crisis of meaning & identity

recently been having a bit of a crisis about why i do anything and whats the point etc. So i decided I possibly needed to find some type of philosophy that helped to ground my mind.

So, Iwent on to school of life youtube channel and searched  'identity'.

1.

First watched this one & i liked the animation aesthetic.

Quotes&Notes

- is it really right to think of ourselves as the same person?
- where is personal identity located? the common idea is our body, but philosophers like to question and challenge this.
- Importance of character, john locke. values, inclinations, etc.
- if we think who we are is to do w values, loves & hates, technically immortal. live on through species.

2.

Quotes&Notes

- famous bc he hit a key factor about human nature we are more influenced by feelings than by reason.
his key philosophy:
- feeling rather than rationality. didn't believe that all feelings are acceptable and equal, so believed in the education of the passions. people need to learn to be more benevolent, patient, more at ease with themselves & less afraid of others.
- teach and adjust sentiments by sympathy, reassurance, good examples, encouragement, and art.
- was between being agnostic and theism
- was sceptic. doubted a lot of the common ideas of the time. inc. concept of personal identity 'the idea that we can understand ourselves and have a more or less graspable and enduring identity that runs through life.' no such thing as a 'core self'.

- 'we aren't the neat definable people reason tells us that we are and we seem to be when we look t ourselves in the mirror or use the word I'.

-" we are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and movement."

- ETHICS - how humans can be good. Being good means getting into good habits of feeling.
- great advocate of qualities like wit, good manners & sympathy as these are the things that make people nice to be around
END NOTE: i really found this video interesting and value hume's ideas. i find it very thought provoking as well as it being nice to think about.

3.

Quotes&Notes

- i found this summed up a lot how i was feeling.
- video said there are four drivers of meaning in the human race: to continue species, master our minds, master our environments, increase of our satisfaction. These explain a lot of our day to day activity.
- these are vast movements and no one human ever makes more than a tiny contribution to any of them; even great names.
- measuring our contribution individually is bound to leave us feeling defeated. we have to measure it against the broad stream of what humanity is up to.
- we'll tinker with a few elements (side note: this reminds me of doctor who. going back in time to change one small thing can change the world a lot, so maybe this is why each person is valuable. it may not be a lot, but it's something that combines with everything else.)

4.

Quotes&Notes

- i wasn't going to add this as I was like 'well, fuck, this is depressing' but then.... it said this which i found 'moving', i guess.
- we should expect a degree of distance and mutual incomprehension from the very start. when we do benefits can follow.

'once we accept loneliness we can get creative. we can start to send out messages in a bottle. we can sing, write poetry, produce books and blogs; activities stemming from the realisation that people around us won't ever fully get us, but that others, separated across time and space, might just.'

'the history of art is the record of people who couldn't find anyone in the vicinity to talk to and we can take up the coded offer of intimacy of say: the words of a Roman poet who died in 10 B.C, or the lyrics of a singer who described just our blues in a recording from Nashville in 1963.'

- i have realised that watching this has been like when i watch the celluloid closet: it re-grounded me. How art connects to us and how maybe others will do the same to the work of this generation in the future. How maybe someone will read the crap ive written or drawn the same way I listened to the velvet underground etc.

'When we admit our loneliness, we are signing up to a club that includes the people we know from the paintings of Edward Hooper, the poems of Baudelaire and the songs of Leonard Cohen. Lonely, we enter a long and grand tradition; we find ourselves surprisingly in great company'