Breaking out of a Funk

Mant people often suffer from mild depression and felt detached and unenthusiastic. This is often just from stress, which causes the brain to protect itself and shut itself into it's own little, sad world.
Every suggestion here involves breaking out of that confine. Every suggestion requires a GREAT ACT OF WILL to get the ball rolling, which may require more or less effort, depending on how much juice you got at the time.

It is often tempting to let your brain and life coast and take the easiest route, but this route is easy because it is well-tread. What novelty and joy of discovery--what meaning--was there is likely long-ago used up. To find fresh meaning we have to do fresh things. We have to fearlessly cultivate new perspectives.

Perhaps you want the meaning first, and for your actions to follow that. The reverse must sometimes be necessary. Do something fresh you care nothing about, and let the meaning come from that.

1. Act without expectation. Do stuff even if you don't want to and aren't feeling it. A friend just invited me to the batting cages-- an activity I had zero interest in. I went anyway and before long really got into the challenge of it. I've been thinking about it all week- this stupid, pointless activity- and fondly remembering how good it feels to get that perfect contact and watch it fly. Pull a Jim Carrey and be a Yes Man for a while. Give yourself time to get into things.
2. Explore new topics. Watch documentaries, even if they seem boring on the outset. Human Life or Blue Planet or anything about space. Read. Meaning is not found in bite sized snippets. Meaning is found in webs of association, attachments and collusions. This requires in-depth exploration. A rain-forest from a plane might seem like one boring green expanse. Plunge in. I'll also recommend Grant Morrison's "The Filth". It's a graphic novel intended to cure just this. It is psychedellic, unsettling and completely awsome.
3. Listen and ask questions. If people are starting to bore you, it is likely you're not having the right sort of conversations. Talk to the people you're close to (or random old dudes in coffee shops) and try and get them to reveal their motivations and hopes. Ask them what excites them and listen. This can backfire. Some people are terrible drains if they're in a negative mood. This is how you've probably been. People may not be talking to you about what excites them if they think you'll sap their enthusiasm with your "meh" attitude.
4. Embrace your ennui. Read some Camus and Satre and revel in their understanding of the futility and pointlessness of existence. Sometimes when we can't escape melancholy or boredom, it is at least good to have a friend there.
5. If it gets really bad, go talk to a therapist. There's a chance you have a mood disorder. I personally prefer psychologists over psychaiatrists as they're less prone to jamming pills down your throat.

A Simple Explanation of Existentialism

There is the general sense that if you look at life, really just look at what's available to your senses and your intellect, you start to get this uncanny feeling that something weird is going on. Events aren't connected. Not every choice you make has a meaningful consequence.

We all seem to be very alone within ourselves, even when we're with other people, we can never really commune with them in a way that's really satisfying. Try looking straight into someone's eyes. If you really stare, what you find is that you can't look straight into their mind/soul/consciousness. Instead you start to notice these layers; you looking at them, them looking at you, you noticing them looking at you, them noticing you noticing them looking at you, you noticing that you've noticed them noticing you looking at them.... Anyway your bodies can touch, your gazes can meet, you can be as close as you want, but you'll always be two separate people trying to make sense of each other.

When you're alone what you notice is that if you look at the objects around you, start to see that these objects hold no inherent meaning.

When you really look at things and try to see them for what they are, you get the sense that the world around you is just this grey muck of indifference. The materials and objects around you don't care about you or your life. Your car won't try to keep working because it likes you, it's just a hunk of metal machined by humans that will run until it doesn't run, and that's that. It won't remember your birthday, it won't wait to break down until a convenient time for you, it will just break when it breaks and that can be any time at all.

But when you look at your car, you don't see a hunk of metal slowly falling back into a state of nature, you see a lot more. That's because the car has meaning to you, meaning which you assign to it yourself. You can be reminded of how excited you were when you first got it, you might think of kissing a pretty girl in the back seat, you might be comforted by the way it smells or be reminded of memories when you see the little scratches on the bumper from that time you hit that sign. Your consciousness assembles the sum of your experience with this car and puts it in a special place in your mind: This car isn't just a thing, it is something to you.

