>>25667
Knowing yourself to the limited extent of knowing what reduces your suffering and/or existential dread is enough. I think you are ignoring the fact that all people are different and for some knowingly trying to be ignorant of some things as a cope (blurring it with work, entertainment and other materialistic indulgence etc.) is an effective option. That is, they respond best to it. Trying to be an armchair philosopher and overthinking things in the pursuit of more "wisdom" about why you came about, what grand purpose you serve and reasons for everything else in the world isn't a panacea for everyone. You do what works for you and it may even involve drugs (legal SSRIs or otherwise). I can see going out on a comfy drug high as perfectly rational if you're terminally ill with clearly limited time. You don't get bonus points from life for trying to endure the terminal pain as a sober stoic overthinking why you deserved or didn't deserve to die and what purpose you served until the very end. Some people would rather not do that.

>>25665
>>25666
>>25667
>>25668
What about living for somebody besides yourself? Maybe you could be satisfied slaving away or anything else if you think it's for the sake of somebody you love or some cause you care about for some reason. I don't know what that feeling is like, but maybe it's really nice. Aren't people supposed to have things they would die for, or does that only exist in fiction?

>>25668
I'm all for escapism, but not to escape from yourself. You don't need to be a philosopher or anything, but I can't see how to supress your own thoughts can take you anywhere. Besides that, I doubt it's possible and they are still going to be there when you end whatever it was distracting you.
About illness, I just remembered an story about an old king who got sick really fast and in some days was already in his deathbed. Then suddenly asked for a doctor to come quickly. The doctor came and started presenting excuses about how nothing could be done. But the king just wanted to ask me what was the illness that was killing him and how. After having the answers, the understanding, he died in absolute peace.

>>25669
Maybe not in our era, gernerally talking. We have killed God, ideologies and beliefs. I think we're not too conscious of it now but in the past people had big systems of thought developed during centuries that guided their lifes. It's like how today people preffer to die without being conscious of it while in the past it was the opposite, because it was a trascendental moment that wasn't too good to miss.

>>25670
Effective free thought suppression is possible for many people although not saying it may be for you. Venerable meditation, martial arts, education and interrogation programs are built on forcing your brain to act a certain way and believe a certain thing no questions asked. With enough discipline you can learn to empty your thoughts while meditating. With the proper external stress and psychological techniques applied you can be indoctrinated to accept things no questions asked (even to believe outright lies) through military training, captive "reeducation" (most often associated with Communists) or intense enough vocational programs. When they work properly they shred your free thoughts on a matter (e.g. what is my purpose?) and rebuild you based on a mold. There are also legal and illegal "happy pill" types drugs on top meant to slow down your brain activity from all that overthinking.

>>25669
I think it's still possible whether someone spends decades thinking it out or simply accept a purpose assigned to them as an axiom (being naturally "simple minded" or indoctrinated).

Well Tohno, it happened. I'm no longer in my early 30s, I now find myself in my mid 30s instead. It's September the 18th, it's my birthday and I'm 34 years old. I've been having this nagging feeling that I should have something to say about it, so I decided to use the only type of "say" I use most of the time, and that is writing a post on an IB, one I really like and respect, so here. I like your longevity and self-effacing demeanour, cheers. I did some research for this post too, I went to social media and looked for all people I know were weebs on their adolescence and young adulthood, 10 to 15 years ago. People I posted in forums with, chatted on ICQ and MSN, people I met in games like Ragnarok, Kaillera clients and so on. How time flies. Oh and I have a surprise for you guys at the end, I'm like a retail store that give gifts instead of getting them for their birthday, so you'll have that for stomaching through this post. I feel like this will be a long one, so you might want to save it for when you're quite bored and you're doing your ib rounds, desperately looking for new posts to read. Here's one will distract you for a few minutes. Here we go.
I'll be again sharing the fate of some old weebs, or ex-weebs, those who "mended" and managed to become productive citizens of this crazy world, and where they vanished to. I looked several people up. All of them watched tons of anime and it was all we would talk about. I'm talking about early days of fansubs, 15 years or so ago. I'm surprised a lot of them have children now. Maybe a lot of them have enough financial stability to have children. I look at their lives and I'm happy to say I'm honestly glad for them. I don't feel any remorse or regret toward my place in this world anymore, in fact, all things considered, is quite a nice, little life. Sure it's not for everyone. Many people would say it's too frugal, cooking all your meager meals, mending your decade old clothing to save pennies and so on, but you know what, I really belong to this life after all.
Sometimes I'll spend a long time just gazing through my bedroom window, looking at all the people coming and going during rush hour. I specially like to look at the streets on friday afternoons when people are bustling, talking with friends, laughing, going back home, getting ready to relax, etc. I used to look at them and think with some pleasure that I was living in a different world, like a ghost gazing at aliens. Now I feel the exact opposite. I look at those people with lives so different from my own and I feel I'm part of this world. It's a strange realization and I'm not sure how to explain it, but it does feel good to be part of this world, finally, to accept things and myself the way they are. It's also hard to trace how this whole thing came about.
It's a little bit like that zen saying I suppose. Before studying zen, mountains are mountains. After a glimpse of zen, mountains are no longer mountains. After enlightment, mountains are mountains again. Now, I don't know much about zen but to me at this point in life I can make some sense of it. To have lived enough to take things for what they are without trying to escape anymore. Maybe this saying has nothing to do with that, but I like to imagine it's talking about something like that.
So, where are all the 30+ weebs? There aren't many, but at least I'm here, I hope that makes other 30+ users out there a little bit more comfortable. You're not that much of a rarity I guess. So yeah, there you go. I'm sorry about the blogging. Since it's my birthday today I've been reading things that reminds me of my childhood. I use to love Mystical Ninja Goemon for the N64 growing up. Me and my brother would play it to death. Years ago I found out there was actually manga released with the characters, authored by the late Mr. Hiroshi Obi (died in 2014 from a brain hemorrhage, rip Mr. Obi) published by Kodansha. Those are fairly difficult to find if you're not willing to actually buy it from Mandarake or something. I'll be sharing with you guys one of Mr. Obi's first volumes based around the Goemon universe. I'll post a link to it on /ma/ 'what are you reading?' thread. I hope you enjoy it.

