Got a philosophy on life?

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M

Mama Smurf

My penis is still intact.
Let's hear it if you do.

Personally I used to say everything changes*. Then I got a bit older and gained a wider perspective and decided that nothing changes, not in the long run. Now I'm a bit older still and I've realised I don't know anything about life, so I'm a bit lost.

If you have a philospophy on life, is it just an observation or something you try to live by? Let's all share, maybe I'll find something which makes sense to me in what you say.

*except that everything changes, that doesn't change.
 
I just let things happen. My entire thought process is something along the lines of 'it'll all work out in time,' which is pretty naive but has served me well for a few years now. Really, I just try to find humor or some type of amusement in everything, because if you're always looking for the negative that's all you'll ever find. It all ties into the power of belief - if you believe things will be okay, then they will because if you really believe it then you'll take steps to ensure it happens.

Oh, and honestly. Gotta be honest - no bullshit or trying to spin things, just accepting what you have and making sure others realize that. I find the honesty also tends to help avoid a lot of bullshit drama.

Gee, I could probably flesh all that out to a few paragraphs for every setence, but meh :/
 
I'm quite a negative person, always have been though I'm much better than I was. I just finished reading IT though, and Stephen King made an observation (through a character, but obviously it was his own thought) that things in life work out a ridiculously large amount of the time. So many things could go wrong, and yeah, sometimes they do, but most of the time they don't. And he's right.

Made me think.
 
Take care of yourself and your responsibilities.

Be nice to the people who deserve it and ignore the ones who don't.

Karma is more than a word.
 
I guess so. I think about life pretty constantly.

All I (or anyone) wants is happiness. In other words, 'The Good' (any Platonians?). But our brains are only so adept at regularly obtaining happiness. We are riddled with conventions, lines of thinking, habits, and fears that inhibit any progress towards proper contentment. I see life as a constant struggle to overcome these. My mind is fixated on attaining happiness in this way.

I don't believe in fate. The saying 'It just wasn't meant to be' does not jive with me. But I guess it's a comfortable way of accepting the past. Still, I'd rather think that I had control over the situation and I just fucked up, for intance.

I believe in karma. Not in that it actually exists, but that it's simply a great way to live. If you treat people fairly and try to be selfless (which I think is inherently difficult, maybe impossible, for everyone), you'll be a happier person. Don't be a tool, of course, but

I'm always developing thoughts like these. I could write pages on 'life' and then two hours later want to change something. I've got nothing figured out. That's comforting in a way. Ignorance, I mean. Chances are then that there's more to everything.
 
Life is a roller coaster, all you have to do is put your hands up!

roller%20coaster%20view.jpg
 
Life sucks, get a fucking helmet. -Denis Leary

Something really close to that. It was my senior quote and is still true to this day. Life sucks, get the fuck over it. PEACE.
 
I've built a pretty good dorm-room philososphy during my past year. Most important is self-respect and they way you treat others. No afterlife, the memories others have of you are all that are left. Things definately change, look at divorce.

As for a catchy phase I'm still looking, I like "Those who want respect, give respect.

And the tao te chi, or at least the gist of it is a good outlook.
 
People on these boards mock bands like Linkin Park for being angsty, come in a thread like this and you can take any one of them and place it in one of their songs...or one of Avril Lavignes.
 
Teh Hamburglar said:
People on these boards mock bands like Linkin Park for being angsty, come in a thread like this and you can take any one of them and place it in one of their songs...or one of Avril Lavignes.
Click to expand...

They make millions of dollars. They have no right to be angsty.
 
It took me a while to completely accept it but in life, you're alone, you need to stick up for yourself and try to keep things under control as much as possible. And always have a safety net. Be intelligent in the sense that you should always keep as many doors open for you.

If, for instance, I really loved this girl, and we were together, but she ended up cheating on me big time, then I'd walk away and tell myself that it was my own fault for loving a whore.
 
My whole philosophy on life is to have fun. There's no point in living if you're not enjoying yourself. It's probably the reason I'm so consumed by the entertainment industry =)
 
"life... don't talk to me about life."

My philosphy on life, or rather my phrase to live by is: you can't have fun when you're dead.
Basically, I don't worry too much about where I am, as long as I have the means to have fun I'm happy.
 
My life philosophy is the open mind. Always coming into a situation with the understanding that I truly know nothing and every encounter and every experience gains me some knowledge and adjusts the knowledge that I had possessed previously. To me it is the best way to not be static and at the same time still hold some semblance of self. It also helps protect me a bit from too much bias or intolerance.
 
"Ethics and morals" are constraints on your ability to succeed. The _objective_ value of commiting an immoral act is easily determined. The costs are not. They can be summarized as the change in value of how others perceive your 'character' (and how that would ultimately effect your life) and a 3 part product as follows: 1) probability you place on their being an afterlife. 2) probability of a particular action resulting in negative consequences thereafter and 3) the value you place on those consequences, presumably negative. There are other _subjective_ values, but it's not necessary to give them any consideration given where im going with this (ie: cognitive disonance from contradicting established values you hold). Similarly, if the concept of non-utility based values for doing the 'right' thing were accepted as true, it would be consistent with what follows.

