What is self-reflection? How can I look at myself whilst being myself internally??

Through philosophy? Apart from looking in a mirror I guess?

...and how does your misery factor into that? I thought philosophy was causing you anguish? — DingoJones

I don't know myself.

I dont know what you mean. — DingoJones

What I'm trying to say, is that I've been practicing philosophy for so long, that I don't really know how my life would look without it.

I already said, by self reflecting and trying to track the two.
Have you ever practiced mindfulness, or meditation? Id recommend first researching how your mental illness or whatever you want to call it, interacts with meditation or mindfulness as there may be dangers, but if its safe then it can really help to parse whats happening in your mind. — DingoJones

Yes, I do practice mindfulness and try and meditate sometimes. Yet, when I try and engage in philosophy there's this quantum leap. What lies in between that quantum leap is a mystery to me.

Well Im not trained in psychology, but I would say that you depsycholigise philosophy by making the distinction between your psychology and your philosophy. — DingoJones

Impossible! How?!

I think that philosophy has definitely made me a better person, and so enabled me to do better things both for my own life and for the world. — Pfhorrest

Do you mean ethically? Because that's what's left after you recognize the fields of science and humanities that have shot off from philosophy...

What are we tree huggers then?

No, I dont think people are naturally ethical on the whole, but Im not sure why thats relevant. What Im trying to get at is how you may be conflating philosophy with those other things, and that not recognising this distinction is at least partially why you feel burdened by philosophy. — DingoJones

How does one depsychologize the issue then?

What do you mean? I thought I got out of that bottle that the fly I am. But, it seems not so.

I guess I'm really stuck then. Hand me a ladder, will you, Tim?

Because I don't know what life without philosophy would look like... Eh.

Well, to me philosophy isn't like peeling onions or such.

I feel as though the inclination to practice or do philosophy as somewhat burdensome. On the whole of it people are naturally ethical, no?

Yes, but when does one say "stop" or I've had my portion to fill myself up, metaphorically?

It's a mix of both for me, but on the whole I think it comes out on the positive side. — Pfhorrest

The deeper question is how would you know otherwise?

But one of the things that best helps elevate my mood is feeling or seeing connections, of any kind, interpersonal, theoretical, historical, etc -- I'm coming around to the opinion that meaningfulness of any kind is literally all about connections, even my ontology is perhaps-not-coincidentally all about a web of relations between objects defined entirely by those relations. And the thing that I always loved about philosophy, the reason I got into it, is how it has connections to everything. So doing philosophy, learning it or teaching it, makes my life and the world feel more meaningful, and so makes me happier. Sometimes. — Pfhorrest

This is what I liked about philosophy in the beginning. But, as time progresses and one sees most of the connections, then the issue seems to me to arise of the sort, what use does philosophy have if not to myself then to the world?

Despite prolonged failure to do so, philosophizing did eventually help me to partially think my way out of those depressed and anxious thought loops that I sometimes get stuck in, even though it was also trying to philosophizing my way out of them that got me stuck in them to begin with. Perhaps as an analogy, it's like I was a dumb mathematician trying futilly to work out a proof that a given program won't halt, and then I figured out a proof that such a proof either way is not possible. I still don't know if the program will halt or not, but I know that I can't know it, and so can give up trying to figure out whether or not it will. — Pfhorrest

Therefore, you founded your own philosophy?

You suffer from mental illness right? How do you make the distinction between suffering from mental illness, and the suffering from philosophy? — DingoJones

To say that I suffer from a mental illness doesn't portray the issue adequately. I have a mental illness and dual diagnosis. My life hasn't been very rosy, a lot of depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. I've been on the old PF and this one for a while already, and the conclusion I'm arriving at is that those prone to mental disorder or illness (call it whatever you like) do have some kind of predisposition towards deeper thought about themselves or themselves wrt. to the world.

You want to play the game, but you neither know nor understand what the fundamentals are. — tim wood

On face value, that is the assumption. But, I've been (what's the best word to use here...) practicing or doing? philosophy for a long time now. It seems to me more like being stuck than wanting anything to do.

Basics: what does it mean to know? What are the methods of the kind of thinking I want to do? And so forth. And there will come a day when you know something, and you know that you know it. When that happens, then you'll know and you won't ask. — tim wood

Yes, and that's why I turned towards Wittgenstein. He seemed like someone who had all the answers, leaving the most difficult ones to be addressed as they should be on one's own (existential and such).

There's a great deal of futility present in the OP. Like, *I so wish I do, that philosophy never came knocking on my door.*

I feel like it has more to do with deeper unfulfilled feelings or issues at play, like addiction or depression.

If one could choose to feel loved, secure, and safe, those two issues might stay (hopefully not) or go away?

What do you think?

While we are at it, why isn't fruit a bicycle? — Banno

Is the question ill formulated? Why is it?

Surprisingly, Jesus does not say how happy are the lottery winners, those whose wives give great head, popular politicians, and receivers of honours, emmys, baftas, Nobel laureates, etc or people who are well tranquillised. — unenlightened

I don't see how this follows. If happiness were a choice, then eventually some people might grow tired of being happy all the time, and indulge in some boredom or apathy before deciding that they'd rather be happy again.