>>25903
I'm completely different. All that only makes me feel worse.
Even if I was capable of "finally" conforming to the world to comfortably fade away I would choose not to.
Because it's not right. It's all wrong and unfair and disgusting. Unless it's somehow made right I won't meekly come to terms with being a part of it, being where I must be.
I don't care that they all learn to accept and become comfortable with the world as they get old. I'm not one of them. I was never allowed to be accepted as one of them when it mattered.
Now others expect me to obediently embrace the burden of aging and withering, without any of the perks they were given or allowed to seize in their time. I'm to "just get over myself already" and step back into the flow of things to slowly die somewhere out of sight.

It's infuriating.

>>25905
>Now others expect me to obediently embrace the burden of aging and withering
What's the alternative? What do you intend to do besides "embrace" aging? Dying right now would suit others just as well as you conforming. If you pick the former, you're no longer a burden, if you pick the latter, you're also no longer a burden.

>>25903
That was a nice post, thank you for sharing.

>>25906
Not him, but I'd say not living by the standards and expectations of people who are __ years old.

>>25903
Coincidentally I turned 34 just some months ago.
Do you ever feel regreet? Lack of something?
I don't think our kind makes it past their 30's in too many occasions. Not saying we suffer from an high mortality, maybe there's just not too many of us to start with. I have to say I never meet one of our kind in real life.
Since there's so few cases it's interesting to see how maturity works in them, in us. I can't say I'm that close to that zen state you describe, but I'm not particularly unhappy, maybe because I don't feel like fighting reality too often. And I'm in a better situation (in work, money, etc) than ever, at the end material conditions count the most for almost any person.
I feel terribly old though. I have probably lived more than half of my life and my only real ties with other humans can be reduced to my mother, who will leave this world sooner or later. It's a weird feeling.
Also, coincidentally, I think I've been doing stuff like you said, to remember old days. Watched movies I haven't watched in 15 years and I rewatched Evangelion after more than 10 years from last time. I feel like if I had tried to do the same just 4-5 years ago, nostalgia and melancholy could have crushed me, but I did just fine. Still, I don't know if I could do it as fine with other, more touching, things.

>>25905
I'm sorry my post made you upset. You're right, world and people can be beyond fucked up and you don't have to accept any of it. I won't pretend to have some superior knowledge to offer you about this because I really don't. All I can tell you is that I mostly came into terms with my own expectations about things and living feels better when what you expect is closer to what is likely to happen. I might be wrong but by reading your post it sounds like you're expecting some sort of retribution over a bunch of things that happened to you. How likely is that retribution to come?

>>25907
Thank you for taking the time to read it. Don't forget to grab your Goemon copy.

