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Two of my favorite Flickr groups are "Stick Figures in Peril" and "Stick Figures Who Have the Situation Under Control." As the group moderator of "Stick Figures in Peril" is a stickler for signs of clear and present danger, I must stress the clear evidence that this stick person has been repeatedly run over, in addition to its general sense of postmodern identity fragmentation.
June 29, 2017 - Aspen, Colorado, USA: Aspen Institute Ideas Festival:
438 - Pandemics and the Existential Threat to Global Security (Priority)
Ron Klain, Lisa Monaco, Nancy Sullivan
Moderator: Tommy Vietor
St. Regis Hotel Ballroom
5:30 - 6:30 pm
Photo by Ian Wagreich
2012 Exhibition of Work by Newly Elected Members and Recipients of Honors and Awards, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City
Irresitible attraction between Mr. and Mrs. Dinaz! (Sorry, inside joke with Mr. Mole. See the dancing skeletons.)
Neal Kharawala
Finally, it’s October! My favorite month for busting out some thick turtlenecks, wool socks, scary movies!!, and for having epic existential meltdowns over almost everything.
I’ve been really looking forward to this fall because the next season of Stranger Things is being... - #Stories
quotesstory.com/stories/the-spookiest-thing-coming-out-th...
Lifehacker had a post commenting on the minimalist lifestyle. The post suggested that such a life, avoiding owning too many physical things had advantages, but shouldn’t be oversold. Many responses ensued that raised existential questions aplenty. One post was this one:
I live in the real world.
In the real world, I am judged to a certain extent by my possessions.
What I have is a reflection of how well I’ve done. My ability to have nice things is concrete proof that I am a person of some means.
I live in the real world.
Women judge me to a certain extent by what I have to determine if I can be a good provider. They may not admit it to me. They may not admit it to themselves.
I live in the real world.
My peers judge me to a certain extent by the manner in which I present myself. My ability to have nice things in varied formats allows me to present myself in a manner that suits the occasion. My ability to do this conveys the message that I have some degree of taste and that my opinion should be respected.
I live in the real world.
While I may like minimalism or whatever “zen”-type adjective I choose to use, I also know that as soon as I start trying to evangelize about minimalism, I immediately put myself in a certain category and marginalize my ability to persuade.
The response seems like a suggestion that life’s purpose was established by evolution as:
survive and procreate.
At least that’s what I read into it. Each paragraph basically says have more stuff because that will:
impress women (allowing you to reproduce);
make your opinions more respected (give you power, ensure your
survival);
impress peers including those who can give you the opportunity to
acquire opportunities to acquire still more stuff; and
in general to follow an imperative of competition promote your own
success and to know that you have “been successful”.
Owning and acquiring things usually does do all these things. Realistically that’s true, and hence the chorus of “I live in the real world”. The responses bottom line seems to be: “he who dies with the most toys wins”. I find this sentiment (that I think is pretty common), kind of sad and depressing, and I hope it’s not all there is.
Aren’t we at the point of being self aware enough to think we have purposes other than just success in the sense that living long enough to pass our genes along defined it. Aren’t we aware that we are part of a larger whole? I think God gives this awareness. I’d like to hope that my life and existence will have ultimately contributed some things that will make the world better for others better in some way.
Bill Gate and Warren Buffet with their philanthropic activity I think realize this. They don’t want their legacies to be just a bunch of stuff they accumulated for themselves, and none of which likely will prevent their dying like the rest of us. Most of us won’t have the opportunity to have such a potential positive impact, I certainly won’t.
I hope that things I’ve acquired or produced may in a very few cases be of use to people I’ve never met. Things that I’ve accumulated but given away. Photos or writing that can be copied for other may stimulate an interesting thought or make someone’s day a little brighter. That part of why I’ve been putting a lot of stuff on the web of late hoping something useful for others will survive me.
In any case, case I hope their a better answer to the “why do we exist?” question than to accumulate stuff to:
survive and procreate.
Also found here at my blog.
Early 21st century angst is troubling Olly's consciousness. Deep in his Trauffaut phase, Olly contemplates sparse minimalism and his own debilitating self-awareness of rejection. What is good in the world? Rawhide? A soft bed? Cat shit on a city sidewalk? Nothing, nothing.
Puscifer
at The Greek Theatre
Los Angeles, CA
June 12, 2022
All photos © Kaley Nelson Photography - www.KaleyNelson.com
we all face such existential dilemmas, no?
why are we here on this earth?
beyond everything. beyond your dreams, hopes and romantic aspirations, why are we all striving up and away from the valley of ashes?
there is no answer.
June 29, 2017 - Aspen, Colorado, USA: Aspen Institute Ideas Festival:
438 - Pandemics and the Existential Threat to Global Security (Priority)
Ron Klain, Lisa Monaco, Nancy Sullivan
Moderator: Tommy Vietor
St. Regis Hotel Ballroom
5:30 - 6:30 pm
Photo by Ian Wagreich
June 29, 2017 - Aspen, Colorado, USA: Aspen Institute Ideas Festival:
438 - Pandemics and the Existential Threat to Global Security (Priority)
Ron Klain, Lisa Monaco, Nancy Sullivan
Moderator: Tommy Vietor
St. Regis Hotel Ballroom
5:30 - 6:30 pm
Photo by Ian Wagreich
I really wanted to buy the cat. The look of ennui on its face is perfect. Like it's wondering where it all went wrong and if it was a bad decision to settle down with Weird Pink Dog Type Thing.
Mysticism is a perceptional enquiry of experiencing that which is existentially true. Intellectual enquiry is a psychological exercise, could be unrelated to the existential. -Sg #MysticEye
@HuluTheaterMSG
Walking on foot brings you down to the very stark, naked core of existence. We travel too much in airplanes and cars. It’s an existential quality that we are losing. It’s almost like a credo of religion that we should walk.
There is, of course, something inherently romantic—if not heroic—about the extreme solitary explorer enveloped by nature. The very image of Herzog on foot recalls the iconic 19th-century paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, especially his Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, with its lone figure staring out at the wide vista above the clouds.
'Truth itself wanders through the forests,' Herzog writes near the end. Yet here he embroiders his memories for effect: The vast swath of geography between Munich and Paris is littered with industrial towns and cities.
Once he comes out on the other end, traversing the deforested Champs-Élysées (“We were close to what they call the breath of danger”), Herzog emerges victorious.
― Of Walking in Ice: (Munich-Paris, 23 November–14 December 1974)
by Werner Herzog
Walking on foot brings you down to the very stark, naked core of existence. We travel too much in airplanes and cars. It’s an existential quality that we are losing. It’s almost like a credo of religion that we should walk.
There is, of course, something inherently romantic—if not heroic—about the extreme solitary explorer enveloped by nature. The very image of Herzog on foot recalls the iconic 19th-century paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, especially his Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, with its lone figure staring out at the wide vista above the clouds.
'Truth itself wanders through the forests,' Herzog writes near the end. Yet here he embroiders his memories for effect: The vast swath of geography between Munich and Paris is littered with industrial towns and cities.
Once he comes out on the other end, traversing the deforested Champs-Élysées (“We were close to what they call the breath of danger”), Herzog emerges victorious.
― Of Walking in Ice: (Munich-Paris, 23 November–14 December 1974)
by Werner Herzog