And that's really the trick of it. The person you love is someone to you, and you are someone to them. The person that you are for them is different than the person you are to yourself.

And who are you to yourself?

To yourself, you are something other than what you are. Yes, your identity, too, is assembled by your consciousness as a way of making your experiences and actions continuous and meaningful, not because you are that way on any essential level, but because that's what your brain does. It generates meaning.

What does that imply? Whatever god you prefer is generated by you and whatever community you worship with as a means of experiencing continuity in life and (perhaps vainly) through death. However a person seems to be, in your opinion, is generally not the way they really are, but the way you make sense of their behavior. Your opinions of objects, events, people, and society are all generated by your brain in order to make sense of them in a way that is continuous and comprehensible.

So what does it all mean? Here's where it gets better: it means whatever you want!

You have the power to change your opinions, choose your beliefs, and alter the meaning of your entire world. The old adage is that 'a depressed man lives in a depressed world'. In an existential sense, this is quite literal. The world around you doesn't have an opinion as to whether it ought to be depressed or happy, there are only blades of grass which sway when you blow on them, and a breeze which sways you along with the grass.

And so if you really get into existentialism, your mind becomes a paintbrush, and you can paint over the grey muck with whatever is most pleasing to you. You can make a world that is beautiful, one that is logical, one that smacks of a divine presence, one that is quirky and random, one that is fun, whatever you want!

You might seek to strip away all the irrelevant and invented meanings in your life in the hopes of seeing just how weird, random, and indifferent the world really is. This choice is open to you, but be careful. Your brain is built to generate meaning, and if you try to arrive at some true sense of what the world actually is outside of your version of it, you might get a little freaked.

Instead, maybe listen to a fellow like Camus and try to find a way to make it work for you. Or not, it's your choice after all, and that's the fun!

Original Reddit post by ThisisDangeruss

Poor People and Ridiculous Fashion Statements

When you're poor, there's a lot of shame that comes with that. Trying to look NOT poor is important to you. There are easy ways that poor people can work to make themselves look not poor- many of these methods develop into trends, which ironically becomes a signifier of poorness rather than a mask of it. But I digress.

When you're poor, the way you cover up poorness has to be visual and extroverted. You're living in a shit neighborhood, or in the projects, or in a trailer park. You can't make that look good, so looking good for you is outside the home. You make your clothes and your car look good. So, the hats- People like wearing hats. That's the start of it. But how do you designate a nice hat from a not nice hat? Most baseball caps get the tags ripped off, the stickers removed, and people bend the bill to make it fit more naturally. What does that mean? The hat is worn-in. It's used, even if only used by you. A hat that still has the manufacturer sticker and a perfectly level bill? That's a hat that was bought new. And you keep it in that condition as long as possible to SHOW people that you bought it new. Damage the hat or remove the holographic-stamped, custom stickers? Maybe you bought the hat at Salvation Army, or Good Will, or it's a hand-me-down or a hand out. But a perfect, straight-from-the-rack untouched hat? That's a SIGNIFIER that you're able to buy a hat.

I know it's hard to understand, but it's a pretty deeply engrained cultural statement. Why did Elvis wear white clothes? Because he was poor as shit growing up and he wanted to show people he could wear something white and expensive and not be worried about stains. Gets stained? Buy a new one. Wearing white shows you're rich. It's why Elvis wore white, it's why yuppies wore khakis rather than jeans, it's why Don Draper's costume designer gave his a pale trenchcoat rather than a dark one early on, it's why rich people have "white (clothing) parties"... And for that matter, it's why Johnny Cash wore black.