>>25909
>Do you ever feel regreet? Lack of something?
Yeah, of course. I don't expect things to change for the better though, my potential is all realized at this point. I didn't amount to much in the end. In fact, almost to nothing at all, but I try to make a difference in people's lives in a positive, however fleeting way. For example there's this guy on youtube who has been uploading rare, old video game music for the past 10 years and he never gets a single comment. So I wrote him one, telling how much I appreciate his effort and content. He responded soon afterwards with two paragraphs about a bunch stuff about his life. It was really a revelation how people feel lonely out there and a single message can improve a person's day. I do that now for a few other channels I like from Youtube abyss. It's fleeting and some would say superficial, but it's something. Well, it is what it is. I finished Goemon btw. Here's a nice shot I took from an area in the game a while ago.
>Watched movies I haven't watched in 15 years
What movies? I'll watch one of my favorites tomorrow. Take a look at Mr. Vampire, a Hong Kong film from 85. It never fails to lift my spirits. Safe to say it's one of my favorite movies of all times.
>Still, I don't know if I could do it as fine with other, more touching, things.
Then don't go there. Yet. Put another 10 years in between you and those memories, maybe then you can look at it in a better, less emotionally charged perspective. There's no rush after all. Stay safe out there anon, wish you the best.

>>25910
>What movies?
When I was 18 yo I was into 90's wave genre japanese movies (Kitano, Tsukamoto, Miike), particularly into Miike. That was the stuff I liked the most, maybe because I was still an edgy teen but after some rewatching I think those movies are mostly really good.
Years later I also got into Hong Kong movies so I had Mr. Vampire in my backlog for a long time, I think I haven't watched it yet because the cast doesn't have any big names on it, but Encounters of the Spooky Kind with Sammo Hung is one of my favourite HK movies, it's a similar style?
I think I must had it downloaded somewhere, maybe I will watch it today.

>>25910
>>25916
Just started watching Mr Vampire and I suddenly remembered I already watched it time ago.
This is what happens when you download 600+ movie packs of all Shaw Brothers production and sutff like that, you reach a point when you start to forget things, thanks God I have a complete register of all I have watched in the last 15 years. Even if I forgot I watched it the movie was nice, by the way.

>>25903
>I used to look at them and think with some pleasure that I was living in a different world, like a ghost gazing at aliens.
I used to feel this way, too, but now I sorely miss being so detached. Having been forced to become more engaged in the world around me just to get by, I feel as if I'm wandering ever deeper into a desert without a drop of water. I've lost touch with some vital, authentic part of myself: left it behind inside of me in a place I can no longer venture. I find myself wondering if it would be different if I still had a place where I could divulge my inner thoughts, a place where others divulged theirs and I could relate to them, or if even the anonymous imageboards of my past would fail to connect with me now. I am adrift. I'm 35 years old, and for years my life has felt like I made the wrong choice at some crucial event flag and got myself onto the path of a bad end. Except that nothing has ever felt like a choice. All I can do is watch my mental health decay a little more each day.

Apologies for rambling, and being a bit of a downer, but thank you for the opportunity to reflect.

>>25938
In my experience, the more I get into the world, the more unhappy I feel, and getting more isolated from it always gaves me peace.
It can be anything, some human interaction or reading the newspaper, it decreases, even if just slightly, my mood. I think the rest of humans just work the complete opposite so if I weren't conscious about this I would be completely miserable.

Escapism is the closest we can get to salvation

>>25910
Is this channel a 500 or so subs that uploads the soundtracks generally track by track, and in many tracks he puts a picture of the Synthesizer/something device he has? Most of his videos don't have even 20 views.

>>25961
Shit, sorry to take this long to respond. I'm not saying which channel it is, but most channels on Youtube are wastelands like that. People posting stuff that almost nobody watches.

Recently I had one of my comments deleted by the channel's owner. It was really just a message thanking the person for making the content and assuring someone out there was watching it. It's literally all I said. If I had a YT channel I would be very happy to receive such comment but that just shows how different people are. I see no reason to obliterate that message but there you go. Kinda felt like shit for a while, wondering if the message was too positive for today's internet and the person assumed I was being ironic? I really don't know. I stopped commenting on this particular channel because I'm afraid instead of improving someone's day I'm making it worse.

>>26064
>most channels on Youtube are wastelands like that.
Yeah, that's true. Just the the day I made that post I found a channel just that way, and then I thought "what a coincidence! Must be the same", but really there are many like it.
>If I had a YT channel I would be very happy to receive such comment but that just shows how different people are
>I see no reason to obliterate that message but there you go.
Things like that happen, people act very differently. Years ago, 9 or 7 years ago, there was this big but not so big youtube channel I was subscribed to. The guy who ran it had this idea of raiding other people's livestreams, and making his subscribes interact with those near-zero subscribers channels. Most people were happy to see movement and people checking their channel out, but I remember the first "victim" of this was a guy streaming Minecraft to less than 8 viewers, he had hundreds and hundreds of people come to his channel, and comment on his live, and he just looks at the counter and says "Uhm, whatever" and goes back like nothing happened.

