Okay guys. I've never posted here before, but I couldn't figure out answers to this problem I have. Google didn't help either lol. So, putting myself out there, here it is. When I think about philosophy, when I think about the nature of things - the beauty of things - I get a simultaneous sense of joy and suffering. The joy is easy to describe, and I'm obviously not concerned with that. But the suffering I can't understand. I don't know why I feel it, but I have a feeling that it has some sort of significance. If anyone else has this experience, or might have some insight as to why this happens, I would greatly appreciate it. Please respond with love in your hearts, that's all I'm coming to you with. PS - I'm not looking for answers from any one religion, faith, belief or whatever. Anything helps.
Sound alot like me. Anyway what you're feeling is sympathy and/or empathy. and an understanding that multitudes of people go through horrible shit. each and every day at one time or another or all the time. that is all.
I mean struggle is simply part of human nature. We naturally dislike things, feel sorrow, anger, or any other emotion given a negative connotation. There is no real reason why pain exists, it just does. I also feel the sorrow in the world is what allows beauty to stand out in contrast. There's no denying you will feel and see negativity in your life. Don't try to understand it, just learn what it has to offers you.
I would say that the negativity you feel isn't with philosophy but rather with whatever you are thinking about. For example if you were thinking about beauty and how with pain they help relate each other by contrast then this overall negativity could just be because the answer implies a new question. For example, If the relation I created is the only mechanic of what I feel then what is the meaning of it? If you already viewed the meaning of your life in a negative light then it might shine through when you think consciously of another philosophical question. But the best way to solve internal problems is to question a question that relates to the problem itself. If you fully understand the question and all of its implications you can see the root of the problem clearly.
Custos, have you ever felt this suffering when in large crowds? Are you noticeably affected by suffering (like you can feel their pain) you see or encounter? Do you feel different when around people, and can sort of tell what that person is feeling without even talking to them? If any of this has happened to you, you might be somewhat of an empath.
I didn't have time to read the whole post everyone. So don't be angry if I make the same point as you. Cust. I personally I felt the same thing. And from a huge mind study I was able to realize, I wasn't feeling sad about me or my life, but merely all life. You feel the pain that has been caused and it makes you want to change it. Perhaps you should single out, or attempt to, the exact causing. If you start allowing your mind to think of probable things that have been done, your emotions will change with each thought. Once you found the one that makes you feel like you do, there you go. The only real way to rid it from yourself is to change it.
Its the irony of life. You see the beauty + the synergie, + the harmony, but you see the "empty space" in between also, which in your feelings should have to be joined as one, but u see such a big gap between them. It hurts you.. I know it hurts me.
Its nice to see we all share similar burdens. I love my life, I love Philosophy, and what It brings into my life, but sometimes I can't help but feel the despair that seems to emanate around me. People working, going to school, shopping, driving, eating McDonald's...I feel what they have over looked; their own essential nature, lost in the chaos of their daily life. I love them and wish to see everyone better, despite those who spit in my face, and ridicule me for bringing up what they are so desperately trying to sweep under the rug; the truth. But it doesn't matter...no matter how lost and despair and denied they may be; I will still be present with them; because I am love, and I am unconditional. Peace and love to everyone!
its essentially the yin and yang of exsistance that u are experiencing. without suffering there would be no joy and without dischord there would be no harmony or beauty. as an intelligent, open-minded person (that u are) u see it all together, interconnected and balanced. like have u ever wondered why the greatest joys can make a person cry?
I respectively disagree. I see the point you guys are trying to make with the yin and yang and I followed the same idea at one point too. However in reality if you were to be able to reproduce a feeling of euphoria indefinitely then it doesn't necessarily mean that something bad will come as an effect unless you consider the problem that if you are feeling euphoric all the time you might die of starvation (has happened to mice). I think there are three probable reasons why people give into yin/yang philosophy. One, you see the obvious causation and connection with things. Everything effects something in some way, I am just saying its necessarily the inverse. Reason two is some things do work this way such as having a caffiene or sugar rush then feeling down right after feeling high. However the words high and down just imply a state of mind and not the actual experience, they are not necessarily opposites. Third, people like to hear cool quotations about philosophy or ideas and they believe it is to be heard and learned and not to be questioned and thought through. I am not trying to say that your bad moments aren't for a purpose. I think they are useful in that they teach us incredible amounts of information about reality. They inevitably help us solve all of our problems by forcing us to put attention towards it.
I think maybe what you are feeling is a little anxiety. It sounds like you have, like me, an over-active mind and you want to accomplish everything, but don't have enough time nor resources to do so. (please tell me if you think otherwise) It sounds like you are excited for life and can't wait to see what's next. You are eager for the wisdom and have to know what's coming. Even something as simple as going to the grocery store or doing laundry. Or something like making a transition from college to the real-world. You know you are ready and are looking forward to it all, but the thought of something not going right, or not going your way, is holding you. It's called life. my best advice would be to just slow your mind, relax, let go and live. Don't question yourself. just go about your day and your normal routines. don't let your conscious control you so much.
You seem to be very astute. I do have anxiety, and I certainly feel called to help others. Your comments about wisdom and transitioning from college to the real world is spot on. My only problem is, I don't have the slightest clue as to how you could have deduced all of that just from my post. Either way, I'm impressed. Thank you. Thank you guys for your insight. It's been very helpful getting peoples' perspectives. Considering everyone's points has been very enlightening. Custos
Dunno if any of you can relate, but the suffering / joy at the same time reminds me of something I sometimes get.. It's like, when I think of the past, even a time when I wasn't alive, I feel this beautiful sort of connection to it, then at the same time this intense melancholy, perhaps because it is gone and I can't go back to it. Who knows. If I had to pick one, I'd say it's mainly a negative feeling though.
I think you feel a connection to the world around you. Not a mystic sort of way. You just sound like a perceptive person who cares about truth. This does sound like something you should explore about yourself, if you're mostly feeling negativity. As for the negativity I've felt, I've pretty much determined it is simply part of what happens to me while I contemplate philosophy. It doesn't impede me, and it doesn't cause me to think negative thoughts. So, perhaps it's just something that is supposed to be there. Maybe I'll find out one day.
This is a very fundamental basic to buddhist philosophy, and understanding of human compassion and suffering. Life is pain, but life can also be joy. The main premise of buddhism is the reduction of suffering in your life and all other living beings.
I hear you, OP. As a person who tries to take the most rational stance possible on everything, it pains me greatly to see countless people suffer on a planet with billions of people and unlimited potential. Whenever I try to think of some social problem, large or small or remote or familiar, I'm always reminded of the weakness of the human mind, which is to say the thing in the organic mass of tissue we call a brain. We're animals that either cannot or will not look at the science of the mind, or the history of our species, or even the manners in which we live individually, and try to manage it all accordingly in the best way possible. Words from The Man: .................. The Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography What I Have Lived For Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found. With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
I don't know how i could have either. This blows my mind because after re-reading this post, i have no idea why or how I came to that conclusion. I was stoned when replying and i am very surprised! Well, hopefully some of my advice has helped you.