Acting authentically in the face of survival

[Annik]

You bring up a very interesting point, something I hadn't thought of. With that in mind, do you think people would be able to act more authentically if we didn't have to deal with those choices? I'm not saying you're wrong, of course, because you're right. I'm just curious as to your opinion.

[Violet]

Limits give me something to work towards... if I have everything at my fingertips, and didn't feel I earned it... I become aimless, depressed, and bored. Then I throw the proverbial dart and absorb myself in some game. Maybe shopping. Doesn't matter if I don't need it, is it cool? Sweet, toss it in the cart. Pizza ordered every night, and morning, and sometime in the middle of the day. Pizza on speed-dial.

When I get down to Texas, I'm limiting my videogaming time, and forcing myself to follow a hygiene and housework and exercise schedule to earn it from there. Perhaps it is unfortunate that, due to how this season turned out (horribly), I will very likely have to get a job. Or maybe it's fortune smiling upon me by telling me to get out of my depression by having something more to worry about than how I look each day (passable, if only just ).

Doesn't matter. It's part and parcel to the living experience. Without some resemblance of hardship in life, I wouldn't have proper appreciation for the good things in it. I need my pain, Kirk style. Sure, it's cool and shit to be rid of money... but even then, we are still limited by resources (oftentimes which we did not secure ourselves), and it still would not do to be inordinately selfish regarding them. Without that limit, we are given to whatever petty frivolous impulse occurs to us (example, Rhythm blasting his money out of a cannon simply because he can and explosions are fun, or Violet buying sixteen lawnmowers and hiring leo-rcc to make them into robots hell bent on killing each other).

"Hell, why not?"

No answer forthcoming.

"That's what I thought, now you take those panties and smack yourself in the face with them! What the fuck do you think I'm paying you for?!"

Living is a team game. Some people will hardcore troll you, many people just aren't very good at it, and sometimes life just outplays you. So what: carry harder.

[jonb]

Some of the best times I have had have been when I had nothing, or at least very little. As Omar Khayyam wrote 'A loaf of bread, a glass of wine and thee'. Is the problem caused by a lack of something, or rather is it that people like their dissatisfactions, and would not be happy if they did not have something to bleat about. Thus you are in complaining about this or that reason why you are not pursuing an authentic life, living your own authentic existence.

(see post above I am just repeating things today.)

[Annik]

Who is complaining?

[jonb]

Everyone I hope, what sort of a life would it be to be satisfied?

[Annik]

I must admit that I don't understand what you're getting at in your posts.

[Shell B]

"Living is a team game."

Well said, Lilly, dear.

[Categories+Sheaves]

You bring up a very interesting point, something I hadn't thought of. With that in mind, do you think people would be able to act more authentically if we didn't have to deal with those choices?

I disagree with the way this question is formulated: confronting these sorts of questions is what constitutes our authenticity. We aren't some spiritual being displaced into a material world; we have no 'inner soul' yearning for a pre-set destiny (I'm sure you're familiar with Sartre's "existence precedes essence"). By accepting this void and assuming our freedom/responsibility* in our involvement with the world, we can determine our essence (Beauvoir says: "man makes himself a lack of being so that there might be being."). Existentialism (from its internal perspective, anyway) consists of realizing that we have to face these choices (and we can't just 'cover up' this choice/abyss before us: that's bad faith).

*this is more or less just observing that we have to deal with the consequences of our actions... it's essentially the other side of our freedom, and realizing that our choices have consequences.

[jonb]

I must admit that I don't understand what you're getting at in your posts.

Great minds think alike, I often don't know what I'm talking about either.

[Violet]

"Living is a team game."

Well said, Lilly, dear.

I like games with multiple players

Maybe you'll play with me someday...