The Art of Living a Meaningless Existence: Ideas from Philosophy That Change the Way You Think

by Robert Pantano

knowing you know nothing.”

The First Noble Truth is that life is fundamentally suffering.

Second Noble Truth argues that this suffering is a consequence of our desires and attachments.

third truth, in a revolutionary way of thinking for its time, goes on to claim that since suffering is a product of attachment and desire, one can personally overcome and end suffering by eliminating or recalibrating

fourth and final No...

contains the steps Buddha believed were necessary to do so. This collection of steps would be na...

Middle Way

eight steps include right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

the capital I that we describe is merely a state of emptiness constantly being filled and emptied by the succession of each moment.

the desire for such things is attached to the impossible delusion of a permanent self capable of being satisfied by desire.

a truly successful person is someone who can be ok without the things he or she typically desires or depends on for comfort.

ability to find happiness in spite of what occurs around us is developed through character and perspective.

focus our attention on controlling our reactions to the things that happen.

if we are worried that things will only get worse, then, if this comes true, things are as good as they’ll ever be right now. And how foolish it would be to ruin what might be ok now out of concern for things potentially not being so later,

Breakfast of Champions,

The World as Will and Representation.

All of the material world operates by and through this Will, moving, striving, consuming, and violently expressing itself in order to sustain itself.

escaping and dealing with this,

two primary methods: one, engaging in arts and philosophy, and two, the practice of asceticism: the deprivation of nearly all desire, self-indulgence, and material comfort.

“The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy,” he wrote.

the endless cycle of desire and dissatisfaction caused by the Will is actually a good thing that we can use as fuel toward the process of self-overcoming and growth, from which we can then distill life’s meaning.

power over oneself.

Nietzsche argued that suffering is a good thing that should be leaned into, embraced, and used as fuel toward the amassing of strength and psychological power.

referring to amor fati,

generally about the loving of one’s life.

The true challenge and task of life, for Nietzsche, is to fall in love with what you are actually experiencing right now,

What’s scarier than an opponent who smiles while being beaten?

Cioran

On the Heights of Despair

human endeavors are almost always synonymous with failure.

revealing the perhaps vile and horribly unresolvable qualities of life, while simultaneously reveling in the potential for redemption contained in them—a worthiness of enduring, of thinking, of writing, of living life.

“[We are] simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?”

Sartre

bad faith—a form of lying to ourselves and denying our basic freedom.

Unlike anything else in the known universe, we are able to consciously observe, consider, reason, and act.

the ignorance and annoyance and sometimes cruelty that we find in others is sometimes found by others in us, sometimes at the same time and with equally valid reasons.

consequently, is not attempting to think and talk in generally true, objective terms also impossible?

No, death is very objective

we are both compelled by our psyche and pressured by our social world to always be right.

anger can be a very useful emotion.

it can also be a source of foolishness, of miscalculation, of regret, of resentment, and of detachment—from

we are wronged by the world in ways that no amount of angered force will help correct or solve.

it is a wonder that it works in our favor at all any of the time.

Does it?

in between our primary experience of an event and our emotional experience of an event, there is a filtering process that occurs through and is based on our cognitive faculties.

the world has not singled us out,

most people are good people trying their best,

ignorance is far more often behind the curtain...

emotions are not the result of being made victims by others but by us not taking ownership of them ourselves,

Except when you are in fact a victim

anger can take us so far from what we truly think and want.

No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre

“Hell is other people,”