Question for the Commentariat.
Aug. 8th, 2011 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptPlease answer the following two-parter, if you feel comfortable doing so.
(a) Have you successfully resolved the existential crisis of not only mortal life, but the likelihood that you and what you do will be essentially meaningless in the history of the cosmos?
(b) If so, please let me know your solution and its reasons. If not, please let me know where your difficulties are.
I'm still wrestling this one, and I have yet to find an acceptable answer in either religion or philosophy. A TARDIS and/or the ability to see what the post-life experience is like, remember it, return to life, and then evaluate by that standard is about as far as I've gotten for acceptable outcomes. I'm sure there has to be at least one that will click and fill the void of being able to conceptualize oneself in cosmic terms.
(a) Have you successfully resolved the existential crisis of not only mortal life, but the likelihood that you and what you do will be essentially meaningless in the history of the cosmos?
(b) If so, please let me know your solution and its reasons. If not, please let me know where your difficulties are.
I'm still wrestling this one, and I have yet to find an acceptable answer in either religion or philosophy. A TARDIS and/or the ability to see what the post-life experience is like, remember it, return to life, and then evaluate by that standard is about as far as I've gotten for acceptable outcomes. I'm sure there has to be at least one that will click and fill the void of being able to conceptualize oneself in cosmic terms.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 11:30 pm (UTC)~ ... but I'm not sure how much of that is The Crazy (I see depression as being a point of view, not an emotion), coupled with atheist-toward-the-god-I-was-raised-with and how much of that is actually me. And I've started going to a UU church and I went to an excellent interfaith service yesterday evening and I haven't given up on paganism and I'm very interested in Buddhism and Daoism. So who knows where I'll end up.
~Even if we're objectively insignificant, we are the center of our subjective universes and incredibly important in the universes of at least a handful of other people. Our happiness and their happiness matters.
~Sometimes, it's a comfort to remember that I'm insignificant - my mistakes will matter scarcely at all, even in the context of my community and human society.
~I'm still terrified of dying and suffering is depressing because usually there's no point to it; we can create purpose for our suffering, if the conditions are right, but that doesn't mean we should be grateful for it ...
~ ... though some Buddhist and other perspectives hold that moments of pain are incredibly valuable which ... I think can be problematic. *shrug* I'm not looking for easy answers, and I'm not looking in places where the answers are easy.