People usually feel guilty when they supposedly feel like wasting their time doing nothing, just laying down, scrolling and stuff. But, is it really that bad? Really worth feeling guilty about? What possible reasons could make you not feel guilty?
People usually feel guilty when they supposedly feel like wasting their time doing nothing, just laying down, scrolling and stuff. But, is it really that bad? Really worth feeling guilty about? What possible reasons could make you not feel guilty?
Imagine you are given a life as a character in your favourite film. You start at the film/series start live through all of it and experience the ending of your character and your life ends (No second life nothing, and no contact with your previous life or closed ones). You retain the previous memories but are supposed to completely follow the script. (It'll be a full life long not just 2hrs)
Which film and character would you want to be? And why?
But, that's not the main question. Main thing is... would you be bored cz you know all the script? Or you would still prefer it?
21M Pakistani.
​
Recently, I was returning back home from Europe and my father insisted I do it via Saudia Airlines and do an Umrah on a 1 day transit. And, my parents had seen a secular spark in me so they really wanted that. And, it wasn't a problem for me as well as I considered it an adventure and a necessary cost to keep coexisting with my family. Moreover, I am also not that hardcore of an atheist. I understand people's perspectives even religious ones and understand why they believe what they believe. So, I reached Jeddah and departed for Mecca alone and made a list of highly well defined Duas to verify if there's an Almighty God just in case xD. Repeated em on the first sight of Kaaba, while touching it and what not, in those moments (None of em were realised, confidence inc. on Atheism). But, I didn't want to be judgemental or sarcastic or dismissive or disrespectful of the experience. So, I just let go of myself for these 10-15 hours. Looking at people and noticing their behaviour. I saw women who normally don't even come close to a na mehram there pushing their way through a crowd full of men just to kiss a rock and pray (an usual behaviour for such a woman) and I saw traditional men (gigachads) crying like babies (an unusual behaviour for such a man). The religious experience was making them do things they won't normally. For what? For a God that doesn't exist. Or does it? Yes it does in their minds and that psychological Gods is also powerful (not almighty but still powerful). It unites people, gives them a singular identity, trust on eachother, clarity and purposefulness in life. It's because of that God millions of people have been circling a stone building which in itself would have been thought of as a futile activity. And I thought to myself, yeah I do believe in that God, he's not almighty but still mighty enough. And I'm not saying this only about the God of Islam. God generally of other abrahamic or even non abrahamic religions serves and has been serving for thousands of years this purpose of an abstract concept in the minds of its believers that holds immense power. Nietzsche's quote 'God is dead' seems wrong. God can't be dead, never. As its sort of an intrinsic coping mechanism of humans across cultures, religions and times. It gave me an atheist a God to believe in a psychological one shared by all religions that definitely exists and is quite powerful, although I don't believe in the ontological God (I don't have to) and I don't subscribe to any religion (I don't have to). I actually enjoyed these 10-12 hours of observation just sitting in front of Kaaba. So, not believing in an ontological God or a religion doesn't mean you can't still enjoy it's religious experience, you can. Enjoy sharing the myth with your family and friends and be happy.
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🤞🏻🤞🏻
Recently, I was returning back home from Europe and my father insisted I do it via Saudia Airlines and do an Umrah on a 1 day transit. And, my parents had seen a secular spark in me so they really wanted that. And, it wasn't a problem for me as well as I considered it an adventure and a necessary cost to keep coexisting with my family. Moreover, I am also not that hardcore of an atheist. I understand people's perspectives even religious ones and understand why they believe what they believe. So, I reached Jeddah and departed for Mecca alone and made a list of highly well defined Duas to verify if there's an Almighty God just in case xD. Repeated em on the first sight of Kaaba, while touching it and what not, in those moments (None of em were realised, confidence inc. on Atheism). But, I didn't want to be judgemental or sarcastic or dismissive or disrespectful of the experience. So, I just let go of myself for these 10-15 hours. Looking at people and noticing their behaviour. I saw women who normally don't even come close to a na mehram there pushing their way through a crowd full of men just to kiss a rock and pray (an usual behaviour for such a woman) and I saw traditional men (gigachads) crying like babies (an unusual behaviour for such a man). The religious experience was making them do things they won't normally. For what? For a God that doesn't exist. Or does it? Yes it does in their minds and that psychological Gods is also powerful (not almighty but still powerful). It unites people, gives them a singular identity, trust on eachother, clarity and purposefulness in life. It's because of that God millions of people have been circling a stone building which in itself would have been thought of as a futile activity. And I thought to myself, yeah I do believe in that God, he's not almighty but still mighty enough. And I'm not saying this only about the God of Islam. God generally of other abrahamic or even non abrahamic religions serves and has been serving for thousands of years this purpose of an abstract concept in the minds of its believers that holds immense power. Nietzsche's quote 'God is dead' seems wrong. God can't be dead, never. As its sort of an intrinsic coping mechanism of humans across cultures, religions and times. It gave me an atheist a God to believe in a psychological one shared by all religions that definitely exists and is quite powerful, although I don't believe in the ontological God (I don't have to) and I don't subscribe to any religion (I don't have to). I actually enjoyed these 10-12 hours of observation just sitting in front of Kaaba. So, not believing in an ontological God or a religion doesn't mean you can't still enjoy it's religious experience, you can. Enjoy sharing the myth with your family and friends and be happy.
