Making The Best Choice Of Lifestyle

[PhilosopherQueen]

My claim is simple: people enjoy many arbitrary activities due to their own subconscious baggage which we've aquired as a result of an overly unnatural (another side to this is the diabetes epidemic), unminimalistic lifestyle. And ultimately, everything is the same. It's the same core archetypes again and again and again, meaning only intensity is truly worth living for, unless one carries enough baggage as to make oneself neurotic. Then the most honest activity is one that causes both psychological and physiological intensity. It's the only way of maximalizing liveliness. Here's a few examples of how the baggage shows it self.

 

“All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” - George Orwell.

 

Wittgenstein said philosophy repels those who suspect it is a timewaste due to language confusion in it, thus reinforcing language confusion in it. Too many philosophers have been freaks, this makes it overly obvious how society's unminimalistic unnaturality has gotten to them SOMEHOW.

 

Non-physics scientists? "All science is either physics or stamp collecting." - Rutherford telling it like it is regarding the gruntwork that is science, and yet those in it work long hours. The abstract parts of science as bloated (i.e. few jobs) also in the west and they too attract freaks. Mathematicians actually think of numbers as beautiful; how baggage-y. Every snowflake is unique but in the end its just variations of the same old archetype anyway. Nothing new under the sun. Now if one really tries to understand a subject there may be new such archetypes to uncover, new paradigms so to say but if one has taken to a bit more meta-y perspective beforehand it quickly becomes obvious only so much is ever possible within every such paradigm so its not that exciting after all. Also, some "core archetypes" in the ways of thought will obviously resonate through different fields, turning every new realization one may come over boring.

 

Idealism, morality. "act so as to treat people always as ends in themselves, never as mere means." yeah who cares? Life goes on whether some philosopher sits around in his house. To care about the things Kant and others do is just an arbitrary use of one's time. They must carry much subconscious baggage to have such great passion.

 

Perfectionism, aestheticism in general. Why care if a cord is a little messy? Some people actually care about such bull. A painting too. It's just a painting. That's that. While research has been done into human appreciation of symmetry and such, it doesn't explain overly strong neatfreakery and how neatfreaks make a life out of aestheticism. If anything human appreciation of such should only only be a minor sidething to humanity. How can it not be their subconscious, unecessary baggage giving them an artificial enjoyment boost? I call this artifical cause I want to make the best choices as far as spending my time in life on things, and there's no time for the unecessary, the simply idiosyncratic, the boring, the random, the arbitrary.

 

The concept of keeping a diary. Who really cares about the past? It ain't coming back anyway. Better to be living a story than sitting around thinking about one, unless one has something yet learned for preparation for life.

 

Just visiting places. A city or whatever is really just another variation of the same old, same old concept.

 

 

Humans evolved to DO after all, not sitting around (sedentary). Slack activities induce no extremity or intensity. Everything else is just unnatural. Or pershaps something has passed me by, not illuminated by my limited psyche. Now, try to counter my points; prove that there's something more to it, ultimately!

[JMJones0424]

If you define everything to be crap, you shouldn't be surprised to find yourself surrounded by crap.

[Turtle]

there's always the bodkin for you.

HAMLET

 

To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--

No more--and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered. ...

[CraigD]

Welcome to hypography, PhilosopherQueen. :) Please feel free to post something about yourself in the introductions forum – we humans are social animals, after all, and communicate best when we know something about the people with whom we’re communicating.

 

To your post. I’ve a strong suspicion you’re playing the devil’s advocate, but will assume for the sake of argument you’re not, and address your claims and questions at their face value.

 

Evidenced by assertions such as:

Humans evolved to DO after all, not sitting around (sedentary).

, your points seem to me to make a central assumption that’s a teleological fallacy: that biological evolution, specifically that of humans, has a goal, specifically for humans to be physically active.

