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March, 2024

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A very humbling perspective on the life we live

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Freshbakedbread
Posts: 949 - Karma: 483
This video summarises our insignificance and how fortunate we are to be conscious beings. We are alone in this vast universe, all living on a spec of dust.

Before you go comment, i encourage you to reflect on the life you are so fortunate to have and the planet you are so lucky to live on. Some of you Newschoolers might not be mature enough to react to this video, but I challenge you to think about the message.

"Some people cry because a celebrity dies, some cry because they lose something precious to them, some cry because they win something amazing that will change their life, others cry because they are amazed by life and the universe."

it's totally cool to cry because of this video.
Feb 21 2012 10:47PM
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Nurgle
Posts: 1249 - Karma: 15
I hate this shit. It simply furthers my depression.

Nothing you do will ever matter, everything you try is useless. Say you do something great, maybe it will last 200 years. Do something amazing, such as plato. Youll be remembered thousands. Yet within 10-12k years, nothing will matter, because absolutely everyone will be dead, and the human species extinct. That love you have in someone is pointless, they will die soon. You will work hard, for a chemical balance of happiness, yet it will go to waste.

Your family does not matter in 60 years, your greatness in college does not matter, your work in your job does not matter.
Feb 21 2012 11:02PM
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RickAstley
Posts: 953 - Karma: 32
what a fucking terrible outlook to have on life

The fact that the things we do won't matter in 100 years is precisely what doesn't matter. What matters is making the most of the privilege of being alive you have been given. If what you're doing makes you happy, then who cares if nobody remembers you 200 years in the future. You won't be around to care. Life is a gift. Get out there and don't waste it.
Feb 21 2012 11:09PM
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Ruffles
Posts: 1132 - Karma: 29
Holy this, dude get some sunshine and rethink some stuff!
Feb 21 2012 11:12PM
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Nurgle
Posts: 1249 - Karma: 15
But then how do you feel knowing that the decisions you make, and the things you do, negatively affects other people around the world? Every purchase doesnt carry only a monetary value, but a value upon nature, and a negative value on other people?

Or the fact that with everything you do/use kills the earth a bit more, so therefore, your family, your kids will simply be in a worse situation when they are your age?
Feb 21 2012 11:13PM
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sherwood4099
Posts: 1173 - Karma: 22
Well enjoy your life man That kind of perspective will end up becoming a self for filling prophecy. you'll be doomed to not get as far as more passionate, realistic people around you and in turn will probably will live a less comfortable and enjoyable life believing shit like that
Feb 21 2012 11:13PM
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Freshbakedbread
Posts: 949 - Karma: 483
very well said. Just live in the moment. Consciousness really fascinates me... what decides who becomes conscious, and our identity?
Feb 21 2012 11:13PM
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Nurgle
Posts: 1249 - Karma: 15
More realistic? I believe what I said was as realistic as you can be.
Feb 21 2012 11:16PM
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Nurgle
Posts: 1249 - Karma: 15
Explain your questions on consciousness?
Feb 21 2012 11:17PM
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Freshbakedbread
Posts: 949 - Karma: 483
Are there people, who don't have a body but could become conscious through birth? I think the answer to that question would be no, because that would be talking about souls and what not, I just want to put into perspective how fortunate I am to identify myself as a person, an individual.
Feb 21 2012 11:19PM
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Amadeus.
Posts: 3050 - Karma: 382
this is a great video that ties a long nicely with this one. Do not despair people, this life is beautiful.

Feb 21 2012 11:23PM
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RickAstley
Posts: 953 - Karma: 32
Man firstly that is not true, many things that I do don't harm the planet. But you're slightly right in that a lot of them do.

How do I feel about it? Well there are some things you can change and some things you can't. The fact that most things we do are damaging to the environment is one of those we can't, Unless we go and live off the land in a forest somewhere, which is obviously not a very realistic option.

All we can do is make the best of our situation. Be kind to others and to yourself, and don't waste your time thinking about shitty things like what you just said.
Feb 21 2012 11:23PM
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Nurgle
Posts: 1249 - Karma: 15
I guess it has to do with my brain chemistry, because essentially it is what I think about consistently.

