1 - Universal turth is a myth.  Everyone has their own
    religion.  I'll search until I find what works for me.

2 - Love is a myth.  People do "kind" things for one of three
    reasons: they expect something in return, they do it to 
    make themselves feel good, of they'er just playin' with
    your head.  When someone says they love you, they mean "I
    love what you do for me." or "I love the way you make me 
    feel."  There is no committment anymore.....look at the 
    divorce rate in America.

3 - Lasting happiness is a myth.  One can enjoy isolated
    things for a certain time, but eventually, happiness gets
    crushed under the weight of reality.

4 - Forgiveness is a myth.  The only reason a person will
    "forgive" another is to maintain the relationship they 
    have with that person.  The only reason they wish to
    maintain that relationship is to keep recieving whatever
    it is they desire from that person.

I haven't always felt this way, and I don't know that I 
always will, but for now, this philosophy of mine seems to 
explain a lot of things.  Some of you are probably jumping up
and down and screaming, "NO!! that's not true!"  That's fine, 
that's your opinion.  This is MY truth, not necessarily
yours.  I understand that this is a pretty pessemistic
lotlook, but life, experiences, and observation have taught
me these things.  I guess it's hard to have a good attitude
when things aren't good.  I suppose that's why point three of
my philosophy makes sense to me.

71 responses total.

In contrast to my response in engima, a serious response follows:

#1. Not sure about this.  My gut feeling is that all religions and
philosophies point to the "truth."  The "real truth" cannot be
explained with words.

#2,4.  I think you're way off base here.  Love is hard work, which is
why so few people do it, but some people *do* work at it.

#3. That's the way the world works.  You have moments of happiness and
moments of sadness.  Instead of thinking that reality crushes
happiness, think of it as a big wheel that swings round and round.
Accept happiness when you have it and sadness when it comes your way.

Re Point 2 - Actually, I'm kind of amazed at how many people actually
stay together for so long.  That's probably just me.

Re Point 3 - "The weight of reality"?  How much does it weigh?  Wait,
reality exists in deep space (I think), so it should really be "the
mass of reality".  No, I promised I'd keep the silly responses in
enigma.

I too used to think that "reality" was an evil thing which only wanted
to destroy me, slowly and painfully.  I changed my attitude, and hey
presto, reality became a decent place to be.  Not perfect, but if reality
were perfect, I'd get bored really quickly.  >8)

Sadly, this does remind me of how I felt just a few years ago.  You can
change it if you want, believe me.  (Or am I just saying that because I
want sometihng from you?  Hmm...)

Sounds like somebody just had a nasty breakup...

What's your point, Chris?

Re: #3  I had a difficult time in a long-term relationship with
someone because she believed as you do, and I believed (and still
do) the opposite.  I have been basically happy almost all my
life.  Circumstances made me unhappy from time to time, sometimes
for more than a year, but reality for me is basically a happy
thing.

   Forgiveness is not a myth.  I forgave the person in that
relationship not to continue the relationship (which was
over, over, over), but because 1) the hurts given were a result
of deep-seated problems in her past, not from malice and 
2) because you have trouble putting pain behind you if you
do not forgive the person who gives it to you.  Or at least,
I do.

Re #5, reason (2):  Indeed.  Forgiveness is a way of being kind to
yourself, and does not mean that you want anything more from the
forgivee (or that you even want to see them again).

Alright, here we go....
 I pretty much agree with #1, because truth is very subjective. However,
this doesn't mean that there isn't a reality or anything, just that 
probably every single person has different ideas of what the true reality
or true ANYTHING is. But I think that that's a good thing, not bad. If
everyone believed in the same thing life would be rather boring, I think-
not enough arguments to go round...;)
 With #2, I'm just confused as to what your definition of "love" is anyhow.
Do you think that love would only be true if when they said, "I love you", 
they really meant "I love what I do for you, even though it makes me feel
like ***? That would be pretty idiotic. Love is liking the way the other
person makes you feel, but because you know that you make them feel good
too. Otherwise it would be a very one-way love. Perhaps I'm speaking
through the eyes of an innocent, but I don't think that you should go so 
far as to make such a sweeping generalization. Especially the divorce rate
proof, which makes no sense at all. Instead of thinking of all those 
people who discovered that they didn't have as much love for each other as
they once thought, think of all those people who are still married and 
still love each other! 
  #3 is a bit silly. Start being happy with the reality that won't crush 
you. Some things really last, and if you love them, then you have something
that will create lasting happiness. Or start being happy about being alive.
That'll last. It's fun, too...
  I really don't know about #4. I suppose I don't know enough about grudges
or forgiving to say anything, though my gut feeling is that I don't 
agree with it at all...It seems to me that forgiving is telling someone
that you don't mind if they make hurtful mistakes once in a while. I just
don't want to feel angry for a long time, since I find that it doesn't help
anything and you feel stupid for wasting your time like that afterwards, 
but I will probably be wary of that person for a while after, just not mad
at them but taking the mistake into account when I think of them. ba
sically agreeing with comment #5, I suppose!

Actually, quite a bit of the literature in evolutionary biology 
and sociobiology focuses on the very arguments this item presented.
It may really be so that people behave for such instinctive
and selfish reasons and only rationalize their actions, or it 
may not.   Let's hope not.

/

  the goat marvels at her earlier certainty .......

        If you believe in a certain reality, are other people's realities
        wrong?

I wonder if chris has changed his mind yet...


        1) I'd agree with it if it didn't contradict itself. Seeing as it
        does, I'll politely ignore the "no universal truth" part and 
        accept that everyone has to find their own unique beliefs, assuming
        that's what's meant by "religion".

        2) If love *is* a myth, then what's your myth like?

        3) What's lasting happiness to you? I'd rather believe that "nothing
        lasts forever" myself, but that's all relative and somewhat
        changable from one moment to the next. Maybe the happiness is always
        there, but we get too caught up in the unhappiness at times to
        realize it.

        4) I'm missing the point, unless you're portraying forgiveness in
        a *negative* way. As it is, you're dead on target, and that doesn't
        make forgiveness a myth. What's your myth of forgiveness like?

Gee. Maybe I'm just too cheery these days...

Huh Huh Huh

AGENT 004 TO AGENT CARSON: D IS A LOON
REQUEST: TERMINATION

If love is a myth (which it is not), is getting your heart broken a myth?

I think the breaking is part of the.. oh wait, if its a myth?  I'm
out of league here.  Love is definitely a  real thing.

Case in point.

Re #3:  Would you really *want* lasting happiness, without any pain to relieve
it?  I sure wouldn't.

Re #15 I see what you mean, lasting happiness could get boring ya know.

But the thing is, you'd be happy and you would
see no need for pain or non-continuity.

(I want lasting happiness...)

but if was lasting, how would you know it was happiness?

(I would know it was happiness because I would smile.)

(I would know it was happiness because I would be filled with mirth.)

(I would know it was happiness because I would be able to share it with
someone special.)

(I would know it was happiness because it wasn't what had been before.)

What if you were born with it?

(even if you were born with lasting happiness [and I bet there are a few
of those around], you would still know it to be lasting happiness, because
there would be pessimists all over the !@#$ing place telling you to not be
so happy.)

:) :) :)

geeze your too joyful for me carson

(lasting happiness does that.)

:) :) :)

<happy,  happy, joy, joy, happy, happy, joy, joy, happy, happy, joy, joy, joy

        Have you heard of the Optimism philosophy of the mid-1700's, I think?
It proposed that since God had made the world and everything in it, and 
since God would obviously create the best world possible, this world and 
everything in it was the best of all possible worlds. The things that seemed
bad in the world were actually the best they could ever be. (Voltaire thought
that this philosophy was  misnamed, that it ought to be call ed Pessimism...
;>) 
        So maybe we're actually all in a state of eternal happiness, just that
there are degrees of less happiness.... and it would be pretty weird if we were
all somehow forced into being on the same level of happiness all the time. 
It'd really end up ending our freedom of thought, because we wouldn't be able
to make judgements as to how happy we were, if we could improve ourselves or
not. You *wouldn't* know that you were happy, because there wouldn't be a
anything to compare to, and even if there was, you'd be happy about that so
..that something or other being happier or unhappier than you. Just doesn't
sound like a very desirable state to me.... ;)

(I really don't understand this arguement of not being able to know if one is
happy or not. How do we know if we are happy now?)

        It's all relative..! ;) everything!!! everything!!! Augh!

re 27
Are you happy now? Do you know when you aren't?

I know when I'm happy!  It's when I'm not depressed.  Seriously.  Almost all
the time, when I'm not depressed, I feel light and happy to be alive and enjoy
even the simple things I do and meet neat people all over the place.  That's
happy.  Grey and dull and routie and overworked is not happy.

(I *am* HAPPY!! now. I know this because I have defined [more or less]
what HAPPY!!ness is for me, and my current state both meets and exceeds my
requirements for HAPPY!!ness. I think that even in a world of pure bliss,
I could come up with some sort of knowledge of what HAPPY!!ness is.)

cool glad you are happy. Not to bring you down or anything but have you heard
about the starving people that you can help, for only $30 a month, only a
dollar a day, for 50 years, and you could save one child. <G> And that
right now while you are eating that food, and beggar in your town is dying.
And since you are so happy I just wanted to say that there are people
with broken lives and hearts right now. Have a nice day <G>

(I'm helping out a child in South America for $24/month. The beggars that
are dying on the streets here are usually the ones who drown their sorrows in
booze and MJ. I've had my heart broken, but I mended it before I looked
for someone to give it too.)

(HAPPY!!)

Oh did I metion I ran over your cat? <G>

Re 34 and 32...Geeze, Greg...what a downer!  Go get a life!

Where should I go get on from??

(is there supposed to be something wrong with being happy?)

no nothing wrong with that, but there is somthing wrong with being eternally 
happy, if your the only one. Then it is sort of like gloating.

yes.  There is something wrong with being eternally happy.  It does get boring!
Fortunately, right about the time it gets too boring, you get unhappy with 
it.  Then you aren't happy any more, and after a short period of cathartic
depression, you go back to being happy.  

Seriously, though, depression is really very underrated.  People think that the
worst thing in the world is depression (well, not worst, but...), but in my 
experience, I have found that depression is just as satisfying an emotion,
in small (or at least short) doses as happiness.  I find that I enjoy what 
I think people call depression, because, for one thing, it lets the corners
of my mouth relax.  Smiling is hard work! <g>  But seriously, I do enjoy 
depression.  For one thing, it gives me a feeling of, for lack of a better 
word, truth.  When I am depressed, I know that all these things around me are
really real and true, whether I like them or not.  For this reason, some of
my most important decisions are made (and made well!) when I am depressed, 
because then I can weigh things more accurately, because I am detached, 
somehow, from any frivolous, stupid prejudices that I might have come up with
when I was happy.  

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss