The courage to be

What Hacker News says

1. pegasusJul 2023
   "The Courage to Be" by Paul Tillich is a profound analysis of this aspect of human experience and on how to relate to it. Warmly recommended.
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2. thenerdheadMay 2023
   You have to fill up your cup before you can fill others. Perfectionists are well known to hardly ask for help and in life that's the catalyst for being able to make more time for yourself.

   Say no to more things. Spend more time on finding out more about yourself. Start to understand your emotions around the constant trauma you're living through and have lived through.

   You don't need to pay somebody $150 for this advice. Go pick up any well known book on stress, trauma, etc and it'll start to make sense.

   Here's some to start:

   - The Stress of Life

   - The Body Keeps the Score

   - When The Body Says No / The Myth of Normal

   - The Drama of the Gifted Child

   - The Courage to Be

   - Awakening the Soul

   You can also read ancient mythology, philosophy, or religious texts which will repeat familiar stories that help you ponder a deeper sense of purpose. There's many ways to get closer to your soul.

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3. thenerdheadDec 2022
   Yeah depends how you look at it. It is very grim when you look at it from the hedonistic perspective. To avoid nihilism you have to consider the complete opposite. That you are contributing to the collective in a significant way, even if you suck at art, coding, writing, etc.

   We're already quite deep in a meaning crisis. Nothing should stop each individual on this planet from searching for their meaning regardless of current innovation. Like you mention, humans grow from the pain and process, AI will never have that nor understand it.

   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11987.The_Myth_of_Sisyph...

   EDIT: There's also a beautiful book regarding an existential courage to "be" which rejects this nihilism/meaninglessness.

   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175141.The_Courage_to_Be

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4. SarikayaKomzinSep 2020
   Great recommendations!

   I would like to add Paul Tillich’s “The Courage to Be” to the list. Not only is it a good work on existentialism, it’s also a fascinating reminder that theology is not as one-dimensional as it is often portrayed.

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5. rjknightMar 2024
   It's also worth bearing in mind that much theology is an attempt to explain what the experience of God is like. The experience of God is not (for Tillich, nor perhaps for very many moderns) about finding a literal place and time in which God-the-being can be directly observed. To seek God and expect to find a being who exists in the same manner as a tree or a building is to set oneself up for failure.

   When Tillich says "The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt" he is describing the psychological process the seeker undergoes. In his case, he identifies God with the open, reflective cast of mind in which one engages with the unknowable, ineffable, combinatorally-explosive possibilities that are found at the horizons of our understanding. The "state of being grasped by an ultimate concern" is one in which we are trying - and necessarily failing - to see beyond the horizon. And yet, something sustains us in the effort, which is faith in God.

   Doubtless this really is a very different kind of faith than other self-described Christians might have, whose faith might be rooted in a different mode of being and engagement with the world. And, to be clear, Tillich's description is very much "what it's like" to have his variety of faith, and not a metaphysical claim about the workings of the universe. A different Christian might hold much stronger claims about God's precise nature and existence, but for Tillich those beliefs were unsustainable.

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6. thenerdheadNov 2022
   > Why do we end up playing well trodden roles?

   One theory is that we're not aware nor can break free from the three major types of anxiety in life such as fate and death, emptiness and loss meaning, and guilt and condemnation.

   We struggle to find peace with #2 and #3 given #1 will always be present in life.

   Shakespeare knew this given how often he asked the question of "to be or not to be".

   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175141.The_Courage_to_Be

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