Guys, intellectually I'm all spooked out. I can't stand philosophy because of all the unfalsifiable garbage. Many fields like economics etc are just applied common sense and stamp collecting. I see novels as nothing but entertainment despite pretentious people claiming life / philosophical insights and tonnes of people will consider you a disgusting plebeian if you don't initially read shitloads of boring as fuck canon novels.
I think I am painfully adapting to the idea of the Internet age / information overload by abandoning any pretension that I can be an all rounder or even dilettante in everything. There are ten trillion books called "Introduction to [broad and important field]", even if you only have one of each field.
History is similar to novels. Shitloads of reading along with a shitload pretension thrown on top telling you that you truly cannot no nuthin unless you have an in depth understanding of the Greeks / Romans / Christianity / USA / WW1 / WW2 / financial systems / or shitloads of other topics I can't stand it. And then there's current events. I don't care about climate change, outer space, inequality, China, the EU (as long as it doesn't stir up too much shit), applied psychology, the education system, diversity (as long as people aren't treated badly), Russia, South America, refugees, nutrition, mental health, and more. Admitting just one of these would make me an iredeemable idiot, no doubt.
Has anyone else had similar thoughts? The spooks are powerful and must be removed but their removal leaves your mind in a promordial state that is more susceptible to spooks than before.
And obviously I have an existential crisis but /lit/ is fucking pathetic in demanding that anyone who has one should immediately "grow up" and become a monotheist and wagecuck. I fucking hate wagecucking. Seeing attractive young people is humiliating.
dumb frogposter
>>8244101
Oppression by something new is always certain, freedom isn't entirely possible.
Seems like you have reached the end of your tether with your relationship to written honesty and you got a great deal out of it. But what good does it do now? have some fun and try being skilfully dishonest for a while.
You don't have to define yourself as someone who only consumes like you have a fear of missing out on knowledge, there is also predicting the future, exercising power and creative pursuits like design.
>>8244101
>unfalsifiable garbage
In what sense does a given proposition surpass the threshold of unequivocal unfalsifiability?
>applied common sense
What, exactly, constitutes "common sense"?
>tonnes of people will consider you a disgusting plebeian (...) (sic.)
Why do you care about the majoritarian value-judgments of a surmised cohort man
Contending the entirety of "philosophy" is "unfalsifiable" is, per se, an epistemological proposition operating within some modal notional framework and equally subject to inquiry which, likewise, renders the utterance ultimately semantically ambiguous (insofar as its topical parameters are withheld).
Maybe you would find it more fruitful to reevaluate why you manifest the sentiments so described homie
Just do what you want. Some people read because they think it's a good use of their time. Others spend their time volunteering at their local church. Nothing you do is going to be the "right" thing. Just do what makes you feel good.
Lest we become misologists, he replied, no worse thing can happen to a man than this. For as there are misanthropists or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises out of the too great confidence of inexperience;—you trust a man and think him altogether true and sound and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish; and then another and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially when it happens among those whom he deems to be his own most trusted and familiar friends, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates all men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all. You must have observed this trait of character?
...
Yes, that is very likely, he replied; although in this respect arguments are unlike men—there I was led on by you to say more than I had intended; but the point of comparison was, that when a simple man who has no skill in dialectics believes an argument to be true which he afterwards imagines to be false, whether really false or not, and then another and another, he has no longer any faith left, and great disputers, as you know, come to think at last that they have grown to be the wisest of mankind; for they alone perceive the utter unsoundness and instability of all arguments, or indeed, of all things, which, like the currents in the Euripus, are going up and down in never-ceasing ebb and flow.
That is quite true, I said.
Yes, Phaedo, he replied, and how melancholy, if there be such a thing as truth or certainty or possibility of knowledge—that a man should have lighted upon some argument or other which at first seemed true and then turned out to be false, and instead of blaming himself and his own want of wit, because he is annoyed, should at last be too glad to transfer the blame from himself to arguments in general: and for ever afterwards should hate and revile them, and lose truth and the knowledge of realities.
Yes, indeed, I said; that is very melancholy.
Let us then, in the first place, he said, be careful of allowing or of admitting into our souls the notion that there is no health or soundness in any arguments at all. Rather say that we have not yet attained to soundness in ourselves, and that we must struggle manfully and do our best to gain health of mind—you and all other men having regard to the whole of your future life, and I myself in the prospect of death.
Sounds like you a typical bored white male, you should go to a third world country and see how they live there. Then maybe your interest in life will pick up again.
>>8244204
>There's no difference between feeding a homeless woman and raping a homeless woman.
I donno man. I'm in a similar boat. I still enjoy novels, learning about philosophy, following geopolitics, etc. but lately I've been sapped of the motivation to do any of that. All I can really bring myself to do is browse the web and watch tv series.
Think I'm gonna force myself to start writing.
>Has anyone else had similar thoughts?
Yeah. It's called intellectual ambition, when you want to know everything, but then realise you can't know everything, so you despair and choose to know nothing instead.
In reality, you only need to know, and are expected to know, a few things. All that academic knowledge, unless it is related to your work, is not your responsibility, and only pedantic posers care if you know it, and they are fools.
>The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails deeply fastened in, which by the counsel of masters are given from one shepherd. More than these, my son, require not. Of making many books there is no end: and much study is an affliction of the flesh.
>>8244238
>white male
lol
I have this completely impossible desire to know at least the basics of every field of academic study before I'm, like, 30. Several times I've tried to take some "grand reading tour of Western or Global thought," and each time I've quickly realized "this is impossible" and that I needed to try again on an even shallower level. Like, I began aspiring to read "every important text in history" and quickly lowered my aims to reading "every wikipedia article on a very important topic" and now I'm at the point of just reading a single survey of all of humanity's important ideas through history (Watson's Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention from Fire to Freud").
Are other people struggling with this? What are your thoughts? Is there a viable path to becoming a generalist today? I've asked about this online many times and the consensus on the last questions seems to be "no."
I'm also sort of trying to do this in my life with experiences and I suspect that it's just as foolish. So yeah, I guess I just wonder how curious people are able to face the infinity of experiences and knowledge
>>8244262
Quotes like this really make me feel I'm missing out due to not having read the bible. Which bible do you recommend?
>>8244185
Do you think you sound smart?
>>8244101
Asceticism is the answer.
>>8244185
This is a joke right
Anon, as even you admitted, you are having an existential crisis. Since you're apparently not sad, you can use this to your benefit. Laugh at others , have fun.
But mate, ignorance is bliss. Once you undestand the meaning of this phrase, you'll learn to be happy. All you said is correct, but you don't need to know that. It won't make you any happier
>>8244370
>
Just breathe lad; wew, wew, wew, wew man; yeah, wew. >wew.
>>8244238
This, pretty much.
>>8244101
>... Seeing attractive young people is humiliating.
I didn't get that transition to that last sentence. Explain the missing line of thought.
The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.
- Gramsci
>>8244711
I wonder if the idea that intelligence makes one sad is true at all.
Might be that it (crying and bragging about being smart) is just self-dilusion stemming from a want to feel better than the mass. Everybody thinks he's above average smart, while only 50% of people are.
>>8244101
>I don't care about climate change
>iredeemable idiot
Yep.
>>8244235
He'd might feel difderent if he knew that more than two thousand years of continued thought still hasn't found truth.
>>8244134
you are a machine responsible for the slips of paper inside fortune cookies aren't you
>>8245137
>He'd might feel difderent
The fuck am I smoking?
>>8244789
>I wonder if the idea that intelligence makes one sad is true at all.
There must be several studies about this.
>>8244101
>ennui
sounds like someone needs to hit the gym
