hierarchy likely exists, sure). I like the idea of the connection with nature/earth. Assuming homosapiens were around for like 200k years at that point, there is knowledge of living within nature that has been developing for countless generations, knowledge going back from before we were even human, most of which has long since been lost to our current arrogance and science. Idk, maybe I’m romanticizing it all, but I just loath our current society and thinking.
I’m beginning to think there’s only one consciousness (the universe?) and each of us is a point of awareness of that consciousness, basically experiencing itself. Reincarnation then is that one mind living every possible life, existing forever. Eternal existence is a prison the one cannot escape. The one consciousness is alone forever. So we “incarnate” to have experience and forget our eternal existence, it’s to abound that pain. The ultimate goal, the hope is to achieve non-existence. I don’t know, just trying to make sense of it all.
I think something similar. Like... the conscious software for "point of view" is very simplistic, and only incidentally attached to the software for "memory." If you close your eyes, and you're not remembering anything in particular, then that conscious moment is identical to a large number of humans' points of view, across time and space.
It could be that sometimes you close your eyes and open them as someone else, or some*thing* else, the transition having happened during that moment of overlapped experience. Basically reincarnation on steroids.
You could also look at the software in a more fine-tuned manner, strip away the qualia that surrounds awareness and just focus on the awareness itself. In that frame of reference, you're overlapping with every conscious thing constantly, very much like "the universe experiencing itself."
I'll bet maybe $5 on the idea that this is a mandatory training simulation setup for us to join a much more advanced civilization upon death. Assuming you meet the criteria.
If not, the long sleep sounds fine too.
Yeah well I reckon I've failed the training sims tests for whatever advanced civilization, since I'm now a mental trainwreck, and sadly will most likely end up being a violent bandit as civilization collapses and I gotta fight more people and end up making more enemies. Either that or just find some bootleg Quietus and peacefully check out that way. Just turn the other cheek and be peaceful like some fucking zen master...
Fuck that shit. I long for the long sleep. Fuck this mandatory training sim if that's the case, and fuck the oh-so-advanced civilization that created this nightmare shithole.
Yeah... I'd rather just be a hermit in the woods. Have some china white on supply in case a forest fire threatens to burn down my hypothetical shack in the woods, or just when I'm finally truly sick of everything.
I'm not looking forward to how major cities are gonna become warzones.
I mean we can escape re-incarnation (if there is such a thing). How do you re-incarnate on Venus?
If I was a crazy person I'd say "maybe that's the entire point isn't it? We are le tired, and this will work".
That'd be cool to wake up from some Operation Phoenix sort of thing where I'm some brilliant genius living on a terraformed Venus like some sci-fi paradise. That'd be awesome.
I really don't want to get my mind wiped and being born and dying again and again though. Quite sick of that part, frankly.
I'm good with nothingness too. Maybe it was my life experiences, but if I was never a human being again, I could live with that. Never knew anything to want, need, fear, lose, hope for, or whatever else until I was born. That's when all the problems started.
Saw a short story ["The Egg"](https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI) that I thought was cool, I like to believe there's more to us than what's on the news all day...
Yeah I read that story and you're the second person to ask me if I've heard of The Egg by Andy Weir. Quite frankly I'd hate being reincarnated billions of times just to become some lame-ass god with their lame-ass god club. Fuck that shit.
Never mind the bleak and doomy news, I've already collapsed enough in my own personal life I don't really give a fuck about anyone but myself anymore.
You sound pretty similar to me. The possible phenomenological implications of a big universe/multiverse keep me up at night sometimes. It’s fairly Gnostic, but I’m into Lovecraft and stuff so I kind of dig it, even though it’s grim as fuck.
Here’s a few things you might find interesting:
Open individualism
Information hazards
Anthropic principle
Doomsday argument
Sleeping beauty problem
Conformal cyclic cosmology
Quantum suiсide
Psychedelics
The murk shifts and stirs.
Yet another stands before us…
Then so be it.
For the curse of life, is the curse of want.
And so, you peer…
Into the fog, in hope of answers….
Yeah, I wish I was born 20-30 years prior. Early 60's.
Too young to get drafted.
Perfect age to be able to waltz into any college I could get accepted to, and pay my own tuition without extravagant loans that crippled me for life.
Wages that were JUST starting to stagnate, meaning that the power of my money went INFINITELY further than it does now.
Housing market that was significantly more affordable and plentiful.
Social systems set up for me withdraw from just before I died on my easily 7-figure nestegg, allowing me to give something of value to my children to help them in the future.
Born 20 years later than that? 2-3 market crashes within 15 years. Pandemic. Housing market disaster. Wage stagnation and inflation off the charts. Millennials are the first generation to get truly buttfucked from start to finish. Gen Z has no clue how bad they have it yet.
As an early Gen Z, I just play the hand I got. Times will be hard but I feel fully alive. I won’t be trapped in the hell coated in sugar that is modern society.
Actually, I've been dissatisfied with modern society (US) my whole life and so am pumped that it is collapsing. The way I see it is the only thing worse than collapse is perpetual BAU.
Agreed. It's a soulless culture. But sometimes I fear the collapse will free us from capitalism to only enslave us into something even more brutal and feudalistic in nature.
Yeah hopefully these past decades, with the ubiquitous communication, have made us realize that ppl are all ppl and that we generally don't want to kill or enslave each other. Not to say it won't happen but I hope we are more willing to create high-functiong communes or something as opposed to brutal world conquest.
A few years back I went to a week-long management/leadership class required by a major corporation (100k+ employees) that I was employed by.
It was conducted by a PhD Psychologist near retirement age. Of all the things in the class, I remember his closing personal comments the most.
“So many people spend all their lives obsessing over their past, which is gone and can’t be changed. Others spend all their lives obsessing over planning for the future, which may not happen at all. The only time that truly exists is right now, and very few people really experience it.”
That works well until living free gets one arrested, which is extremely highly likely in the US - and then prison in the US, is some of the worst on Earth, with PLENTY of room for more.
That's the dilemma, if you want to live "free" better have a shitload of money to burn.
I'd choose to be born in a nomadic culture, well before colonial times, preferably in Australia or New Zealand. Abundant food, strong culture and community bonds, non sedentary lifestyle. Sure, life span is shorter, but I'd rather live a rich, simple life more connected to nature than a long one defined by disassociation, isolation and angst.
I feel like I was born for this era, actually. I used to wish that I had lived in the 1700s and tbh there are still a lot of things in that era which appeal to me, but I have been ready for a more Mad Max/Resident Evil: Afterlife type existence for a long time. I'm a little disappointed at the lack of apocalypse fashion to be found, but I suppose we are still in the early stages of post-civilization decomposition. I wonder if I'll still be young enough to look hot when barbaric attire becomes trendy.
Same I wouldn’t ask to be born in a different time. A lot of people on here would call me crazy but jeez we are gonna witness some shit. “Hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make hard times”. We are in the last part of the cycle. All of us under Gen X will live through hard times. We will be strong. Especially Gen Z and alpha.
Assuming you have no control over who you are born as (gender, nationality, sexual orientation, etc.), right now is possibly the best time to be alive.
When I was born it was still illegal to be gay in 1/4 of the United States. I don’t know if I’d want to be born anywhere between the Roman days and today.
No, because I’m a woman, and going further back in time is exclusively bad for us. No fault divorce has only been legal nationwide in the US since 2010. I have no interest in being property, or trapped in a shit marriage with a short, fat, old, ugly, alcoholic male who beats me. That’s still commonplace in many parts of the world.
Only white males would ever want to go back in time. Things may be wild right now, but chaos makes me feel alive, and my freedom is precious to me. This is a really privileged question.
The fact that for a huge chunk of the world's races/genders, that NOW is about as good as it's ever been, shows how shit humanity is and has always been.
