Do you feel secure?

[TheGrassIsGreener]

Do you feel secure? Is your life worth living? Did someone go that little bit further today and do something that made you feel validated? Are you happy? What exactly do you have, to feel happy about? It may be true that your own collection of neurons have randomly connected to create a semblance of personality or free will, and it may be true that your own "character", or "personality" has been lucky enough to encounter other "personalities" that mesh so well with your artificially created idea of yourself so that you can pump out that extra supply of endorphins, but does that make you inherently superior to an insect, who I can only assume are extremely self confident because their entire existence is so simple that there is nothing to be insecure about?
Or does it make you exactly the same, a collection of base elements so retardedly complex that it mistakenly believes that it has something that bears a passing resemblance to a mind? So what makes you a better creature than that same insect, is it because you have a bloated sense of self-importance? Is it because you have that ill-defined bizarre human creation, that empty nothingness that is thought of as a "soul"? Because if we really think about it... really think about it... there is no difference. WE ARE THE SAME. THE EXACT SAME.
In fact, maybe that grasshopper, or cockroach, or whatever (termite), maybe that simple piece of machinery (yellowjacket) is actually superior to, and I use the quotations only to prove a point, superior to "you" After all, that assembly of electrons and protons and neutrons (fruit fly), and atoms and chemicals (millipede) and substrates and tissues (butterfly... aww so pretty) and organs and homeostatic conditions and entire bodily system does not have the delusion that it needs to think to survive. Whereas, we humans have evolved to the point where we gladly entrust every living organism on this planet to another dumb ape who is only better than any other dumb ape by having convinced these other dumb apes that he is a slightly less dumb... ape. How is that any better of a system than not thinking at all? So, next time somebody compliments "you", when "you" feel that tingly, happy sensation of being liked, think... why am I happy? And go ahead and grab that opportunity to ask "yourself",

Why do I feel secure?
And feel free to continue on to:

Who is "I"?
Then pass right on to:

What am "I"?
and last but certainly not least,

Why, am "I"?

TheGrassIsGreener added 4 Minutes and 41 Seconds later...

Sorry, um, a few things that I feel I should clarify:

I realize this came of sounding a teensy weensy bit superior, but I completely lump "myself" in with all of you other machines. I have no more free will than you do.

secondly, i don't want to challenge anyone with this, this was written in good humor. I don't want anyone to get angry... or anything like that.

(Why would anyone get angry about that piece of shit post I just sent up, there's the bloated self-importance again. Remember... just a cog in the machine, that's all i am, a cog in a machine.)

[Metomni]

I was talking to a certain penguin the other day about inanimate objects having souls. We were talking about the differences in souls between a human and a dog, for example, and then I said something like, "What about that chair?"

He thought I was ridiculous for saying that an inanimate and nonliving object could have a soul, but I don't see what is so ridiculous about the proposition.

While I don't believe conscious thought makes us "superior" to a grasshopper or a blade of grass, I do believe it grants us certain obligations. It grants us a form of superiority in the fact that we are then given the job of protecting the things that cannot protect themselves. But it's sad to see that oftentimes what we must protect them from is ourselves.

Maybe that is the curse of consciousness.

[Heretic.Ape.]

There is certainly a vast difference between an insect and a human. While this may not merit any sort of objective "value" difference between the two (a human concept), I would consider a human who did not embrace the fullness of what made them human (messy, crazy, relativistic emotions and feelings of identity) to be attempting to avoid such by meaningless semantic pussyfooting. The one who's nature encompasses value bears the burden of living within it's own judgment. So the question becomes, why don't I feel secure?

[sylenth]

yeah the ego... we are exactly the same as other living things out there, except we have more capabilities that puts us at the top of the food chain which makes people feel superior. our means of communication is different to animals 'i think,' it appears they do'nt communicate as we do & this is our capability that causes most of the problems in the world. imagine we could'nt write or speak to not influence others with all our thoughts. yes we would 'evolve slower' but we would be less influenced to not being ourselves.

we probably would feel more secure as observers thinking of our own thoughts from what we see. but we are quite amazing with all these capabilities so this world we have created for ourselves is very influenced from society which has built up to such a stage that people forget where they come from & who they used to be thousands of years ago when our ancestors were primitave.

is it somewhere in our genes/mind imprinted knowing we come from a unpopulated built up natural environment where we were equal to the other life on the planet thousands of years ago? smurf loves to get away from the city often & in the middle of nowhere to look at things out of the box. then you feel secure, but i would say you will never feel totally secure & content as you do'nt know any answers to where you come from & where you will go & why you are here.

it's the biggest mystery in the world & everyone who is self aware is just in shock the whole time that we are here & alive wondering what our purpose is whilst just loving it the best they can. it's a lot to come to grips with & take in to get comfortable with.

the cliche patience is a virtue... but what are you waiting for? will there be an answer at the end of this life? there's an answer for everything so there should be...