In a sense it is flawed, because we tend to have two people trying to achieve the same results. The psychiatrist and psychologist.

If you define happiness as getting what you want, then everyone wants to be happy, because everyone wants what they want. But this says very little. — unenlightened

So, what then?

Interesting that you regard any strong feeling as torment. I dare say you are not alone. — unenlightened

What do you mean?

Here's is my line of reasoning.

If what produces harm in the world is manifest in violent emotions, then what good are emotions to this world? What's so great about emotions?

Giving up is contrary to the innate purpose of anything in nature. This is not an external purpose handed over by God or society but inside any organism itself. Anything in nature has a potential that it strives to maximize. A tree will try to get as much water and sunlight it needs to reach its strongest and most healthy state. It will grow its roots and stretch its branches for that purpose. (Unconsciously of course, since a tree has no consciousness.)
An animal will also try to fulfill its maximum for itself and its young.

Only human beings can go against their own purpose and be deliberately self-destructive because of this nasty thing called a free will. At the same time that’s what makes us ethically relevant creatures. In fact, ethics is all about making our will conform to what is in our nature. Ethics teaches us not to hurt others (that is, not obstructing their nature) but it is just as much about not hurting ourselves.
It is unethical to obstruct our own nature because nature defines what is ethical in the first place. In the absence of religious authorities, nature tells us what is right and wrong. — Congau

I'm not sure how this follows. I mean, giving up isn't self-destructive is it?

Hell. — Qwex

From one schizophrenic, to another. Medication helps.

Seems to me that everyone wants to be happy; but, doesn't know at what price that comes.

I don't. I want to be angry about injustice, worried about my children, desperately sad about the state of the world, agonised by love, and frightened, mainly, of becoming an unfeeling grinning mannequin. To choose only happiness would be to reject most of life. — unenlightened

What good will being a tormented soul do you?

Not my problem (until it is one)... ignorance?

I agree. I think it's built into our very DNA to keep on moving forward.

But, I am resisting so hard, that I just want to give up and not continue this absurd party.

Does anyone else fell that way sometimes, and feel a revolting experience when being told to keep on going?

Do you even want to be happy all the time? Happy when bad shit happens? Happy when people near you are in trouble? Happy when the mad axeman asks you to bare your neck? — unenlightened

No, just a little more joyful, I suppose?

Right now I want to take away your happy pills 'coz they won't do you no good. — unenlightened

Yeah; but, I aint on any to begin with.

Look, I just came out of a suicide attempt, what should I do?

What the Trump, Putin, Xi, et al administrations show is that a rather large pile of crap is compatible with the best of all possible worlds formula. What we have here is the most improvable of worlds — Bitter Crank

That doesn't sound bad either...

However, this isn't what reality looks like; everyone's aim is to reduce suffering to zero and max out on happiness. — TheMadFool

Are you sure about that?

What sort of authority would that approximation have? I don't care what others consider "Best". — khaled

Uhh, I think your own.

Well, can't an approximation be made for each and every individual? I think China is kinda doing that with a social credit system and I don't hear uproars over that.

Actually if one really thinks of it carefully I think this actually is the best of all possible worlds for the simple reason that life, as we know it, generally thrives well between extremes of conditions: too cold or too hot, no life, etc. What of heaven then? It is after all an extreme of happiness. I guess heaven is a place where all opposite extremes, except happiness/joy cancel out: it isn't too hot and neither is it too cold, etc. Why is happiness/joy an exception to the rule that life prefers to exist in between extremes? There's a name for organisms preferring extreme conditions: extremophiles. Organisms that like extremely hot conditions are called thermophiles. Are we humans, extremophiles, the kind that prefers "extreme" happiness? The notion of heaven suggests that we are happiness-philes. — TheMadFool

Well, I can tell you it has the hallmarks of insanity all around it.

I wonder though if our conception of heaven is delusional because it seems that life can't tolerate extremes and if that's the case, would a state of eternal joy be desirable? Who's to say that an extreme state of joy wouldn't end up destroying us and all life? The Buddha and his middle-path begins to make a whole lot of sense.

I guess I'm saying that what we conceive of as a better world (heaven) may not be all that desirable; after all it fits the description of an extreme environment where everyone is in perpetual bliss. — TheMadFool

Yes, it is delusional and should be recognized as such.

ok so? — khaled

Well, the point is that there may as well as be known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns. So, nothing is perfect?

? — khaled

Have you ever learned some statistics? You can always arrive at some kind of approximation? Continuous/quantized?

“Best” depends on a subjective judgement so maybe it is the best possible world for you. Not for me though. — khaled

Try statistics.

because we don’t know them? — khaled

Dewey once said that we only think when confronted with problems.

I'd think the causes of suicide are very complex, and not quite as often caused by single events (like divorce, job loss, or incarceration), but by deeper emotional struggles. — Hanover

Can you back this claim up?