Jumping Through Hoops

[LHX]

Talk about old fashioned.

Hasn't everybody got bored of jumping through hoops yet?

It's funny how counter-intuitively things progress: a system gets set up, and when a problem arises, instead of making the system simpler to alleviate the problem, it gets made more complex.


Take a inventory of your life and you will see it is true:
all you have really done is
1. slept
2. ate
3. breathed
4. excreted
5. communicated
6. explored
7. been stimulated
8. found more food for your next meal

So where did all this other shit come from?

This drive to be 'productive' is a social paradigm - but nobody can answer to what end?

Productive toward what?

To do what?

To accomplish what goal?


The goal obviously has nothing to do with establishing a better and more comfortable way of life.


The icing on the cake is that if you asked everybody individually about what the goals are/should be, there would be tremendous and resounding agreement.

Tolerance, freedom, respect -- all things good.

But when you take these same people and put them in a situation of shared and endless-yet-exhaustible resources, they simply fuck it up.


We live in a place where tired people cannot rest and hungry people can't get food even though there is enough of it.


Here we are - mechanically waking up, traveling to locations, performing functions and returning to our designated confines all in the name of perpetuating the flawed system.


The optimistic understanding is that this system eventually collapses under its own weight.
And the strategic approach is to be patient and endure it. Some would suggest contributing to the collapse wherever possible.


The silver lining is there, but a lot of people don't like that shade of silver enough to pursue it - or worse - they don't even notice it.

Its not that they enjoy jumping through hoops, but they simply have never known anything else.


The excitement of waking up and jumping through the same hoops you jumped through yesterday.

The path is familiar and synthetically stimulating, but it exhausts and disfigures and is ultimately hollow and unfulfilling.

[Thurnez Isa]

This would be seriously great in pamphlet form

[LMNO]

Don't forget that the human is an animal that wants to find meaning in it's actions.  Even false meaning.

It is an animal that believes that even false meaning is better than no meaning at all.

Hence, religion.

[Thurnez Isa]

I like it the way it is, if it was in a pamphlet
as soon as you mention religion, many people just turn off as they have strong opinions of it
The way it is, in my opinion, it would appeal to both religious as well as non-religious

[LMNO]

Actually, that was my comment to the post, not a comment on it's pamphlet-worthiness.

[AFK]

This drive to be 'productive' is a social paradigm - but nobody can answer to what end?

Productive toward what?

To do what?

To accomplish what goal?

This part makes me think of the cliche:

"I didn't ask to be born"

But if you think about it, logically it makes sense.  
And then we're kind of dropped into the middle of this thing and then it's, "huh, now what?"

I think many make their purpose getting to the "what", which is funny because we all know what the ultimate "what" for every human is.  

Then when people start running out of "whats" they really start agonizing about the ultimate one.  

[LHX]

yeah Vonnegut really milked the 'never asked to be born' cow

and it is true


but it also doesnt change the fact that we are here



and as far as the 'ultimate what' goes - we have the Way of the Samurai


and as far as the way of the samurai goes, we have the LAIL of the Orbital Bomber




being patient vs. being active is a fun line to walk

especially when there is no precedent

[LHX]

Don't forget that the human is an animal that wants to find meaning in it's actions.  Even false meaning.

It is an animal that believes that even false meaning is better than no meaning at all.

Hence, religion.

and we have already discussed the flaws of 'meaning' in and of itself

[Jenne]

I don't know, LHX.  I think this paradigm changes a bit when you have kids.

How do you see bringing up children in this scenario?

[LHX]

i want a ton of  kids

so i  want to change the scenario

[Mangrove]

bolshy teen: FUCK YOU MAN, I DIDN"T ASK TO BE BORN.

father: Yes you did Tommy. I've told you this before - we're buddhists.

[AFK]

i want a ton of  kids

so i  want to change the scenario

revolution through procreation

[Triple Zero]

yeah Vonnegut really milked the 'never asked to be born' cow

i only read the "ice-9" story [which was awesome], got any suggestions?

[LMNO]

"Slaughterhouse Five"

"Deadeye Dick"

"Welcome to the Monkeyhouse"

[LHX]

"Hocus Pocus"

"Breakfast of Champions"