asceticism can be an escape from the material realm like you mentioned, but beyond that it was always a tool of sorts used to get closer to god above anything else (or, i guess idealist transcendence like you said, albeit it seems mildly reductive and dismissive to me) also, i think the moral degeneracy thing does play a part in it, because a lot of values and co lost a sort of sure footing when God was “killed” and essentially rationalized out of the picture post-Enlightenment era

all of the suffering and hardship is supposed to push you closer to a spiritual understanding, i think part of the issue is that people have demonized all forms of pain and suffering as something that cannot stimulate growth in any way shape or form, so the best thing to do is to pursue pleasure into the grave (porn, media, games etc.) obv, this type of hedonist pleasure-centered mindset doesn’t really do much fulfillment wise

Internet is def a net negative the more I think about it

Why’d I like this

imagine if the main goal of society, community and careers was to sustain the earth/environment instead of destroying it

obviously this book goes deeper than making your bed but there’s a reason organizing my room every few weeks resets my mind too, your psyche is impacted by how things around you make you feel. you can get real demotivated or motivated by it

Everyday my brain gets worse

my problem with psychedelics as a solution to mental health issues is that the feeling of enlightenment is only temporary if your circumstances don’t change

you can learn a lot about yourself on a good trip for sure. but if afterwards, you have to go back to a s***ty job and struggle to make ends meet, then that depression/anxiety will still be there in the long run. psychedelics are great but they aren’t the ultimate solution

Going outside

all of the suffering and hardship is supposed to push you closer to a spiritual understanding, i think part of the issue is that people have demonized all forms of pain and suffering as something that cannot stimulate growth in any way shape or form, so the best thing to do is to pursue pleasure into the grave (porn, media, games etc.) obv, this type of hedonist pleasure-centered mindset doesn’t really do much fulfillment wise

I've been stewing on this and I really agree. Pain is a part of life and we have to accept the bad bits, and the problem with our society to me is that people don't want to accept the bad. Life isn't zero-sum and we can't have every moment of life as bliss, and you can't escape pain.

Sure the pain has the ability to be life-changing in a bad way and potentially imprint trauma. But It's easier to sink to vices and "sin" in lieu of more "virtuous" things.

We already stuck in the cycle so either we educate people to look at reality and sink into the pain or we kick the can down the road further.

real niggas just harlem shake through the pressure

shout out my nigga drake

no anti-Semites over here!

Politically? Actually fund both mental health research, treatment, etc. It’s always multiple steps back when you find out these things are constantly defunded

Religiously? Start with killing the stigmas surrounding medication and saying things like “God is the ultimate healer he didn’t intend for us to live on medicine.” I say this as a man of faith myself. Prayer is good. God also gave us the ability to use the earth’s resources to create options for healing. Also accepting that not everyone os religious

Economically? Making medication and therapy actually affordable for all.

Culturally? Again killing stigmas. Especially in cultures like the black community that will flat out dismiss mental health as “white people s***”

I’m not going to do the whole list but that’s just a few things

This is 100% true and I think that psychedelics should never be viewed as a magic “cure for all” medication.
Different types of psychs benefit different people and some people do not benefit from them at all, or could have adverse effects to individuals (i.e. someone with or with a family lineage or schizophrenia could bring it out of the person) Which is why I think everything should be a case by case study and you should be taking what is the most optimal for yourself. Some people swear by anti depressants and others hate the effects it has on them.

They are an extremely powerful tool however and under the right circumstances, can change peoples lives forever. They’re also tools that seem to work the best for many under therapeutic sessions too and the research conducted with PTSD patients is incredible and I personally know a few people who have made peace with their trauma through that, so it’s nice to see them being included in the conversation for treatment

ban ktt

it def has something to do with the internet, but more in specific having the internet with you in your pocket. I'm deadass addicted to my phone, the days I use my phone the least are the days I'm happiest in general

Def shouldn’t be given to everyone because they’re people that have terrible reactions to them like you said but I think psychotherapy really combats with that since it is heavily monitored and they check all patients before to see if they potentially have schizophrenia or a family line of it.
You have to take into account to that a lot or people that recreationally take them sometimes are not getting the pure substance that they think they’re getting which ends up f***ing with them more. At least with psychotherapy clinics they are administering the pure substance of mdma, lsd, etc.