>>25903
I don't know how people can live for so long. I'm still so young and I've almost completely lost patience and interest in life. It feels like a drag that I just want to end. I'm beginning to think most suicides aren't passionately sad, or even depressed in the clinical or emotional sense, but that they've just gotten sick of being alive. Every day I feel less and less inhibition to the idea of turning out the lights. And it's strange, because there's nothing particularly bad happening to me right now. There's really nothing for me to complain about at all. But I think about spending all that effort to live to 80 years and die anyway and think "why bother"? It feels like life is just dragging on for way too long and I want to get it over with. Again I have to make clear, it's not an emotional thing. I really feel like this is a practical concern, like I'm weighing the budget of some activity or program and deciding that it's not worth the expense. Although who knows, the last 6 years passed me by at light speed and I only just found out how long it had been two months ago when I, for the first time, compared the time I spent in highschool and college to the time I spent out of it and found out that I've actually been out for longer than I was in. That entire section of my life, was no more than the brief period of time I spent drifting for what felt like 2 years but in reality was much longer. Maybe I'll hit 35 before I even know it.

>>26234
My life hasn't been particularly great, but I would like to live forever. The times I have thought about dying it was related to being into bad situations and seeing no exit from it, but I never hated life itself. And I hate myself, my self-hate is my biggest issue by far, so I suspect the difference with you is how I'm still able to enjoy things in the world. Even if everything sucks I'm still fascinated by so many things. I'm old and I carry all the weights but I haven't lost that.

>>26235
> but I would like to live forever
That would be my worst fear (and relatedly, if reincarnation were real then spawning endlessly on earth to complete the same cycle seems the embodiment of drudgery). I am fascinated by things, but that only really serves to counter the boringness of everything else.

>>26235
I used to want to live forever, but now the idea just seems tiring to me. I would argue in the past that we haven't ever been immortal and can't really know what it's like to claim it would be objectively bad. I still believe that, but personally I already find life so tiring that even if I could live forever, without eating or getting hurt or having any commitments, I would rather just lay down and go to sleep.

>>26237
>we haven't ever been immortal
Immortality won't necessarily guarantee good quality of life though. You can remain "alive" but stuck in a wheelchair because all of your bones have weakened and your eyesight has deteriorated. Or are we assuming that by immortality we also have the ability to restore/rejuvenate all bodily functions back to their peak?

>>26240
Immortality doesn't guarantee jack shit, because it's never happened before in recorded history. I could literally make up any random rule I wanted for immortality, it doesn't really add anything to the conversation to say that kind of stuff. But typically, when someone talks about immortality, they're assuming that they're talking about one that stops the deteriorating processes of aging at the very least. It's not hypothetically possible to have immortality if the body can deteriorate with scars or aging or anything because the body will distort beyond human form and eventually cell walls will break down and any claim to being "alive" will end, thus by definition not being immortality. There are too many different types of immortality in fiction and myth for me to cover them all in one post, but it's a good assumption to make when talking about it generally that immortality freezes the aging process at whatever stage it was already at, at the very least. Yeah there's shit like the greek myth where the guy turned into a grasshopper after aging for so long but I consider that an "extra element" to immortality beyond any basic form of immortality, perfect regeneration, or eternal youth. There's literally no frame of reference for making a judgement on the quality of immortality so I find it to be a pretty banal conversation to have. Almost all of them involve something that happens in real life anyway, does that assume then that real life is not worth living? We all have regrets, we will all see someone we know die well before our own death. You will watch your parents, siblings, and friends die someday. You will have regrets, and you will miss people or things or characters for years after they are gone. You will age, grow decrepit and weak and spend most of your years not being as fit as a 20 year old. That is already a condition of life, immortality changes nothing about that.

>>26241
>There's literally no frame of reference for making a judgement on the quality of immortality
Well AKTCHOOALY *puts on extra thick rim glasses* there's a species of jellyfish that has biological immortality(doesn't die from aging). What it looks like is it aging to maturity and then returning to a juvenile state in an indefinite cycle. Humans probably wont be able to do this because of our far higher complexity. I always imagined immortality to be like being stuck at 25ish, since that's fully matured, but right before deterioration starts.

>>26242
See always thought that immortality would stick you right around 17, which I thought was the perfect age in a lot of ways. I did start thinning way back at 21 though. As for that jellyfish , that's pretty neat. I thought everything like that was technically still aging and would die eventually after 500 years or so.