Feb 21 2012 11:26PM
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CassiusClay
Posts: 1757 - Karma: 2
How does this video not make you (anyone) depressed?
Feb 21 2012 11:28PM
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Nurgle
Posts: 1249 - Karma: 15
your identity is formed based off of social situations. That is how a person continues to grow and develop. Without social interaction, you would die. It has been proven true a multitude of times. Your not some free/special identity. Your simply a part of every other person, and influenced by whichever society you grew up in. This is where your identity is developed.
Feb 21 2012 11:28PM
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Steve-Brown
Posts: 1894 - Karma: 810
eh
this shit wasn't that bad, it makes you realize problems aren't as bad as they seem. which takes the emotion out of some problems and has you get shit done.
that's my stupid 15year old perception on it haha
Feb 21 2012 11:42PM
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Freshbakedbread
Posts: 949 - Karma: 483
you're not stupid. For me, it makes me not fear death, but love life.
Feb 21 2012 11:44PM
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Freshbakedbread
Posts: 949 - Karma: 483
That is very interesting. So based on that, different cultures would have different senses of self which makes sense. It's amazing how our brains work and I don't think we'll ever fully understand them.
Feb 21 2012 11:46PM
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PhilboydStudge
Posts: 3431 - Karma: 206
That's not necessarily bad, it just means you're trying to be as unselfish as possible to the world and the world's future. I do that a lot too, and I have problems with a lot of stuff sometimes. While there's a lot of negative that you can focus on, there's also a lot of positive stuff. Not everything you do impacts the earth negatively, some stuff helps. Pick up trash, use less water and waste, etc. Sure it's little things, but many of the negative things you think about are also little things. Remember, the earth has a finite amount of resources and would be wearing down regardless of if we were here or not. It's good to want to reduce your wastefulness, but you have to be grateful for the fact that you are you, you can think, and you can do things here. If you're able to understand even just a bit of that, it's amazing. I'm very rarely able to do that and appreciate things, but damn, when I do, life is beautiful.



If that's not some hippy shit I don't know what is.
Feb 21 2012 11:50PM
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Freshbakedbread
Posts: 949 - Karma: 483
It's not "hippy shit" its "Human shit"
Feb 21 2012 11:59PM
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UFOsarereal
Posts: 2282 - Karma: 1,109
Click for larger image
Feb 22 2012 12:19AM
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PhilboydStudge
Posts: 3431 - Karma: 206
Touche to your reply to my post. And your other posts, good stuff.

So true also how different cultures have different senes of self. This type of stuff is what makes me want to study the brain, it's so fascinating.
Feb 22 2012 12:38AM
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Freshbakedbread
Posts: 949 - Karma: 483
I'm just trying to be "real" or genuine. Because no matter how we are raised or in what culture, I think there is some fundamental similarity between all humans, and that's what I'm trying to speak to.

I'm also working on a short film that embodies Sagan's concepts, I want to create a visual to show the way I think without being to "in your face." I'll post it when it's done.
Feb 22 2012 12:45AM
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StoneFacedBuddha
Posts: 54 - Karma: 12
Screw the rest of the posts in this thread that drip with the existential terror and optimism; this is what I'm feeling.
Feb 22 2012 1:11AM
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Bogs
Posts: 4296 - Karma: 1,361
honestly, that was one of the dumbest things i've ever seen. i'm not hating on the op or anything but it really was. it was almost sickening how hard the narrator tried to be poetic about how small we are and just kept saying the same thing over an over again for 4 ish minutes in different fancy words. then they said that because we haven't found life to exist on other planets, it probably doesnt, which is just a huge logical fallacy, then it said that because we are small and alone we should be nice to each other. i dunno about you guys, but if being small and alone is what motivates you to treat the people around you with kindness and respect, theres something wrong. someone please explain to me whats so meaningful and deep about this video?

Feb 22 2012 9:49AM
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Bogs
Posts: 4296 - Karma: 1,361
and coming from a scientist/atheist that richard dawkings video was incredibly odd. his argument is that we should enjoy life because we are lucky to be here instead of all the other people that could be here in our place? what does that even mean? who the hell is supposed to be here instead of us? i mean yeah, i guess if you want to look at it that way you can say its incredibly lucky that your parents met in the first place and were able to conceive you, but its not like there are the souls of billions of potential humans floating around waiting for the right two people to meet to make up their genealogy so they can be born. and unless thats what he's thinking then i don't see how its "lucky" that you even exist. and if that is what he's thinking than thats an awfully unscientific/religious view on things, which isn't bad, but i thought his point was its more meaningful to be an atheist than to be religious.
Feb 22 2012 10:03AM
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e_strapp
Posts: 1116 - Karma: 212
threads for when not in class. kind of anxious to watch this
Feb 22 2012 10:08AM
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wasatch_rat
Posts: 1771 - Karma: 2,937
get off newschoolers, go skiing, find a nice pretty girl, treat aforementioned female right and make some love. see if you don't feel a little better. i'm saying that genuinely not to be a dick
Feb 22 2012 10:09AM
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fujarome
Posts: 8630 - Karma: 1,561
do you by any chance enjoy michael bay films?


The narrator, by the way, is Carl Sagan. And he's trying to be poetic because that's how he always described such things. He repeats because he's trying to get it to sink into people's minds how irrelevant and insignificant we are, and constant repetition will make people think about it more. It doesn't say life doesn't exist, it means that the odds of us ever finding it are extraordinarily low.


The small and alone=friendliness part comes back to the fact that most of our wars and fighting is over a grand total of nothing.


Some people just don't get I guess. I understand how you wouldn't see it the same way as others, but just think about it a bit or watch/read more of his stuff.
Feb 22 2012 11:37AM
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Bogs
Posts: 4296 - Karma: 1,361
haha why would you think i like michael bay's movies? i dont not like them i guess.

just because he's always tried to be poetic doesn't make it less annoying/poorly done, and the repition just seems very insulting/condescending, its not like i've never heard before that the earth is pretty darn small compared to the whole universe. and you're right, i heard wrong bout other life forms, my bad on that.

i don't understand what people mean when they say things like "fact that most of our wars and fighting is over a grand total of nothing." do you mean that wars break out about literally nothing or that on the grand scale of the universe it doesnt matter? and no, i suppose i don't get the significance of the message here. as far as i can tell he says: earth is small, we're alone, so be nice to each other. is there something i'm missing? if so, what?
Feb 22 2012 12:51PM
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Petey.
Posts: 5736 - Karma: 4,881
As much as you pussies want to disagree with this guy, he's totally right. Stop trying to kid yourselves.
Feb 22 2012 1:00PM
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feihlination
Posts: 8356 - Karma: 1,084
yes he is right. and its sad that we never will see the universe with our own eyes.

i am not happy and grateful for being born in general. i just am very thankful for the fact that i was born in one of the richest areas of the world (like most of us) and we can REALLY enjoy our lifes because we dont have to worry about surviving day in day out.

face it. whether your happy or sad, nothing really matters. take life easy and dont be so freaking uptight about everything. enjoy the ride or not, whatever you want
Feb 22 2012 1:08PM
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fujarome
Posts: 8630 - Karma: 1,561
haha originally I was gonna type just that as a witty remark but opted to elaborate and never deleted it, so ignore that part.


I don't doubt that you've heard the same concept, but it probably comes from the same guy. He's the one who really made it famous. The repetition just sinks it better for some people, and not for others. He's just trying to reiterate that as being the main point.

And I mean wars are effectively over nothing on the grander scale. Of course on our terms we fight over things that are important like land or governments. This is referring to us and war on a different level.

think of it like this.

1. the individual-this is where most people focus
2. family/friends
3. larger group like a town or county
4. even larger group, like a state
5. country
6. continent
7. hemisphere
8. planet -this is the level the video is on

It means that we are all essentially on the same playing field as humans, and every other division is something we've created for ourselves. So why fight?

Or if that doesn't work imagine being stuck on a raft with 6 other people, would it benefit any of you to fight over what you have?


Admittedly the whole thing is very idealistic, but I guess that's the novelty of it all.
Feb 22 2012 1:10PM
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Bogs
Posts: 4296 - Karma: 1,361
well therein lies the rub. i didn't misunderstand the point, good. i just don't agree with it. i think its way too cold hearted and simplistic to say that, because we are small in the universe our problems and feelings shouldn't matter. small and insignificant aren't the same thing. i dont think that, just because we are incredibly small in the grand scale of the universe, we are insignificant.

for me, any kind of living, thinking, feeling thing is significant; the fact that the things i do effect the people i surround myself with every day is very important, even if to the proceedings of the universe itself it won't have any impact. it's incredibly selfish, and you'd have to care unbelievably little about the people around you, to embrace the idea that the way you make them feel every day doesn't matter because it won't effect the course of the whole universe. You're absolutely right about the scale and that the individual/self is where people focus. but this almost has to happen because the only way you experience the world is through yourself and through your own thoughts and feelings. even when you do feel sympathetic towards someone its still through your own emotions and thinking, like "oh, i didn't like when that happened to me, so i understand how this person is probably feeling and don't like when it happens to them either."

i think the theory of relativity is important here. sure i could take a few trillion steps back and look at the whole universe and see how small i really am, but that's not how living things experience life. We experience it in the here and now of our lives and its this immediacy that i think is most important. It's certainly true that what i do in this life on earth will have no effect on other living things that almost surely live on some impossibly far away planet, just as what they do has no effect on us, but that doesn't mean their problems and feelings are any less significant because of this or because i don't know what they are.