🤞🏻🤞🏻
"That's it?" Ayan stared at the body with a mix of blasphemous indifference and morbid curiosity.
His body.
Or what was left of him.
No trumpet. No angels. No terrifying court where every lie of his life was played back in 4K. No demons dragging him to hell. Nothing.
There was only his room. His chairs. His notebook. His dead phone. And him.
He waited.
Nothing happened. No reward. No punishment. No divine explanation. No scoreboard saying:
​
AYAN: Age 19
FAILED
FAITH RETENTION: 1%
FAMILY COMPATIBILITY: FAILED
MEANING SYSTEM: CORRUPTED
GAME OVER
​
He laughed. Almost. Probably the gameplay shifted from NPC to spectator mode. Perhaps he was going to be reincarnated into a new life, or the hell angels were a little late, or maybe he was going to meet God.
God? The illusion he believed didn't exist? Or the culprit he thought was responsible for all his suffering?
​
For years, he had stripped life of its costumes.
​
Briefly, he was proud of his intellect. Proud of how he had dissected life, and it lay bare in front of him. Within a year, the undressed life embraced him so bad. He quit.
Badly. Permanently.
He didn't try? He did.
He lost his faith, he didn't quit. He lost his parents while they were still alive to him, he didn't quit. There still seemed to be hope, a light at the end of the tunnel; probably that was love. Love for someone, he forced it upon himself. Thought it might work. She might say yes, and an entire future would open up. Full of possibilities and happiness. A morphine to make the rawness bearable. But today, that tunnel closed as well. He was left alone. Alone with life. Cursed to live it bare. That one reply, "I can't," sealed the envelope of his game-over note.
He wasn't hurt. He didn't even hate anyone. Quitting the game just seemed like the most rational decision of his life. What benefit is it to play a losing hand?
​
"Free at last from the useless Game," he said with a bitter smile, looking at his silent, expressionless body.
Then the room folded.
Not disappeared.
Folded like paper from all sides. The mysterious spacetime folded into an endless void. And by the door, there was something. Not an angel. Not God. Not even a form.
"Gameplay ended early."
It didn't speak. The words arrived directly inside Ayan.
"Excuse me?"
"You ended the game too early."
"Fantastic. The universe is a gamer. And who the hell are you?"
"Just a Glitch."
"That's not helping."
"Truth rarely is!"
Ayan almost smiled.
The Voice swiped his almost-hand. The room vanished.
They stood in his childhood.
Six-year-old Ayan running barefoot in mud under rain. Slipping in front of his worried mother. Shouting with joy on steroids: "Yeahhhh!" Licking the raindrops on his lips.
"Yeah?" Dead Ayan whispered.
"Yeah. The kid was probably more into living life than dissecting it," The Voice replied.
Something struck him in the chest.
Not an argument. A memory with teeth.
The scene changed.
A hospital ward.
A middle-aged woman with cancer adjusting her scarf to hide her lost hair from her children on a video call. The moment they appeared on the screen, her face lit up.
"Have you eaten?" she asked them. The tenderness of the moment pierced a pinhole in Ayan's spectator mode, letting in a small dose of the emotions he had forbidden himself to feel.
"She's still worried about them?" Ayan smirked at The Voice.
"Yes."
"But she's dying."
"Yes."
"She knows?"
"Yes."
"Then why?"
"She doesn't have an argument."
The response unsettled Ayan.
The scene changed again.
A fifteen-year-old girl. Her eyes resembled his mother's. She was crying helplessly while being shouted at by an older man. "G Baba! I will do as you say," she kept repeating. It followed quick splashes of the girl's life. Her tender smile, worried eyebrows, and watery eyes as her son grew up.
"Is that what I think it is?" Ayan uttered, feeling a gust of love, anger, and surprise.
"Yes."
"But why? A..aa..I mean..how? I never knew!"
He didn't know what to say. He wasn't ready to accept that his side of the equation might be incomplete. He couldn't reconcile it with the mother he always thought was complicit in his father's irrational authoritative decisions. He felt suffocated. Nauseated. Perhaps drugged.
Only the violent knocks on the door pulled him back into the moment. Some older feminine voice was shouting his name. Perhaps it was concerned.
The room started to reappear as if the knocking was having an effect on the universe itself.
