Is life meaningless?

lol.

anyway i was being sarcastic. im sure everyone "understands" why they are in a relatively shitty economic position, and I certainly do not blame anyone using a variation of "fuck" to describe it.

  On 2/8/2012 at 2:34 PM, xxx said:

  On 2/6/2012 at 9:07 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 2/6/2012 at 8:45 PM, chax said:

  On 2/6/2012 at 8:38 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 2/6/2012 at 8:34 PM, Murveman said:

.

 

And also, I feel that no matter what happens right now, my future is going to be alright. As long as I have my girlfriend, we don't have a kid, we both have jobs that pay around 9 dollars an hour after college, and we have some place decent to live, I don't think I can be sad/in-content.

 

 

I'm sorry, but I just have to comment on this - why would you go to college and settle for jobs that pay 9 dollars an hour?

 

i know large amounts of people who are working mininum wage jobs after getting university degrees, it's the entire job market/economy for this generation of young people is fucked

 

both you and chen speak truths. im in the same situation, but the difference is not accepting that you belong there. you need to will yourself out of that situation; you proved your intelligence, its time to use it for real. don't let initial failure stunt your potential for the rest of your life...it will only be spent in regret.

I finally work a position that actually requires my degree. Market value of a Biology degree in the Kansas City area: $16.10 /hr. This is great and I'm thankful but it's not enough. When I worked at Wal-Mart, I talked to some of the old boys that worked there who had retired from places like General Motors. I talked to a guy who would shove blocks of lead into a hopper for rendering. That's it. He was union and made over $40 an hour.

 

The trouble is that the Baby Boomer generation just wanted the world to burn. The Employees strongarmed ridiculous positions and salaries out of Business and Business wants to hoard record levels of cash, engage in $500 million CEO-worship and see how low they can go with the next Chinese/Bangladeshi/etc. willing to make their worthless shit The teeter-totter was knocked so hard on either side and now you can't get it to balance for shit, which leaves millions of people hanging in the balance. Any American not having an existential crisis is probably not paying attention or is a Scientologist.

  On 2/7/2012 at 2:44 AM, marf said:

i was told scrub techs make 28 and hour. its nine months of training

...and here's the problem. America needs another Bachelor's in Psychology or Communication like a hole in the head. We have a huge deficit in technology-driven mid-level/technical education but nothing is being done about it. By the way World Wide WATMM, a scrub tech. is a surgical technician, operating room technician, etc. They are responsible for creating a sterile field, supplying the correct tools and supplies and in some cases, serving the role of "first assist"--the surgeon's "right hand man". It's an Associate's degree that takes less than 2 years start to finish (you have to take pre-requisities like anatomy, chemistry, etc.).

 

The whole thing costs a total of $7,500 at a local community college here. Just one 12 credit hour semester (1/8th of a B.S.) at the University of Missouri-Kansas City runs you $3,700 just to shadow the door--that doesn't include textbooks or other incidentals. $28/hr. is only the beginning. If you want to take call, work weekends/nights, work multiple area hospitals and clinics, you could pull $65-75K (more?) out of your ass with no problem. So, we've seen a complete inversion in compensation seemingly overnight. The mechanics, heating and cooling and metal manufacturing guys used to get my $16 an hour while the Bachelor's holder made the $50K+ a year. But...when America's macroeconomic and sociopolitical policies continuously signal "go fuck yourself" to such a massive majority of citizens, what can you do? Dig in and fucking fight--it's all you can do and, coincidentally, that's where you get the meaning in your life. Naturally, Viktor Frankl does it better:

 

"The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more one would miss it"

fucking epic post, hits on a lot of things I've observed myself

I'm actually using my degree somewhat (work at a state funded library and do archive work, have a history degree) but it's apparent I need to get a masters to get "further" even though I actually have a bigger workload than most of the senior employees in my department. I'm not struggling but saving cash is hard, and I'd be stressed if we had a kid coming along. I wonder sometimes if I should get technical training and work a couple years on a rig, or welding, or driving a truck. There are thousands of those jobs across the country ready to be filled. There's a lot more immediate money, but the decent benefits go out the window and retirement benefits put on hold. My friends with the same levels of education make just as much (or little) for the most part, but the frustrating thing is some have parents still paying all of their bills, so when they "go broke" it's from buying material things or eating out all the time, etc whereas when we "go broke" at the end of the month it's because I had to pay for food and gas. Luckily my student and loan debt is far smaller than most of peers.

We're over-educated and in a shitload of debt. I've flipped on that Susan Orman show and it's astounding how ignorant and superficial people are and the reasons they go into debt: they have to have a new car, another higher-education degree, have to own a new house instead of rent, want to own their own "small business," etc. They easily rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And it's all encouraged by society. The system has some serious problems that aren't going to be tackled openly by any politician: we need to tailor how many people go to 4-year colleges and promote technical training, we need to make companies more apt to promote hard work and lessen the gap between the CEO/Board members and the entry level workers. We need to make states more uniform in what how they regulate unions, as well as what benefits and healthcare options they can and should provide. Instead it's all superficial bickering over ideologies that no one is actually adhering to. You could take the key legit grievances of both the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party and find a lot of overlap.And the American public, even after the recession, is still fat and happy enough to feel like everything's ok, it's just now wearing off.

life is meaning

  On 2/8/2012 at 9:50 PM, cloud capture said:

life is meaning

that about sums it up. there is no meaning which is to be explained by a series of words...that is, laugnage

then it means a lot to me however. serious of words doesn't meaning there isn't life..

:emotawesomepm9:so i guess i don't really know??

  On 2/8/2012 at 9:47 PM, joshuatxuk said:

I'm actually using my degree somewhat (work at a state funded library and do archive work, have a history degree) but it's apparent I need to get a masters to get "further" even though I actually have a bigger workload than most of the senior employees in my department. I'm not struggling but saving cash is hard, and I'd be stressed if we had a kid coming along. I wonder sometimes if I should get technical training and work a couple years on a rig, or welding, or driving a truck. There are thousands of those jobs across the country ready to be filled. There's a lot more immediate money, but the decent benefits go out the window and retirement benefits put on hold. My friends with the same levels of education make just as much (or little) for the most part, but the frustrating thing is some have parents still paying all of their bills, so when they "go broke" it's from buying material things or eating out all the time, etc whereas when we "go broke" at the end of the month it's because I had to pay for food and gas. Luckily my student and loan debt is far smaller than most of peers.

 

We're over-educated and in a shitload of debt. I've flipped on that Susan Orman show and it's astounding how ignorant and superficial people are and the reasons they go into debt: they have to have a new car, another higher-education degree, have to own a new house instead of rent, want to own their own "small business," etc. They easily rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And it's all encouraged by society. The system has some serious problems that aren't going to be tackled openly by any politician: we need to tailor how many people go to 4-year colleges and promote technical training, we need to make companies more apt to promote hard work and lessen the gap between the CEO/Board members and the entry level workers. We need to make states more uniform in what how they regulate unions, as well as what benefits and healthcare options they can and should provide. Instead it's all superficial bickering over ideologies that no one is actually adhering to. You could take the key legit grievances of both the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party and find a lot of overlap.And the American public, even after the recession, is still fat and happy enough to feel like everything's ok, it's just now wearing off.

dude, i hear what you are saying, but if you are considering getting an MA in history, you should consider the job market, and the recent studies that suggest approx. 10% of graduates at MA or higher level are granted tenure-track jobs or jobs paying 50k or more a year. if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! ill try to answer to the best of my abilities!

as for the second paragraph, hell yeah, you are definitely onto something. the sad fact of the matter is the immense task of actually carrying these reforms out. I mean, we are seriously talking about an alteration of society at its most fundamental levels. We also tend to drastically underestimate the power the powerful hold, and what reaction would be sufficient enough for them to relinquish. Kings never go quietly.

  On 2/8/2012 at 9:25 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

lol.

 

 

anyway i was being sarcastic. im sure everyone "understands" why they are in a relatively shitty economic position, and I certainly do not blame anyone using a variation of "fuck" to describe it.

im pretty sure most people still don't understand that they can't go far pursuing their dream, a career in arts or philosophy of whatever, i was merely continuing xxx's thought. and many of those people have a tendency to blame "the current economic situation"

  On 2/8/2012 at 11:40 PM, eugene said:

  On 2/8/2012 at 9:25 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

lol.

 

 

anyway i was being sarcastic. im sure everyone "understands" why they are in a relatively shitty economic position, and I certainly do not blame anyone using a variation of "fuck" to describe it.

im pretty sure most people still don't understand that they can't go far pursuing their dream, a career in arts or philosophy of whatever, i was merely continuing xxx's thought. and many of those people have a tendency to blame "the current economic situation"

I know you'd like to switch their white with your black, the fact remains its still a grey mess.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread a lot of the things said have been the way I've felt for quite sometime. What I'd like to ask you guys is simply how does acceptance tie into meaning? They both seem to be related in someway and I appreciate any insight you guys may provide.

Self-knowledge is the key.

Word life.

Acting without action!

  On 2/8/2012 at 2:34 PM, xxx said:

"The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more one would miss it"

I've been thinking for a couple of months now if "giving myself to a cause" would actually fulfill any quest for self-actualization, and I'm not positive if I can agree with the above quote. I always feel happiest when I am able to make some form of art (as of late, programming), when I'm out in nature, or when I'm doing virtually anything with my girlfriend (who is by far the coolest and most understanding person I have ever met). I feel, at this point, that all I'd have to do to be happy in this life is surround myself with those three things, and that devoting myself to a cause would be a lot of work and as a result, I would lose sight or not have time for those things I love.

I honestly feel at the peek of self-actualization when I am experiencing those three things. There is honestly nothing else I desire when I'm experiencing those three things (although the highway noise at the parks I go to make me desire a more natural/quieter park).

*reads entire thread*

I AM DROPPING MY RAISIN BRAN

  On 2/9/2012 at 11:23 PM, Luke Fucking Hazard said:

I AM DROPPING MY RAISIN BRAN

CALL NINE WAN WAN NAW

*drop*

  On 10/5/2011 at 5:14 AM, dean789 said:

Richard are you reading this? this is what happens when take ages to release new music

Richard are you reading this? this is what happens when take ages to release new music

do you copy?

also, LOL

bologna loafers

that's what i want. when my spine tingles on a mount, shine my pony lasso with the bottom of some well made bologna loafers.

*questions the raisin bran's existence*

*eats raisin bran*

*goes to bed*

The hell is happening in here?

life, man

sorry, i genuinely wasn't paying attention at all in this thread. it's a habit that could use some work.

someone once mentioned this woman

edit:

Locked :(

Unlocked :D