Azelma wrote:
I'm going to continue to live my life...meet people, buy things, sell things, go places, read, learn things, forget things, do things, and not do things, and then I'll eventually die.
Why? None of that matters...so why? Azelma wrote:
I won't change the universe. I'd like to change something in humanity, but I most likely won't ever do that either. Nor will any of you in all likelihood. I'm not saying "don't seek knowledge" or understanding, or "don't try to make a difference" But the truth is, no matter what you do...unless you invent something that really changes the world...or does something that drastically alters history, you're nothing.
If this is what you believe then why flaunt your small accomplishments?
People change the world every day they live.
A wave is made of countless drops. You can't say the drops are meaningless so long as they form a wave. If all the drops go one way, you have a wave; if they dither about aimlessly you have still water.
You don't have to be a Lenin or an Alexander to make your small difference. Littering, ethical consumer choices, talking to people, being decent, perhaps even mentoring a small child or showing compassion - all those things are you the little droplet being your part of the wave.
There is no argument to the contrary that is not fundamentally selfish.
We as individuals have choice in life. Our choices are constricted by the conditions of our lives - it is certainly not "free choice" - but the choices are there.
When people make the right choices...the world gets better..
When they make the wrong choices...the world gets worse...
Perhaps you believe, or want to, that those kinds of distinctions are arbitrary. That is an ignorant viewpoint, because anyone who knows anything about the world knows that the pendulum has swung back and forth over time.
This is where JFK's bit about "historic purpose" comes into play. Life sucks when everyone thinks as you do...and you owe what you have to the many in this world, and those who came before you, who don't think as you do. Hell, if people thought as you do, business as we know it wouldn't exist. How could you trust anyone to do anything if they were motivated entirely by petty self-interest?
Why pay taxes? Why not litter? Why not steal shit? Why join the revolution? Why not cheat on the wife or abandon the kids? Why not dodge the draft? I mean, doesn't really fucking matter in the end, we're all dead, whatever. Right?
I'm sure life would REALLY suck for you if EVERYONE ELSE thought that way.
Those are extreme examples but the rule holds fast on all levels of life as we know it. Things turn out well when people take the time and trouble to consider what is and is not important. They turn out badly when they don't.
But you don't care to think about all that. So instead you think about your petty selfish bullshit. Which brings us back to square one: you are stupid, you are selfish, you are petty, and you are ignorant.
In the final analysis, you don't add anything to the value of the world. I do, and the very fact you think this way is precisely what I meant when I said my parents, for all their and my flaws, wouldn't trade me for you in a million years.
Azelma wrote:
And even if you do all that, you may only be of value to human history, which again, means nothing.
So what, you think your petty selfish bullshit means anything?
It all seems to come back to that, doesn't it...you and your selfish petty little concerns...and so we say, "see sig": you say nothing means anything so you don't have to think things you don't want to think. That your views are a hopeless contradiction in the service of your own nonsense. A copout.
Let me ask you something. If you have fundamentally the same outlook on life as a cow - nothing matters, it's all shit, I'm going to sit here and stuff my face - then why should I respect you or your rights?
