The Futility of Existece

I was thinking recently how are humans different from animals. An animal eats, drinks, sleeps day in day out. Humans do the same at large, but they also work, socialise, entertain themselves and study. In a way a human existence is more colourful than an animals, and there is a lot more to do, but it is still just as repetative and pointless. Ultimately, both humans and animals are pleasure seekers, only humans have far more creative ways of seeking pleasure. An animal for example will be satisfied by eating the same food, humans on the hand will seek different kinds of food, different tastes, different cuisines, different looks.

But in the end the pleasure seeking never really ends, it just goes on and on until death and most of us grow tedious of this pleasure seeking towards the later parts of our life because despite all our efforts we are still not satisfied and we start to realise the futility of our existence.
The unfortunate thing here is, we don't realise until it is too late that what we really want which is everlasting pleasure cannot be found in the ever-transient world and we must start to draw our attention within to actually find it.

In other words everybody will at some point need to realise that the only way to happiness is spirituality. As we evolve spiritually and are reinvented as a new person every step of the way, experiencing ever-more fuller states of being then life will feel fresh and new at every step.
Thus spiritual evolution is the true meaning of life. In spiritual discourses, it is taught that there are innumerable levels of existence above this, such as the level of existence as an angelic being, a spiritual master, a god-like being. The more and more we spiritually evolve the more fantastic and amazing life will become. It will no longer feel futile then, it only feels futile now because we are are experiencing such a mundane level of existence and seem to be stuck here.

Fortunately, even in my late 20's I have spiritually evolved faster than most, but this was also true when I was younger, I was always more intuitive, mature and sensible compared to my peers. I have lost desire for many things I had in the past, and the most important of them is the desire for sex which humans are still obsessed with up to 50+ and the desire for tasty food(pizzas etc) is also going. I have little to no desire for money, fame and status. Most of my desires are spiritual and intellectual.

[edit on 13-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by Mr. ToodlesI ask because of the realization I had the other day. The futility of existence.

The key phrase here is: "the realization I had the other day".

Prior to this I assume that you were generally unaware of this state of futility or had never given it any deep thought. The fact that this aspect of your existence is now under your scrutiny would indicate some sort of spiritual evolution on your part. Perhaps this will lead to self-initiated changes in your life in order to seek greater meaning and the chain of monotony will be broken.

What if the monotony of our everyday life, unbeknown to us, brought about a Butterfly Effect?

I know not, of that which you speak.
Now get out your scalple. disect if you must.
It is yours to ponder.

reply to post by GoneGrey


You could have a point. I have tried to explore our world and universe by means of quantum physics and buddhism. So, perhaps I am reaching for a new stage. But, all the same. Even when I reach the new stage, I will still reach for the stage after that. Which is the point of this thread. The never ending cycle.

I will admit though. Existence may just be something that we humans are too dumb to understand.

Someone mentioned nothingness earlier. And experiencing nothingness during an NDE. I say to you that you did not experience nothingness. Because if nothing existed, then neither did you. And if you didn't exist, you could not experience nothingness.

The experience of nothingness can never be had by humans. It is impossible.

Originally posted by On the Edge
Ah,your thread brings me to the Book of Ecclesiastes,which starts out,

"Meaningless! Meaningless!",says the teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!" (1:2)

Whenever I hear this line it always brings a smirk to my face. To say something is meaningless is to ascribe meaning to it.

If we were to discover the truth of the Great Mystery of Life such that we finally understood what our true purpose is, then what would come next? The repeating loop would terminate.

Maybe the loop is what keeps us from reaching that 'end point'. In the midst of our humdrum and repetitive lives, do we all not ponder or seek the truth of our existence? Perhaps that is an answer that we are not to find. Could it be that the continuing search for truth is the purpose of our existence. Maybe the never-ending grind of our lives is what compels us to give thought to these profound ideas.

Originally posted by Mr. Toodles
reply to post by GoneGrey

 

Someone mentioned nothingness earlier. And experiencing nothingness during an NDE. I say to you that you did not experience nothingness. Because if nothing existed, then neither did you. And if you didn't exist, you could not experience nothingness.

The experience of nothingness can never be had by humans. It is impossible.

