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An existential pit of despair

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24

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    #32
    Jessie Belle
    Closed Accounts Posts: 74 ✭✭Jessie Belle


    So.
    Im not coming back as a beautiful butterfly right? :(


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    #33
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,787 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Jessie Belle wrote: »
    So.
    Im not coming back as a beautiful butterfly right? :(

    fear-not-ugly-caterpillar-for-one-day-you-will-be...
    https://pics.me.me/fear-not-ugly-caterpillar-for-one-day-you-will-be-3764591.png


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    #34
    Outlaw Pete
    Registered Users Posts: 10,423 ✭✭✭✭Outlaw Pete


    Reminds of a line from a Bob Seger song.
    Youth and beauty are gone one day and no matter what you dream or feel or say it ends in dust and disarray.


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    #35
    Atoms for Peace
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,888 ✭✭✭Atoms for Peace


    The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always increases with time.


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    #36
    Obvious Desperate Breakfasts
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,474 ✭✭✭Obvious Desperate Breakfasts


    Atoms for Peace wrote: »
    In the end "all your great hopes and dreams and successes and failures add up to nothing. Everyone you know and love will eventually be forgotten and rot silently in the ground where they will, if they're lucky, help feed the roots of a tree that will rot and die itself, and on and on until the sun someday explodes and swallows the Earth in a fiery, violent, wholly meaningless end."

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wj3wab/conan-obrien-interview-death-nihilism-all-our-graves-go-unattended-vgtrn?utm_source=curalate_like2buy&utm_medium=curalate_like2buy_wasi6ir1__a57a5b69-c3b2-4ecd-a1d8-a51674e1f197

    It’s very true. I mean, many of my contemporaries never even knew their grandparents. How quickly we’re forgotten.

    And if you’re buried the usual six feet or so under, you’re not even any use as a source of nutrients as you’re too far down.

    A very small, select group belong to the ages. That’s it.

    So enjoy your sliver of light while it lasts.


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    #37
    Spanish Eyes
    Registered Users Posts: 15,897 ✭✭✭✭Spanish Eyes


    Good thread, and not an instagram in sight.

    I enjoyed the book L'Etranger. By Camus. Read it again and again. He has nailed it I think.

    Life is absurd. Take note now.


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    #38
    Bit cynical
    Registered Users Posts: 2,338 ✭✭✭Bit cynical


    mad muffin wrote: »
    I heard you die twice, once when they bury you in the grave. And the second time is the last time that somebody mentions your name.
    Ideally it happens in that order.

    Goodnight now.


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    #39
    Noo
    Registered Users Posts: 1,986 ✭✭✭Noo


    Bigbagofcans wrote: »
    That's one of the most depressing things I've read in recent times.

    Don't watch Coco.


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    #40
    Sardonicat
    Registered Users Posts: 12,378 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    Step away from the Sartre.


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    #41
    RobbingBandit
    Registered Users Posts: 18,092 ✭✭✭✭RobbingBandit


    Satre is smartre


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    #42
    Franz Von Peppercorn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,070 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn


    Bit cynical wrote: »
    Ideally it happens in that order.

    Goodnight now.

    You’ll get your own coat?


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    #43
    Auguste Comte
    Registered Users Posts: 1,143 ✭✭✭Auguste Comte


    mad muffin wrote: »
    I heard you die twice, once when they bury you in the grave. And the second time is the last time that somebody mentions your name.

    Unless your French, then if you are lucky, every day you can have "la petite mort"...


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    #44
    jimgoose
    Registered Users Posts: 20,175 ✭✭✭✭jimgoose


    Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc. I want more life, Father.


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    #45
    valoren
    Registered Users Posts: 5,458 ✭✭✭valoren


    I watched the Snowman again at Christmas. It's a masterpiece.

    You listen to people say it's a tradition to watch it, it wouldn't be Christmas without it.
    In reality, it has nothing at all to do with Christmas, the scenes with Santa and the North Pole added during the Channel 4 production.
    Those added Christmas elements worked brilliantly but the core message seems to have been lost because of them.

    It's about death. It was an attempt by Raymond Briggs to introduce children to the concept of mortality.
    The lesson from it being that anything we love will inevitably die. Parents, pet's, garden's, snowmen.

    We ourselves will die.

    My take from it is that we must appreciate the people we love and appreciate that one day we too might be a 'snowman' for people who love us and who will be grief stricken when we too, by analogy, melt.

    The final shot of the melted snowman with the boy crestfallen on his knees mourning the loss of his friend coupled with the beautiful melody of 'Walking in the Air' on the piano affects me every time. It was my first time last Christmas watching it with our two year old. I realized I am now a 'Snowman' to her. She will grieve for me and her mother someday but she doesn't understand that concept yet. The innocence of childhood will last a few more years yet. Briggs wanted to use the story of a magical snowman who briefly befriended a fictionalized version of himself as an analogy to explain that inevitability to older children. Snow is fleeting. Snow melts and his magical friend must die.

    I think it's great that Channel 4 screen it every Christmas. Looking past it's reputation and regard as a Christmas classic it serves us as an annual reminder to appreciate everyone and everything that we currently love because they really don't last forever.

    The-Snowman.jpg
    The melted remains of the Snowman is redolent to that of a grave.


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    #46
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Atoms for Peace wrote: »
    In the end "all your great hopes and dreams and successes and failures add up to nothing. Everyone you know and love will eventually be forgotten and rot silently in the ground where they will, if they're lucky, help feed the roots of a tree that will rot and die itself, and on and on until the sun someday explodes and swallows the Earth in a fiery, violent, wholly meaningless end."

