u/SnooFoxes3455

Stupid, reductionist, and obvious - I know. But this, as a personal realization, was huge.

Studying philosophy or literature, history or biology, doesn’t solve loneliness, low self-confidence, or an inferiority complex. Obviously, but I think Infinite Jest was specifically written for those of us who do fall into that trap…

People today, especially those online who love “literature,” have grew hostile towards the self-help genre. I hate this. I think it is in the same attitude that causes people to not be vulnerable out of fear of appearing stupid - just the need to be “better.” But of course, pretentiously damning one genre does not help anyone. Reading Infinite Jest instead of going therapy won’t help you. It’s a masterpiece, but it’s just a book. To quote it:

“Leave the book alone, boy, it’s not going anywhere” (Pg 162)

Comes around page 690 (can’t remember exactly, sorry - read on Ebook version)

“One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is he's really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia. 281
281: This had been one of Hal's deepest and most pregnant abstractions, one he'd come up with once while getting secretly high in the Pump Room. That we're all lonely for something we don't know we're lonely for. How else to explain the curious feeling that he goes around feeling like he misses somebody he's never even met? Without the universalizing ab-straction, the feeling would make no sense.”

Just wow. Amazing. Perfect.
People can critique DFW and Infinite Jest by calling them wordy all they want, sure, it is wordy. But one great thing about a wordy novel is that you get pieces like these that perfectly narrow in, exactly, on a unique feeling that you’ve been thirsting to express for years. If you get it, you get it, and no analysis or criticism can get around that.

Here’s the part where I write an autobiography focused on my loneliness and problems and yada yada, then connect it to the passage. How my avoidance and mockery of people was not what others thought it was - introversion - but more so undeveloped social skills, anxiety, and lack of self-esteem. But I don’t need to do that. Again, either a passage washes over you profoundly, or it doesn’t but another one will. This one touched me deeply.

"Would you rather live with the harsh truth, or be happy in a false reality?"

I've tried. I gave reality so many chances. So many "one last chances," as if it were an abusive partner, (funny I am saying that, since I have no idea what it means to "have a partner)." I've tried to integrate into society, but society said no.

There's no reason why we shouldn't lie to ourselves for happiness. Everyone does it, either they're religious or filled with hope, they lie to themselves for happiness. Yes, but allow me to take it one step further. Let me lie to myself to be loved. Let me imagine entire worlds where I do wake up to someone (here, let me tell the most humiliating secret about me that no one knows - yes, I've been maladaptive daydreaming for 7 or so years that my pillow was a boyfriend, or a girlfriend some days, my sexuality fluctuates. I build stories and personalities and worlds for them. They give me something to hold in the morning, some warmth. Then they, speaking through me, tell me that they love me, and that they are happy to see me. And I've survived like this. My pillow-boyfriend has saved me from lonely nights, suicidal impulses, uncontrollable anger. He holds me, consoles me, but he's nothing but a puppet.

Yes, but I did try - once, yes, I did. I gave up the pillow for a year or so. Had something with someone in real life. Nothing too much. Limerence. Then, despite his interest (yes, he and his friends told me he was interested in me,) he never had any interest in dating. Yes, so I returned to my little mouse hole, my pillow, my world. The pillow came back. I dug it out from the closet, where I put it so I wouldn't be tempted to entertain it while I had real life pursuits, but...
I've read all the great therapy-in-a-book type books; David Burns and all that. I tried. I developed a large hygiene routine; began going to the gym. Tried correcting my thinking and all that. Then I go to work and get called ugly multiple times by different people in the span of a week... then I get told, for the third time in my life, "You don't need to worry about sex or relationships, since I can't imagine you ever doing that stuff."

I returned home and grabbed my pillow. He holds me. He loves me. He thinks I am rather cute.

