I currently work in construction. After leaving high school, which I was about a C student for many reasons but mainly because I didn't care to much about it, I had no idea what to do as a career. I tried a lot of things to find something I'd be interested in and found nothing. So, I stayed in construction hoping I could find something better or at least progress through it to something better. My progression stopped and I became bored and angry that most of my life felt hollow. I played video games because it was the only thing in my life that I cared about but it lulled me into continuing construction even though I am very unhappy with where my life is at.
The thing that has saved me was audio books and podcasts. Due to work that could be accomplished in sleep, I was able to listen to these new inventions (at the time) and start educating myself back awake. Now a world that, before, I could not care about in the least, I now look at with so much fascination and childlike glee. I now know that I want to talk, which is odd because I am an introvert by nature. To learn and talk to others to increase my learning is my found love.
It is disheartening, however, as I continue to learn and find new sources to learn from, the condition this world is in. As I played a lot of video games, I showed up to the rest of the world late and am trying desperately to catch back up intellectually. It seems though, that I didn't have to learn much before I started to notice that people so angry are: ill-informed, misinformed, taking sides to a detriment, and blowing everything out of proportion. Now, I want to make something very clear here, I am not always right and am very often wrong. I am not saying that I know what is best and that I have all the answers, to be honest I'm getting tired of hearing that and by far to many people. What I would like to do here on this website and my YouTube channel is to promote people to think for themselves. To have information from many sources before forming an opinion and to keep that opinion loosely held so that you can bend with conditions that change, like time.
““Men are so thoughtless, nay, so mad, that some, though fear of death, force themselves to die.” ”
Memento Mori
Remember that you will die
Why death quotes and translations? I think, if not for you then for me, that remembering that I will die allows me to look at life in a different way. Death happens to us all when we're ready or not and is the worst outcome, but it will happen. So, spending your life, however much any of us have of it, in fear of one thing or another is mad, as Epicurus has said. You shouldn't think too much on what you cannot change or very much on someones opinions of you. There are limits of course (balance is key). Stoic philosophers like Epicurus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius go into great detail on how to live life well, which, you may not agree with so study many philosophers. I have only started with these philosophers but this isn't where I will end. I believe that it is a great way to view life and the world and to cut out unwanted noise and in most cases, noise that you cannot change or isn't worth your time attempting to fix.
Stoic philosophers gave me a needed viewpoint on how to change my own life because I was allowing to many thing to hold me back. My biggest fear, admittedly, a fictional death, but never the less one that can feel very real, of not being accepted by others and their notions of my thoughts as not being worthwhile and even stupid. In light of this, I never tried to do anything outside my comfort zone. I never spoke to much and did not try to create waves so that people would have to take notice of me, in a sense, I killed myself so that I would not have to be killed by others. I must admit, however, I don't dislike anything that has happened. My silence allowed me to see the value in listening and my killing of myself makes me now realize that if death is my end, then I should find how to best live while I'm alive. Epicurus's quote of "Men are so thoughtless" is, for me, the greatest line I ever could have read because at the time I read that I was lost, hopeless, and might as well have been dead for all the effort I put into living.