Life is way too much of a grind from start to finish.

As a kid you start being forced against your will to go to school by age 4, then you have to juggle mind numbing school and your social status throughout your years.

I remember being so bored at school as a kid that I sometimes would welcome a catastrophic event that would just end me right there. Like no joke bro, I would idealize being dead than having to sit in school for another 7 hours for the 1200th time in my life at that point.

And it wasn't cuz of bullies or anything, that's just how mind numbing that s*** is after like 3rd grade.

School curriculum isn't the most intriguing s*** either, and that's a whole other issue in itself.

Graduating from high school was a huge weight off my shoulders in a way that nothing in life can relieve.

But then you transition to the adult grind which is an entirely new and merciless beast. You just swap out the issues from childhood with adult issues like paying bills and getting a career going.

Then there's the issue in society where jobs that actually make you feel good about yourself are locked behind years of experience and credentials only a select few get the opportunity to build, with very few entry level opportunities outside of unskilled work.
It turns into a "who do you know", which can be good and bad depending on how you look at it.

Like yeah there's tons of welding jobs and pays so well! But guess what, that entails working long ass hours with a bunch of stinky ass Trumpers your whole life.

S*** isn't that simple to just get into something because its there and available.

It seems like politicians and institutions only want to make things more difficult by making school unaffordable and creating all sorts of safety nets for the rich while cutting down the ones for the poor

And all of this doesn't even include the whole race and socio economic aspect to everything.

The current ills of society in your country are not a mistake.

i agree to an extent

but the existentialist argument is the OBJECTIVE truth about reality

how humans feel about how and why they are alive

is the most fundamental question of all time

"Broadly speaking, existentialists hold that there are certain fundamental questions that all human beings must come to terms with if they are to take their subjective existences seriously and with intrinsic value. Questions such as life, death, the meaning of human existence and the place of God in that existence are among them. By and large, the theories of existentialism assert that conscious reality is very complex and without an "objective" or universally known value: the individual must create value by affirming it and living it, not by simply talking about it or philosophising it in the mind."

if children are offing themselves in a society, material conditions be damned

whats the point of technology, materialism, and nationalism
if it makes everybody miserable?

i wouldn't mind being reverted back into the stone age if it means being reunited with the warmth of God

if existentialism is the objective truth

this mean that idealism is the only way forward
the war is a war of ideas

idealism is no longer confined by conditions of material reality such as geography thanks to the internet

this is unprecedented in the history of mankind
for the first time ever there is a global brain

yeah, see this is why i never really grasped why the armchair communists and anarchists on this site would attempt to pin all of the mental health issues + existential dread and co on solely material conditions, it plays an integral part 100%, but you can improve material conditions and have people live in a form of pleasure utopia where no one goes hungry, there’s healthcare for all etc. and this will not satiate that underlying quest for meaning and self-actualization that all humans face/come to terms with (Brave New World is actually a fantastic example of this, if you’re familiar with the book at all)

im sure that there’s no shortage of people who don’t give two s***s about meaning in life, philosophy, purpose etc. and are fine living out their existences out into the void, but a good bit of all of the depression and suicide is a lack of drive and purpose, as you said, it is ultimately a war of ideas whether these niggas would care to admit it or not

it’s a cruel sense of irony that humanity has reached a suffocating hubris with its confidence and dogmatic belief in sheer rationale to the point that religion, philosophy, metaphysics etc have essentially been casted out of the window unceremoniously, while this same exact rationale doesn’t provide a solution or any sort of replacements for the aforementioned things that were casted out, it’s probably because something went wrong during this process, but of course our materialist minded adherents don’t want to hear this, and choose to blame it on everything else besides the existential ache that cannot be ignored

because it is.