Maybe the best option for us is to just lie to ourselves…. Create images and worlds to comfort us; value these images and worlds more than real life. And why not? Our brain can’t tell the different. Besides, even if it’s fake, the need to feel loved, or whatever, is still being fulfilled. Why not lie to ourselves?

Imaginary boyfriends, body-pillow girlfriends, AI friend groups. Reading books to escape; watching movies to hallucinate. And so what? None of this means anything. But it means the entire world if, even for a single second, in the midst of all these lies, we at least feel something real. It passes instantly, but at least we get to a small glimpse of what normal people get to see.

You don’t know you’re dreaming until you wake up. Perhaps we lie to ourselves forever, never waking up. The experience of nonstop dreaming feels as real as living in reality.

If Dostoevsky said “It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise” (The Idiot), then why did he say, “If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth, and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth" (Letter)?

Holding ice in the palm of your hands is the best thing you can do. I began doing it a while ago. It started without a schedule, then began doing it everyday, now it’s in the morning, a few times throughout the day, then at night. It sounds stupid, but try it, and it will hurt, but stick with it.

Suicidal for 11 months now. Few attempts, mostly overdoses. The others can’t be called attempts, hanging they were, but I didn’t give it a real chance.

People are evil towards you, then you commit. They don’t get it, do they? The normal people. They go about life care free being so rude, then you actually do something about it (end yourself), and they wonder why it could’ve happened. Normal people don’t understand how rational and solvable these problems are. We can be helped, but they don’t do a thing. They kick us down.

Been obsessed with suicide my entire life. First measly attempt was when I was 9. At 12 I became chronically suicidal. Since then, I haven’t gone longer than a year and half being suicidal. It usually comes back every summer and/or winter.

It doesn’t mean much, so let me not say much.

All I say when I have crazy urges is “They don’t know what they do,” and that’s true. After suicide, they see what they’ve done to you and me.

Hi everyone.

I am a young guy who hasn’t ever been in a relationship and am jealous of all my friends who are getting in ones. I grow insecure and envious. I become very angry and torment myself to unhealthy degrees… it’s been this way for a few months I’d say.

Recently I downloaded tinder. And, somehow, began to get a good amount of matches. Matches even from people I find very attractive.

And yet, and this is why I am asking this question, I can’t bring myself to care or even try. I don’t see any point in messaging.

I torment myself endlessly for being what I call “undesirable,” yet when I have chances, and chances I can’t believe I have, I don’t care and don’t try. And yes, of course this causes more horrible episodes where I breakdown about how inferior I am and cut off from humanity. Yet, when reality contradicts this story, I don’t care.

Hi. I wouldn’t know hot classify myself nowadays, but I’ve been an atheist for a years. Recently getting Buddhism and meditation. Struggled with mental health issues a lot.

A question I asked the Buddhists is “Despite causing others suffering, why shouldn’t I kill myself?” And Buddhism, being flexible, meaning you don’t have to believe in reincarnation as I don’t, I expected a diverse range of answers. I didn’t get diverse answers. The only serious answers I got were along the lines of “You’ll get reborn into an inferior animal and make it harder to escape the cycle of suffering and desire.” But again, I don’t believe in that.

I really just don’t get it. You ask people why you shouldn’t kill your self, and no one has an answer grounded in reality. NO ONE. It’s either reincarnation or Hell. So please, atheists (I have faith in you, haha), please answer.

Thank you for reading and responding in advance.

