Do you think things are going to get better or worse?

No option for a little of both?

nope

i like to create polls that force a stark dichotomy onto a complex and nuanced reality. form vs. content, etc.

Better.

Also, in general better if you take the long view.

Then, because I have no objective knowlege about the future, I will take the more optomistic view, for this pleases me more.

Better because "It can't get much worse"

the optimism of rock bottom is a great thing to fall back on. i read a thing on the internet by an alcoholic, trying to quit, who said the hardest thing to give up were the mornings after -- when he feels terrible, physically and emotionally, and realizes with a degree of exhilaration that things cannot continue to be like this much longer.

i think my generation, the Millennials, are going to literally save the world, so voted 'better'

me too. i have a good feeling about our generation.

I voted 'better', but I'm really just in a kind of holding pattern atm. haven't had a depression relapse in the 6 years since my last one, but have been living under a cloud of mild gloom/stress all year, which is weird for me.

but all told, I still have it pretty well, so I can't complain

what % of people who post here suffer from, or have suffered from, clinical depression? i know i have but it seems to be a thing people talk about a lot.

I think the answer is "yes"

not really clinical depression (really just two isolated bouts in 1999 and 2006-2007), but have chronic anxiety that I take meds for. seems to be stable lately tho.

I'll be more or less okay for the next few years. When I retire--seven to ten years, estimated--that'll be tough if I'm still on my own. Health issues, which I've dodged for my whole life, are also going to catch up to me at some point.

This is a really good question, and the answer is I have no idea. I stay way too fixated on various life circumstances that make me miserable. Things could get a lot better or worse just with changes in attitude, and they could get a lot better or worse with changes in circumstances.

Part of me thinks my rebound partially stemmed from increasing connection to people due to social media. Prior to 2006, I felt very isolated from folks, and I've used FB (even MySpace) to make new friends, hell...two relationships started partially due to convos that started there!

but it does cause me more aggravation than usual lately.

The better-ness and worser-ness of my life have been entirely defined by the unprecedented. Getting sick, losing a job, these are things that have had less of a negative effect on my state of being than, say, an unexpected news event, an overhead snippet of conversation, a look from a stranger-- all things that have at one point ruined my year.

Similarly, major completion of projects or life goals fulfilled have been not nearly as satisfying as this particular night out, or that movie we watched, or an unexpected new friendship.

In general I think things stay the same, or at least fluctuate with regularity. But I voted "worse" because all my grandparents have suffered through the last year of their life.

"nostromo do you think death is objectively worse than life?"

not death by itself but getting ill etc..

thought better, now i'm thinking worse, could honestly go either way

^ also the title for the volume of my memoirs spanning the years 2009 through 2013

i'm going to get closer to death then i'm going to die so for me, personally, yes.

shit you mean it's possible for them to get worse??

worse is always the way to bet.

but i always read "things" as involving me only tangentially

i think we are losing sight of the stated purpose of this poll. you are supposed to vote yes and then feel encouraged by your own display of confidence in yourself.

i mean, i get it. i know it's hard to keep an open heart when even friends seem out to haunt you. but if you could heal a broken heart, wouldn't time be out to charm you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbUC-UaAxE

I voted 'better', but I'm really just in a kind of holding pattern atm. haven't had a depression relapse in the 6 years since my last one, but have been living under a cloud of mild gloom/stress all year, which is weird for me.

Yes, been feeling low-level mild gloom all year. otm holding pattern. I do feel optimistic about good things happening once that breaks!

better

mainly because i will make things better if it fucking kills me

For me personally? Better.

For the rest of the planet? Worse. Much, much worse.

- doctor doom

better, then worse

voted worse

Both are too optimistic, really. If you say 'worse' then you're suggesting that the place you're at now isn't so bad. If you say 'better' then you're suggesting that there is hope.