The white clothing thing is an old trend of showing affluence, used both by the rich and by the poor who wish to look rich. The hat thing is a new trend. Maybe it'll stay, maybe it'll go. Poor men who became rich- especially rappers- keep wearing their hats that way. As such, middle class and upper class youth copy it. So maybe it'll become engrained as a symbol of wealth. Or maybe it'll fall away. Pristine Air Jordans have been a symbol of wealth amongst poor communities for 20 years now, and who'd have thought that would last?

Orignal post by adam_frankenstein

Rocks, Pebbles and Sand

A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks right to the top, rocks about 2" in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full?

They agreed it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them in to the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students laughed. He asked his students again if the jar was full? They agreed yes, it was.

The professor then picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. “Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this is your life.

“The rocks are the important things – your family, your partner, your health, your children — anything that is so important to you that if it were lost, you would be nearly destroyed.

“The pebbles are the other things in life that matter, but on a smaller scale. The pebbles represent things like your job, your house, your car.

“The sand is everything else. The small stuff. If you put the sand or the pebbles into the jar first, there is no room for the rocks. The same goes for your life.

"If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff, material things, you will never have room for the things that are truly most important. Pay attention to the things that are critical in your life. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal. Take care of the rocks first - the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just pebbles and sand.”

Original post by McMonocle

Future Danger of Overwhelming Student Loan Debt

Yeah maybe they theoretically don't look so bad from an extremely short-sighted balance sheet point of view, but they will completely destroy capitalism as we know it.

Since the mid/late 80s a generation has been brainwashed with TV and other forms of constant commercialized media into believing that self-actualization comes from consumption, fitting in and having more than others. We have also been brainwashed into believing we must go to college to be successful (that is, good) people. Now we can say this is the fault of the parents, or its the fault of the corporations or whatever. Doesn't matter. Point is, this is what is happening.

We have reached a structural employment crisis. There are not enough jobs. We can deduce statistically that those with college degrees are likely to do better, given extremely broad aggregate measures. While college can be highly helpful for some people, it isn't meant for everywhere. The promised jobs don't exist. We don't need 10,000 PHDs in every obscure social science, there is no known way to employ these people productively in existing businesses.

You may ask why? Why is it that we don't know how to use these people in society? Why don't the jobs exist?

Because our generation has been trained to be law-accepting, servile, submissive and rule-loving. We have had creativity, empathy and patience trained out of us. Initially this was viewed as good. Marketers thought they were creating perfect consumers, who would continue buying things forever. It was perfect monopoly capitalism: installing the idea of unique brands in children at ages as early as possible and making them believe only those brands could bring them joy. Perfect consumers.

What these idiots forgot is that CONSUMPTION ALONE DOES NOT MAKE AN ECONOMY WORK. They didn't train a creative productive workforce! They trained consumers! This is a huge part of why the economy is dying.

For the last 10 years, corporations tried to just hand jobs to otherwise useless idiots who only knew how to consume. Guess what? A corporation where all the grunt work is done by barely thinking consumeristic dolts, where the management is done by idiot consumption-side, short-sighted managers, has led to a crisis of productivity.

We find ourselves in a state where an entire generation has been psychologically trained that 'consumption = happiness' but that generation is also massively un- and underemployed. That is to say, our economic system has found no productive use for consumers.

The college loan crisis is the last hurrah of the system. As droves of trained idiot consumers begin to realize they are morons, they seek out education so that they may gain employment, so that they may continue to consume.

This is seen by the old idiot monopolists as a marketing opportunity. The monopolists planned for a wave of lifelong consumers. They sell us college degrees even though they know that 6-7/10 of us still aren't going to get a job we're qualified for. They didn't plan for a wave of lifelong wage earners.

They have no idea what to do with us BECAUSE THEY ASSUMED WE WOULD ALWAYS HAVE MONEY TO SPEND. Dunno how you're able to do much spending without any income. Such is the idiocy of mainstream 'keynesianism' and 'job creating' economic policies. Nothing grows by consumption alone, not in biology, not in physics, not in human economic interactions. There must be some transformative production of a new useful thing!