Swipe. Next scene.
A seventeen-year-old boy. Trying his best not to shed a tear. "You will never be able to bring honour to this family. You are a failure," shouted Ayan's then-younger grandfather. No reply. Not even a single tear. The young boy just clenched his nails into his fists a little harder.
"I knew it." "I knew he suffered. But that doesn't unlock forgiveness," Ayan said with an expression of obviousness.
"Forgiveness isn't needed. It doesn't matter."
"But that is not fair."
"I didn't say it is!"
Ayan wanted to say something but stopped.
The scene changed.
An old man in despicable physical condition, fixing a radio.
When the radio gave him 17 seconds of a tune, he closed his eyes and smiled.
Not because he had achieved something great or lived an outstanding life.
Not because he was satisfied with his past or hopeful about the future.
He didn't think about any of that.
He just was!
"Huh! An escape. Futile. How's he even happy with all of what he has done?" Ayan remarked, recognising the old man.
"Is he?"
"What do you mean?"
"It doesn't take an ideal script to make an enjoyable film."
"So, what's the point? Of...of all of this? Why are you even showing me all that? Just let me fucking die," Ayan burst, feeling overwhelmed. "Is it some sort of punishment? Accountability? Or what?"
"No, it's none of that."
"Then why?"
"Because you wanted to know the truth."
"And what is it? I don't get it."
"I didn't say you would."
The space began to disappear into a dark abyss, as if the Game was truly over after the end credits. The Voice began to fade with it, and the dead Ayan felt like falling, losing all sense of consciousness, into nothingness. And an element of ultimate horror engulfed him.
"You left a hell behind, none other awaits you. And you are still afraid?" The Voice's remnants spoke in unison.
"I still feel like losing... losing something."
"Anything left?"
"Experience! Yeah, Experience! I get it now, I get it now." Ayan replied while gasping for a few more breaths.
He had thought he wanted silence.
But now, falling into it, he understood the horror.
Silence was not peace.
Silence was no rain. No questions. No mother calling his name. No chance to hate, forgive, fail, laugh, or understand.
Nothing.
Not freedom.
Deletion.
The door opened with a bang. There stood a still silhouette of a woman. As still as a statue. What followed was a scream as loud and scary as the trumpet of the Day of Resurrection.
And surely, the trumpet woke him again in the hospital.
His throat burned. His body felt torn into pieces. His mother was still screaming his name with the same horror
He tried to speak. He couldn’t
He tried to move. He couldn’t
Yet, summoning all his reserves, he smiled...
​
THE END
Am I being too capitalist/cynical about my brother’s artisan idea?
I had a dinner-table disagreement with my brother and I’m curious what people in Switzerland think.
My brother spent a decent portion of his life in developing countries and he's somewhat socialist-leaning. I’m much more of a staunch capitalist, so we disagree on a lot of things.
He has this idea of working directly with poor but highly skilled artisans in developing countries, who are often paid almost nothing by middlemen or exporters. His view is that their handmade work should not be treated as cheap “ethnic crafts,” but as something genuinely valuable: and worthy of premium prices as opposed to the highly exploitative (according to him) luxury and arts market. The goal would be for artisans to earn much more than they normally do.
And I was all for the benefit of the poor but this idea fails because Swiss/European luxury buyers won't simply buy it at premium prices. Luxury market is usually more about brand prestige, status, and established labels than whether it's the handmade work of a poor artisan. I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong but its just is! Moreover, I think connecting the product too much with poverty or “helping people” might make it feel less luxury.
He says I’m being too cynical and not all people think like me lol.
Am I wrong? Or are there really such people as my brother thinks? 🤷🏻
EDIT: Just to clarify to those who're down voting my comments... I'm just discussing people's psychology in the luxury market and not endorsing or criticizing that mindset... Please understand 🙏🏻
I understand that not giving an F will provide so much satisfaction and self improvement but NGAF itself is sometimes extremely difficult and especially making it a part of your ' habit' even more so. When you grew up in an environment or with a personality that always gives a fuck... You simply can't stop. But, I've realised there are things that are extremely difficult to NGAF about while others are easier. So, I wanna know what in your opinion are the easiest ones from where you can start and become confident that you have really started NGAF about.
The question might be a little vague but in essence, I am curious to get to know the best starting strategies in your opinion 🤝🏻
J’ai trouvé ce petit livre dans une petite bibliothèque / boîte à livres à Florence, et la couverture m’a directement fait sourire : Histoires drôles pour le petit coin.
C’est assez drôle, un peu kitsch, et surtout un peu épicé 😂
Est-ce que quelqu’un ici s’en souvient ? Vous l’avez déjà vu chez vos parents, grands-parents, dans des toilettes, ou ailleurs ? Je serais curieux de savoir si ce livre évoque quelque chose à quelqu’un.