 

Humans, like every other biological organism, evolved to be exactly what we are now, which includes an propensity to sit around thinking. Our ability to think very abstractly, and externalize our thinking by representing it with writing (and, historically very recently, in recording of speech) is widely and justifiably believed to be one of the key traits that has allowed us to be so biologically successful, increasing or population size far beyond that of similar animals with which we compete for the resources of our biological niche. It a practical certainty that, had our ancestors selected for physical activity and strongly against “unnatural, un-minimalistic, slack” activities such as imagining, planning, and designing artifacts, we’d now be living much like other present-day primates, of be extinct. Our “unnaturalness” is our nature, and the main reason for our success in nature.

 

It’s also worth noting that our ability to sit still and minimize our metabolic activity, a trait common to large animals, confers significant special survival advantages, allowing us to sustain larger populations on smaller food supplies.

 

Having noted the above – that physical “slacking” isn’t innately unnatural or disadvantageous – the subordinate points of your post appear to me to suggest sound, common-sense, health-improving lifestyles. Though practically all people inclined to making health-promoting suggestions make the suggestion, I think David Brin may have put it best in his 1993 science fiction short story NatuLife©:

I KNOW, THINGS TASTE BETTER fresh, not packaged. Hamburger clots your arteries and hurts the rain forest. We should eat like our stone age ancestors, who dug roots, got lots of exercise, and always stayed a little hungry. So they say.

However, explaining lifestyles that don’t embrace this approach as

… people enjoy many arbitrary activities due to their own subconscious baggage which we've aquired as a result of an overly unnatural (another side to this is the diabetes epidemic), unminimalistic lifestyle

makes a lot of unsupported, and, I think, untrue assumptions.

 

Were it true that unhealthy behavior could be primarily blamed on “subconscious baggage” (a term that’s largely outmoded in present-day psychology, because the turn-of-the-20th-century psychodynamic models of the psyche that coined it have been for the most part discredited) acquired as a result of “an overly unnatural, un-minimalistic” lifestyle, we would expect that animals with much less cognitive ability and social complication than humans, such as, say, squirrels, to not suffer health-adverse conditions, such as obesity when presented with an over-abundance of high-calorie food. But this is not the case.

 

Also, were this true, people we would expect people with healthy lifestyles to be significantly less susceptible to mental illness, and to eschew un-natural living places, such as cities. I’m unaware of any sound research showing this to be the case. Anecdotally, having lived for long periods in both in very “natural”, primitive (eg: without electricity and plumbing-supplied water) conditions, and very unnatural, cosmopolitan (eg: high-rise buildings where people can spend many days without going outside) ones, I find that people in the more “natural” of these settings tend to be less, not more, healthy, both physically and mentally.

 

The philosophical root of your assertions appear to me to be a kind of romantic primitivism, a sentimental affection for the lost “noble savage” from which we modern humans presumably descended. As an artistic, cultural, and philosophical school of thought, I think this is usually a reaction of uncertainty about and fear of the future and the accompanying hunch that our species has made a serious, fundamental blunder in evolving, socially, as we have. Though intuitively appealing, I don’t think it’s scientifically sound philosophy.

 

To be healthy, we need to avoid unhealthy diets and substance abuse, exercise adequately, and socialize in an emotionally satisfying and nurturing way. The first two of these requirements are fairly easy, the last, in my and I think most people’s experience, less so. Perceiving your psyche as needing to be unburdened of un-natural baggage can be an effective tool for living healthily, but it’s important, I think, to understand that this perceptual scheme is fundamentally metaphorically, not physically realistic.

[PhilosopherQueen]

Thanks for your reply, CraigD! :) Playing devil's advocate? Well, in a way maybe. I'm not entirely convinced of what I've written here, as there could be something that has passed me by. So therefore I check, by seeing what others think. If I turn out to be wrong, I will rethink things.

 

your points seem to me to make a central assumption that’s a teleological fallacy: that biological evolution, specifically that of humans, has a goal, specifically for humans to be physically active.