Well, ok, I'm wrong, there is one thing that grows by consumption alone with no creative production. CANCER.

The student loan bubble is the last gimmick, the last joke before everything comes falling down and a new social order is implemented. Our generation is realizing we have been lied to our entire lives. Consumerism brings you only despair, uselessness and mental disorders. To modify George Carlin's saying, we are finding that the American Dream is actually the American Nightmare. There are no jobs because none of these marketers know anything about economics, they just figured the money would come from somewhere.

We will realize we need to make our own economy, seperate and apart from these short-sighted psycopaths who have literally manipulated the thinking of much of our generation from birth. We will wake up from the American Nightmare. We will realize that it makes no sense to go 60,000 dollars in debt for nothing. Nothing but a pat on the back from our loan-shark financial rapists, thanking you for selling yourself into debt-slavery. Remember kids, student loan debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy! Your wages will be garnished for the rest of your life!

We will stop going to college, we will drop out and make our own society. It is quite possible this transition will be extremely violent, though it does not have to be. Either way, when students begin en masse simply refusing to enroll, refusing to make loan payments or simply refusing to pay money they don't have for a service they don't need, the student loan bubble will collapse, and it will probably be the death-nell in modern Anglo-American globalist crony capitalism, as the shock waves emenating from the collapse of the student debt market will be at least as financially devastating as the collapse of home mortgages. Its likely it will be even worse (for the current order), as our generation will begin a widespread all-out revolt against consumerism, not by choice but by necessity, as we will be the new underclass if we do not pull ourselves up by our own boot-straps.

I think the way forward is co-ops, permaculture, and sustainable energy. We have to show these yahoos that globalist monopolistic capitalism is not responsive to true social desires. Its not good enough for us. We can do better.

Original Reddit post

Happiness

Happiness isn't about having things or not having things, and its not about things being better then than they are now or will be later. Its about being happy. Right now. You have to be happy. If you look around, there is plenty to be happy about, we just stop looking is all.

 

We get all hopped up on instant fixes like alcohol or video games or drugs or the never ending novelty of the Intenet. After a while the old fixes, a lovingly crafted film, learning a new math concept, the act of drawing or playing the guitar, or cooking a nice meal don't work as good as the new fast ones. They take a lot longer and require effort and determination.....so we stop. Our brain has an easier fix.

Suddenly that inspiration doesn't "hit" and we jump on the computer for a few hours or weeks. We do what we have to at a job so we can come home and get high on whatever gets us high. We get a six pack and see what's on TV. We get another philly cheesesteak even though that gut keeps growing. Whatever it takes to get that burst of happy. We consume. because then we get our fix and we can sludge through another shitty day getting shit on by someone who was just like you, but they've had the blinders on so long they forgot altogether.

Truth is you have to fight for what makes you happy. Fight against yourself and how easy it is today to have everything. Fight the animal inside saying feed me, please me, listen to ME... and remember the real you. The one with dreams and goals. Realize that just because you can play games and watch movies and eat hot pockets doesn't mean you should.

Realize that the best things take work. And just being happy is the hardest thing of all. You have to know yourself. To do that you need to take a good, long, honest look at yourself and your choices.

 

Original Reddit post

The Purpose of Work

The purpose of work, believe it or not, is not to make a living. Its to keep you busy.

When you don't work, you think you will be happy, but in reality your mind becomes free to dwell on trivial things and you slowly, imperceptibly grow to become dissatisfied with life. Small things begin to feel like big things. The simple pleasures you used to enjoy in small proportions begin to lose their potency because now you have the money and time to indulge them in unlimited quantities. You begin to enjoy things less.

Ultimately you will have to go back to work to engage your mind and to keep yourself busy. Very few people can just do nothing and be happy. And those who can do so, I suspect, are either holy men, or feeble-minded.

17 Hacks to Make Your Life Easier

1. Take 5-10 minutes each day tidying up while at the same making sure to put whatever it was you were using back where it was. It's not difficult and keeps the place clutter free
2. Keys always goes in the same place, every time. No more lost keys.
3. Coin jar keeps coins from being nomadic.
4. Books go on bookshelf, CDs go in CD tower, Pictures go on wall/desk/shelf.
5. If you don't have a desk/shelf, keep an eye out for those things at the dumpter area of an apartment complex, people throw good furniture away monthly. Its sad really.
6. It takes 5 minutes to make the bed in the morning, faster after having done it for a while.
7. Wash your sheets regularly.
8. Put dirty clothes in dirty clothes bag/hamper. Wash them once a week, hang freshly clean clothes in closet (I hate folding so I just hang them ALL up.)
9. Remove the plates/cups from room daily, place in sink, wash dishes daily (takes 2-3 minutes to wash them if done daily, seriously) One or two dishes is easier/faster to do than a week's worth.
10. Vacuum/sweep daily, this keeps dust from collecting on surfaces as quickly. Also dust about once a month.
11. USE A TRASHCAN AND EMPTY IT WHEN IT GETS FULL. (Note this only works if you actually place unwanted boxes, bags, half-eaten food, fast food refuse, etc. in the trashcan) Please recycle if at all possible.
12. If you want to get fancy, you can get a small file cabinet for 30-40 bucks at Target or something. Get folders, I found a labelmaker at Staples for 10 bucks, and organize your documents/mail. You could have categories like: Rent receipts, bank statements, utility bills, credit card bills, taxes, school records, job-search, car maintenance, and other. I keep a paper shredder next to mine so when I sort my mail I can shred the unimportant stuff like credit card offers.
13. Credit card offers: DO NOT ACCEPT THEM. Only keep one credit card handy FOR EMERGENCY PURPOSES. Not being able to get McDonald's one day is not an emergency. Something like: Holy shit my only means of transporting myself to work/school needs $500 worth of repairs...
14. Speaking of McDonald's, minimize fast food consumption, you'll gain alot more in the long term if you make attempts to cook for yourself. Get a cookbook. You'll end up saving money, learning to cook, and eating a better diet.
15. Shop at thrift stores where you can find really nice furniture, appliances, and clothing and really low prices. Buy used and refurbished. I rarely ever buy anything new anymore.
16. Never buy a new car, its a waste of money to buy new, stay away from dealerships. Look for somebody selling their car, ask to drive it around the block, take it to a shop and pay them $20-$50 to inspect it. Tell them you're thinking about buying it and ask them for advice. ALL used cars will have some sort of problem requiring repair. If you're planning on spending $1200 for a car, then $800-$900 should be for the car and the rest for repairing immediate issues. Don't focus on the cosmetics, instead make your purchase based on the car's mechanical condition. Yes, I've found great cars for $800 and less.
17. After getting a car, go to a car parts store and get the repair manual for that model. Often, stuff like replacing the brakes, fuel filter, oil changes, exhaust repair, battery replacement, etc. is insanely easy to do. Older cars from the 90s and early 2000s are much easier to work on than new models since manufacturers now like to design it so you MUST go to their authorized service center to get it something simple done. My friend has a new car where the freakin battery has a support bar over the top of it so it can only be removed at a shop.

Original post by psychopete

Get off the Train

Money equals power and freedom. Be very careful about that for which you trade your freedom and power. I choose not to hand over mine for knick-knacks like an iPhone, Tupperware, gold wedding bands, an electric clothes dryer, matching luggage, designer sunglasses, or chrome wheels.

I don't live to have, I live to do. I have never spent $50 on a coffee table book with photos of the Costa Rican cloud forest, but I have been there, carrying my gear in an old ice chest ($3 at Goodwill) instead of a $200 REI backpack. I never buy $25 concert t-shirts, but I have been to thousands of concerts. I take night classes at a community college, and now I speak Spanish, I can do body and paint work on my car or motorcycle, and I keep in shape in their gym. I have the time and money to do these things because I got off the consumer train.