The nothing I did experience was just my conscience sitting in the nothing, there was not any thing else to experience except boredom, the black , black, nothing it was like death but knowing you were dead and could not do anything, I could not even twiddle my thumbs.
Boy was I glad to get back to the something, by the grace of the Creator.

reply to post by Mr. Toodles
Here's a good one, But is on loop, I try and figure the Chess move and what it means.


www.3quarks.com...

I love ATS because of the conspiracy theories
but I joined ATS because of posts like these.

But...

I thing gonegrey may be a genius... It seems like your in a point in life where you are needing a change.

If your not happy. F- it change it, there are excuses but you can find a way around them, you seem very smart.

I find that the times when I am most bleak is the times that my life flips. Like when I changed majors in college or decided to move to different city, or change jobs... etc. I have to admit that my personality plays alot into this but still...

F-it. What do you got to lose? ... More time to be incontent?

reply to post by CosmicYahtzee


You know, it is almost coincidental that you say this. I started this thread last week. On Christmas eve, a terrible thing happened in my life that led to something great. My life has gotten exponentially better in a 2 day time span as a result of this incident that happened.

You were correct when you said that you are most bleak when things are preparing to change. Seems that is exactly what has happened to me.

Reply to post by Mr. Toodles

Toodles. I look at it like this, we are currently "children" living in our parent's "house". We are here to learn and grow til we are ready to leave and make our own "house" with our own "rules" and have our own "children". Which is the I think is the point. What other meaning we add into the equation is up to us. But, what do I know? By my estimation we are all children and all that label implies admittingly.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Hey man, what's wrong? Go outside and look at the evening sun set and the stars come out. Go and smell the wonderful smell of fried chicken. Sit on a sand dune at the beach....early with a cup of coffe. Go whitewater rafting down a gorge...man, enjoy life.
I have to eat to live, but make it damn good. Hey, don't think so hard, and enjoy the wonders of this world. help someone, look into a little childs eyes and see them smile when they get a toy or a piece of cake they have never eaten. Look into an old persons face when you show them some attention, and listen to them. Yes, some days are a drag, but make each day something to try to remember. Go fall in love.
You are responsible for you and make your own reality. Go find spiritual growth. Find that thing that makes you happy.
I like the guy that suggested you read Ecclessiastes...good book for your funk.
I always wanted a farm house with a horse, pigs, goats, wood stove, giant garden...took 20 years of effort but I am there. So now I have to go out in this heavy rain, walk in ankle deep mud, go into a stinky barn and feed a bunch of animals with the mindset of a 2 year old kid. God I love it.

There really is no purpose to all this. In life we are ultimately just playing a game with ourself. Fooling our self into believing this illusion to make the game more interesting and make ourselves feel more important. We do it very specifically, and alot of things the mind and body do on their own.

I suppose it can be sorta damning, but should be more freeing than anything to realize it's all a game, or "it's just a ride" as Bill Hicks would say.

And you don't have to be very spiritual to come to that, it works psychologically, it makes sense with life itself, experience too.

We fear death, so we are glad to be alive. After a while you no longer fear death, but just the dying part. Tell ourselves we are in love so we can make a huge deal and a great personal show about our relationships. Become a fan of a sports team so we can either be euphoric with the win or depressed by a loss.

You can measure how real an experience seems. Someone will say they had a dream and it was so real. Other times they can say it didn't feel real at all. I have skydived twice in dreams. One time it seemed very real, and the wind blew past my face, it was noisy, I could feel the speed and it was a huge thrill. The next time I did not feel the wind and it wasn't scary at all, it didn't seem real. Life feels very real when you are deeply into it and involved, not so much when you are disillusioned and detached.

So I guess you could measure the realness of something by how it effects you emotionally. Alot of old horror movies were only scary because the actors and actresses did a good job being afraid. Perfect example is those movies of exorcisms, where the victim is horrified by shadows out of the corner of her eye. It's just a shadow, it can't hurt you, but the lady sure could sell you on it being scary.

So we play this game on ourselves in life, see how real we can make it all seem by getting sucked into it more and more. And really a lot of spiritual practices boil down to hopping off the ride for a moment and taking a break, sure enough you will hop back on the ride after a while. And you can do this in life as often as you want, choice by choice.

I suppose being existential would be a symptom of losing the fear of death. It's the fear of death that makes so many happy to be alive. Be glad you do not live out of fear, with the game already stacked against you.