Not having a purpose is insanity

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Not having a purpose is insanity. So is having a purpose without a reason. We are all insane. Our minds are not in our control, they instantly revert to whatever they think will bring us emotional satisfaction at the time.

We have all witnessed the quick changes in mood we are subject to, the endless needs we must satisfy, the way our minds jump around without control, we move from one thing to the next trying retain some semblance of stability, a constant effort to rationalize our actions in an instinctual and desperate attempt to hold on to any kind of belief system, a pretense we seem to find solace in. Ignorant even to the fundamental understandings of our own existence, yet we would run through fire to save our lives.

To what end? The consequences and benefits of external actions exist only in our minds, we tell ourselves we aren't alone in this struggle, but there has never been a moment when you haven't been alone.

Almost every person around you would leave you or reject you if you were to act in the wrong way for even a few hours, simply because they too are emotionally and mentally unstable.


There is no conclusion here, no final reason for writing this, as there is no real reason you came here to read it, no rational purpose but to spend your time.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Dennis Mahar »

That's the set of assessments.
next comes the set of options.
then comes the winning formula.

like night follows day.

Nietshcke, Kierkegaard, Socrates, Plato, Sartre,

all of them, actually anyone,
set of assessments,
set of options,
winning formula.

you are no different.

out of an absurd situation we make our meaning.
User avatar
Diebert van Rhijn
Posts: 6469
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:Not having a purpose is insanity. So is having a purpose without a reason. We are all insane. Our minds are not in our control, they instantly revert to whatever they think will bring us emotional satisfaction at the time.
The sense of purpose rises with the attachment to a certain outcome (a wish, a plan, a destiny). People experience purpose to the degree they believe ones environment or even the universe has a plan, or is planned. Which means that it's being "functional" or having a certain end. It's functionality in context. That the feeling of purpose arises here is not a mystery. But when we feel without purpose at least we know why, because we questioned our role in the whole: a certain disconnect occurred. Standing alone means standing without purpose.

Almost every person around you would leave you or reject you if you were to act in the wrong way for even a few hours, simply because they too are emotionally and mentally unstable.
The other way around: almost every person around you would regard you as emotionally and mentally unstable if you were suddenly acting "the wrong way" without reason. That's because that's what emotonally and unstable people do since they need no reason, just impulse.
There is no conclusion here, no final reason for writing this, as there is no real reason you came here to read it, no rational purpose but to spend your time.
No ultimate reason but we can still create all kinds of reasons and conclusions which can be examined on quality and consistency nevertheless. That's called rationality no matter the topic.
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Diebert

I am talking about the ultimately selfish nature of people, they would reject you almost instantly if you were acting against their self-interest, it is inevitable, no matter how close you might think the connection, no matter how long it has been around for, it can be severed within minutes, no matter what else they might have you believe.

Yes wanting a worthwhile purpose is a desire, a future goal in mind, but alternatively there is only ever the moment, which can be both blissful or incredibly boring.

Yes we can create all kinds of reasons, but they will be void of purpose.
We can imagine a purpose, but it will be void of reason.


Dennis

What have you found to be the options and winning formula in your mind?

We make our meaning, but that only works if you aren't aware that the meaning is meaningless.
User avatar
Cahoot
Posts: 1573
Joined: Wed Apr 22, 2009 12:02 am

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Cahoot »

Well, what one does repeatedly could be called a practice. The practice of maintaining the intent of life within the context of every situation, until practicing becomes a redundancy of being and thus superfluous, is a purpose worth living.

For this reason.

All purpose eventually becomes the intent of life anyway.

Consider too that when this happens, life is no longer bounded by identity.

So for those without purpose, cut through the drama by perpetually maintaining the intent of life, since that's what it comes to anyway.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Dennis Mahar »

We make our meaning, but that only works if you aren't aware that the meaning is meaningless.
That distinction gets you 'in the zone'.

the advanced course is:

it's empty and meaningless THAT it's empty and meaningless.
that distinction gets you into the ontological domain of the being of human being which is 'meaning maker'.

I'll talk about the zone and you'll daresay know what I mean because the purpose of your group is to get the fans 'in the zone'.

Sports people, singers, musicians, actors know about the zone.
Tiger Woods says 'it went like a dream'...'I was in the zone'.

A quarterback whilst being praised to the limits by journalists after a superbowl win said:
Zone did it.
I was putting the ball where the ball isn't.
Where the ball isn't happened to be touchdown.
'I' got out of the way.
It went like a dream, pinch me.

People take anti depressants to block out that nagging causal stream of thoughts/feelings (the 'I') in order to get some space.

In zen, zone is called 'Beginner's Mind'.

It's not fully enlightened but it's a necessary precursor.
An ever deepening experience of it sets in train 'enlightenment' I am reliably informed.

The one true thing that's possible for meaning maker that makes a difference, that gets you in the ballpark.
Drives down past the causal stream,
the winning formula,
the complaint, the coping with whatever shows up,
go deeper, go deeper, go deeper.

get to this:
I love you because I love you.
It's a declaration to Life.
not to a person, idea, institution, thing.