[Stationary Traveller]

Swim tends to think another way about these "answers". For swim, there are no "answers" to life because it is not a question, not a path or a test or anything else that we think it is other than what it is. It just is. Just like the trippy fractals on your computer screen, swim thinks life is an elegant recursive fractal "code" (for the lack of a better word) that you supposedly "live". This is not to say "nothing is real, matrix bla bla". The causal relationship has been so hardly structured into our minds that we either explain things by what caused them, or resort to god or whatever to explain it. Simply for swim, it becomes a question of egg-chicken and which comes first, "reality" (the universe and every existing thing you can think of) or "existance" (the awareness of such realities).
The answer, in swims mind is that there is no answer. So why should I feel secure in the midst of all this chaos and blurriness? Because "I" am all that there is and nothing at all at the same time. Alan Watts often touched on how we are the same organism as the universe. So why should I feel insecure when everything I could do is basically right? (and no the mention of "what if I kill 800 babies" would just be useless because swim is talking about rational and healthy people).
You may think swim is f'ed up in the head but yeah that may sum up what swim currently thinks about it all. No reason to be insecure at all.

[psyche]

Stationary Traveller nailed it down. When one realizes there is ultimately nothing permanent in universe, at the same time it follows that there is nothing to lose. We are the same phenomena than the universe, and it's a common delusion to try to get a firm hold on who you happen to be in this life. Reincarnation feels so unrealistic when one tries to define the 'you' that starts a new life again after death, but there is no ultimate 'you'. It's just the word we need to use to implicate that after death there isn't eternal unconsciousness, which would be as unnatural as any vacuum in nature.

[MissingFet]

Sometimes the Doggie finds it really hard to believe that when it comes down to it, the final countdown, the time of no longer roaming the planet as a physical phenomena, that nothing, absolutely nothing exists...

Life is just awesome and relishing in that as much as you can is by far your right as an individual. Do we think that animals relish in life, most definitely they do their utmost to have a hell of a good time doing what they do best... being the animals...

The Doggie does not see that in any way or form he is superior to anything... anything at all because thats just being egotistical in his mind.

Doggie believes in Energy, in all forms, when energy changes it becomes a new kind of energy. like love is an energy all on its own, as with all the other emotions, you as a being are energy, and when you pass your energy from the way you are now to the way you might be after this... well thats going to be so awesome to see and the Doggie almost cannot wait with anticipation to see the energy he could become. who knows, could be completely nutter too of course... nothing makes sense cause it most certainly isn't a question, questioning it all the time would surely bring some irritation to ones life, just enjoy it. Its what you got right now... enjoy every moment of it.

The doggie feels secure because when he wakes in the morning he is immediately grateful that whatever gave him the opportunity to wake up in the morning and experience another day of this awesome life... well thank you, thank you so very very much. what/who/how ever you are.

[Euthanatos93420]

If "I" am a multidimensional creature whose very consciousness (in tangent with other multidimensional entities cooperating to support the same) creates the 4 dimensional hologram we are experiencing...

then "smart" people like "us" with reductive inclinations about our minds and the nature of reality...

probably shouldn't do drugs...

because we might turn this reality into an omagwatafack or the earth into a giant tomato like mars or some such other ridiculous trip.

No...just kidding...dope away man, reality will come back after your done tripping anyway right? Well...as long as you don't go fucking with the fourth dimension.

Well...all in all you're only fucking with your reality. But if someone intelligent with reductive mental understand of the hologram ever started a large enough jim jones type cult and had enough people dropping acid or some such....then convinced them the world was a tomato....would it become one? Could the whales survive on the seeds? would they turn back into plankton when they stopped tripping? What if they all mass suicide while tripping and left the world a tomato?