What screws us up

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Claudia1794

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Ugh...I can’t make myself watch a video so I will just answer based on the question and not the video.

Being leashed and not being able to act on urges
 

TheSkaFish

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I don't mean this as an attack, but something that I never understood was, I never got the difference between having no expectations, and giving up on life. If you have no expectations, if you give up on wanting anything, then why do anything? Because to do things, is to try to influence the outcome one way or another. Why not just input nothing, and just let whatever happens, happen, and if something or someone saves you then you're saved, and if nothing saves you then you're screwed, and that's just what happens.

It never seemed like a good approach to life, to me. It always seemed like, that's what people that live on the street do - they've given up on life, and are now all of their wants, indeed their whole world, is just fixated on a single point - their next drink or next hit of drugs. They have no expectations or desires out of life other than that.

And I don't mean that as a character fault, just an observation.

I just don't think it gets a person anywhere. Giving up on wanting things just lets life blow you wherever, and unless you're really lucky, it probably won't be anything good. It seems that most of the time, bad things happen on their own. Things always fall apart on their own, the world always comes up with new bullshit to torment us with on its own, new "progress". But unless you're really lucky, you have to make the good things happen yourself.

Maybe I just don't understand it, I don't know.


What do I think screws us up?

Incomplete information, misinformation, well-meaning but wrong information, misinterpreting the information.
Not knowing how things work and why, and what to do.

And not really taking the time to know ourselves and what's important to us - without that, how do you know what to aim for?
 

Claudia1794

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I don't mean this as an attack, but something that I never understood was, I never got the difference between having no expectations, and giving up on life. If you have no expectations, if you give up on wanting anything, then why do anything? Because to do things, is to try to influence the outcome one way or another. Why not just input nothing, and just let whatever happens, happen, and if something or someone saves you then you're saved, and if nothing saves you then you're screwed, and that's just what happens.

It never seemed like a good approach to life, to me. It always seemed like, that's what people that live on the street do - they've given up on life, and are now all of their wants, indeed their whole world, is just fixated on a single point - their next drink or next hit of drugs. They have no expectations or desires out of life other than that.

And I don't mean that as a character fault, just an observation.

I just don't think it gets a person anywhere. Giving up on wanting things just lets life blow you wherever, and unless you're really lucky, it probably won't be anything good. It seems that most of the time, bad things happen on their own. Things always fall apart on their own, the world always comes up with new bullshit to torment us with on its own, new "progress". But unless you're really lucky, you have to make the good things happen yourself.

Maybe I just don't understand it, I don't know.


What do I think screws us up?

Incomplete information, misinformation, well-meaning but wrong information, misinterpreting the information.
Not knowing how things work and why, and what to do.

And not really taking the time to know ourselves and what's important to us - without that, how do you know what to aim for?
Is that what the video was about?
Expectations?
 

TropicalStarfish

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It's an 8 minute video with useful life wisdom. What screws us up, is whatever has messed our attention spans to oblivion. I hate the fact that a little over a decade ago, I could go on a wikipedia binge and read for 3 hours straight and wonder where the time went. Now, I often just skim things, and never really am able to fully digest anything.

We live in the age of the world wide web, where a vast majority of the worlds wisdom, is only a click away.

I guess it's sort of like, living in a house made out of diamonds and gold. You just stop noticing it.

--
As far as the video goes. Yeah, my grandmother once told me, "expect nothing and you won't be disappointed." It's good advice, that a lot of people need to hear; but, as usual, many won't. So the important question is, will I hear it? It's nothing I haven't known; but, it's one thing to hear it. It's another to experience it.

Of course it makes sense to not have expectations in regards to giving. A true gift is a gift that comes from the heart, of which, there is no expectation to be disappointed about when it is not met, and only gladness when it is received in kind.

But how do you do that, exactly?

How do you let go of bitterness, how do you let go of your despair, how do you accept things as they are, so that the pain and suffering caused by your sense of how you suppose they should be or wish they should be, doesn't make a bad situation worse?

I dunno. I'm sure it's doable, and has been done. But, I still don't know how.
 

Ima Lone

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I wasn't the one who found the video...check a few posts up!

But you were honest in saying that you'd only skimmed through it.
Someone else might have said the thing was all BS. You were honest.
I saw that you weren't the OP. I just thought what you said was nice.

I haven't watched it yet but I plan to, honestly. :)
 

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