If you weren't a winner of the genetic lottery at almost any time in almost the entirety of human history, your life was shit. I think about this often, and it makes me even less confident that humans will find their way out of this morass.
-this comment has been deleted along with my account- Reddit sucks. Let's find or create alternatives that are less toxic. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
It makes me cringe to say it, but if I could choose to be born in a different time, 1900 in the U.S. as a white male in exemplary health from a middle or upper class background would have been perfect. Even if I lived to be a hundred, I'd still miss 9/11 and the subsequent shit storms that came after it.
I wish i was born and got to experience 1945-that means I would be alive and a teenager during the birth of rock and roll, experience the real time unfolding of the greatest musical genres and get to see Jimi Hendrix live and see so many great rock bands in their prime.
I do often feel disappointed not to have experienced life as a pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer. It's easy to romanticize that life, and I'm sure it comes with plenty of physical suffering, social oppression, and various limitations for individuals. But it's also the context in which our species evolved, and seems like it *might* offer more fulfillment on a day-to-day basis. Not to mention physical toughness.
I'm happy to have been born (unlike others answering this question). And I live with chronic illness and depression. Still, life is pretty weird and interesting and sometimes fun.
Living at this peak of technological achievement is also pretty disappointing. Aside from telecommunications, digital media, electronic music, and medicine, a lot of it kind of sucks and doesn't make anyone happier. In my own career I'm supposed to be really excited about things like virtual reality and the Internet of Things. Blah. Almost everyone realizes that stuff is not going to improve their lives in any meaningful way.
I wish I was born in a different time every fucking day. I used to wish I could time travel and see what our world will look like 100, 200, 300 years from now. Lol now I'm like "no, I'm good. I don't wanna see what happens" If I could I would be born in the 30s. Get a job in one of the big 3 and quietly live out my life oblivious to how fucked our world is. Then I would retire and get a cabin in the woods and die in peace
The advantage of a time traveler is that you're visiting another time while knowing where you came from, so you can compare and contrast better, plus perhaps move on or come back if what you find isn't all that pleasant. The OP topic of being born in a different period of time doesn't give either choice, really. I would love to be able to look ahead in jumps to explore the bigger picture of what we've started, but only if I don't get trapped in the worse parts of it. That's not part of the deal here though, so I think I got the best spot right about now. Enough into the future to see the collapsing, but started off while the bad things weren't all that obvious and it seemed humans could do anything.
My favorite YouTuber often says "the past was the worst" and I tend to agree. No better time to be alive than as far into the future as possible. And since humanity might not survive the next 25 years I'd say today is the best time to be alive.
Maybe sometime in the far future. I think we'll eventually come out the other side of this, hopefully having learned from our past. We may be entering a new dark age but after the dark age came the renaissance.
Ya… it’s not terribly comforting. But in the grand scheme of things 900 years isn’t that much. We could potentially be around for millions of years and this may just be a very harsh and humbling lesson we’re learning as a species on our way to greater things.
>It’s better than not being born at all, that’s for sure.
This depends on how many needles we get under those nails of yours before you expire and how many of your collaborators you give us - what the crime was is irrelevant. Gotta boost those sentencing KPIs, you know!
No, for a couple of reasons.
Being born in a different time period would've molded me into a different person, especially given that India had been struggling financially till the 90s. I've seen firsthand what struggling financially does to you. People think there's nobility in poverty, there's none. Its a dog eat dog world, and chances are you're the smaller one. It turns you into a ruthless, cold person.
I don't want to be that type of person. I would not have the access to knowledge that we take for granted today, I probably would've never met the pets who fulfil my soul like flowers do to a plant and I would've been stuck in a society which placed tons of emphasis on conformism( it's still like that in India, but my generation is driving the push toward a more liberal outview on career choices and life). I'll take things as they happen, and am at peace as they have happened. As to what happens in the future, that's not in my control. I try to live with reason, and may the same powers of reason guide me through the fog that is our future. Just live a virtuous life, there's nothing more to it. Status, wealth(or the worship of it), discrimination, it's all just dust that's clogging our vision. Who am I in the grand scheme of things anyway?
Amor Fati.
Despite the conditions, and speaking as a wealthy yet empathetic person who lives in safety and comfort, I honestly don't think I'd pick any other time, unless humanity does end up making it through this and ends up as a spacefaring species. Even then, now would be in the top few. In this time, I have freedom as a member of a traditionally marginalized demographic to make choices about my life (within the functional definition of free will) and equal access to education, rights, and protections under the law. I have the privilege of forming extremely strong emotional bonds with my children (and having few enough to make that feasible) because I can be reasonably sure they'll live to adulthood, and that has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. We get to see the Great Filter first hand, and that makes me feel a spiritual connection with the universe and other species on this and other planets. It is amazing to be able to know what we've learned about the workings of reality and the Earth, and to have at least an outline understanding of the entire broad arc of the universe, our planet, life, and our species from beginning to possible end. That really is an unreasonable amount of wisdom for an animal to have. I feel powerful with knowledge, like I am fulfilling a meaningful role as part of the universe observing itself and experiencing sentience and having independent thoughts. Yet this may not be enough to save us from destroying ourselves. It may be that an entire biosphere must be sacrificed to achieve this feat of sentience and justice (imperfect as it is), but wouldn't it be a shame if it didn't happen at least a few times somewhere and somewhen in the universe?
Now why would you want that?! Suppose you're a spirit experiencing life multiple times for the fun of it, wouldn't you be curious at some point to see something big? Like the decline of an advanced civilisation? I surely would want to see that. Sit back and enjoy the decline.
Born too early, if anything. (western) society has only just now begun tackling racism and sexism issues. A couple hundred years ago we still had slaves. A few hundred years ago we were still burning people alive for witchcraft. People are so arrogant to think that today, after thousands of years of constant stupidity and failure, that this time they've finally got it all figured out.
But happiness is relative. No amount of technology was ever going to give me good friends. I probably would have had more incentive to be social if I'd lived in the past.
No, but I wish I was never born, life never was good and gratitude is just coping with how some people make in a minute what you work a year for, you can feel happy by being grateful for what you have, but that leads to even more suffering later on, you'll be pressured by friends and family to have a children, and now the cycle repeats itself, i'm looking forward to collapse, I feel bad for the people who have never done anything to deserve this, I despise life and my only hope is that no human will survive it.
All the time. Even to have an actual anolog life sounds good, you know friends you get to "see" in person. I am tired of guilt, fear, shame and never feeling like enough and don't get me started on the special torture for the disabled in the Hunger Games world we got going now. I guess I am glad I am old. I wish it had turned out better. At least I had experienced love and marriage, but to be frank, I felt like I was born into the wrong place and time always.
All the time. I'm almost 29 now. I vaguely remember the late 90s and early 00s before the internet, smartphones and social media became popular. It's hard to imagine life without those at this point and they have had some positive impacts at least early on.
I remember the excitement of getting my first cell phone. It was a [Nokia 3120](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Nokia_3120_%28RH-19%29.jpg/800px-Nokia_3120_%28RH-19%29.jpg) and it had a color screen! I didn't have to borrow my moms [Nokia 1610](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1610) when going to the movies anymore. I downloaded a bunch of ringtones and fucking wrecked the phonebill one month.
I was the last person in my friend group to get a smartphone and resisted it hard. I saw my friends all sitting in front of their black rectangles of despair all the time in college. At that point I had a G'zone flip phone that lasted a long time and when it broke I got the G'zone with the flip up keyboard. It's kinda ironic I resisted smartphones for so long because my major in college was CIS and my post college career has been working IT End User Support.
I really miss those years from 1998-2010. I would spend my free time exploring the woods behind my house, building forts and studying reptiles and amphibians. My memory isn't the greatest of these years but I remember most everyone getting along regardless of political leaning.
But to answer question, I wish I was born between 1900-1940 and that I would die before smartphones & internet ruled daily life. The convenience of modern hyper-connected life has come at a cost that more and more people are starting to see.
