Yes, things are bad but in truth they have always been bad through out human history. When we are children we are kind of told a lie that things are so bad, human beings are more of less in control of our on destiny, and that things are only going to get better due to science and technology.

My guess is the angst you might be feeling right now is just a sudden awareness of the nihilistic of human existence you were not previously aware of. As a person who themselves suffers from things like general trauma disorder (something similar to PTSD), ADHD, social anxiety disorder, etc. I have learned ways of tuning out information that might depress me, using gallows humor to cope with problems, as well as try to look on the positive side of things.

I'm not sure if you are wishing for either a means to handle the mental problems of the situation or a means to fix it, but if you are wishing for the former I suggest learning mental tricks in order to not look to hard at the negative aspect of things and with the latter realize that it is a non-trivial problem that there is hardly anything you can do other than perhaps make something of yourself and/or perhaps learn ways to influence others. By ourselves we are merely special snowflakes by ourselves but together mankind is a force of nature that is sometime a force not to be reckon with by even by aspects of nature itself.

While the human race isn't really more or as powerful as nature itself, I believe we are unlikely to be snuffed out at any time in the near future. While human existence is more or less bleak and almost futile it isn't really nay more than it has in the past. It is just for some people it seems more bleak today then it has been a few years ago, however the change in the human condition is relatively a minor one when you look at what mankind has had to go through in order to continue to exist for up to the present.

"Sameness is our real identity"

Tell that to Deleuze

Humor like faith can be somewhat affective, but they are both a form of either delusion or escapism. So, reality makes you depressed, so suck it up, in philosophy the goal is supposed to be truth, wishful thinking or fantasy don't cut it here. Well, I don't know what Deleuze said, but other than a slight difference in constitutions coming into the world how different are you from your fellow man. It seems to me the constitution is either vital or it is not, and from there it is largely defined by it journey through the context of the world -- context defines. You might even think of it as a mutating process, the constitution being quite unrecognizable down the road a bit. Not to mention, you have no identity when you come into this world but slowly acquire one through your journey through the context of your life. It is true, consciousness is life and life is consciousness, and whether your comfortable with the realization or not sameness is the name of the game. What;s a Deleuze. what's a Tom. Dick or Harry, see what I mean?

Schopenhauer stated life is something that should never have been, that is why his philosophy is said to be so dark, but is it false? — boagie

It isn't false but...this is what some would say...it also isn't the whole truth. Damn my optimism but I owe people the truth; that goes for everyone else too I suppose.

Suicde?, but then pacemakers, organ transplants, antibiotics, etc. Some of us wanna die, others wanna live. We could quite literally be living on different planets: we're aliens to each other. Fermi paradox?

The individual's manner of dealing with the human condition really isn't the topic, it is the human condition, the nature of being and being in the world. You are talking about struggle but life has always been a struggle. The struggle is to this condition, to this psychology, necessity. Someone once said life is short and brutal. The question more clearly expressed I think is, is the candle worth its flame, if it is not, then it is morally unjustifiable to bring innocence into the world through procreation.

Consciousness I believe is life, such that life is consciousness. This means I believe that identity to is common to all consciousness, all life. This life is of such necessity that is consumes itself, symbolically a snake consuming it's own tail, My point is identity is how one fairs within this condition, this journey is identity for all organisms, quite a wretched state, according to Schopenhauer. The flipside that you suggest is involuntary, just as sexual attraction and sex itself is. You might consider it the will of the species, but it is far from a reasonable decision or intellectual choice.

Is the game worth the candle? Suffering, in some circles, is seen in a positive light. Religions usually make a big deal of, for instance, austerity and poverty for those of the cloth. Perhaps, in some sense, the path to joy is through sorrow.

Too, happiness - this goes against all my instincts - is overrated. It's hard for me tell the difference between pleasure and addiction (endorphins/pleasure chemicals have the chemical structure of morphine, a drug).

In short, is it right to measure life's worth using a metric that's, from certain angles, clearly a physical and psychological dependence.

The whole hedonic schemata resembles or actually is an elaborate game plan where a drug lord has an army of addicts (us) to do his/her bidding, payment is made to us in doses of endorphin surges aka happiness.

I could be wrong of course but who knows? Right?

I don't believe most religions are powerhouses of wisdom, with a few acceptions. Joy through sorrow borders on sadism. We are getting pretty far off-topic here though my focus is the sameness of identity, outside of the differences of constitution's, vitality and certain inclinations, identity is formed through the constitution's journey through the context of the physical environment. This is where the journey becomes one's identity, the essence of the organism is predetermined to go through this process but who or what is said organism's true nature/essence, whatever that is, its the same across the board.

All organisms are reactive creatures whose behaviors are governed by three basics, pain, pleasure and desire. It sounds rather simplistic but that is deceiving when emotions, thoughts, life histories compounding the organisms future experiences in a multitude of varying environments. It is the variety the is creating the delusion of differences of essence and also the creation of the concept of other. Basically, we are the creation of the environment, for to reactionary creatures the environment is cause, so we are in one sense operated by the environment, even where we react to the detriment of the said environment and thus to our own detriment.

The point is a hedonic measure for the worth of a life may not do justice to the full richness that is life. On the face of it, that's bollocks of course but try and be a little imaginative and you might come to a different conclusion.

Correct me if I am off the mark, but your inferring that life taken as a whole is rather grand and the suffering involved is more than worth the price. When we speak of life and its experiences, I at least am talking about life across the board, are we on the same page here? Life in general remains in existence through the killing and consumption of other forms of life, symbolically the Ouroboros, the snake consuming its own tail. When the first self-replicating cells ran out of materials in the primordial soup, this life lives on life began - big fish eats little fish.

My point is the essence which is life is the same through the eons of evolutionary development, the essence being relatively immortal. This is where my thought of the nature of identity is, that essence traveling through it's world of experience develops an I, an identity, this identity is somewhat morphed appearing different but its essence remains the same. What we think of as an individual is somewhat more and under the delusion of being individual life is a losing battle. Just as the grass one cuts on a Saturday morning, it just keeps coming-- Schopenhaure's blind will.

I suppose my way of looking at the issue (life, suffering) is more because of a lack of alternatives than due to solid reasons to back it up. After being driven into a corner and forced to stay there for a heck of a long time, the corner doesn't seem as bad as people make it out to be.

Anyway, the upshot of it all (suffering extreme) is people like me (the unlucky lot in a manner of speaking) have to abandon a hedonic outlook towards life i.e. joy/sorrow have to be jettisoned from our worldview. Easier said than done though.

Yes I think that is the most mature and intelligent answer to life. The human condition, as well as the condition of all life, is quite wretched, but that's the way it is, accept it for what it is and get on with living fully aware of reality. What would the world look like if people trashed their fantasies, read religions and/or denial of reality on a most basic level? One might hope in the future humanity could live a truely rational life. For me, the awareness of the nature of identity and the essence of life is basic to the problem.

:up: I wish I had more to say.

A pleasure Mr Smith!