sparknotes: i dont know if any of that made sense, but i guess what i'm basically trying to say is that everything we do is incredibly significant because its significant to each of us personally, and to those around us and that something doesn't have to effect the entire universe just for it to be important.

p.s. about the wars, i think they do matter because of what i said above obviously, but we humans really do still choose some horrible things to kill millions of people over
Feb 22 2012 4:09PM
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whegrodamus.
Posts: 933 - Karma: 12
threads for later when I'm in a downer mood
Feb 22 2012 5:09PM
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AwR
Posts: 5147 - Karma: 1,878
run joy
Feb 22 2012 5:09PM
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fujarome
Posts: 8630 - Karma: 1,561
The way you think is the same as everybody else. Hell I bet even sagan thought like that the majority of the time. Like you say, it's natural and normal, and we need to in order to function.


I think the purpose of this video is more just to point it out to us rather than instruct us to live our lives from this galactic viewpoint. Remember it while doing things we usually do, and so on.


Feb 22 2012 5:13PM
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GavinW
Posts: 574 - Karma: 89
thats really crazy to think about........really crazy
Feb 22 2012 5:16PM
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freestyler540
Posts: 13045 - Karma: 18,290
well, this notion is the base of my life philosophy
Feb 22 2012 5:18PM
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skithesprings
Posts: 9086 - Karma: 1,349
You suck.

I on the other hand know that my life is going to be fucking awesome, I can ski whenever the fuck I want, get laid on a fairly regular basis, and I have my family and friends. Who the fuck cares if the world remembers you? I do too much shit I wouldn't want the world to know about anyways, plus I could care less if you know who I am. What fucking difference does it make?

I'm going to keep on loving the fuck out of life.
Feb 22 2012 5:19PM
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freelowda
Posts: 1311 - Karma: 1,583



Autotune is better
Feb 22 2012 5:34PM
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Italian.Stallion
Posts: 564 - Karma: 101
I sorta disagree. Although we are small in size, our significance as a life form spans much greater lengths than we see everyday. As far as we know, we are the ONLY LIFE. Sure, there may be other forms out there, but we have not discovered any. Therefore, this planet should not see itself as small, insignificant, and obscure rock in a vast universe but should view itself as an extraordinarily rare but important rock in a vast universe.
Feb 22 2012 5:36PM
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Bogs
Posts: 4296 - Karma: 1,361
i dont think it is the same way everyone else thinks because most people are coming in here and getting their minds blown by the video while i'm still very unimpressed. what is it that the video wants us to remember? that nothing we do in this life matters at all? because that's what i took away as its message
Feb 22 2012 5:55PM
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JWD*
Posts: 466 - Karma: 225
fuck this shit
Feb 22 2012 5:56PM
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Bill.Nye
Posts: 4060 - Karma: 2,109
Well this thread became a downer fast. Just because nothing you do now will matter in 10k years doesn't mean it doesn't matter today. You still matter. The things you do can still be good or bad.
Feb 22 2012 5:57PM
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ironic
Posts: 735 - Karma: 104
I resonate very closely with this belief. We have to appreciate what we have- the people who we have been fortunate enough to meet and the experiences we have obtained in life. I know that it seems as though our lives are worthless in comparison to how expansive the universe really is, but consider about the impact that a person can have on the lives of others around them.
Feb 22 2012 6:01PM
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Utard
Posts: 2132 - Karma: 296
You're totally missing the point. People aren't going to remember you 100 years after you die. Get over it. If you're placing all your self worth in how other people think about you then you're just setting yourself up for failure. If you think your life's going to be a failure and a waste then it will be. Who or what is keeping you from having the best life you can have or being the coolest person on the planet? There's only one person who can do that and it's you. Life is pain but it doesn't have to be misery. You have to allow yourself to be happy with what you have. The point of the video isn't that because we're so small, everything we do is pointless or not worth doing. Its that our lives are so fragile and its such a miraculous thing that we even exist, that we shouldn't waste our time on things that don't make us happy. Yeah that random act of kindness or heartfelt love letter won't matter to anyone 50 years from now. But in that moment you do something to make someone feel important or special or loved, you mean the universe, the whole "vast encompassing cosmos," to them, and that's exponentially better than being remembered for years after you die. Our time here really is incredibly short. A mere blink of an eye in the face of time. The point isn't to make sure you're remembered for several other blinks; it's to make sure your blink was the best it possibly could be.
Feb 22 2012 6:13PM
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