So the answer, really, is an unending trudge through the same shit until you die.

hope for fred west, plan for fred durst

when i think about this question i always tend to think about a favorite quote from Norbert Wiener:

We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization, which tends to reduce everything to the heat death of equilibrium and sameness.… This heat death in physics has a counterpart in the ethics of Kierkegaard, who pointed out that we live in a chaotic moral universe. In this, our main obligation is to establish arbitrary enclaves of order and system.… Like the Red Queen, we cannot stay where we are without running as fast as we can.

ryan, that's a good quote. I really like Kierkegaard, even though I'm not a theist.

Strangely, my reading of Kierkegaard always motivated me and gave me reasons not to believe in God. I guess it's the whole aspect of 'leap of faith'.

Having said that, this quote by him taught me to enjoy the 'little things' in life and live scientifically (it's from Fear and Trembling, which contributed to my aforementioned conclusion):

"If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?"

I'm not certain of it, but I assume that my interpretation of him (and Wiener's interpretation) was very uncommon amongst most circles at one point in history. Then came CS Lewis, which is probably close to his opposite (whilst still being a theist, of course).

Not really related to this thread, but: you really can get loads more out of Kierkegaard then 'theology'. You don't need to be a 'theist' to enjoy and appreciate his work. Just saying.

in my case I just know it's gonna get worse because I keep getting sicker and feeling sicker

But to answer the thread's question: worse. Things always get worse as time passes. You enter this world without a care in the world, and end up leaving this world by death (not a great thing in itself) with loads of cares, worries, fears, love, relations, loss, loathing etc. Getting older means life is definitely getting worse, for me.

But you are handed some tools every now and then along the way to dealwithit.jpg. Mastering those seems key. I know others are fab at that, mastering those tools, whereas I am shit at it. I will always be a glass half empty person, just the way I am. And I have experienced things getting worse, more difficult, more painful: such is life, for me. But I've accepted it, too. It is ok.

I anticipate that some things in my life and in the world at large will get much better, but others will get worse.

This question is, to me, asking "is food good for you?"

pringles are

my man

Man, I'm pretty happy the way things are right now. So in a way, things are more likely to get worse than better, because I can imagine way more things that would make things worse than better. But I also can realistically see some already-good things getting even better, so...

I do think the capacity to believe that things can or will get better is pretty important to getting up every day, so I guess I'll just keep believing that until some inevitable decline renders the whole discussion pointless.

better for me, worse for you

zero sum game right there

We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization, which tends to reduce everything to the heat death of equilibrium and sameness

Wouldn't equilibrium/sameness be the ultimate in organization/order? Maybe it's just me but the idea of the ultimate heat death ending of the universe seems to be working AWAY from chaos and TOWARDS and ultimate harmony. Which is pretty cool if you prefer harmony over chaos.

i don't know if it makes sense to prefer harmony to chaos or vice versa. total harmony and total chaos both seem synonymous with death, whereas life, or experience, seems to be built on the dialectic between repetition and spontanaeity.

the tendency of chaotic systems (weather, plate tectonics, vegetation growth, Everything) to form imperfect fractals, or to sort of circle around a "strange attractor" fractal state into which the system never entirely settles but which it's always, like, romancing, always kinda cheers me up w the idea that it's in chaos that you find the shadow of the deepest order. it's enough to make me a theist! nothing to do w my life getting better, of course; my destruction will just be part of the pretty shape. but still.

(dr sattler, i refuse to believe that you are unfamiliar with the concept of attraction.)

Have had a sufficiently comfortable and 'privileged' upbringing that as I embark into the "real world", I can't help but think that things can only get worse from here on in, whichever way I play it.

:-(

wow @ that emerson quote. i need to read more emerson.

it's from "Fate"--a very moving and vital essay, still.

ty

In a lot of bad situations acceptance is the key. You need to accept that bad times are ahead and you absolutely have to become strong enough to deal with them. Things not getting better is not a viable option. I know it sounds a bit Dudley Do-Right but I have been running this shit through my head for the last year, since my wife became ill.

it's from "Fate"--a very moving and vital essay, still.

thanks for that too. Here it is: http://www.emersoncentral.com/fate.htm

emerson is a bad motherfucker, yall need to get familiar

after three years of being sick I have finally forgotten what it feels like to be healthy, so things are getting better I guess.

