Discussion Nasty, brutish and short

[Epsilon0]

Some words cling to your brain. They stay with you. They strike a chord with you.

I read the following line when I was no more than a silly teenager. How ironic that, of all the books I held in my hands, of all the edifying and beautiful ideas my eyes delighted themselves with, it is these measly eight words that came to summarize my view of the world:

Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

The quote is taken out of context, of course. In the original text, it conveyed the idea that individuals needed the state, in order to save themselves from the nastiness of life; sort of like a social contract a la Rousseau.

To me, they perfectly describe the pitiful condition of this black hole, where we get to spend the long years of our short lives.

How do you view the world?

 

[Sensei]

I'm at an intellectual and emotional low now, so I might retract this tomorrow. Life is a mere coincidence. Matter turned into thought and emotion for an astronomical nanosecond without any purpose or legacy. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[EmptyArms]

Disagree re purpose dear friend.
Re write this and have it on my desk by 9am please.

Disagree re purpose dear friend.
Re write this and have it on my desk by 9am please.

This @ @Sensei .

 

[mesohappy]

A huge deceptive maze with no reward...Just dark deadends at the end of every route.

 

[TAW122]

That is an interesting quote. As for my philosophical view on life, yes it is a fact that life is objectively shorter than the vast amount of time in the world or universe, however, from our perception of time, a day is long (or short), a week is longer, a month is much longer, a year is pretty long, etc. Nevertheless, life is inherently meaningless and humans assign value to it to give it some meaning and value to something that is a blank slate to begin with.