Genuine question does anyone else just not belive in free will and not care.

The issue is that a lot of people agree with you when it’s abstract. But then bring in a person that’s easy to judge and hate, and suddenly there seems to be a belief that they could do otherwise, but because they are evil, they CHOOSE not to. Which somehow also becomes an argument for free will, even though it’s actually an argument against it…

If you don’t fall into this trap, good for you. But a lot of people do.

Surrender.

Not resignation. Surrender.

(Several years of reading philosophy, meditation, Zen Buddhism, resolving mental health issues, trauma work, therapy, psychedelic therapy, going through my personal hell, dropping self-hatered etc. but you can skip the hard stuff and just accept that all you ever amount to is the dash between your birthday and time of death. It’s very liberating once you stop believing the idea that you, or anything really, is “supposed” to be special. Or indeed that there even is a “you” - that’s just another way your mind is keeping busy. Vast majority of people take the long way around though.)

There was a good podcast on the political activism part recently: https://shows.acast.com/tantra-illuminated-with-dr-christopher-wallis/episodes/finding-freedom-in-troubled-times-with-tina-rasmussen

Welcome. I recommend you check out this book: https://adyashanti.opengatesangha.org/store/publications/books/falling-into-grace-535 (don’t let the title get in the way, it’s more Zen Buddhist). I imagine you can find it from a library.

It was helpful for me during some really rough times.

Of course, ‘everyone can be artist’. But wouldn’t the lack of the dramatic lead to a lesser chance of ‘making it big’?

Depends, because you’re not going to be conveying your experience perfectly anyway. It first goes through your own interpretative lens to the art, and then the art goes through the viewer’s lens. Big and dramatic emotions are easier… yes and as such may be more predictably marketable. But it’s a fickle business. Of course this is a concern only if marketability is how you measure “making it big”. We have a lot of art these days that’s easy to get into… and easy to drop. If you want world to remember you (Gogh wasn’t appreciated until after his death), you can try to convey something deeper and more complex.

I am having a hard time recalling positive experiences right now, especially ones that are “vibrant” in any way.

There’s vibrancy in deepest depression and the most boring line in the blandest grocery store. That’s for an artist to discover. But I’m not saying you should or should not take meds. But depression tends to lead to bad outcomes, and the world is full of depressed artists who didn’t make it.

Taking antidepressants does not have to reduce your creativity. Artists express their experience with their art. Sometimes it does it so well that people observing the art (through the lens of their conditioning) get moved. More damatic emotions get noticed more. But art can capture subtler experiences too. Antidepressants won’t remove your capacity to experience, it just changes the quality of the experience. Pay attention to all the qualities of your experience and you’ll notice it’s not just the intense ones that have vibrancy. You can convey that in art beautifully as well.

The suffering artist is a known trope but don’t think it’s a prophecy.

Hell yeah

There’s a persistent idea that the ability to suppress one’s feelings = sign of good mental health.

You’d have to settle for close enough here.

This is my point. We can’t do it exactly, we just approximate. With every single experience we have, we can only approximately communicate it to other people. But here’s the kicker: does thinking about the taste of water feel like you’re actually drinking water? If you were parched in a desert, would thinking about water really hard actually bring the experience of water? Obviously not.

Once you have experienced something, thinking back to it, you are already kind of approximating it to yourself. You can’t manifest the exact experience even for yourself. Let alone to others.

I’m just highlighting this because it’s a pretty significant thing to get in this world where we are communicating by text a lot, and being very quick to judge other people’s experiences. Not saying you’re doing that though.

But how would I know if our experience of the taste of water is the same?

What does water taste like?

That’s a pretty tall order. How do you confirm that you objectively share the same experience if you can only ever access your own subjective experience?

I love this

You don’t have to but it’s good to be aware of if you’re really saving time or giving more of your energy to something other than your own needs.

No, but it seems unusually aggressive for very little reason.

Not nihilism, Nondual Buddhism.

Lots of psychoanalysis in this thread.

A lot of things, but they are “just” beliefs. They’re just narratives about narratives about narratives but they may be useful. I believe my hand will burn if I put it on a candle flame. Which is an intense experience I’m inclined to avoid. But it’s neither a good or bad experience. I’m not going to go telling people that they should believe as I do. But I can tell them that by my assessment, it’s pretty damn likely they’ll experience pain if they put their hand on the flame. Up to them what they do with that.

In terms of my worldview, I “believe” that we’re just being, existence, experience. “Matter” is a story. “Spirit” is a story. Both camps demand an opposition to another which is inherently dualistic and as such, misleading and pointless. Putting any of this in words is silly because each word in itself is just a story, a concept, a belief. Best but deeply flawed description of reality I can muster at the moment is that it’s an experience of a free fall in total darkness.

Meditation and philosophical inquiry. Spent a lot of time believing the default vaguely-Christian-materialist-dualist framework that western culture has been brainwashing people into for centuries, pretending it’s “objectively true”.

Build a community. Don’t just expect people to randomly see you do something and get inspired. Actively build a real life face to face community with certain values - and don’t expect help. Welcome any that comes but don’t expect it. Do not discuss politics explicitly, focus on core values.

Organize a weekly outing event to pick up litter or something. Chat with people. Do it even if nobody shows up.