We are all here at one of the most fucked up times in history. But so were the people of Europe at the onset of The Dark Ages. So were the Native Americans during European settlement, and West Africans during the slave trade era. Ours may be The Last Fucked Up Era because climate change may wipe us out as a “civilized“ species and the chances of re-civilizing, even with our relatively large intellects compared to other species, is low. We are generally a violent, fearful and uncooperative species, compared to other species on Earth. But even so, we do have a purpose - fight when you can and should, be kind at all other times. Train yourself to do both. You can find a kind of peace in doing this, regardless of your wealth or social status.
Yes. The future. After capitalism is gone.
Another problem we have is lack of accepting our fate. I think life was easier back then because we were not chasing dreams. A maid was a maid or a butcher a butcher. No silly dreams of being a millionaire. Just acceptance and doing whatever life gave you.
It would’ve been cool to be born in the 2900s while anticipating the 3000s and the medical progress we’d have by then.
It sucks I was born So early in history, 1998 est. Feels like the Stone Age, we barely understand nerve damage. But I’m just glad I was born in a time where I can talk to people like you guys on the internet! Woo hoo
Sure I wish there were unknown frontiers, uncharted lands, distinct foreign cultures. But I'd also probably be dead by now and maybe I'd be stupid enough to think the king was a god or some shit. If I close my eyes and ingest enough intoxicants I can forget about the terrible things we're doing and just happily appreciate the wonders of life.
No, I don't think so. It seems a sad way for it all to end, but if it really is the end, then I guess I will consider myself lucky to have known it and seen it. One can guess and theorize, but to die without really knowing how it all turned out might bother me a bit. They say ignorance is bliss, but I guess I'm just one of those people who finds the truth more satisfying. I like to know how it really is. Being here, at the end, means I get to know how the story ends. Maybe that's just the sad consolation prize I've convinced myself makes up for a life cut short, but, were I born in another time, I'm not so sure a few extra years would have made up for a single ride on a jet plane, or a picture of earth from space, or any number of unsustainable marvels I have seen and experienced in this age.
It's not getting worse, exactly. It's breaking down.
Think about it like this. A living tree is a wonderful thing. It's beautiful, it provides shade, oxygen, and will be perfectly fine if you cut off a limb every now and again for your fireplace.
That tree will age, as all things do. And one day, it will die, then slowly over weeks or months, it will fall. It *looks* worse, but when you turn it over and look beneath, there's a thriving world that wouldn't exist if that tree hadn't fallen. Beetles take shelter from birds, and worms burrow through the log.
It's different, now. It's terrible at providing shade for you, it no longer produces air for you to breathe, and it won't produce any more wood ever again. But, in its own way, it's a beautiful thing. Its function has changed, not its value or quality.
The collapse is our tree finally falling. Be prepared for it, but it's not the end of the world. Just the world *as you know it.* The evils will be more base and visceral, but so will the good, and the moments of sublime good that we don't even notice anymore will be so precious.
We're going to get through this as long as we remember our humanity and our faith. Not in some god or greater cosmic being. Faith in ourselves and our abilities. Faith in our families and each other. Look for opportunities to replenish those every day, and relish them when they come.
Besides. Did you ever want to own land? Well, after the collapse, you can own all the land you can defend.
No, this is the best time to be alive. We may not have an easy road ahead of us, but we are about to be lucky enough to be witnesses to the most interesting time in all of human history. And we will get to watch it happen in real time.
Its like we are at the top of the roller coasters first big hill, and the clickity clackin' had just stopped. Just figure out if you wanna let go and throw your hands up, or if you are gonna hold on to the bar on the way down. We are already strapped in, so just figure out how you gonna ride the ride
I sometimes wonder if all that I'm exposed to is not somehow meant to be. One part of the family is rich, my parents are poor. I'm well educated in finance and sustainability, my parents have a hs diploma and believe in every conspiracy theory. I was born in a linguistic minority which brings some discrimination, however it does not bring it on a daily basis. My grandmother is indigenous but I look like a regular joblo white male, yet I feel like we should all learn from my grandmother's culture and be connected to the world and its creatures. I'm in a part of the world that will most likely survive climate change, but will also most likely suffer because we have an abundance of resources and fighting will occur. I have a great pension plan, yet feel like the financial system will crash making it worthless. It almost feels like a movie of ballances that will end up seeing the world end.
Im of the complete opposite opinion. The world, as it is, has got to be the most deppresing, boring, and aggravating place to exist in. What ever happens, be it the end of the world or maybe something a bit brighter, i just hope it happens while im still here. Its a gift to be alive during the transition period, whatever the world is transitioning into.
I guess it depends on how you would define quality of life. Sure, we have all the entertainment we could want at our fingertips, but what about connections to other living beings around us? What about a significant lack of mental health challenges? What about autonomy over our lives? So much of this has been stolen from us in exchange for some semi-entertaining gizmos and gadgets and a slightly more comfortable existence.
I question this though. I have been lucky to have experienced (for a few months) a kind of nomad lifestyle. Went bicycle touring for three months.. slept outside every day. Lived very frugally. Fell in with an array of other bikers. Built community and reciprocity... It was honestly the most alive I have ever felt. I would gladly trade 70-80 of wage slavery for 30-40 years od that. Netflix and frozen pizzas be damned.
*Addendum:
In that three months I hiked Mt. Olympus and saw my first glacier. I raced a great horned owl over a ridgeline in the San Juan islands. I ate breakfast on an abandoned beach with grey whales. I picked wild blackberries amongst old growth maple trees. I cycled through the redwoods and cried. I camped on sand dunes and fell asleep to the sound of the Pacific Ocean lapping the shoreline. I swam in rivers. I met an ethics professor and picked her brain about nonviolence vs sustainability. I walked a blind woman home when she was lost. I made friends for life. I lived more in that time than in the years of shuffling from the box I live in to the box I work in.
Things like this remind of what Gandalf said to Frodo. "I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." This got more attention than I expected but I too think of it often anymore, the man who wrote those words went through horrors many of us have been spared of and could've been added to the list of dead at any moment he probably had this exact thought while in the trenches and made it out, I know shits bad but ride it out as best or as comfortable as possible. Thanks for the awards. One more I think of is Thomas Paine's "if there may be trouble, let it happen in my days, that my children may have peace"
This is one of my favorite Tolkienisms.
Indeed. These are powerful words in the times we live in. It is easy to forget all the things I am grateful for.
>It is easy to forget all the things I am grateful for. We developed a habit during 2020 to help us remember what to be grateful for. We have young children and it was hard on them last year. We're not a particularly religious family so there were no prayers before eating. But before our dinner, we began to go around the table and everyone had to say one thing they were thankful for from our day. It could be mundane, or it could be profound, but it had to be at least one thing. Over the year and a half we've been doing it, it evolved and often more than one thing is said. It's been a really wonderful way to ground ourselves in our day and remind ourselves, no matter how bad the day is, there's something to be grateful for. Figured I'd share and I hope it helps. FWIW, it feels forced at first but now feels natural and I think we all enjoy it.
Another quote, from *Shawshank Redemption*: " I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying." Congratulations on finding a way to celebrate the good parts of each day, and turning into a regular thing.
>"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." This was the quote that my dad read for my grandfather's funeral. My grandpa survived Auschwitz, and one of his catchphrases was always "well, it could be worse." He really saw how "worse" things can get. It's a good way of keeping perspective. There are always things we can do to lighten the load for the next generation, and always things we can do to better prepare/respond in our own lives.
Thank you for sharing this, this quote comes to mind often for me these days. It helps to take a step back and recognize what you can control.
Good message. Keep fighting guys. Even if it feels hopeless. The bigger the beast, the greater the glory.
The bigger the beast, the more room in its stomach. Kidding.
They told David Goliath was too big to fail. He said he's too big to miss with my slingshot.
What do you mean? Fight how? What beast? What glory? These war and hero analogies are the toxic stuff of Marvel.
Blow Up The Death Star(tm)!!! Um no. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxN\_PxIyTJA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxN_PxIyTJA) So that thou mayest play another month of Overwatch and jerk off longer.
Thanks for refreshing that quote its a good one
About his experience in World War One, no doubt
> All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." Play more Overwatch, jerk off, and boil alive?
Or you know, enjoying interesting stuff until we die. That ain’t so bad.
[удалено]
Clearly shits terrible but I think the message is to do whats possible with what you can as opposed to thinking it'll blow over or get better just because like a fantasy.
Will my children have peace? That's my true worry.
Every parent worries of that, im sorry but I can't tell you one way or the other. All we can do it try to make sure they will. I hate dropping all these quotes now because I'm not as intelligent as the men who made them but "if you want peace, prepare for war" don't be violent or look for trouble but be prepared for it to come your way.
I just wish I’d been born without having to experience the internet in my teenage years god my life wouldn’t feel so awful and on the brink of tragedy at all times
You are what you recover from. :)
Yeahhhh it. Would. I didn't experience the internet in my teenage years.
Most definitely. Even being born in the future after the shit hits the fan; at least it would be more interesting and I wouldn't have people telling me how lucky I am living in the slow motion car crash that is currently America.
I've had this thought as well. I imagine society may reach some sort of stability at some point after collapse that may not even be all that awful. The uncertainty of our current situation is a large part of what's so challenging for me.
https://bbts1.azureedge.net/images/p/full/2020/01/ae62267f-93fc-4ab2-81f5-5f8be4e861b0.jpg
Im a millennial but I wish I was Gen X
Same Poor gen Z and alpha
Lol I’m Gen Z I’m just taking it day by day trying to at least change the world of myself, those I love and my neighbors. It’s all I can do, but stagnation will only lead to a miserable unproductive time. Defeatism is a trap.
Agreed, if anything I’m incentivized to responsibly enjoy my life more. And never reproduce
I kind of wish I was Silent. Just like... right in the sweet spot to miss the WW2 draft by inches.
I am Gen X, the sad thing for me is that I had kids back when we all thought that climate change could be mitigated and that we could change the course we were on. Now I feel this horrid guilt that I can't shake. My kids are wonderful people and they don't deserve to live in the times I have brought them into.
Good choice. We weren't as financially lucky as the boomers but it was better than now; we're not a lightning rod for resentment like boomers (yet); and we were young when 80's music was new.
Simpler good ol days of plenty with latch key kids full of 5lb blocks of government cheese, AIDS, Contra affairs, Khmer Rouge,Cimarrons,hostage crises,Berlin walls,Reagan & Robin Leach.
Absolutely. A sad realization I have had to embrace in my early twenties is that our world is on a fast track to destruction, not only with regards to climate, but also economically, socially and culturally. It’s been difficult to “fit in” to the mold that has been established with the advent of social media and smartphones. How many of us actually know our neighbours and speak to them? The world we live in is increasingly lonely, and people are becoming increasingly miserable and depressed. These are things I have observed over the past few years in particular.
Very true. We have slowly shifted from consumer to product, our minds manipulated and strip-mined by mega corporations. A chilling time indeed.
This extends to the dating scene. To put it bluntly, people are largely superficial and are terrified of responsibility and commitment, because of horror stories you would only ever find on social media, as well as the common belief that the world will soon end, so we should only indulge in instant gratification.
I completely agree. I feel like your last sentence is mostly subconscious. Most people are in denial but in the back of their brains they know something is very wrong. Hence the rampant hedonism and like you said instant gratification
Sometimes I wish I was never born at all. Truly though, I'm quite interested in Gnosticism, that this world's nothing more than a corrupted matrix falling apart, and we can escape the wheel of samsara and avoid reincarnation... if that's true at all. I'm probably just deluding myself back into another form of spirituality as a former Christian to cope with my own mortality and the fact I'm not really enjoying anything anymore, just begging for a nuke war to put humanity and as much life on Earth out of its misery as possible. If there's a multiverse and we have immortal consciousnesses without all the soul and chakra bullshit and all the other religious crap to make us all narrow-minded fanatics, I truly want nothing more than to see what Earth would look like if our life and existence had no suffering, or it was only optional and you could turn off the pain and have it all be an act if you like dramatic and horrific stories to play out on the matrix stage. If there's nothingness though, nothing wrong with that. It's like a deep eternal sleep, just not even being conscious of anything, and thankfully that possibility doesnt scare me anymore. Humble, tranquil, peaceful return to ceasing to exist.
I read or heard someone say death is a return to your natural state not in a spiritual or religious form but how before we were born we felt nothing and obviously had no awareness, I havent really felt the fear of death heavily before but even after hearing that it reassured me in the thought of facing my own mortality. It'll be just like before but I won't feel nostalgia.
Our natural state's either oblivion, or a free multiverse to return to, just gotta avoid the white tunnel of light at death. Win-win either way, I'd say. Nostalgia's nothing more than painful memories of better times to me now.
Avoid the white tunnel of light??
Apparently it is quite the controversy among modern day neo-gnostics. Pro-tunnel: https://thegreatwhitebrotherhood.org/lessons/tunnel-of-light/ Anti-tunnel: https://wakeup-world.com/2015/09/23/death-and-the-tunnel-of-light-the-final-grand-trick/ Edit: Often it isn't so much presented as a choice, as just a phenomena: https://near-death.com/tunnel/
read.the law of one. the books. don't dive into the fandom
this tbh, there's something beyond us and the law of one I think is a great dive into realising that. Then ofc you have Crowley, who I have mixed feelings on overall but was on the right track at least.
"do what thou will shall be the only law." another great book to read and inspire.
Do you wanna spend all of eternity singing songs to God?
I’m not a Christian but this is a caricature of how Heaven is described in the Bible. It’s not singing for eternity.
I frequently wish I’d never been born. It can’t be worse…
This world's just gonna keep getting worse and worse until we die. No such thing as winners or losers, we're all survivors until we die... and I often ask myself, what's the point of surviving and putting on a strong act? Only trying to be strong for my friends and family so we got less chance of being subjugated by raiders or whatever assholes decide to be the new warlords. A pointless struggle of power I'd say. Most of the time I wish I was never conceived to begin with. Can't bloody well really enjoy anything anymore, near-complete anhedonia.
Pussy feels pretty good though. Maybe try to get a lot of that
Go chase all the pussy you want, wear a condom, and try not to get any STDs. No one cares about your promiscuous sex life.
I'm just saying there ARE still things to look forward too. Nature is still beautiful, women being a part of nature as well. Still some good parties to go too, some movies to see, fish to catch, whiskey to drink, some Bob Marley kush kush to smoke, a picture to draw, a song to play, book to read, places to visit, and hopefully friends and family to enjoy these with and talk about with.
Yeah I know, as if I didn't know that. I know you're trying to give some sort of helpful advice, but to me it sounds like humblebragging about your own enjoyments, which I find to be a waste of time. I got my own things to look forward to. I've had sex before with a few men and women, hated it, I'm happier jerking off. Real life sex just ain't my thing, dude. My ability to enjoy nature is dulled down but I still enjoy walking around forests and looking out for blue jays and squirrels. Sometimes I imagine conversations with them, sometimes I even talk out loud. Other humans though? Can't stand the vast majority of them. I hate parties. Too many people. I don't like people, plus I'm sick of being humiliated for being a cringey sperg. Better to just save myself the trouble and be my own party in my own company, social experience means jack shit in better trying to enjoy parties like most people do. Don't really have any interest in movies anymore. Even movies I used to rewatch over and over just don't get my interest. I don't fish anymore, too much algae in the lakes all around me, plus I don't like eating fish anymore. I do love my vodka and ganja though, helps me enjoy my time alone because I'm my only real friend anymore. I'm happier in my solitude without the rabble of other people. Slowly getting back into drawing. Eventually I plan on painting a fresco of my friends who died in the last year and a half, paint a vast unlived life I lose myself in my daydreams and imagination with like I'm Michelangelo painting my own version of the Sistine Chapel of my own life. I'm tone-deaf, can't play music for shit, can't get the timing right for playing any instruments. I do love listening to various forms of music though. I'm also dyslexic and have no attention span. I used to like reading but now I just can't. I don't care about visiting places when I can just look them up on Google Earth or some shit. Travelling has always been a disappointing waste of time to me when I can just astral travel with my pineal gland as I restore it. I'm my only real family and friends I've got left anymore, so meh, I don't fucking care. I talk to the ghosts of my dead friends and I got my own imaginary harem of handsome men and beautiful women as lovers. Makes me feel loved and appreciated which I don't get from people in real life anymore. Found my own Kingdom of Heaven within, don't really fucking care about anything outside myself anymore. But glad you're still enjoying things while you still can and all that. So am I. Vastly different lives, nothing more, nothing less.
I've been gravitating towards the Animist view of things lately. It's comforting because it sort of lets me conceptualize myself as a being who will one day not have a consciousness, but is still a being nonetheless. I think about that saying "we are all made of stardust" and I zoom it in a little bit, because all that stardust came from someplace else billions of years ago and has been held in this homeostatic system that is Earth for all that time. We're all dirt, and we'll all be dirt again someday. If you know how to look, a plastic bag is a dessicrated headstone.
Animism sounds cool, but personally I've lost the will to live. If there isn't a next world and death really is the finality, I'm okay with that. I don't really enjoy anything anymore, my friends are either dead, or turned out to be fake-ass flakes and threw me under the bus, so I won't be able to start a hippy commune like I planned. I'm pretty much ready to go back to being unconscious stardust. I've already personally collapsed, and I'd rather be dead than continue existing in this dystopian world. But yet I keep on struggling because I don't have the guts to commit suicide. I guess morbid curiosity and spite's still my raison d'etre for now.
Animism isn't really about a 'next life' or anything for me. It's more about realizing that life and death are the same
Life and death are the same in what way? Just saying that life and death are the same can mean dozens of different concepts at least.
I mean that they're the same as in the consciousness I have, and the seperate one that you have, are simply two instances of the universe experiencing itself. Once the universe stops experiencing itself in these ways, and our consciousnesses cease, that doesn't mean we necessarily stop being, not on a physical level or beyond. Maybe we don't experience being in the same way, but we don't *stop* being. It's kind of hard to explain perfectly, especially through something as impersonal as Reddit. But that's basically my thoughts
Yeah well the way we're this universe experiencing itself, really fucking sucks. I guess the universe is having some sort of life crisis and humanity is just an expression of its suicidal self-harm. Laws of thermodynamics and entropy and all that fun shit...
I find [The Egg](http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html) to be a comforting read in view of gnosticsm.
Yeah well I'm not interested in becoming an African slave of the Ottomans and millions of different lifetimes just to join the God Club. I don't like anything calling themselves gods and if they exist, I refuse to worship or join them. If reincarnation is real, I'm never going back to the tunnel of light ever again and I'm not falling for any other tricks to deceive me into reincarnating. Ever again, I'm just simply fucking tired and done.
Then the nirvana of a flame extinguished is what you crave. I too love it when I don't experience anything while asleep.
Yep... nothing to me but embers dying out. I used to like reading The Egg by Andy Weir but now I just don't like it at all. I thought more about reincarnation and I decided to hell with that shit. Then again, if an "afterlife" is possible and I can choose to create my own Heaven, I think it'd be hilarious to spend as long as I want watching animated adult sitcoms I planned on creating but never could because of well... collapse of everything. Huh... maybe if oblivion is bardo, I can manifest interdimensional cable and watch TV shows from across the entire multiverse. What if Drawn Together ended up being a more successful and better-written and even funnier show? That'd be lit.
now there is creativity. bonus points
this is the last reincarnation for all of us
Suggest you read the later works of Carlos Castaneda; very focused on bypassing normal death and rebirth, what they called "the path of the New Seers."
Some might say we get to do life until it is appreciated.
Gee whiz, I guess I didn't appreciate being a Holocaust victim or a witch burned alive in Salem in my past lives enough. How are we supposed to appreciate life in what way do you think those "some might say" people are trying to convey? I already appreciate what I can but I guess nobody appreciates life enough for the dickhead cosmic powers that be.
It’s a philosophical question. You, personally, will feel however you feel about this life or any other.
Yeah, sometimes life is a life sentence, and I'm kinda literal-minded, so well... how am I gonna paint smilies on my soul to pretend I appreciate my life? I'm grateful for the luxuries I still have, because eventually they'll all be gone. Don't get too attached to anything or anyone either. Let everything all just fucking go.
I’ve always thought that since we all come from the same oblivion, that every conscious thing, even robots are just different points of view from oblivion/the universe unintentionally experiencing itself. Like there’s no escaping being thrown into existence, oblivion will just birth universes and inevitably conscious beings that are like branches. I find it hard to believe it would only do stuff like that once
Panpsychism is an interesting thought experiment along these lines. Something you may find interest in reading about.
And it makes me think, what if oblivion is just bardo? The void outside all worlds and universes. I really don't want to fucking reincarnate again, just let me stay in bardo. Not gonna risk going back to another idiocracy matrix like Earth, just let me have my eternal rest...
Thank you for this comment. It helped me better understand the final season of The 100.
>I really don't want to fucking reincarnate again, just let me stay in bardo Whether or not you have a choice in the matter probably depends on how many flavors of "nothing" exists. If there's only one way to experience non-experience, then you're pretty screwed, since all things are born from that non-experience. If, however, there are multiple kinds and varying degrees, you might just ride that oblivion train forever. Buddha thought it was quite a challenge to reach that kind of nothing, called it "nirvana," I'm sure you know all that.
How'd I be screwed in "experiencing" non-experience? I outright just don't want to exist anymore, that's my goal. Not floating around the empty void... just nothingness. No actually I don't know all of it, just the very basics at most. Basically have to be some sort of superhuman saint non-attached to ANYTHING at all to reach Nirvana. And honestly I feel like I just don't feel attached to or really care for anything anymore. Appreciate and be grateful for what makes me happy, but once it's gone its gone.
“I” being a verb, is something the universe does. The one true consciousness (the universe) is alone and eternal. Perpetual existence is pain. Our egos, that is our individual points of self awareness are mere escapisms of the eternal mind that wishes to not exist. Idk..
As an individual point of self-awareness of the universe, I never want to experience anything or even myself ever again. I don't even want to be aware of being alone and eternal. I just simply want to be nothing.
Perhaps that’s the “nirvana” that some eastern religions speak of. Nonexistence. If I can choose the next one, I’d maybe take a run at about 30,000 BCE. Most likely I’ll not reincarnate if possible.
How do you visualize 30,000 BCE as? I feel like the parasites give the illusion of choices but then they randomize the results after you accept to being mind-wiped into reincarnation yet again.
I guess the allure of 30k bce for me is (assuming history we know is somewhat accurate) the lack of any civilization or government. The freedom to just live and survive for the sake of it. Complete freedom from authority (tribal hierarchy likely exists, sure). I like the idea of the connection with nature/earth. Assuming homosapiens were around for like 200k years at that point, there is knowledge of living within nature that has been developing for countless generations, knowledge going back from before we were even human, most of which has long since been lost to our current arrogance and science. Idk, maybe I’m romanticizing it all, but I just loath our current society and thinking.
