Story [Philosophy] Life and everything itself is like war

[TAW122]

Ever since I was born, life has always been strife, at least in my experiences, with short periods of respite, joy, pleasure, and happiness, all of which are fleeting. During childhood and adolescence my life was tough, both at home, at school, and just in general. Therefore, I've arrived at an attitude, mindset, outlook that life itself, is basically a war, filled with battles (major and minor), and in every aspect, activity, or task, is like a war, or least battles in a war. Even in hobbies, I view them kind of like a war, maybe not in the physical sense, but even in the psychological sense of things. Small skirmishes, battles, in a larger war.

Mini side-story: During college, I had a professor (who has been retired several years ago) who oftenly linked everything in life to a simple statement "Everything is a test." It may have been an rigid, absolutist stance, but it certainly was something to ponder about.

Anyways back to my philosophic view on life in general that it is a war, an continuous war with occasional cease-fires and armistices and the only true ending being 'death'. With that said, there are times where I've decided to surrender (or CTB) in this war when I had enough. However, given that society has forced us to participate in it by forbidding the act of suicide (not a crime nor illegal but might as well be since you can be involuntarily hospitalized against your will if you are a danger to yourself or society - then you get a mark on your health record along with an exorbitant amount of medical and hospital bills, plus other consequences), we are forced to participate in life, or in this case, fight a war we never wished to be a part of. From school, to extracurricular activities, to hobbies, to employment and job prospects, dating (N/A for me since never interested plus I'm not likely to get one but that's another topic), and many other things in life too. Even day to day activities and what not is basically like war preparations, battle preparations, etc. At least that's how I view it.

Does anyone have this kind of mindset and outlook on life in general?

 

[BitterlyAlive]

I feel similarly. But I basically am only going through life because I feel obligated and have a strong sense of duty. Every day feels like one war after another.

 

[XYZ]

Not only is my life a constant war, but even if I do win a battle, it is always a Pyrrhic victory.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

That is indeed what life is: a struggle to survive and a war against entropy, the greatest enemy, who wears the mask of death. Everything that lives struggles and one day dies. Where there is life, there is no lasting peace, there can't be, because life is motion and only stillness can bring peace.
But if there was lasting peace then it would have no value without the relentless fight to achieve it.

 

[TheSoulless]

Well put, this is how I feel also.

 

[Homecoming]

we are forced to participate in life, or in this case, fight a war we never wished to be a part of. From school, to extracurricular activities, to hobbies, to employment and job prospects, dating
...

And in the end... what we do here on this sh!t existence will be forgotten quickly, as we never existed at all

 

[death137]

And in the end... what we do here on this sh!t existence will be forgotten quickly, as we never existed at all

We don't know for sure but if its then poor us.

 

[Life sucks]

Life itself is a contradiction. Every detail is like a conflict, the language people use is ambiguous and uncertain which causes misunderstanding and misinterpretation. The variety and connection between people is always a probable conflict. The more population is within a place, the more conflicts it has. Additionally, people have internal conflicts within themselves (e.g.. Mind vs body). All of this make a chaotic world filled with conflicts within conflicts.

The main conflict is life and death which is an unresolvable and straightforward contradiction (existing and not existing). Everything else is a detail. The root of existence is a conflict, and everything else within it can be considered a conflict also.

 

[Axolotl]

It's important to understand that a war is only worth fighting if it is for something you are willing to die for. Think about a man losing his life protecting his daughter from being violated by a criminal - could you imagine any more honorable or proud way to die? Or dying in defense of your community or tribe. But now imagine that you are forcefully conscripted by an enemy group that has never cared for you, that has never supported you, and that is in fact actively trying to harm you - what a goddamn shame and disgrace it would be to die fighting this group's enemies for it. I think about the American and Vietnamese soldiers who killed each other in Vietnam for no good reason. Shameful...

 

[Teal_Blue_Dreams]

And in the end... what we do here on this sh!t existence will be forgotten quickly, as we never existed at all

I agree. We're here for less than a nanosecond in the grand scheme of things. Then, when we're gone it's like we were never here anyway. So pointless.

 

[TAW122]

That is indeed what life is: a struggle to survive and a war against entropy, the greatest enemy, who wears the mask of death. Everything that lives struggles and one day dies. Where there is life, there is no lasting peace, there can't be, because life is motion and only stillness can bring peace.
But if there was lasting peace then it would have no value without the relentless fight to achieve it.

This is an interesting philosophical view on how there is no "lasting peace" since we are flawed and when there is balance and peace at one area, there is ruin and unrest in another.

It's important to understand that a war is only worth fighting if it is for something you are willing to die for. Think about a man losing his life protecting his daughter from being violated by a criminal - could you imagine any more honorable or proud way to die? Or dying in defense of your community or tribe. But now imagine that you are forcefully conscripted by an enemy group that has never cared for you, that has never supported you, and that is in fact actively trying to harm you - what a goddamn shame and disgrace it would be to die fighting this group's enemies for it. I think about the American and Vietnamese soldiers who killed each other in Vietnam for no good reason. Shameful...

Well said, and in various instances, there are indeed wars, battles, conflicts worth fighting for and those are legitimate to those people and those people alone. As for whether a battle, war, or conflict is worth fighting for per that individual, it would be up to that said individual to decide and no one else. This is why I don't like people who decide (or gatekeep) on whether someone should fight for or not (e.g. someone with a chronic illness wanting to give up but his/her peers pressure him/her to stay).

 

[Deleted member 17949]

It makes sense tbh. Life is generally an unstable state and we have to keep pulling in resources and doing things to sustain it. Our brains were built to solve problems and combat external factors that would get in the way of living. I don't think life being an endless series of problems is a bad thing. Games are big strings of problems with some bit of closure at the end, as is a lot of fiction, and plenty of people love these. War is fun and it's out natural state to push against problem after problem and feel satisfied when we solve things.

The real issue arises when there is no real reward from life when we put in effort; our brains have a natural aversion to doing things which means any task requires effort. We generally need some positive mental state or reward to motivate us to do things, but mental issues and certain living conditions don't work well with this system and lead to us not feeling properly satisfied with our lives. Various kinds of entertainment and media demonstrate pretty well that humans can carry out even the most objectively boring tasks if the right things are used to motivate them. In the modern world a lot of people just don't seem to find life very motivating.