I’m not religious for a start so I don’t care for an afterlife. That sounds even worse than current existence. The universe itself starting from nothing though is hard to imagine. So I guess my reasoning is that I think it was always there, just slowly expanding and retracting for eternity. Somewhere in that mess, life happened. Maybe it was a one off and maybe not.
I don’t believe in reincarnation in the sense that I can be born again on this planet as a dog or something. More like whatever makes you “you” was possible in a universe where it probably shouldn’t have been possible. I believe in the Big bounce theory even though a lot of evidence says this is not true, the universe is definitely expanding at an insane rate. I like to think that all matter in the universe eventually comes together in one supermassive black hole and somewhere in that matter soup, another big bang happens. Maybe this time around life doesn’t happen, but maybe after a trillion iterations it does and whatever makes you “you” could happen again. You’d have no memory of it, you’d just be aware of being alive again. If there is just the heat death of the universe and nothing ever happens again then so be it, I was fine before I was born anyway.
Probably my own injuries. When I was a kid, maybe 9-10, was playing football and one of my friends kicked the ball near some flats. I ran to get the ball and didn’t see a nail sticking out the wall, ran into it with my knee and ripped a huge “smile” into it. 15 stitches and some tetanus shots later I was fine but no football for a few weeks.
Also cut the tip of my finger off, which to my surprise grew back.
Bad writing is to blame for most of the criticism I think. They are just point scoring if they push a female lead because it’s a female lead. Shitty male leads are pushed constantly but the criticism of them is often ignored because the pedestal is often lower. I couldn’t give a fuck about anything Kevin hart or Dwayne Johnson is in for instance, same with plenty of other badly written male characters. Well written characters do more for films/tv than any shoehorning ever could.
Existentialism is the branch of philosophy that deals with these problems, I think you would have an interest in it. I struggled with these kind of questions a lot when I was in my 20s (what is the point? Does anything even matter?). I read a lot and hitchhikers guide to the galaxy was the first book that really eased this anxiety for me. There probably is no point in living, it’s fine. Everyone decides on what they are going to do based on their circumstances in life. In the end the universe may not exist again, so what, we were all perfectly fine before it existed and who knows, maybe everything that made your conscious possible will be able to exist again in another universe, you won’t have memories of your past life, at least you shouldn’t have anyway.
I write a little and one of the first stories I wrote was about a being that created the universe from nothing because it was bored, I made a character narrate later on and his thought process was along the lines of “if you existed in this universe, who’s to say you won’t again in another? Whatever random events lead to life being self aware could happen again. The universe could expand until there is no energy left and then retract until the next big bang does it all again. It may not happen for the next trillion cycles but eventually something could happen again like it is now. Maybe it’s all happened before and we just don’t remember it.”
So, even if you don’t find a purpose. You are not alone in your journey. It’s part of being human, to have awareness of your own existence but powerless to know as to why you exist. Some people just can’t handle those kind of truths, it scares them stupid and that’s why you get things like hedonism, flip it the other way and you get nihilism. Despair can come from both.
My own personal thoughts on it are:
You are alive and you are able to do as you please. You always have a choice. If you make your life a journey of accumulating a larger number than others then so be it, I am happier without playing any number games. I want to see things and meet people and interact with them. I love petting cats and dogs, I love ducks. I enjoy the fact that my tongue evolved enough so that I can enjoy the taste of good food and tasty bourbon. I like to know that I am helping someone or something else not be scared of existing, like if my cat is worried because of a noise, I can soothe her nerves and she doesn’t have to feel fear anymore. I am still able to see the good in humanity even if I don’t have much faith in the world currently. There are problems with society as it currently stands in the west but if everyone can find it in themselves to be honest with each other and help one another out then the world will be somewhere worth living in, no matter how short that time is in the grand scheme of things. One day the sun will explode, will the universe care about some billionaire’s wealth? No. Nor should anyone now, if that’s what they choose then so be it. What really matters is not what you do for yourself but what you do for everything else.
/schizo rant
^
They do track a lot, for no real good reason either. Most of the cctv systems you see are blurry, especially at distance, storage of high quality video takes a lot of space and money I guess. It’s a crime deterrent at best but lately most criminals don’t really give a damn, you see wannabe gangsters riding around on bicycles or scooters with balaclavas on, so the real criminals can blend right in with the wannabes. Police presence only seems to exist when football is being played also. This joke of a country could do with a reset button, probably been that way for a long time.
I’ve used posteo for years now. It’s a small cost and never have any issues with it.
I find it hard to trust this source. This sounds like ai generated garbage when you listen to the voice in the video.
I’m not a fan of mastodon because it really does feel a lot like other social media sites, I don’t really like any form of advertising, whether it’s intentional or unintentional. People post too much bullshit trying to gain followers. I never cared much for twitter/facebook/instagram anyway.
Lemmy however is a better replacement for Reddit, so far. I remember when Reddit was the replacement and now look at it, a big steaming pile of ads and bots, power tripping admin and moderators, killed 3rd party apps that made the site useable. Hopefully lemmy can remain the same as it is now.