<p>Most people do not like brooding over philosophical questions. The following quote attempts to explain why. Do you agree with this explanation? Why or why not?</p>
<p>"Many people simply don’t like verbalizing their innermost thoughts to others nor scrutinizing their reality/daily existence. Existential questions often intimidate and frustrate such people, and they would prefer to live by routines and dictates. I’d say that most people are like this, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. If everyone sat transfixed on the meaning of life and the full spectrum of possibilities, would we come up with solutions, or would we just think ourselves into abject despair and paralysis? </p>
<p>In most cases, ignorance is bliss; 'tis folly to be wise. That’s why people often say, ‘don’t think too much,’ because they need to look through a dulled lens to avoid seeing all the unpleasantness around them."</p>
<p>I have heard people say " dont overthink", which is different, but which I agree with.
A complex solution is not necessarily the answer to a simple problem.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to get you to do my homework. </p>
<p>I recently discovered this quote on another discussion forum (see below), and I thought that it was fascinating. I wanted to hear what others had to say about it.</p>
<p>What kind of family gatherings do you have? My family gatherings tend to include a lot of reminiscing, laughing and nothing that requires heavy thinking.</p>
<p>I’m really in no position to say what “most people” or “many people” think. Speaking only for myself, I rather enjoy brooding over deep philosophical questions, but I wouldn’t confine that to “existential questions” which in my view are only a subset of the deep philosophical questions worth pondering. </p>
<p>Beyond that, I’m inclined to think the question about “the (ultimate) meaning of life” may be unanswerable, and possibly nonsensical. But that’s not to dismiss the value of philosophical introspection.</p>
<p>Everyone thinks about things. I’ve never met a person, outside of some mentally impaired, who doesn’t think about why and what and if and all that. Talking about that to others is wholly different. The quote plays the classic bait and switch by taking one part - talking about things with others - and connecting that to not thinking about things at all. They are not the same. Not even close. To take what is going in a mind and relate that to sharing is dishonest.</p>
<p>RE: Why are family gatherings so superficial?</p>
<p>Depends on the family. H and are are from different ethnic groups. He finds my extended family superficial in this way. When we get together, topics of conversation are limited to the weather, the food, pleasant exchange of news about family members (positive news only–engagements, babies, kids’ academic/work and EC successes, etc.), and how the local sports teams are doing. If there is any disagreement or anything controversial comes up, a joke is made, another beer is offered, the food is complimented, the weather is observed . . .
I find these gathering “comforting” and enjoy connecting with relatives in this way. </p>
<p>H’s family likes to get into hot topics like religion and politics. People argue, raise voices, get angry, hold grudges and don’t speak to each other for years. He thinks this is “normal.” Saves time, though. When gatherings are so unpleasant, no one gets together anymore.</p>
<p>Sometimes over-analyzing gets in the way of living. In my case it leads to paralysis. OTOH, there are those who suffer because they don’t consider the consequences before they act. We need a little deep thinking and not-so-deep thinking, too.</p>
<p>My family gatherings tend to include a lot of reminiscing, laughing and anything that requires heavy drinking. (The more serious conversations have been put on the back burner as some very different life views have resulted in acrimony that makes it difficult to work together when dealing with the problems of our aging parents.)</p>
<p>sometimes I like to think philosophically… but I often come back to the reality that it doesn’t help me in the present, so it has very little everyday utility.</p>
<p>Though life is more FIFO, which is first in, first out. </p>
<p>It’s a way of accounting for inventory. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Say costs have been going up, that means LIFO reduces profit - though you are netting the same cash - because you take the last cost pieces in first and those will be higher priced. This kind of stuff can be manipulated but there are rules that prevent you from switching to your heart’s and income statement’s content. More subject to manipulation is the related topic of how you recognize income; many, perhaps most of the accounting scandals are recognition of income when product is shipped to distributors but not sold, when revenue from a contract is taken into account all at once, etc. Same basic ideas as LIFO and FIFO in a much bigger arena.</p>
<p>Another accounting “joke” is we’re all WIP. That’s work-in-process inventory. Life is WIP’d. WIP is the stuff that piles up in the manufacturing, distribution and selling process. The JIT - just-in-time - process pioneered in the US and adopted en masse in Japan is designed to reduce WIP, meaning you run a “lean” process where inventory is kept to a minimum. In Japan, that might mean multiple deliveries each day.</p>
<p>I feel there are lots of real things in life to figure out. This topic is very artificial to ME. Apparently not to a person who wrote it and who apparently has nothing more joyfull to do. Life has only one meanning to me, there is no others. Life is given to us to enjoy. Not to enjoy is a sin, but again, this is my opinion, there are people out there who definitely prefer misery over happiness, then meanning of life for them is to seek misery. Everybody has a different meanning, so I have no idea why is there a question?
In general thinking too much is dangerous, you loose the picture. I tend to decide on intuition. I mean I know exactly what I want and I do not care why, I do not even ask myslef why, it is completely irrelevant, it will put you into very bodirng existance, not doing anything with your life. Did Van Gogh asked himself why he was painting. I do not think so. If he did, the humanity would have one less great painter, a huge loss.</p>
<p>Just saw something else:
“The JIT - just-in-time - process pioneered in the US and adopted en masse in Japan "
-surprise, JITs are adopted en masse in the whole entire world. Yes, autoindustry cannot exist without it, building products suppliers are also required to implement EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and JITs are absolutely the main part of it with information that is turned around and placed into Shipping Notice that is also sent electronically with the shipment. I mean something from USA will reach Europe and other places in a matter of seconds or most likely shorter. The reason that I know is EDI is what I do and I have been doing it for over 10 years, absolutely nothing new here, ancient idea, ancient implementations involving Standardized Electronic messages.
" In Japan, that might mean multiple deliveries each day” - not in Japan, in the whole entire world, manufacturing has no chance without it.<br>
And our own thoughts are much faster, processing much more information, requiring much faster solutions. If we allow ourselves to analyze every time, we might die. Decide on a whim or die or have your decision made for you (not to your best) as somebody else took one of your options while you were thinking and it is not available to you anymore. Very simple, I made huge life changing decisions that most people do not even make based on intution. If I did not, I would be stripped of most values, the most treasures in my life.</p>