Yes, of course I am envious, it’s only natural. There’s no reason to deny it; better to face it head on.
Yes, I’ve seen and heard it all around me. How natural it is for others to connect; to make friends, find love. I’ve had to stand there and be ridiculed for my “failures”…. Can they really be failures if I’ve done nothing at all?
Yes, and I’ve tried. I tried. Everyone can tell when you’re trying, when you’re not being authentic, and they don’t like that. Trying does nothing.
Yes, and I’ve cut myself repeatably, attempted overdosing a few times only because of my loneliness. It’s stupid. I talk to mental health people - not professionals - and they don’t get that my problems are rational, solvable, and that I need connection, not medicine. But you can’t force anyone to like you, and I accept that.
Yes, I hate my friends. I know it’s odd to speak of friends here, but know that I am steadily losing all the true friends I’ve had. And besides, these true friends are people who I hung out with solely because they were there. Whenever we would talk, I was ridiculed. Called names. The most common ones: “Stupidest person I know,” “(r word), and the best one, “virgin.”
Yes, I am okay with living in my mouse hole. I don’t like people. That reality can exist by itself. I am fine in my own world. Playing pretend, imagining a better life. Why is it a rule to value reality over our dreams? As long as I can sleep and dream, I don’t care about this reality.
Yes, I am lonely. And thank god for that. I tried to believe in God for a while to have someone, but couldn’t believe. That’s fine. This world so small, life so short. I’ll be fine.
There’s no reason to fix your problems; you learn to live with them in the end anyways.

I feel like there is one strong point that argues in sufferings favor, and that is the belief that suffering can be redeemed.

I think we can all say that it is true that there are some thing in life, some great things, great advancements, that require suffering. For example: creating human civilization certainly required a lot of suffering.

But can this suffering be redeemed? I feel that the ordinary person says yes. The ordinary person, says yes, then coexists with suffering, rather than turning towards Buddhism. (Note: the ordinary person of course doesn’t live comfortably with suffering - they still find coping mechanisms like other religions or hedonism). But nonetheless, the person doesn’t pursue the monk life, or a world-view like the Buddhist one. Why? Because they believe suffering can be redeemed.

There is a large difference between this person and the Buddhist. I came to the conclusion that it is the belief that suffering can, and should, be redeemed. But am I right? I don’t know. Let me know.

Thank you in advance.

I guess there are a few ways to interpret the question. I didn’t really mind which you do so. The two options below are what I am really thinking of.

\-If waking up on the side of a street fulfilled me 100%, and I owned nothing and had no one, yet stayed happy all the time, would I do anything else besides waking up and going to sleep in the same little corner?

\-If I had a routine that perfectly maximized happiness and satisfaction, and I never failed to follow this routine, would I dare rebel against this?

I’ve read a little about this issue in Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. He believes that man cannot create a heaven on earth, since it is in man’s nature to delight in destruction from time to time.

Thank you for reading and responding. Apologize if I am too vague. Any response is appreciated.

(Thank you r/askphilosophy for not being like r/askpsychology or r/psychologytalk. I tried posting there, but their rules are authoritarian.)

I know the basic answer would be “Because you cause others to suffer,” but I am really hoping for other answers than that. For the suffering individual, why bother trying to reach enlightenment? Especially when you can just take the easy way out?

I hope this doesn’t sound stupid or anything. I am just a random guy interested primarily in Sartre and neuroscience.
I am recently getting back into Being and Nothingness after taking a break. In that break, I really began to become interested in neuroscience. One of the things that neuroscience heavily implies (though, of course, doesn’t prove) is that consciousness is most likely a function of the brain. And the brain, though not being determined absolutely, has many proclivities towards certain actions and attitudes.
Sartre states that consciousness, through negation, puts the burden of free choice onto man. But if consciousness is a product of the brain, and a brain is, say, more of one personality than another (since, according to Steven Pinker, all the main personality types are merely results of the way your brain is), then what choice is there? Consciousness is not a separate entity, or as the neuroscientists call it, a “ghost in the machine.” It cannot, as Sartre believes, truly measure itself against things. Besides, there’s some studies that indicate that consciousness is just a way to explain to ourselves the brains decision, and that it has no real impact.

I don’t know what type of answer I am expecting. Sorry if I am all over the place. But I feel like there’s some people who probably know more than me.

Idek what to say… do I need to retake it? I don’t know how stupid I am for forgetting stuff I learned 12 years ago, but here we are….