Monday, August 20, 2012

nihilism realism and good to believe

being realistic is sometimes mocked and being "nihilistic" "cynic" etc.

sometimes, being cynical and nihilistic is being coated as "realism"

reality does not care about any titles. it is there.

nihilism or sentimentalism is about emotional attitude. but people tend to mix them up.


when i told a naive teenager that having a kid means paying $100K I was telling a literal truth. the act of telling this truth may or may not have been sentimental enough.

Her cry "but it is about kids, not about money" is a mix of sentimental attitude and lack of knowledge about reality. (sentimental here is not derogatory)


Accepting that life comes about by accidents (marriage out of friends getting away, or pregnancy etc., moving countries out of completely irrelevant incidents etc.) does not equal cynicism. it is realism.


The knowledge feelings trade-off.
the "it is a different domain" is a cheap men's escape. it is different domain. but these do meet. and there is a cost of knowing the truth.

It is true that love is almost always conditional in a way. But knowing and internalizing this reality changes you, and it affects your ability to love and to experience being loved in a satisfying way.



PS. the religion of "truth" as yet another modern lunacy.




3 comments:

spldbch said...

Sometimes the truth hurts. Doesn't mean we shouldn't hear it anyway.

ChristianK said...

I don't see how having sacred values means being in conflict with reality.

It's a valid utility function.
Sacred values are quite interesting: http://journal.sjdm.org/91203/jdm91203.html

kacat said...

undertake all the naked truth calmly,and face them peacefully :)