The problem with a "hell" is that it ultimately places an infinite negative utility value in the third column. That means that, so long as you have even the faintest suspicion of their being a biblical hell, if you were to act rationally (in the philosophical sense), you'd have to abide by every moral and ethical guideline you set out, absolutely ... since the product of three figures, where one is infinity would still be infinite.

Given those premises, for any immoral action resulting in an expected return on utility, the relevant costs in terms of expected loss in utility for the future would have a negative value... in the sense that, a value in utility for your life time is finite (constrained by your life expectency) and the potential loss in utility in the afterlife will always be far greater, so long as you have even the faintest of feelings that there may be a hell where "sinners" rest for eternity.

It's understandable that if you were to actually calculate the costs and benefits of each immoral action you would need a discount rate for the future, but it would still ultimately be dealing with finite numbers relative to infinite numbers. Additionally, presumably there is an immeasurable loss in utility for a given unit of time spent in "hell", or at least we expect this to be the case to some degree of certainty. This is in comparison to the status quo -before giving consideration to the alternative course of action, namely heaven, which would lead to limitless utility. The rational decision would always bend in favor of doing the "right" thing.

What we can conclude from this is that people who act contrary to their own morals are either irrational, or they have zero belief in the existence of a hell. Given that everyone, or close to everyone has acted in a manner that they would regard as immoral at some point, the vast majority of the population would fit under this umbrella.

It's a paradox because I dont find the conclusion acceptable. I believe that everyone places some probability on the existence of a heaven/hell. I also believe that humans are essentially rational. There'll probably be a couple of dimwits saying "LOLOL PEOPLE DO STUPID THINGS ALL THE TIME". Doing apparently irrational things and being irrational are different.

edit: the ability to repent doesn't alter this to any meaningful degree, since there is always a given probability of death before you're able to repent (again, a finite number).

So basically, i can't decide what premise to reject.


err... that's not really a life philosophy so much as it is a belief coupled with a paradox. I'm probably ranting, but it'd be great if any of the competent posters out there could take a stab at it.
 
You can take the parrot off a pirate but can't take the pirate off a parrot. unless he is a really tiny pirate that gives up easily. that being the case, someone really should remove him doncha think?
 
"the funny thing about regret is ,
is that it's better to regret something you have done,
than something you haven't done.

oh by the way, if you see your mom this weekend,
be sure to tell her

SATAN
SATAN
SATAN
SATAN
SATAN."

- Satan, Orbital.
 
McLesterolBeast said:
"Ethics and morals" are constraints on your ability to succeed.
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Only in an unjust and immoral world. ;) Strive to make it not so-- that'd best describe my guiding philosophy. :)


My personal favorite quote:

"A man who lives right, and is right, has more power in his silence than another has in his words."


That about sums up my outlook on things.
 
Ripclawe said:
Those who can will
Those who can't, fuck'em



oh.. me like.
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Bullshit.

What about those who can, but choose not to? Just overly idealistic simpletons, I suppose? <rolleyes> Figures you'd like such a Machiavellian/Neitzschean scheme.


The politics of power and ability, and a worldview which would supplant ethics and idealism with mere pragmatics and naked ambition, is entirely beneath the best of what human thought and conduct has shown to be attainable. Certainly idealism must be tempered by reality (and vice-versa), but to support one to the exclusion of the other? Folly.
 
What about those who can, but choose not to?
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Prefered members of society, from my perspective. Just not a route i'd choose to take.

Only in an unjust and immoral world. Strive to make it not so-- that'd best describe my guiding philosophy.
Click to expand...

In any world. In an absolutely "just" world, those moral and ethical constraints would be universally held. In that world, everyone would be a true utilitarian, at least as far as their cognitive abilities would allow.

For that to exist, you'd require an overwhelming amount of overall utility to be derived from a subjective good. By subjective good, i mean the good you feel from fulfilling and upholding existing belief structures, and whatever you can internalize. The feeling of being a "moral person". It is necessary, in this ideal world, that acting moral provides more utility than objective pleasures. If those morals are socially optimal, they'll require you make decision with respect to the overall objective good of society.

We hold moral and ethical beliefs, in part, because they've been imposed on us (also from genetic disposition, but that's another issue). We only give value to them because we already hold them. From your perspective, you can't say that you value having the moral of monogamy. You value monogamy... you don't value the moral. If that "moral" leads to an objective optimal outcome for yourself, the "moral" is arbitrary. If it leads to an objective socially optimal outcome, then (except in VERY few cases) you're sacrificing your own objective good - and in the absence of the "value", you'd be better off objectively. The only question is whether, in the absence of a subjective desire, does the potential for utility spill over into other aspects (namely objective interests).

Here's a stupid analogy. A child loves pizza. When he eats pizza, he's content but of course it's unhealthy to some degree. Still, given his preference for pizza, he makes the decision to eat it. If that same child hated pizza, would he be better or worse off than a situation of loving it?
 
Do no do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you......

A little bit cheesey but yeah it guides a lot of my principles and actions......
 
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