Admittedly, I'm pretty impressed with the people you interviewed, Aljoscha. Whenever I think to try and tackle that question, it's a low-odds gamble whether I'll even have a smidgen of a theory, much less a tangible idea of it. It takes a fortuitous meeting to get answers so heartfelt and honest as these, especially if you throw online forums into the mix (nothing against Disqus, but things can get a tad overwhelming pretty quickly).
If I might be able to throw my own hat into the ring, I feel that it's an issue bound by interpretation and perspective. From such a perspective as the person later in your post - regarding the inherent smallness of our lives - we might see how little our actions really do in the eternal scale of things, but also what impacts those actions actually have in our own small corner of existence (whether that might fall into our mind, house, city, state, country, or planet as a whole). And, while someone may interpret what they experience in that mindset as... well, pointless, another might see it as an exercise in finding self-worth, moving the truths of earthly insignificance for a moment, and finding their purpose through new experiences.
Perhaps it's an unpopular opinion, but I feel that unique perspective we carry is a big part of what makes humans... well, people (or whatever you might bestow personhood to, yours might be a different view than mine). We know the facts of mortality, of the grand expanse of everything beyond our little blue marble, but we mold that information - or, perhaps more accurately, pose that information - to act as something malleable. Something we can bear with greater success, that we can manage. Personally, I don't think that means a molded worldview is wrong; it's just a collection of truths viewed from a different perspective. Seeing how everything might work - or might not - before we don't have the chance to perceive that anymore. At least, not in the way that we're comfortable in perceiving it now.
Eh, but what do I know? I'm just a dude on the internet. An intriguing article, to say very little after a long-winded post.
On Jul 7, 2017 Mitchell Gertken wrote:
Admittedly, I'm pretty impressed with the people you interviewed, Aljoscha. Whenever I think to try and tackle that question, it's a low-odds gamble whether I'll even have a smidgen of a theory, much less a tangible idea of it. It takes a fortuitous meeting to get answers so heartfelt and honest as these, especially if you throw online forums into the mix (nothing against Disqus, but things can get a tad overwhelming pretty quickly).
If I might be able to throw my own hat into the ring, I feel that it's an issue bound by interpretation and perspective. From such a perspective as the person later in your post - regarding the inherent smallness of our lives - we might see how little our actions really do in the eternal scale of things, but also what impacts those actions actually have in our own small corner of existence (whether that might fall into our mind, house, city, state, country, or planet as a whole). And, while someone may interpret what they experience in that mindset as... well, pointless, another might see it as an exercise in finding self-worth, moving the truths of earthly insignificance for a moment, and finding their purpose through new experiences.
Perhaps it's an unpopular opinion, but I feel that unique perspective we carry is a big part of what makes humans... well, people (or whatever you might bestow personhood to, yours might be a different view than mine). We know the facts of mortality, of the grand expanse of everything beyond our little blue marble, but we mold that information - or, perhaps more accurately, pose that information - to act as something malleable. Something we can bear with greater success, that we can manage. Personally, I don't think that means a molded worldview is wrong; it's just a collection of truths viewed from a different perspective. Seeing how everything might work - or might not - before we don't have the chance to perceive that anymore. At least, not in the way that we're comfortable in perceiving it now.
Eh, but what do I know? I'm just a dude on the internet. An intriguing article, to say very little after a long-winded post.