pigeon_of_doom said:
I'm pessimistic. While this doesn't make me much fun to be around, anything better than total failure is a pleasant suprise to me. However, I do miss days when I was less jaded and could give myself over to unfettered enthusiasm.
Pretty much sums it up for me.
I try to be realistic. Which ends up with pessimism for reasons that I don't need to list. Bad things happen, you want to be able to fix them, you can't, and the sheer stupidity of everyone you're surrounded by just makes you want to go on a rampage. Either that, or it's just me.
Either way, I try to think logically. Like "Oh, this could be really good if x, y, and z happen, but person A will fuck up activity x, and person B won't care enough to do activity y well, so what is the point of me even trying when they'll ruin it for me? Oh, hell, I might as well give this a shot anyway."
*20 minutes later*
"Well, what did I expect? Exactly what happened. Oh well."
I've noticed that not having any expectations makes me much happier when things actually turn out for the better, but I am jaded, and I nearly cry every time I see 10 year olds, because either they're so happy I want to burn them, or they don't know how fucked up things are yet. And I get pissed when people complain about where they are, because they should know that people have it worse.
Granted, hey, I have a great life overall, at least it feels that way to me, (ignorance truly is bliss, is it not?) so I occasionally spend some time feeling sorry for people who, you know, don't have a place to sleep, don't have a place to eat, and their kids died the other day in a fire somewhere.
So, it really comes down to me thinking that everything is looking more and more like "The Matrix" and that all college does is program me to go get a generic suburban life where I'm supposed to have a 9-5 and watch American Idol with my happy wife and happy two kids, or whatever the hell, and I just don't buy into it.
It used to make me angry that so much garbage is mainstream (music/movies/culture), but now I just get sad because of it. When "crazy frog" has more listens than any music on youtube by artists I listen to, and "funny cat lol" has more views than some of the guitarists I look up to, I realize that I can do nothing useful on this planet unless it involves image, which makes me start wondering what -is- useful?
Reproducing isn't, because there's too many fucking people as is. Granted, I'd like to feel elitist and think that I'm more useful than the rest of them, but then fucktards go and have sextuplets and octuplets, and rip off the government for money to pay for their kids, and I'm left scratching my head thinking "There will always be more morons than intelligent people."
So I start thinking that I can change the world somehow, make it better, maybe? Nope. Maybe I can help people out a bit by donating to charity? Nope. Someone will always need more money. Doesn't matter how much you spend. Someone will manage to be unemployed, there will always be -some- crime, and a cute percentage doesn't make me feel good when there's only 10 homicides in my town instead of 20, like 2 years ago. (ARBITRARY NUMBERS.)
Then I thought maybe I can invent something? Then I said "invent what?" Then I said "I'll think of something incredible, change the world!" And then I said "Then large company XXX will buy it off me, stifle it until they can make money with it, and hold back human progress (see: gasoline/hydrogen fuel cells, space exploration, etc...). And then I said "well holding humans back from progress is fine. What do we need technology for? It just gives us better ways to be lazy and kill each other."
And that gets me wondering on human nature, and how I'd hope that the need for survival would topple all others, but the amount of backstabbing and lying that I see and can't stop, can't fix, can't change, it just overwhelmed me to the point where I just gave up on everything.
Misanthropy, misandry, misogyny, whatever...I hate everything. Well, not hate, just, I know all it will do is disappoint. I used to love, then I realized it's shit, then I hated, then I realized I can't change it, so you learn to change how you feel with it. So I just tolerate it, and I'll silently wait as the planet spirals down into oblivion.
Basically, I concluded that life is pointless, and the idea is to have fun until you die, or make the world better for the next people to come, which is impossible, so have fun until you die.
Realism brings me to these feelings. Realism that borders on maniacal pessimism. But as long as I continue to fantasize about better things, I should be good.
