Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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I have a very weird question for you all. I think it's too much of a question to fit the wellness thread, but it doesn't fit in well anywhere. That said, this is the most intelligent forum I'm aware of.
Why would I waste into nothing and die if I followed my natural inclinations? How did darwinism possibly select for that?
I have to use my willpower and overwrite what my body, ego and drives want, in order to have a good life. Surely it would be more better if nature just gave us all strong willpower? Or if our natural urges pointed us towards that better life in which we're successful all on its own?
There's times where there's a lot of wisdom in the body too, when it actually knows better, and when overwriting it with your willpower is stupid. But I have hurt my own progression a lot by focusing too much on these cases, as the opposite cases are even more common.
So, why? The desire to be a loser, and the hatred of my own inadequacy coexists in the same body. The only theory I have is that life requires resistance in order to grow strong (trees grown without wind do not become strong enough to support themselves, for instance). So, human beings fight themselves in order to create this resistance when it does not exist externally (which is why people who don't know real struggle seem to become insane and invent problems where none exist). When I had my depressive episode, I noticed that it felt like my body was trying to kill itself, but also to stay alive at the same time. And like how a fever hopes to kill the bad parts in your body before it kills the healthy parts, what profound suffering does it that it increases internal pressure hoping that the weakest part breaks first (leading to those turning-ones-life-around stories). But hedonism and other such tendencies do not seem to bring any advantages at all.
The tendency to mediocrity does not make sense to me. It does not seem beneficial. Humanity is capable of so much greatness, but 9 out of 10 end up quite pathetic, seemingly by design or by choice (rather than actual external limitations). Are we sick? Even "The natural environment had limited resources" doesn't seem like a good enough reason for the desire to self-neglect and to avoid opportunities which are obviously good just because they're a little bit difficult.
Doesn't immortality get in the way of adaptation to changing conditions?
Yes. Perhaps I should have phrased my question better, I just wanted to keep it short.
I know why death exists. But I don't know why people become hedonists by default. Why you have to fight against yourself in order to wake up early, in order to study, in order to exercise, in order not to get distracted. The body seems to want to do nothing at all, or to do the bare minimum when things have to be done. It seems that, if you follow what your body wants, you die. Isn't this terrible design? Anyone can become a great person, you just have to steer yourself manually, while your body yells at you to do otherwise. It's like our bodies want us to live in poverty, to not become anyone special, to be too weak to be helpful to others, and to die without realizing our dreams. How did Darwinism cause this? I don't understand.
Oh, that's easy as well. In an evironment of scarcity, that's what keeps you alive and reproducing! We just got too good at eliminating scarcity.
Were they ever so scarse that people would be "lazy" like the modern human? It seems even more wasteful to let your own body decay and die than it does to take at least some care of it. It could also be that I still have some lingering depression, or that something else is wrong with me. After all, despite having food, I don't have much desire to eat.
It's good that I do have a strong willpower. I've just listened too much to my body since I expected it to be a little more trustworthy with my future than what is the case. This is after all the same body which can wake up 2 minutes before my alarm because it knows the time so well, and which can tell me insights about my problems in dreams just because I ask nicely.
I'm still a little puzzled, by the way. I think I waste 500 calories a day just being anxious, so it's not all about energy reduction.
Quite the opposite. Scarcity would cause laziness to be a transient state, a high you'd be constantly chasing like All Bundy ruminating on that highschool football game where he scored 4 touchdowns.
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