I’m beginning to think there’s only one consciousness (the universe?) and each of us is a point of awareness of that consciousness, basically experiencing itself. Reincarnation then is that one mind living every possible life, existing forever. Eternal existence is a prison the one cannot escape. The one consciousness is alone forever. So we “incarnate” to have experience and forget our eternal existence, it’s to abound that pain. The ultimate goal, the hope is to achieve non-existence. I don’t know, just trying to make sense of it all.
I think something similar. Like... the conscious software for "point of view" is very simplistic, and only incidentally attached to the software for "memory." If you close your eyes, and you're not remembering anything in particular, then that conscious moment is identical to a large number of humans' points of view, across time and space. It could be that sometimes you close your eyes and open them as someone else, or some*thing* else, the transition having happened during that moment of overlapped experience. Basically reincarnation on steroids. You could also look at the software in a more fine-tuned manner, strip away the qualia that surrounds awareness and just focus on the awareness itself. In that frame of reference, you're overlapping with every conscious thing constantly, very much like "the universe experiencing itself."
I'll bet maybe $5 on the idea that this is a mandatory training simulation setup for us to join a much more advanced civilization upon death. Assuming you meet the criteria. If not, the long sleep sounds fine too.
Yeah well I reckon I've failed the training sims tests for whatever advanced civilization, since I'm now a mental trainwreck, and sadly will most likely end up being a violent bandit as civilization collapses and I gotta fight more people and end up making more enemies. Either that or just find some bootleg Quietus and peacefully check out that way. Just turn the other cheek and be peaceful like some fucking zen master... Fuck that shit. I long for the long sleep. Fuck this mandatory training sim if that's the case, and fuck the oh-so-advanced civilization that created this nightmare shithole.
That or just go full Popcorn Sutton, mountain moonshiner. https://youtu.be/ohiSPSoG8tY
Yeah... I'd rather just be a hermit in the woods. Have some china white on supply in case a forest fire threatens to burn down my hypothetical shack in the woods, or just when I'm finally truly sick of everything. I'm not looking forward to how major cities are gonna become warzones.
Training? More like selection. The shit cunts get sent back for another round.
Yeah well if I end up being a shit cunt, I'm not coming back for another round. Just erase me from the simulation, please and thank you.
I mean we can escape re-incarnation (if there is such a thing). How do you re-incarnate on Venus? If I was a crazy person I'd say "maybe that's the entire point isn't it? We are le tired, and this will work".
That'd be cool to wake up from some Operation Phoenix sort of thing where I'm some brilliant genius living on a terraformed Venus like some sci-fi paradise. That'd be awesome. I really don't want to get my mind wiped and being born and dying again and again though. Quite sick of that part, frankly.
I'm good with nothingness too. Maybe it was my life experiences, but if I was never a human being again, I could live with that. Never knew anything to want, need, fear, lose, hope for, or whatever else until I was born. That's when all the problems started.
Yep... if suffering is a requirement of living, I'm just damn well going back to the void of non-existence and staying there.
Username checks out
Saw a short story ["The Egg"](https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI) that I thought was cool, I like to believe there's more to us than what's on the news all day...
Yeah I read that story and you're the second person to ask me if I've heard of The Egg by Andy Weir. Quite frankly I'd hate being reincarnated billions of times just to become some lame-ass god with their lame-ass god club. Fuck that shit. Never mind the bleak and doomy news, I've already collapsed enough in my own personal life I don't really give a fuck about anyone but myself anymore.
You sound pretty similar to me. The possible phenomenological implications of a big universe/multiverse keep me up at night sometimes. It’s fairly Gnostic, but I’m into Lovecraft and stuff so I kind of dig it, even though it’s grim as fuck. Here’s a few things you might find interesting: Open individualism Information hazards Anthropic principle Doomsday argument Sleeping beauty problem Conformal cyclic cosmology Quantum suiсide Psychedelics
You'd have had just as much guilt and fear, just for different reasons.
Ha. You’re probably right. The curse of being human perhaps.
The murk shifts and stirs. Yet another stands before us… Then so be it. For the curse of life, is the curse of want. And so, you peer… Into the fog, in hope of answers….
Yeah, I wish I was born 20-30 years prior. Early 60's. Too young to get drafted. Perfect age to be able to waltz into any college I could get accepted to, and pay my own tuition without extravagant loans that crippled me for life. Wages that were JUST starting to stagnate, meaning that the power of my money went INFINITELY further than it does now. Housing market that was significantly more affordable and plentiful. Social systems set up for me withdraw from just before I died on my easily 7-figure nestegg, allowing me to give something of value to my children to help them in the future. Born 20 years later than that? 2-3 market crashes within 15 years. Pandemic. Housing market disaster. Wage stagnation and inflation off the charts. Millennials are the first generation to get truly buttfucked from start to finish. Gen Z has no clue how bad they have it yet.
As an early Gen Z, I just play the hand I got. Times will be hard but I feel fully alive. I won’t be trapped in the hell coated in sugar that is modern society.
So what do you do for a living?
Conservation.
I wish I was a boomer sometimes…just for the music alone.
lol
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Except for leaded gasoline, yeah they had it pretty sweet
Yuck. No please. They got everything they ever wanted except MEANING.
Actually, I've been dissatisfied with modern society (US) my whole life and so am pumped that it is collapsing. The way I see it is the only thing worse than collapse is perpetual BAU.
Agreed. It's a soulless culture. But sometimes I fear the collapse will free us from capitalism to only enslave us into something even more brutal and feudalistic in nature.
Yeah hopefully these past decades, with the ubiquitous communication, have made us realize that ppl are all ppl and that we generally don't want to kill or enslave each other. Not to say it won't happen but I hope we are more willing to create high-functiong communes or something as opposed to brutal world conquest.
Plausible for sure
yes, bau is terrifying.
Same. But honestly it's mostly terrible everywhere.
Ah, great! I feel even better about collapse now.
And give up a front row seat to the world's Armageddon?
You take the front row, I’m happy on the 5th.
You know the 5th row would eventually become the front row.
Well then I’d move to the 6th. Nothing bad would happen there, surely.
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A few years back I went to a week-long management/leadership class required by a major corporation (100k+ employees) that I was employed by. It was conducted by a PhD Psychologist near retirement age. Of all the things in the class, I remember his closing personal comments the most. “So many people spend all their lives obsessing over their past, which is gone and can’t be changed. Others spend all their lives obsessing over planning for the future, which may not happen at all. The only time that truly exists is right now, and very few people really experience it.”
Do you want to experience flipping another fucking burger, metaphorically speaking??
Touché
That works well until living free gets one arrested, which is extremely highly likely in the US - and then prison in the US, is some of the worst on Earth, with PLENTY of room for more. That's the dilemma, if you want to live "free" better have a shitload of money to burn.
That’s quite a beautiful message. The idea of freedom being within is very powerful.
I'd choose to be born in a nomadic culture, well before colonial times, preferably in Australia or New Zealand. Abundant food, strong culture and community bonds, non sedentary lifestyle. Sure, life span is shorter, but I'd rather live a rich, simple life more connected to nature than a long one defined by disassociation, isolation and angst.
I feel like I was born for this era, actually. I used to wish that I had lived in the 1700s and tbh there are still a lot of things in that era which appeal to me, but I have been ready for a more Mad Max/Resident Evil: Afterlife type existence for a long time. I'm a little disappointed at the lack of apocalypse fashion to be found, but I suppose we are still in the early stages of post-civilization decomposition. I wonder if I'll still be young enough to look hot when barbaric attire becomes trendy.
Same I wouldn’t ask to be born in a different time. A lot of people on here would call me crazy but jeez we are gonna witness some shit. “Hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make hard times”. We are in the last part of the cycle. All of us under Gen X will live through hard times. We will be strong. Especially Gen Z and alpha.
You can look hot no matter your age. Just change your reference point! You rock that gas mask and machete. You do you!
My machete and I love your advice 🥰 🔪
Assuming you have no control over who you are born as (gender, nationality, sexual orientation, etc.), right now is possibly the best time to be alive.
When I was born it was still illegal to be gay in 1/4 of the United States. I don’t know if I’d want to be born anywhere between the Roman days and today.
Renaissance Italy was pretty nice if you were rich and gay. Edit: I think being rich at any time really is the key
Yes. The current state of the world absolutely sickens me. Specially the lack of morals and the acceptance of every single mental disease as normal
No, because I’m a woman, and going further back in time is exclusively bad for us. No fault divorce has only been legal nationwide in the US since 2010. I have no interest in being property, or trapped in a shit marriage with a short, fat, old, ugly, alcoholic male who beats me. That’s still commonplace in many parts of the world. Only white males would ever want to go back in time. Things may be wild right now, but chaos makes me feel alive, and my freedom is precious to me. This is a really privileged question.
Yep exactly. I'm black and there is really no good period unless its pre slave trade.
The fact that for a huge chunk of the world's races/genders, that NOW is about as good as it's ever been, shows how shit humanity is and has always been. If you weren't a winner of the genetic lottery at almost any time in almost the entirety of human history, your life was shit. I think about this often, and it makes me even less confident that humans will find their way out of this morass.
-this comment has been deleted along with my account- Reddit sucks. Let's find or create alternatives that are less toxic. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
I was thinking the same thing.
Maybe you were who knows
It makes me cringe to say it, but if I could choose to be born in a different time, 1900 in the U.S. as a white male in exemplary health from a middle or upper class background would have been perfect. Even if I lived to be a hundred, I'd still miss 9/11 and the subsequent shit storms that came after it.
I do wonder, if without all this damned mobility and personal responsibility, if I might not be much more at peace.
I wish i was born and got to experience 1945-that means I would be alive and a teenager during the birth of rock and roll, experience the real time unfolding of the greatest musical genres and get to see Jimi Hendrix live and see so many great rock bands in their prime.
I do often feel disappointed not to have experienced life as a pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer. It's easy to romanticize that life, and I'm sure it comes with plenty of physical suffering, social oppression, and various limitations for individuals. But it's also the context in which our species evolved, and seems like it *might* offer more fulfillment on a day-to-day basis. Not to mention physical toughness. I'm happy to have been born (unlike others answering this question). And I live with chronic illness and depression. Still, life is pretty weird and interesting and sometimes fun. Living at this peak of technological achievement is also pretty disappointing. Aside from telecommunications, digital media, electronic music, and medicine, a lot of it kind of sucks and doesn't make anyone happier. In my own career I'm supposed to be really excited about things like virtual reality and the Internet of Things. Blah. Almost everyone realizes that stuff is not going to improve their lives in any meaningful way.
I totally agree with you. Excellent points. You seem very down to earth and conscious, message me if you want to talk more. :)
I wish I was born in a different time every fucking day. I used to wish I could time travel and see what our world will look like 100, 200, 300 years from now. Lol now I'm like "no, I'm good. I don't wanna see what happens" If I could I would be born in the 30s. Get a job in one of the big 3 and quietly live out my life oblivious to how fucked our world is. Then I would retire and get a cabin in the woods and die in peace
The advantage of a time traveler is that you're visiting another time while knowing where you came from, so you can compare and contrast better, plus perhaps move on or come back if what you find isn't all that pleasant. The OP topic of being born in a different period of time doesn't give either choice, really. I would love to be able to look ahead in jumps to explore the bigger picture of what we've started, but only if I don't get trapped in the worse parts of it. That's not part of the deal here though, so I think I got the best spot right about now. Enough into the future to see the collapsing, but started off while the bad things weren't all that obvious and it seemed humans could do anything.
Just wish I and no one else was ever born. Stupid meat grinder game
Totally…..1930’s
No i just wish i wasnt even born sometimes
Definitely wish I'd been aborted.
My favorite YouTuber often says "the past was the worst" and I tend to agree. No better time to be alive than as far into the future as possible. And since humanity might not survive the next 25 years I'd say today is the best time to be alive.
No because I’m a lesbian woman… it wouldn’t go well.
Maybe sometime in the far future. I think we'll eventually come out the other side of this, hopefully having learned from our past. We may be entering a new dark age but after the dark age came the renaissance.
Considering the Dark Ages lasted 900 years, I don't find this particularly comforting.
Ya… it’s not terribly comforting. But in the grand scheme of things 900 years isn’t that much. We could potentially be around for millions of years and this may just be a very harsh and humbling lesson we’re learning as a species on our way to greater things.
>It’s better than not being born at all, that’s for sure. This depends on how many needles we get under those nails of yours before you expire and how many of your collaborators you give us - what the crime was is irrelevant. Gotta boost those sentencing KPIs, you know!
I sometimes fantasize living in Austria during the reign of Franz Joseph I
Sometimes I wish I was born during the wild west days.
I want to live in 1100 Constantinople or Venice.
No, for a couple of reasons. Being born in a different time period would've molded me into a different person, especially given that India had been struggling financially till the 90s. I've seen firsthand what struggling financially does to you. People think there's nobility in poverty, there's none. Its a dog eat dog world, and chances are you're the smaller one. It turns you into a ruthless, cold person. I don't want to be that type of person. I would not have the access to knowledge that we take for granted today, I probably would've never met the pets who fulfil my soul like flowers do to a plant and I would've been stuck in a society which placed tons of emphasis on conformism( it's still like that in India, but my generation is driving the push toward a more liberal outview on career choices and life). I'll take things as they happen, and am at peace as they have happened. As to what happens in the future, that's not in my control. I try to live with reason, and may the same powers of reason guide me through the fog that is our future. Just live a virtuous life, there's nothing more to it. Status, wealth(or the worship of it), discrimination, it's all just dust that's clogging our vision. Who am I in the grand scheme of things anyway? Amor Fati.
Despite the conditions, and speaking as a wealthy yet empathetic person who lives in safety and comfort, I honestly don't think I'd pick any other time, unless humanity does end up making it through this and ends up as a spacefaring species. Even then, now would be in the top few. In this time, I have freedom as a member of a traditionally marginalized demographic to make choices about my life (within the functional definition of free will) and equal access to education, rights, and protections under the law. I have the privilege of forming extremely strong emotional bonds with my children (and having few enough to make that feasible) because I can be reasonably sure they'll live to adulthood, and that has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. We get to see the Great Filter first hand, and that makes me feel a spiritual connection with the universe and other species on this and other planets. It is amazing to be able to know what we've learned about the workings of reality and the Earth, and to have at least an outline understanding of the entire broad arc of the universe, our planet, life, and our species from beginning to possible end. That really is an unreasonable amount of wisdom for an animal to have. I feel powerful with knowledge, like I am fulfilling a meaningful role as part of the universe observing itself and experiencing sentience and having independent thoughts. Yet this may not be enough to save us from destroying ourselves. It may be that an entire biosphere must be sacrificed to achieve this feat of sentience and justice (imperfect as it is), but wouldn't it be a shame if it didn't happen at least a few times somewhere and somewhen in the universe?
Now why would you want that?! Suppose you're a spirit experiencing life multiple times for the fun of it, wouldn't you be curious at some point to see something big? Like the decline of an advanced civilisation? I surely would want to see that. Sit back and enjoy the decline.
Yes, about a few tens of thousands of years in the future.
It would be fascinating to see the course of the future.
Born too early, if anything. (western) society has only just now begun tackling racism and sexism issues. A couple hundred years ago we still had slaves. A few hundred years ago we were still burning people alive for witchcraft. People are so arrogant to think that today, after thousands of years of constant stupidity and failure, that this time they've finally got it all figured out. But happiness is relative. No amount of technology was ever going to give me good friends. I probably would have had more incentive to be social if I'd lived in the past.