    I am not seeing the "despair" part of that myself to be honest. I am at peace with all of that - and rather than cause my despair or existential angst it in fact defines what I value and why I value it and why I think it is worth valuing anything.

    Or as another person often puts it to me "The Journey Is The Destination". And I am good with that.


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    #47
    NIMAN
    Registered Users Posts: 33,097 ✭✭✭✭NIMAN


    valoren wrote: »

    It's about death. It was an attempt by Raymond Briggs to introduce children to the concept of mortality.

    Everyday's a school day, eh.

    Never knew that. Had only ever watched The Snowman once before, but I'll watch it more closely next time.


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    #48
    topper75
    Registered Users Posts: 5,942 ✭✭✭topper75


    "Life is a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness."
    Schopenhauer.

    I like to remember that one any time I find myself feeling a bit too chipper.


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    #49
    Sabre0001
    Registered Users Posts: 7,499 ✭✭✭Sabre0001


    There's a post to really pick you up on a Friday morning :(

    🤪



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    #50
    Bigbagofcans
    Registered Users Posts: 1,164 ✭✭✭Bigbagofcans


    “We come from this earth and we will return to this earth. The word human is a derivative of the word humus. We spring from the same soil that houses our ancestor’s great sleep. We walk on the fossilized bones and decomposed flesh of all the people and every species that traversed the earth before our time. It is humbling and reassuring to know that I entered this life-giving sphere only after so many good people came before me to consecrate this land with their vitality and knowing that we share the universal story of struggle. It is consoling understanding that after I die Mother Earth will turn my decomposed shell into a new form of life. My decaying body will provide nutrients for life that will rise after I die. Until the soil opens up to receive me as its own child, I must take a stand and make the most out of the sunshine and rainstorms that beat down upon all people alike.”

    ― Kilroy J. Oldster


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    #51
    irishguitarlad
    Registered Users Posts: 2,751 ✭✭✭irishguitarlad


    Once you realise that the sun is going to completely vaporize this planet in a couple of thousand years from now, it takes a lot of pressure off.


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    #52
    xi5yvm0owc1s2b
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,325 ✭✭✭xi5yvm0owc1s2b


    irishguitarlad wrote: »
    Once you realise that the sun is going to completely vaporize this planet in a couple of thousand years from now, it takes a lot of pressure off.

    I think it might be a bit longer than a couple of thousand years.


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    #53
    Wibbs
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,085 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Jaysus, well aren't ye a jolly bunch. :D

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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    #54
    irishguitarlad
    Registered Users Posts: 2,751 ✭✭✭irishguitarlad


    Conrad Cool Wimp wrote: »
    I think it might be a bit longer than a couple of thousand years.

    I know that, It was a figure of speech.


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    #55
    aaronjumper
    Registered Users Posts: 14,128 ✭✭✭✭aaronjumper


    irishguitarlad wrote: »
    Once you realise that the sun is going to completely vaporize this planet in a couple of thousand years from now, it takes a lot of pressure off.
    Makes it easy to justify buying a cheesecake.


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    #56
    chrissb8
    Registered Users Posts: 1,169 ✭✭✭chrissb8


    You were born, against all odds, on a planet full of wonders, beauty, terrible things among the potential to do anything you want. Don't worry about death. That's going to happen anyway get busy living.

    If everyone thought what's the point than we wouldn't be where we are now. And being here now is pretty amazing.


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    #57
    xi5yvm0owc1s2b
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,325 ✭✭✭xi5yvm0owc1s2b


    irishguitarlad wrote: »
    I know that, It was a figure of speech.

    Edit: just looked it up, 7.5 million years, the general point still stands though, that humanity will probably eventually die out or all historical records will be wiped out. So don't fret It, and just live your life.

    7.5 billion years.

    The chances of us self-destructing by ourselves long before then are quite high.


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    #58
    Deebles McBeebles
    Registered Users Posts: 5,752 ✭✭✭Deebles McBeebles


    Conrad Cool Wimp wrote: »
    7.5 billion years.

    The chances of us self-destructing by ourselves long before then is quite high.

    Oh man we'll be long gone before the sun takes us. Once the insects start disappearing (even more) its done.


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    #59
    Feisar
    Registered Users Posts: 6,608 ✭✭✭Feisar


    I am here, now.

    What matters if it's all for naught in however many years to come? I'm not living in the future, I'm alive in the present.

    First they came for the socialists...



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    #60
    joe40
    Registered Users Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭joe40


    Curly Judge wrote: »
    The protons in your body have been around since shortly after the big bang and some of them have been through at least one supernova.
    When you die they will lay quietly at the bottom of your grave unless disturbed by a tsunami, a meteor impact or an property developer.
    When our sun finally consumes this earth in about five billion years time, the whole process will begin again.
    Try not to be so self centered.

    The protons are part of the atoms in your body which are mostly carbon. (Excluding water). So by the process of decomposition the carbon atoms of your body will eventually become carbon dioxide in the air available for photosynthesis.

    We are ultimately just part of the carbon cycle on this planet. Whether that causes despair or not depends on the individual.


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    #61
    Curly Judge
    Registered Users Posts: 2,708 ✭✭✭Curly Judge


    Deebles McBeebles wrote: »
    Oh man we'll be long gone before the sun takes us. Once the insects start disappearing (even more) its done.

    Given 7.5 billion years, thousands of civilizations and possibly dozens of primary species could walk this earth before then.

    I'm reminded of Balfour's statement that: "Very few things in life really matter and most things don't matter at all".


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