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It wasn't my joke to change. And it wasn't about progress or evolution - it was about perception.
If future prospects make no difference to you then you must have an unconscious time limit in terms of your care.
Does your care extend beyond your lifespan and that of your children? For how long does the future matter to you if those possibilities make no difference to how you feel about things?
Greta wrote: ↑November 8th, 2018, 5:45 pm
If future prospects make no difference to you then you must have an unconscious time limit in terms of your care.
I care now about both the present and am interested in the future.
If I'm lucky, I'll have use of my faculties for another c15 years. After that, I'll be either dead or gaga - in either case, incapable of caring.
Greta wrote: ↑November 8th, 2018, 5:45 pm
If future prospects make no difference to you then you must have an unconscious time limit in terms of your care.
I care now about both the present and am interested in the future.
If I'm lucky, I'll have use of my faculties for another c15 years. After that, I'll be either dead or gaga - in either case, incapable of caring.
I know the feeling. I care about the future as well as being interested. If this whole journey is to end with Earth life disappearing with no long term ramifications, then we might as well go crazy and screw the future. However, I am optimistic regarding the long term future, although not towards the short to medium term future, which I think will come under the heading of "interesting times", which are ultimately unsettled times of rapid change.
Greta wrote: ↑November 8th, 2018, 9:58 pm
If this whole journey is to end with Earth life disappearing with no long term ramifications, then we might as well go crazy and screw the future.
That's what the alt-right cascade is all about: what the pubs used to call closing-time panic. They're trying to eat up everything before it's gone.
I feel no particular compulsion to change my long-ingrained habits of thought, action and interaction.
Whatever happens after, I cleave to my principles. Not because I think it matters; just because it's my style.
So is sunny, friendly, helpful good cheer. Nauseating, I know, but there it is.
Thinking about this notion of reasons to be cheerful has occupied my mind a lot these past few days. Thanks Georgeanna.
First thought: how wonderful to be reminded of Ian Dury and the Blockheads, always on my list of favourites. A couple of other quotes from the song are 'Lighting up the chalice', and 'the smile of the Parrot'. As for using drugs, it may not be PC, but why not? Humans use all sorts of drugs, and in spite of all the hang-ups about drug use, altering one's reality somewhat can be a cheerful prospect. Living with reality can be all right, too. And the smile of the Parrot (a concept which may also be drug-induced) reminds me not to be so human-centric, and to appreciate the gifts of other species.
We tend to be a bit human-centred, however. I mean we don't really care if the Parrot is cheerful. But if we think of all the wonders of nature, we should be cheerful, except that the good cheer must always be tempered by the awful truth: we humans have royally **** this planet, and the new one remains elusive to say the least. It is easy to see why many conclude that 'we might as well go crazy and screw the future'. The 'closing-time panic'ers are deluded enough to believe they are partying instead, and ignorant enough not to care that most of the world is not invited to the party, nor that the party will soon end.
A lot of us do have great reason to be cheerful, though. By the extraordinary good fortune that was our birth, and the timing of it, we (lucky inhabitants of the Global North) exist during the "sweet spot" of human life on Earth. (In fact I think being born about 150 years earlier than I was would have been more interesting, but thanks to imagination, books and film - 3 more reasons there - I can have an enjoyable sense of what that earlier time may have been like.)
In order that we do not all become overwhelmed by cheerfulness, human cleverness always makes its paradoxical presence felt. The other end of the mood spectrum - anxiety, depression, hopelessness - born in the mind, just like cheerfulness, will remain with us. This is why we thinkers can marvel at, and be hopeful because of, human ingenuity and especially the myriad ways we have already thought of which could yield a bright future, and within moments fall into despair, realising that all the great ideas will count for naught due to the political disease prevalent in every human society, and the global paralysis induced by that disease. Sadly, the light switched on by advanced Apes, which burns more brightly than ever, will soon be switched off.
Robert66 wrote: ↑November 9th, 2018, 5:06 pmSadly, the light switched on by advanced Apes, which burns more brightly than ever, will soon be switched off.
Fortunately, that's an assumption. I think it likely that that those at the top end of town will continue to thrive and progress and, most likely, become more melded with, and protected and fed by, technology rather than natural processes.
Happiness lies inside of us. In little things! Like, buy your self a sunglass as the summers are approaching. Like I did. Ordered a nice pair of sunglass from city sunglass or going for a hangout, talking to your loved ones, going for shopping, etc. Try it. It helps.
AngelaBurton wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2019, 4:02 am
Happiness lies inside of us. In little things! Like, buy your self a sunglass as the summers are approaching. Like I did. Ordered a nice pair of sunglass from city sunglass or going for a hangout, talking to your loved ones, going for shopping, etc. Try it. It helps.
Quite right Angela! And if you have more money to spend on shopping you can distract yourself from your worries with a new car or a banter with chums , or an ocean cruise with your wife. Alcohol helps too. Then there are recreational drugs which also may be bought and used for having a good time. Shopping :the people's antidote to thinking.
Every moment you spend happy, know some guy out there is having a better time. Every moment you are distressed, that same guy is still having a great time
Intellectual_Savnot wrote: ↑March 8th, 2019, 1:51 pm
Every moment you spend happy, know some guy out there is having a better time. Every moment you are distressed, that same guy is still having a great time
Yeah. He's at a posh resort in Jasper, eating crab puffs and drinking mulled wine among convivial bunnies. In an hour, he will don his $400 sunglasses, collect his $15,000 skis and go out for one more fast downhill run.
...there is a tree with his name on it...