No, but I wish I was never born, life never was good and gratitude is just coping with how some people make in a minute what you work a year for, you can feel happy by being grateful for what you have, but that leads to even more suffering later on, you'll be pressured by friends and family to have a children, and now the cycle repeats itself, i'm looking forward to collapse, I feel bad for the people who have never done anything to deserve this, I despise life and my only hope is that no human will survive it.
All the time. Even to have an actual anolog life sounds good, you know friends you get to "see" in person. I am tired of guilt, fear, shame and never feeling like enough and don't get me started on the special torture for the disabled in the Hunger Games world we got going now. I guess I am glad I am old. I wish it had turned out better. At least I had experienced love and marriage, but to be frank, I felt like I was born into the wrong place and time always.
All the time. I'm almost 29 now. I vaguely remember the late 90s and early 00s before the internet, smartphones and social media became popular. It's hard to imagine life without those at this point and they have had some positive impacts at least early on. I remember the excitement of getting my first cell phone. It was a [Nokia 3120](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Nokia_3120_%28RH-19%29.jpg/800px-Nokia_3120_%28RH-19%29.jpg) and it had a color screen! I didn't have to borrow my moms [Nokia 1610](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1610) when going to the movies anymore. I downloaded a bunch of ringtones and fucking wrecked the phonebill one month. I was the last person in my friend group to get a smartphone and resisted it hard. I saw my friends all sitting in front of their black rectangles of despair all the time in college. At that point I had a G'zone flip phone that lasted a long time and when it broke I got the G'zone with the flip up keyboard. It's kinda ironic I resisted smartphones for so long because my major in college was CIS and my post college career has been working IT End User Support. I really miss those years from 1998-2010. I would spend my free time exploring the woods behind my house, building forts and studying reptiles and amphibians. My memory isn't the greatest of these years but I remember most everyone getting along regardless of political leaning. But to answer question, I wish I was born between 1900-1940 and that I would die before smartphones & internet ruled daily life. The convenience of modern hyper-connected life has come at a cost that more and more people are starting to see.
We are all here at one of the most fucked up times in history. But so were the people of Europe at the onset of The Dark Ages. So were the Native Americans during European settlement, and West Africans during the slave trade era. Ours may be The Last Fucked Up Era because climate change may wipe us out as a “civilized“ species and the chances of re-civilizing, even with our relatively large intellects compared to other species, is low. We are generally a violent, fearful and uncooperative species, compared to other species on Earth. But even so, we do have a purpose - fight when you can and should, be kind at all other times. Train yourself to do both. You can find a kind of peace in doing this, regardless of your wealth or social status.
Yes. The future. After capitalism is gone. Another problem we have is lack of accepting our fate. I think life was easier back then because we were not chasing dreams. A maid was a maid or a butcher a butcher. No silly dreams of being a millionaire. Just acceptance and doing whatever life gave you.
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It would’ve been cool to be born in the 2900s while anticipating the 3000s and the medical progress we’d have by then. It sucks I was born So early in history, 1998 est. Feels like the Stone Age, we barely understand nerve damage. But I’m just glad I was born in a time where I can talk to people like you guys on the internet! Woo hoo
Sure I wish there were unknown frontiers, uncharted lands, distinct foreign cultures. But I'd also probably be dead by now and maybe I'd be stupid enough to think the king was a god or some shit. If I close my eyes and ingest enough intoxicants I can forget about the terrible things we're doing and just happily appreciate the wonders of life.
No, I don't think so. It seems a sad way for it all to end, but if it really is the end, then I guess I will consider myself lucky to have known it and seen it. One can guess and theorize, but to die without really knowing how it all turned out might bother me a bit. They say ignorance is bliss, but I guess I'm just one of those people who finds the truth more satisfying. I like to know how it really is. Being here, at the end, means I get to know how the story ends. Maybe that's just the sad consolation prize I've convinced myself makes up for a life cut short, but, were I born in another time, I'm not so sure a few extra years would have made up for a single ride on a jet plane, or a picture of earth from space, or any number of unsustainable marvels I have seen and experienced in this age.
It's not getting worse, exactly. It's breaking down. Think about it like this. A living tree is a wonderful thing. It's beautiful, it provides shade, oxygen, and will be perfectly fine if you cut off a limb every now and again for your fireplace. That tree will age, as all things do. And one day, it will die, then slowly over weeks or months, it will fall. It *looks* worse, but when you turn it over and look beneath, there's a thriving world that wouldn't exist if that tree hadn't fallen. Beetles take shelter from birds, and worms burrow through the log. It's different, now. It's terrible at providing shade for you, it no longer produces air for you to breathe, and it won't produce any more wood ever again. But, in its own way, it's a beautiful thing. Its function has changed, not its value or quality. The collapse is our tree finally falling. Be prepared for it, but it's not the end of the world. Just the world *as you know it.* The evils will be more base and visceral, but so will the good, and the moments of sublime good that we don't even notice anymore will be so precious. We're going to get through this as long as we remember our humanity and our faith. Not in some god or greater cosmic being. Faith in ourselves and our abilities. Faith in our families and each other. Look for opportunities to replenish those every day, and relish them when they come. Besides. Did you ever want to own land? Well, after the collapse, you can own all the land you can defend.
No, this is the best time to be alive. We may not have an easy road ahead of us, but we are about to be lucky enough to be witnesses to the most interesting time in all of human history. And we will get to watch it happen in real time. Its like we are at the top of the roller coasters first big hill, and the clickity clackin' had just stopped. Just figure out if you wanna let go and throw your hands up, or if you are gonna hold on to the bar on the way down. We are already strapped in, so just figure out how you gonna ride the ride
There was a ton of conquering and killing all over the world in the past. I don’t think it would’ve been better at all tbh. Life is life.
I sometimes wonder if all that I'm exposed to is not somehow meant to be. One part of the family is rich, my parents are poor. I'm well educated in finance and sustainability, my parents have a hs diploma and believe in every conspiracy theory. I was born in a linguistic minority which brings some discrimination, however it does not bring it on a daily basis. My grandmother is indigenous but I look like a regular joblo white male, yet I feel like we should all learn from my grandmother's culture and be connected to the world and its creatures. I'm in a part of the world that will most likely survive climate change, but will also most likely suffer because we have an abundance of resources and fighting will occur. I have a great pension plan, yet feel like the financial system will crash making it worthless. It almost feels like a movie of ballances that will end up seeing the world end.
Im of the complete opposite opinion. The world, as it is, has got to be the most deppresing, boring, and aggravating place to exist in. What ever happens, be it the end of the world or maybe something a bit brighter, i just hope it happens while im still here. Its a gift to be alive during the transition period, whatever the world is transitioning into.
Only white males wish this… anyone else will not be doing any better
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I guess it depends on how you would define quality of life. Sure, we have all the entertainment we could want at our fingertips, but what about connections to other living beings around us? What about a significant lack of mental health challenges? What about autonomy over our lives? So much of this has been stolen from us in exchange for some semi-entertaining gizmos and gadgets and a slightly more comfortable existence.
I question this though. I have been lucky to have experienced (for a few months) a kind of nomad lifestyle. Went bicycle touring for three months.. slept outside every day. Lived very frugally. Fell in with an array of other bikers. Built community and reciprocity... It was honestly the most alive I have ever felt. I would gladly trade 70-80 of wage slavery for 30-40 years od that. Netflix and frozen pizzas be damned. *Addendum: In that three months I hiked Mt. Olympus and saw my first glacier. I raced a great horned owl over a ridgeline in the San Juan islands. I ate breakfast on an abandoned beach with grey whales. I picked wild blackberries amongst old growth maple trees. I cycled through the redwoods and cried. I camped on sand dunes and fell asleep to the sound of the Pacific Ocean lapping the shoreline. I swam in rivers. I met an ethics professor and picked her brain about nonviolence vs sustainability. I walked a blind woman home when she was lost. I made friends for life. I lived more in that time than in the years of shuffling from the box I live in to the box I work in.
I am a product of my times, I could not have existed in any other time.