The most important thing in life

[toji.]

The most important thing in life is who you are. When I say that, I mean your body, your values and your intelligence. It may sound ridiculous, but these are the things that really matter. Everything else doesn't matter. You can have all the money and the best clothes in the world, but it won't improve your appearance if you don't work on yourself. If you focus only on material things, you will be chasing after futile and useless things. Money should be used to improve who you are. If you can improve your body, do it. If you can improve your face, do it. If money can strengthen or help in your values or give you more culture and intelligence, do it. But remember that money is not what gives you these improvements; it is only a medium. It is you who transforms that means into something that enriches you.

By the same logic, neither work nor money can define you, because they are external to your being. Although they can have a positive or negative impact, work often has a negative impact. Today, anyone can go to a public library or the Internet and have access to all the books in the world. You can develop your values through reading, writing for free or exercising you body for free. But there are things you can't do for free, especially when it comes to your body: you can't eat, cut your hair, bathe or sleep in a house for free. Work is necessary because money is the universal currency in this world. But as I said before, not everything depends on money. You can be educated and intelligent without needing large amounts of it.

We should be wary of work and digital media that facilitate knowledge. As Foucault said, both work and the digital world are designed to imperceptibly transgress the private sphere of human beings, normalising the inhuman and promoting consumerism and modern slavery. In addition to the constant reproduction of hidden means to brainwash individuals in their use, large algorithms monitor movements and generate tangential and hidden responses that transgress the individual. Therefore, the ideal should be to disengage from work so that it does not consume our essence, and the same applies to the use of the digital world: use it only for what is necessary and prioritise physical media. If we allow ourselves to be defined and determined by work or the digital world, the damage to the individual will be irreparable, as we already see today: masses of consumerist and unhappy people who reproduce the system imposed by the institutions.

It is important to clarify that this is not a "black pill" idea. It is not just about physique. What really matters are the qualities you have and how you can change them. The key is to ask yourself why you want to change something. You need to analyse whether what you want to change will really make you a better version of yourself. It is advisable to work in the short term: ask yourself if getting up earlier tomorrow will help you, or if eating something unhealthy today will help you. If repeating the action will benefit you in the long run, then it is a positive action. But if the repetition leads to degradation, then it is negative.

Let's put this into practice with money. (Maybe this consideration is contrary to those who defend the idea of moneymaxxing). Is it good for me to work from 8 am to 7 pm, Monday? The immediate answers might be:I won't be able to exercise, I won't be able to read the book I want to read and I won't be able to plan my meals. Then comes the typical response from someone focused on money:"What you say is true, but in the long run I'll get paid to work every day, and with that money I'll be able to do more things".Yes, you'll have more money, but you'll have sacrificed 24 days a month for a salary that locks you into a materialistic lifestyle, consuming things that have no real value to you.Yes, you'll have more money, but what good is it if you can't spend it on the things that really matter or the things that don't?"But I'll have more security and I'll be able to afford operations to 'hardmaxx myself'".True, but what do you need more security or health for if your work is making you feel worse?You haven't spent those 24 days working on eating right, exercising, getting enough sleep or being happy.And even if you can 'hardmaxx it', what good will it do you if you can't enjoy it (I'm pretty sure it's possible to 'hardmaxx it' working part-time in Europe and living on the outskirts of a capital city).

At the end, the idea is live as if you will die tomorrow. Live in the present and seek what is best for you. If you follow this path, you will reach what Nietzsche called the "Übermensch". Live with passion, with self-love, and live to make the child who once dreamed proud.

I love y'all very much.​

 

[MaghrebGator]

I think it's a somewhat contradictory message.

If we were to follow a strictly nihilist view (I'm against nihilism) which is what you quote at the end, then the most important thing in life is having all the brain chemicals and nerves in the proper place to be always happy, barely feel sadness and be satisfied very easily with pretty much anything.

