onlife ondeath offlife
Jul. 16th, 2003 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Thinking about people's various comments in reply to my metaphysical onlife musings, I have revised my view somewhat.
Lj is not life because it is controllable. When we are dead, that's it. We can think about our death beforehand and ponder the unthinkability of life continuing without us, but there ain't nuthin' much we can do about our impending death.
However, we can jack in and out of LJ at will. In that sense, it is a Life under our control. In the less metaphysical sense of 'life' (as in 'my real life'), it is also a life under our control. It is entirely up to the individual to decide when or where she goes online, posts, comments and what she reads. Neither life (real) nor Life (in the larger sense) is anything like this.
Getting back to the metaphysical level, LJ could be seen as a means of coping with the knowledge of death. Because it is analogous to life with the fundamental difference of being controllable, it is like having power over Life. And if you have power over Life, you have power over Death.
LiveJournal is a means of keeping Death at bay.
Thus endeth the peripatetic philosophy lesson of today.
Hm, it would be interesting to hear from anyone who actually knows about philosophy. My familiarity is highly patchy. (Must be because Plato's Symposion and Kant's Critiques have not yet appeared in editions with Movie Stars on the cover.)
Lj is not life because it is controllable. When we are dead, that's it. We can think about our death beforehand and ponder the unthinkability of life continuing without us, but there ain't nuthin' much we can do about our impending death.
However, we can jack in and out of LJ at will. In that sense, it is a Life under our control. In the less metaphysical sense of 'life' (as in 'my real life'), it is also a life under our control. It is entirely up to the individual to decide when or where she goes online, posts, comments and what she reads. Neither life (real) nor Life (in the larger sense) is anything like this.
Getting back to the metaphysical level, LJ could be seen as a means of coping with the knowledge of death. Because it is analogous to life with the fundamental difference of being controllable, it is like having power over Life. And if you have power over Life, you have power over Death.
LiveJournal is a means of keeping Death at bay.
Thus endeth the peripatetic philosophy lesson of today.
Hm, it would be interesting to hear from anyone who actually knows about philosophy. My familiarity is highly patchy. (Must be because Plato's Symposion and Kant's Critiques have not yet appeared in editions with Movie Stars on the cover.)