 

Humans, like every other biological organism, evolved to be exactly what we are now, which includes an propensity to sit around thinking. Our ability to think very abstractly, and externalize our thinking by representing it with writing (and, historically very recently, in recording of speech) is widely and justifiably believed to be one of the key traits that has allowed us to be so biologically successful, increasing or population size far beyond that of similar animals with which we compete for the resources of our biological niche. It a practical certainty that, had our ancestors selected for physical activity and strongly against “unnatural, un-minimalistic, slack” activities such as imagining, planning, and designing artifacts, we’d now be living much like other present-day primates, of be extinct. Our “unnaturalness” is our nature, and the main reason for our success in nature.

 

It’s also worth noting that our ability to sit still and minimize our metabolic activity, a trait common to large animals, confers significant special survival advantages, allowing us to sustain larger populations on smaller food supplies.

 

Having noted the above – that physical “slacking” isn’t innately unnatural or disadvantageous – the subordinate points of your post appear to me to suggest sound, common-sense, health-improving lifestyles. Though practically all people inclined to making health-promoting suggestions make the suggestion, I think David Brin may have put it best in his 1993 science fiction short story NatuLife©:

 

 

Entirely agreed, if we look at it from a "where is the entire species going?" perspective. However, it does depend on where society ultimately ends up. If we end up destroying ourselves, then whatever someone says the final result was failure. As this is out of my reach, I have instead decided to focus on what I can do with my own life.

 

 

makes a lot of unsupported, and, I think, untrue assumptions.

 

Were it true that unhealthy behavior could be primarily blamed on “subconscious baggage” (a term that’s largely outmoded in present-day psychology, because the turn-of-the-20th-century psychodynamic models of the psyche that coined it have been for the most part discredited) acquired as a result of “an overly unnatural, un-minimalistic” lifestyle, we would expect that animals with much less cognitive ability and social complication than humans, such as, say, squirrels, to not suffer health-adverse conditions, such as obesity when presented with an over-abundance of high-calorie food. But this is not the case.

 

So squirrels actually do get obese if there's too much food for them around? If so we could say there potentially can occur schisms between what squirrels evolved for (obviously not resisting impulses, if they get fat once there's enough food around) and what's actually going on. There the "unnaturality" and "unminimalism" comes in, as their bodies don't fit into actual conditions at a perfectly minimal level, there will be divergences and chaotic consequences.

 

There may be a mismatch in how we use baggage here. I don't mean in it in a strictly "mentally screwed up/not screwed" sense but rather as in how psychological force is directed around by inflexible personalities which rest on some underlying, unjustified assumptions, which is the source of things like idealistic moral principlies. Notice that I used 'idealistic', that means I think it's not in tune with reality of practical necessity. Choices do have consequences so being recklessly amoral is not the way to go.

 

 

Also, were this true, people we would expect people with healthy lifestyles to be significantly less susceptible to mental illness, and to eschew un-natural living places, such as cities. I’m unaware of any sound research showing this to be the case. Anecdotally, having lived for long periods in both in very “natural”, primitive (eg: without electricity and plumbing-supplied water) conditions, and very unnatural, cosmopolitan (eg: high-rise buildings where people can spend many days without going outside) ones, I find that people in the more “natural” of these settings tend to be less, not more, healthy, both physically and mentally.

 

That may be, but then again the more amibitious people may have headed for the cities and are thus more up to date. So, just removing electricity won't help things as the case is still one of a modern-ish upbringing.

 

 

The philosophical root of your assertions appear to me to be a kind of romantic primitivism, a sentimental affection for the lost “noble savage” from which we modern humans presumably descended. As an artistic, cultural, and philosophical school of thought, I think this is usually a reaction of uncertainty about and fear of the future and the accompanying hunch that our species has made a serious, fundamental blunder in evolving, socially, as we have. Though intuitively appealing, I don’t think it’s scientifically sound philosophy.

 

Well, I don't really worry about society considering all in all it's impossible for a single person to make much of a change. And even trying to get much power involves lots of work that wouldn't be appealing enough to be worth doing to someone not neurotic.