It's at the core. it's there.
It's you.
It's the guts.

Life throws us in one end and tosses us out the other like a set of bookends.
Looks like a rough deal.
It ain't.
It's a fuckin' privilege.
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Dennis Mahar wrote: get to this:
I love you because I love you.
It's a declaration to Life.
not to a person, idea, institution, thing.
Loving everything because everything puts you in complete awe at all times if you are looking at it from an unclouded view point.

... how miraculous and amazing is this conversation alone, we are part of something, and IT, the universe, whatever it is, (whether a physical world, a dream, or whatever else) is so incredibly amazing that to not be in reverence and awer of it is to be caught in delusion.

I feel this often, and it is incredible, even now I watch here at the view of this screen, my hands typing away so fast as the words I have written, or the words written through me, appear on the screen and then through those actions they appear in the perspectives of you and whoever else reads them.

I do not think tho that this state is as extremely blissful at all times as some might make you believe about enlightenment, for example, no matter how amazing these creations, being inside and staring at a wall, or even GF posts for too long, can be very boring or tiresome, instead of miraculous.

I think the winning formula requires also to properly put to use our potential, of being "in the zone", I just need help.

Non-action vs action?

Lao Tzu acted
Buddha acted
User avatar
Kunga
Posts: 2333
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:04 am
Contact:

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Kunga »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:Lao Tzu actedBuddha acted
Were their egos activated when they acted ?
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Dennis Mahar »

You are in the zone John.
a fortunate condition.

Tiger Woods was in the zone,
it went like a dream,
it was his winning formula,
it went to his head,
he went to the 'crowd',
he went to the wild parties, the booze, the classy hookers, the private jets, the mega money,

now he's saying it went like a nightmare.

awesomeness, heady emotion, excitement, action man are 'brilliant', 'fantastic', 'exhilerating', 'spectacular', 'surprising'.
these are effects experienced 'in the zone'.
They drive a human into the world in a powerful way as a world eater.
gobble, gobble, yum, yum.

May I suggest the possibilty,
premature ejaculation.

The ever deepening experience of zone has zone as simply ordinary,

I don't think anything in particular surprises Quinn,
The way I get Quinn is,

'nothing is out of the ordinary'.
'what's all the fuss about'
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

That's where you have gone wrong, you have dismissed excitement or striving to take action(as this requires a plan, a desire) due to some faulty belief that its somehow not good or not allowed.

Tiger woods is a very bad example.

Gandhi.

It is part of life, to be in the zone, to achieve things using your mind, even if that goes against the idea of "non-action" or an empty and dull mind.

I don't know who Quinn is.

Kunga

Yes I believe so. They were just children remember, I think of them as human and ordinary as you, just with some great insights a long long time before us, we could have just as easily been reading from Kunga. You on the other hand expressed a belief that the Buddha was some kind of God-like being that took form here intentionally, or were you just pointing out some Buddhists beliefs?
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Cahoot wrote: So for those without purpose, cut through the drama by perpetually maintaining the intent of life, since that's what it comes to anyway.
Yes but I think of anything less than aiming to express the fullest of my potential as a waste, it feels otherwise boring for me, useless without the quality, the creation, real action, and there needs to be a real and worthwhile goal for there to be real action, one can should act without expectation but not without intent.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Dennis Mahar »

You've got a button called 'ordinary'

it's eay to push.

ring a ding ding.
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

So you think I should accept it, through wisdom I should help where I can, live life in the moment, "A good traveler has no fixed plans", strive to be of good character, and make my impact in my own little way not worrying about a bigger picture that isn't really there for me?

Is this what you mean by "hit the ordinary button"?
User avatar
Kunga
Posts: 2333
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:04 am
Contact:

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Kunga »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:You on the other hand expressed a belief that the Buddha was some kind of God-like being that took form here intentionally, or were you just pointing out some Buddhists beliefs?
It is said (in Buddhist literature), that Buddha resided in Tushita Heaven as a God, before he was incarnated on Earth. I have no way of proving or disproving this information.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Dennis Mahar »

The 'scoop' on Ghandi is this.

He was an arrogant little prick who subjected his wife to insane tirades of verbal abuse and repeated beatings.

After a while the little lady discovered that for Ghandi, Ghandi being Ghandi was nothing out of the ordinary.

She no longer reacted to Ghandi being Ghandi. Ghandi was being Ghandi.

After 30 years of Ghandi Being Ghandi which was nothing out of the ordinary for Ghandi nor his wife who couldn't find anything extra ordinary in that for Ghandi, being Ghandi was nothing out of the ordinary.

Well, Ghandi 'grokked' his wife.

He could see that for Ghandi's wife, in not reacting to Ghandi being Ghandi which was nothing out of the ordinary for Ghandi, then Ghandi's wife for Ghandi's wife was nothing out of the ordinary for Ghandi's wife who could see Ghandi being Ghandi was nothing out of the ordinary for Ghandi.

get the drift?