People like that barely exist, they are like football players winning the genetic lottery. And we can't even really know it because you never met them under different circumstances, in which one can't predict how they would react. I just can't see some soldier on WW1 in the middle of a wet trench full of mud, cold and rats running around being happy independently of the brain chemicals unless he was living an even worse life, which seems almost impossible and would have been traumatic to the point of no return anyways. However i can see someone with severe parkinson accepting that situation because he just doesn't care. It's very difficult, it depends on too many factors even on a strictly materialistic point of view.

Also happiness and the search for happiness is not necessarily good. If a person lives a "too happy" and comfortable life, all odds are that any kind of problem will be like a strike to his moral because he is just not accostumed to that. Also, the best things in life are not achieved via happiness but by via suffering and pain, so it's impossible to be happy without the latter, and abusing happiness will lead to suffering just like a kid who eats too much sweets will be lead to have bad teeth.

I think the real good message underlying is always to seek for constant balance between the material and the metaphysic the best you can, with a cold mind and calculated approach that leaves room enough to express emotion without being harmful for oneself. And also, try to assume it's impossible to not suffer adversity and that unpredictable things will happen.

 

[Clark69]

Let's put this into practice with money. (Maybe this consideration is contrary to those who defend the idea of moneymaxxing). Is it good for me to work from 8 am to 7 pm, Monday? The immediate answers might be:I won't be able to exercise, I won't be able to read the book I want to read and I won't be able to plan my meals. Then comes the typical response from someone focused on money

Most soul crushing part of most jobs. So much time and effort invested to earn money, and you'll sometimes be too exhausted and burned out to even care to stay up another second, let alone that cash

 

[piec]

what is that goofy ahh text nigger

 

[ngannou]

Jesus Christ thats what matters

 

[toji.]

what is that goofy ahh text nigger

Stf and read, use your black brain in something

 

[toji.]

I think it's a somewhat contradictory message.

If we were to follow a strictly nihilist view (I'm against nihilism) which is what you quote at the end, then the most important thing in life is having all the brain chemicals and nerves in the proper place to be always happy, barely feel sadness and be satisfied very easily with pretty much anything.

People like that barely exist, they are like football players winning the genetic lottery. And we can't even really know it because you never met them under different circumstances, in which one can't predict how they would react. I just can't see some soldier on WW1 in the middle of a wet trench full of mud, cold and rats running around being happy independently of the brain chemicals unless he was living an even worse life, which seems almost impossible and would have been traumatic to the point of no return anyways. However i can see someone with severe parkinson accepting that situation because he just doesn't care. It's very difficult, it depends on too many factors even on a strictly materialistic point of view.

Also happiness and the search for happiness is not necessarily good. If a person lives a "too happy" and comfortable life, all odds are that any kind of problem will be like a strike to his moral because he is just not accostumed to that. Also, the best things in life are not achieved via happiness but by via suffering and pain, so it's impossible to be happy without the latter, and abusing happiness will lead to suffering just like a kid who eats too much sweets will be lead to have bad teeth.

I think the real good message underlying is always to seek for constant balance between the material and the metaphysic the best you can, with a cold mind and calculated approach that leaves room enough to express emotion without being harmful for oneself. And also, try to assume it's impossible to not suffer adversity and that unpredictable things will happen.

There are always special cases and contexts. But I'm not talking about happiness, I'm talking about well-being, they're similar but not the same, happiness is temporary but well-being is permanent, you can be happy and live in discomfort and you can be depressed and live in well-being. There are many people, especially pessimistic ancient philosophers, who lived with great well-being but were depressed.

I think it is more than a chemical process, it is something transcendental, the end is not the means and the means are not the end. It's about the pride and honour of having existed and continuing to exist.

I suppose this concept is always limited to the context, but it can also be adapted to it. In war, good deeds are not compatible with good deeds in a society. That is why in the field of philosophy and law there is the ethics of war (all these discussions related to war crimes) and this can be translated into what I was discussing above.

On the side of the man with Parkinson's, it is the same, he may live sadly because of his suffering, but he can still act on the basis of what is important.

thank you for your comment.