Think of a human being. Now think of a rock. You’re a lot cooler than the rock. You’re alive and sentient and capable of choice and that makes you, as a matter of plain fact, pretty damn wonderful. (Never mind that you, CronoDAS, are very obviously insightful and interesting.) Now once you recognize that you’re already pretty damn wonderful, you can start thinking about the optimal way to cope with your setback.
Playing devil’s advocate for a while, rocks also tend to cause a lot less damage than people. Rocks don’t pollute, eat meat, receive a government subsidized education, contribute to traffic congestion, or other things. On a purely economic level, at least, so far I’ve made the world slightly poorer rather than richer; if I were a business, I’d be one that has gone through quite a lot of start-up capital and hasn’t become profitable yet.
That’s also how I think about myself. It’s not a complete answer. It just sometimes puts into perspective why I (and you, and everyone) might deserve to stick around even if we’ve made some mistakes. Might even deserve to be happy with ourselves. Somehow I want that to be true and I think it probably is true. It’s better than thinking of yourself as an overgrown tapeworm.
Playing devil’s advocate for a while, rocks also tend to cause a lot less damage than people. Rocks don’t pollute, eat meat, receive a government subsidized education, contribute to traffic congestion, or other things. On a purely economic level, at least, so far I’ve made the world slightly poorer rather than richer; if I were a business, I’d be one that has gone through quite a lot of start-up capital and hasn’t become profitable yet.
This is true.
That’s also how I think about myself. It’s not a complete answer. It just sometimes puts into perspective why I (and you, and everyone) might deserve to stick around even if we’ve made some mistakes. Might even deserve to be happy with ourselves. Somehow I want that to be true and I think it probably is true. It’s better than thinking of yourself as an overgrown tapeworm.
Yeah, I’d rather be a pet hamster than a tapeworm. ;)