Immortality is part of what is motivating me to invest in the stock market. I want to live forever but I know that if that was to ever become a possibility it would be something that only the rich could afford.

I don't ever want to die.

>>26244
I wonder why immortality wouldn't become as commonplace as healthcare if it turned out to not be energy-intensive. After all, if it still requires people to eat then you've got yourself an immortal workforce. Out of curiosity, are there any innovations which never moved out of the phase of only being for the rich due to expense? Something at least 30-40 years old, obviously nothing to early to tell.

>>26245
We don't know what form immortality would take or how much that would cost. However, even if it was relatively cheap it would be in the interests of the government of the world to make it too expansive for the masses.

We are already going to have populations problems so having a population that nearly cannot die is only going to worsen that. They could try regulating births but it's really not possible or realistic and even if you did there would still have to be a way for people to have children and being a natural impulse large enough numbers would strive to do this so you would have to steralise the population at birth and make the procedure to fix that prohibitively expensive which puts you back in square one only with the added cost of having to steralise everybody and the political uproar that would cause.

In the US I think there are as they actually have to pay for it or have health care so a rare $50,000 procedure would not be covered, in civilized countries it generally is though. There may be a limit on that but I would not know what.

>>26245
>>26246
It's always a good idea to have money, I agree with that part. Another good idea is accepting you will die. There's absolutely no way you'll be able to live indefinitely. It's not going to happen with or without money.

>>26247
How do you define being alive? What if something could think without meeting the biological definition of alive?

>>26248
Not him but there are already computers that have more of a capacity to think than many if not most living things, insects are dumb. We would still say they are alive though so I would not say that a computer could be considered alive no matter how smart it was.

>>26246
You could always just steal it. I think if it ever got out that immortality had been developed, even a stop-gap, there would be people willing to risk a lot to get it, especially if it was impossible for a normal person to acquire it just by working hard for years.

>>26248
I would have to actually do some research to respond what I think alive means in strict technical terms, anon. One thing I believe to be certain though, >>26244 is human and hence he or she will definitely die someday. Hopefully many decades from now after having a great, wonderful life.
Besides, all things suffer decay, not only biological creatures. Even the sun doesn't stand a chance. Everything is subject to entropy.
>>26249
>insects are dumb
Rude!

>>26251
>Everything is subject to entropy
How'd the big bang happen then? We don't understand everything well enough to be defeatist yet.

>>26252
Even if the big bang defies entropy it still falls into the territory of the all encompassing killer: change

>>26244
>>26251
If you had immortality, even in a limited fashion that was still subject to entropy at the end of the universe, what would you want to do with it? Personally I'd like to travel the world a lot, and observe things like wars, any kind of war. I think it would be pretty neat to see how a guerilla war really plays out because this seems to be an enigma to the powers that be in the world. Hence the last 50 years of unsuccessful operations against tiny, mobile forces. I think in general even if my immortality made me invincible and I didn't have to really fear anyone as more than an inconvenience, I'd want to stay out of the public eye. Imagine having to spend thousands of years with people knowing who you are and following you around with cameras.

>>26256
Cult leader.

>>25672
Now that, sounds like a fate worse than death. If I could only see that in my future I would suicide as quickly as I could walk to a tall bridge.

Anyone 30+ still lurking around? Or is the meme true and we're all supposed to be extinct by now on these boards? Seems like every year there's fewer of us.

Granted, plenty of people get busier as they do advance research degrees, advance up their careers and end up with more family responsibilities.

Sometimes it all seems like a pie eating contest where the award is more bloody pie. Oh well. Time never stops back to being a net ghost.

>>26380
Maybe a more interesting question is if there is anybody under 20 lurking here.

>>26381
>>24553

>>26380
There used to be a handful of wizards here. There are people with families of their own on 4-ch, older anons just recline rather than go extinct, I think.

>>26380
I'm in my mid 30's. And I'm not particularly busy, I could still spend hours in imageboards, but I feel like that Steve Buscemi meme. Modern internet repels me, and I repel modern internet, but old habits are hard to forget.

>>26380
Yes. We're actually not that uncommon as it turns out. I do wonder how many of us are still weebs and how many just lurk ibs out of habit.

>>26380
I'm in my 30s, but I eventually lost interest in weeb stuff so I don't come to some of these boards much anymore.

>>26415
What are you interested in these days? For entertainment I mean.

>>26416
I used to like fantasy novels when I was a teenager and I got back into that. I've also been getting into roguelikes and some older CRPGs and strategy games. Also I have to work full-time now (I was a NEET for most of my 20s), so it's not exactly hard to fill my time; I always feel like I don't have enough of it.