You're the right kind of sinner

[clevermanka]

Someone on my F-list asked this morning: Is life really a fight against inertia? A never-ending war against despair caused by loss and entropy?

I have some strong (although perhaps heartless) feelings about this issue, so I responded:

Yes (well, mostly--it will end, eventually). But you make that sound like a bad thing.

mckitterick and I--although mostly mckitterick just drags me along for the ride--have frequent and unresolvable conversations about the meaning of life. He's trying to find one, and I don't believe one exists. I am firmly of the opinion that nothing happens for a reason other than the motivations and purposes we attach to our own actions. Bad things and good things don't happen "for a reason" (whether that reason is a lesson, or justice, or any number of fabricated notions of morality and ethics that make us feel like the universe actually cares about us, which it totally does not). They just happen because they do.

I take the concept "Shit Happens" to a cosmological level.

We did not evolve for a purpose. There is no Grand Plan of Evolution with the goal of achieving some amazingly advanced species. Life happens because that is its nature (pardon the mild pun). Life will fight to exist, despite the overwhelming power of entropy that will eventually result in the heat death of the universe.

No doubt about it, we will lose this war. But that knowledge doesn't mean the fight has to be boring. In fact, if you want to get all mystical and shit about it, you could say that it's a good thing to give the heartless universe a big old Fuck You by creating happiness and beauty for ourselves and those around us. Before we snuff it. Which we will.

And the universe still won't care. And that's okay. That's life.


Click the image to go to Dr. Boli's blog

Someone needs to filk this. And that's not a sentence I've ever said before in my life.


Two of my current favorite things, combined! A mash-up and The Avengers.

Fitness. By Any Means Necessary.

Simon Pegg has a charming quote on nerd/geekdom that is better and more succinct than the John Green one.

I could totally make this laptop case.

Comments

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Wait, is this a review of Prometheus?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

HA HA HA HA! It totally could be.

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

There's a lot I'd have to say with time to do so, but I just had to inject this:

September: 221Triathlon - In what should be a month of moderate weather in most locales

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

As usual, everyone ignores the Midwest. Frankly, I don't remember what "moderate weather" is, do you?

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

Didn't we get that in January for a week or two?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I enjoy your ideas, and which to subscribe to your newsletter.

YAH, BRAH, OH MAH GAH; TEST YOUR LAB BROMANCE.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

And here I thought being a geek was all about decapitating chickens with my teeth.

Phew. Getting tired of having feathers caught in my teeth!

Oh yes, and your world view re. meaning of life coincides quite neatly with mine.

[dotar-sojat.livejournal.com]

Amen, sister.

I'm pretty sure Rush wrote a songe specifically stating this. "Roll the Bones", I believe.

Heh... so 90s!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

This LJ = Closest I'll ever come to a newsletter. Good thing you're already subscribed.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I am mildly interested to know when the word geek changed usage. Not interested enough to go searching myself, mind you, but if you know offhand...

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Ah, nerdboys and Rush...

[poincaraux.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I learned somewhere around 2006 that the universe fundamentally does not care about me. People care about me, and I care about people. I even care about the universe, but that last bit is a rigidly one-way street. In fact, life is a lot nicer when I do care about the uncaring universe.

My life would have been a lot better if I'd figured that out earlier and acted accordingly.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Oh, honey. =/

*awkward pat because I'm crap at showing sympathy, etc.*

Yeah. That...was pretty horrible. Fluffy bunny?

[poincaraux.livejournal.com]

:) Not sure the fluffy bunny helps, but that's OK. The part I left out of the above post is that my life is a ton better now that I've figured things out a bit more. I didn't mean that post to be a downer, and my apologies if it came across that way. I mostly just wanted to strongly agree with you.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Nah, not a downer. Sobering perspective, yes.

I like to think I'd be a little more tactful about emotions if I thought your comment was anything other than explaining your stance. I'd...like to think that, anyway.

FLUFFY BUNNIES HELP EVERYTHING

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I do titration, check molarities;
Genetic drift, the birds and the bees.

CHECK LAB NOTES, YAH;
BRAH, BRAH, BRAH.

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

What is this word, 'moderate'? Last year in OH we got over a foot over the record amount of rainfall. I don't even know what moderate is any more.

[shrijani.livejournal.com]

You and I agree like a million percent on this whole indifferent universe thing.

And I actively hate the notion that "everything happens for a reason." If that is the case, then the reason is lame, and the intelligence planning and driving this relentless disaster is an idiot and an asshole. I find the whole rhetoric of blessings downright offensive.

I am most comfortable with life having no meaning, and all of this being a rather sloppy accident. Like you said, you can still have fun as oblivion approaches!

[ms-danson.livejournal.com]

Indifferent universe - Yes.
End of my world - No.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what moderate is any more.

This goes for politicians, as well.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I would feel bad for people who feel they need to justify horrible things with some Grand Plan For The World. But they annoy me too much for me to bother an attempt to evoke any sympathy from my brittle, dessicated heart.

[djangodurango.livejournal.com]

BA DUM TISH!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Tip your waitress.

[djangodurango.livejournal.com]

I had a discussion like this the other day and my opinion was that there is no grand design and furthermore, one is responsible for giving their own life meaning.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

*Solidarity Fistbump!*

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

Have you seen this interview (http://www.movies.com/movie-news/ridley-scott-prometheus-interview/8232) with Ridley Scott?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I don't read or listen to interviews with Ridley Scott. The only director I'd throw through a window faster than Scott is George Lucas.

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

*giggle* didn't mean to torment you, I just immediately thought of Bart's posting when I saw it.

[stuology.livejournal.com]

Quote for you:
"The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren’t special. The universe does not revolve around you, this planet isn’t privileged in any unique way, your country is not the perfect product of divine destiny, your existence isn’t the product of directed, intentional fate, and that tuna sandwich you had for lunch was not plotting to give you indigestion. Most of what happens in the world is just a consequence of natural, universal laws — laws that apply everywhere and to everything, with no special exemptions or amplifications for your benefit — given variety by the input of chance. Everything that you as a human being consider cosmically important is an accident. The rules of inheritance and the nature of biology meant that when your parents had a baby, it was anatomically human and mostly fully functional physiologically, but the unique combination of traits that make you male or female, tall or short, brown-eyed or blue-eyed were the result of a chance shuffle of genetic attributes during meiosis, a few random mutations, and the luck of the draw in the grand sperm race at fertilization.”

More reading: http://edge.org/q2011/q11_12.html#myerspz

[stuology.livejournal.com]

And I will add an "ahhh...Marcus...*sigh*"

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Eternal tragic love for Marcus. ALWAYS.