Anyway Ghandi pinched his wife's approach,
served it up to the British rulers,
called it passive resistance,
touchdown.

The upshot is,
Ghandi gets paraded around the circus ring to tumultuous applause.
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Is what your saying true? It sounds a little hard to believe, his whole theme was non-violence
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Dennis Mahar »

his whole theme was non-violence
that came later.
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

How do you know what your saying is accurate?

I think if it were true I still don't blame him, ignorance and a lack of control is the root of evil, you cannot blame someone for being ignorant, for all we know his words alone could have done great good for millions, everything is much too interconnected for there to be a right or wrong that isn't simply based on perspective.

...Gandhi was shot, what to make of all this?
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Dennis Mahar »

I travelled throuhout India.
I didn't read the brochures or wiki.

It's not out of the ordinary for Indian men to abuse their wives.
It's not out of the ordinary for Australian men to abuse their wives.

Just look at it.
Buddha was talking about all the viewpoints.
All the ways of being for human being.
Ghandi's wife is a way of being. Ghandi is a way of being.

This zone is a way of being that is not out of the ordinary,
it's a condition.

Geldof got it,
made some assessments,
a set of options,
a winning formula.
his project was 'feed the world'
he rallied his fans to the cause.

Bono's project was 'Third world poverty'.

I've made some assessments,
weighed up the options and come up with a winning formula.
I'm going to present it to you for you.

It's thrilling, exciting, groundbreaking and wonderful.

The project is to rally your fans around a single cause and pull it off together.

The cause is.
Raise a million dollars for Dennis.
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

And for the inevitable next question, what would you do with your million dollars?
User avatar
Diebert van Rhijn
Posts: 6469
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:I am talking about the ultimately selfish nature of people, they would reject you almost instantly if you were acting against their self-interest, it is inevitable, no matter how close you might think the connection, no matter how long it has been around for, it can be severed within minutes, no matter what else they might have you believe.
My question would be why anyone would act against someone's interest if one has such as 'close' connection, investment or attachment to that other self? What seems to happens with close connections is that one identifies with the other, turning the other into a partial mirror. Of course in relationships one is constantly acting against each other but a lot can be accepted still. My point is that it's not that easy for a strong mutual connection to be severed just because of some extreme behavior or words. More likely the other will doubt your sanity or think you are drunk and will recover later. And for yourself, to sever a connection first requires decreasing attachment and investment. Otherwise this acting against self-interest will just never happen, only hypothetically!
Yes wanting a worthwhile purpose is a desire, a future goal in mind, but alternatively there is only ever the moment, which can be both blissful or incredibly boring.
Perhaps better to say the mood, the setting or 'we' are blissfull or boring? The moment can only be empty otherwise it would be past.
Yes we can create all kinds of reasons, but they will be void of purpose.
We can imagine a purpose, but it will be void of reason.
Isn't that the same then: having a purpose or a reason for something? The purpose supplies the reason. Perhaps this is even how reasoning might work? Purposeful thinking, aimed, directed towards? It's in the shape and the shaping somehow.
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Purpose supplies a reason to get to that purpose, but it doesn't supply a reason for having that purpose in the first place. There is no reason, there are only options, we have to choose because we have a lack of choice.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Dennis Mahar »

There is no reason, there are only options
That's right.
There is no reason.

There is no reason for war.
there are causes/conditions for war.
war is empty and meaningless because there is no reason for it.

the suffering entailed in war has meaning.

there is no reason for world hunger.
there are causes/conditions for world hunger.
world hunger is empty and meaningless because there is no reason for it.

the suffering entailed in world hunger has meaning.

there is no reason for poverty.
there are causes/conditions for poverty.
poverty is empty and meaningless because there is no reason for it.

the suffering entailed in poverty has meaning.

there is no justification or reasonableness for and about those conditions.

the set of options are the possibilities for relationship.

the winning formula is the eradication of suffering through the elimination of erroneous thinking.

Arguing for and against a metaphysic is impractical and downright useless.

access to the ontological domain of human being which discloses human being as 'meaning maker'.

has human being of a sufficient intelligence to delve into the causes/ conditions entailed in suffering and remedy the circumstances.
SeekerOfWisdom
Posts: 2336
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Dennis Mahar wrote:
there is no justification or reasonableness for and about those conditions.

the set of options are the possibilities for relationship.

the winning formula is the eradication of suffering through the elimination of erroneous thinking.
Your right, causes/conditions, the cause is.... they don't have a real purpose or reason, their whole lives are based on

"For all is but a woven web of guesses”
― Xenophanes
-One of the most important quotes in existence.

People don't know this, they don't know not to know, their reasons and purposes are based on these guesses, we are all insane.
Some more so than others. The lessers usually appear the greaters.
Dennis Mahar
Posts: 4082
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:03 pm

Re: Not having a purpose is insanity

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Are we in the gestalt of certainty here.

There is no reason.
There are causes/conditions.
Locked