 If you put your money in the bank, and someone fucks you, you can pay for a lawyer. If you put your money in the bank, and your child wins an award, you can get on a plane and go to the ceremony. If you put your money in the bank, and your boss is an ass, you can resign. But people who sell stuff want to take away your money and give you crap in return. When they have loaded you up with Franklin Mint bronze statues of John Wayne and Hello Kitty mouse pads, you won't have money left for lawyers and planes and telling your boss of fuck off. So stop spending money on anything that does not meaningfully improve your life. (And if it is merely an aesthetic improvement, it is not really an improvement.)

How? Stop consuming advertising, to the extent you can. Also, kill your television. Aside from the commercials, your television sends you the message about 1 bazillion times an hour that the kind of person you want to be drives a shiny SUV. Try not to let that message get near you. Associate with a different class of people.

Instead of playing golf on Saturdays with people who are on the train, people who buy custom exhaust systems to get a few more horsepower from their cars (How fucking fast do you need to go?), people who have stainless steel barbeques, people who get their cars washed by a machine, spend the day at a protest march, or a bluegrass festival, or in the community garden with people who share your values.
The most important thing you can do is stop telling yourself that the solution to all of your problems is a trip to the mall. You don't need to go to a mall. Ever.

If something breaks, do not write on your list of things to do, "Get a new one." Instead, write on your list of things to do, "Learn to repair the one I have." Or, "Learn to live without a lawn edger, or power mirrors in the car, or Vitamix." Write that on your list of things to do. Wear things out. You don't need new Nikes because yours are dingy. When they have holes, get an upholstery needle and sew them up. Do that until you can't do it anymore, then get new ones. Use the shit you have. If you already have a computer, you don't need a Playstation. Make do. Your phone is pretty goddamned good. You don't need a new one just because there is a new one. Stop talking to people about the latest phones. It has nothing to do with you.

 This is not easy. You might not know where to start. Try an experiment: Make a solemn oath that nobody in your family will buy anything new for 90 days. Okay, if you run out of toothpaste, you can make an exception. But no clothes, no DVDs, no books, no kitchen gadgets, no tires, no nothing. If you MUST have something, get it from Freecycle, get it from a flea market, make it yourself, but buy nothing new for 90 days.

 Then, after the first 90 days elapses, do 90 days without carrying cash. Set a limit for everyone in your family. Maybe $10 for adults, $5 for kids. (No credit cards.) This is going to mean that sometimes you are going to buy only $10 worth of gas and have to go to the gas station twice in a week instead of filling up once. Small inconvenience. It is going to force you to consider what is important. With only ten bucks in your pocket, you might stop after work to get some milk, but you won't buy anything else. If it is really important, you can go back and get it later. But you will learn that many of the things you thought were important aren't. In these 6 months, join r/frugal, read DIY blogs, take a welding course at a community college. Replace all of the spiritual junk food you have been consuming (like TV, like the magazines in the seat-back pockets of airplanes, like the ads in the Sunday newspapers) with nutritious food for your soul (like r/simpleliving, and How To Make Sausage videos on YouTube).

Ask yourself as frequently as you can, "Do I want to spend my Saturday afternoon shopping for shit I don't need, or playing Frisbee with my kids?" Then go play Frisbee.

I am off the train. I invite you to disembark. Here is how you stop struggling:
Put two sticks of softened margarine in a bowl. Add 1 cup of white sugar, and one cup of brown sugar. Add two eggs. Blend this. Add three cups of all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and one tablespoon of baking powder. Mix well. Stir in 2/3 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Spray a cookie sheet with Pam, and lay out 12 generous spoonsful of dough, evenly spaced.
Bake at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

As soon as you can put a toothpick into the middle of a cookie and take it out clean, remove them from the oven. Put the cookies on a wire cooling rack. When they are cool enough to eat, but still warm, eat half. Then lie to your wife about how many you made.

What were we talking about before? Something that is not very important, as I recall. Your life is better already, isn't it?

Original post at Reddit