1 day left people

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Worse :(

mind says better, heart says worse

I think worse, too, as I mentioned earlier. And I feel perfectly ok by saying so. Yet when someone else says it with sincerity, like Tera here, I feel a tug at the heart strings.... Just wish you all a 'better'.

Getting older is one of the biggest reasons for me to say worse. I don't care for age as a number, but I see nor experience any benefits. Sure, teenage angst is a thing of the past, but it sure wasn't followed up by a calm, or gentler, more peaceful life. Everything gets harder, more complicated with age, in my experience. Jobs, money, relations, work, seeing a new youth and generation arise I will slowly lose touch with.
I gain bad memories and regret every year, my perfectionism gets worse, and it is a struggle at times to keep up with life's pace. There are good memories, occurrences, for sure, but they don't outweigh the bad ones. I don't believe in a god,I don't believe life has any goal or meaning. It is pure chance. Which is something quite profound in itself, but quite mundane all the same.

I am not depressed (any more), I enjoy things, I do my best, and would say I am doing moderately ok. But I'm a pessimist, a sceptic, a struggler, a nihilist. I thought I would shake it off after my teenage years, that it was just a flight, a pose, a flaw that could be overcome. It wasn't. Life is such a wonderful cosmic fluke, best roller coaster ride ever, something I can definitely enjoy. But it remains so so.

I am just not that good at being a human being, I think. Which is unfortunate, since I am one. I am enjoying the ride so far, sometimes, but have little hope of things getting better, as every single thing has gotten worse or more difficult. And I am a lol adult.

Tl;dr: tmi.

death is an illusion, so is suffering. and i have a lot of faith in the inherent goodness of humanity. so yeah, better all the way.

death and suffering are not illusions.

I honestly admire your stance on this. But can you explain why 'death is an illusion'? Do you mean that from a religious pov, believing in reincarnation? Or in a metaphysical way?

Because for me, death is pretty much the opposite of illusion. It is all too real.

Xp

There have been greet surprises in my life, but there are other aspects of my life things have been on a serious decline and just don't see it all improving.

*great

sorry guys i didn't want this thread to be a bummer

Yes you did Treeship, you set out to accomplish just that.

;-)

Nah, I'm cool with it. It's just the way it is. Big hug to Tera.

Thanks, I'm okay...

Hope you aren't just saying that. Do wish you the very best, you are a much loved and appreciated ilxor imho!

wish i could vote twice in this one

AWWW Thank you, I am though...

death is an illusion, so is suffering

I have a large sturdy stick you might want to meet.

Bateau eau t m

if anyone has any ideas for how things could possibly not get worse, please do share

things only ever get better because of 'er indoors, fact

i wonder how she feels about things

The big problem is that it is only human to look at the past and say "Oh i wish things had gone _this_ way" and get terribly upset at it, whereas you hardly spend any time worrying about the future. The past seems so real and meaningful and concrete and the older you get, the more past there is, adding more and more layers to what could easily be seen as the great towering disappointment that is your life so far. You can't be disappointed in the future cos it doesn't exist yet.

Before it occurs in time, a moment is full of endless possibilities. After it occurs, that moment is dead. All your memories are nothing but death.

Memories are recalled in the present moment, so that memories, no matter how well or poorly they correspond to the actual past, are not dead as they are remembered.

i spend lots of time worrying about the future and the present, p much everyone does, im sure.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

You optimists make me sick

otm

treeship voted several dozen times

the past is dead, the past is dead, the past is dead....

I feel like things are better already

well did they

hope for fred west, plan for fred durst

― mundane peaceable username (darraghmac), Monday, 22 July 2013 14:03 (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink