I daresay “good philosophy” is based on the rigor of the ideas themselves, not the lives of philosophers themselves. The canon of philosophy is replete with men who did distasteful or abhorrent things, but their ideas are studied nonetheless.
That only drives the point further: there are no ideas in Cioran, just (or in any case, mostly) whining.
My mentioning of his life wasn't to diminish his ideas (or rather, the lack thereof), just to show how unjustified the whining.
Why? Because it is the normal thing to do? Is it expected of you to be afraid of death? Is the natural inclination to be afraid of just thinking about dying?
I am "fearful" of death in the sense that if something is likely to cause my death in the present moment, I will act towards self-preservation.
But the idea of death, that just thinking of one's demise would cause one anguish is a sign one hasn't calibrated his priorities correctly. Pragmatically speaking, there are so many things to think about (and even moreso to do), so why would anyone focus on something that they cannot ever change? Besides their own self-imposed torture in the name "philosophy."
This will come off as snarky, but I recommend you find some more things to fill your time.
But, going through the extremely terrible has given me a better perspective on: the true severity of problems, whereas one who suffers will be stuck in such a negative and hopeless mindset, even if such is not true at all; the problems that are strictly self-imposed, as opposed to those one has no control over; and the extent to which one's problems can be fixed by putting in conscious effort.
As there are few who truly are unable to lose weight, without extra effort and accommodations, there are few that are truly stuck with unmanageable and crippling thanatophobia.
Have you heard of former drug addicts being harder on addicts than those who've never faced the problem themselves? This is relevant to our discussion.
While people need support and understanding, the victims themselves must take personal responsibility for their issues as well.
I haven't thought of it like that. But it would seem one is an unconscious reaction, spurred on by the autonomous nervous system, while the other is a (seemingly) conscious choice (if we don't get into determinism).
Then we get back to the beginning. You can influence the outcome of a sudden event, but not your own destined death down the line. Taking your "natural to want good experiences to last for as long as possible and to be at least a little 'pissed'," into account, doesn't that align with my parent comment? By consciously obsessing about how your days are numbered and that you have relatively little time alive, are you not contributing to your own state of being "pissed?"
Are you not being self-sabotaging?
> I guess you describe a kind of stoic philosophy where one shouldn't be concerned by things one cannot change at all, but that requires a lot of conscious effort, at least that's my personal experience, and the untrained human reaction to the fact that the good days are numbered is to be "pissed".
My response to this will sound aggressive, but once we identify a lapse in our untrained thinking, the practical thing to do would be to fix this.
In other words, as you mentioned, we can override such thoughts with sustained conscious effort. It may be difficult, but it would be a better use of time to make ours as good as it can be.
OK, I thought you weren't only talking about unconscious processes but also short-term decision-making like "I'm not going to try this unknown berry because it might kill me". I don't know why I used the word "instinct", since that implies unconscious processes indeed.
As for the rest, I completely agree with everything you said, my point was mainly what I expressed in my last sentence, regarding the reaction an "untrained" human mind would have, which of course can be overcome with some effort.
The first time, I cried when the realization hit me. All of the things we couldn't do anymore and the hole that he would leave was terrible to think about.
I changed my mindset into something very cliche, but it works for me:
We can no longer create memories together, but I can still cherish the ones we had and pass on the same good he brought into my life, to others. Sort of like remembering one's legacy and passing on the torch.
I don't believe there is an intrinsically correct answer for these human situations, so picking the most efficient one is best.
If you return to the ancients, living philosophically was more important than the conceptual edifice or system building we conceive of as philosophical today--that's why we run into somewhat blatant contradictions in the systems of the neo-platonists and others--it is not that they were necessarily poor systematizers and let their concepts run away from them--that man didn't quite have the same intellectual power for reasoning cleanly yet--but that systemic clarity was not their goal--they had only an effect in mind.
The ancients were almost therapists in a sense--their whole goal was to get one living in the right way--thus few of them actually bothered to write as the philosophical schools were centered on practices, rituals, meditations etc.--progressions--and not just explication--exegesis of a master's thought was important--but only to the extent it had a direct impact on one's life and the way one lived. A philosopher, to the ancients was simply anyone who lived in a certain way--and by certain principles, whether or not they had conceived of those principles or learned them--the designation came with the living and the way not with intellectual output, but with intellectual activity(living with a love of wisdom). There's a reason Epictetus's text is called Enchiridion, which means manual or handbook--the same can be said of the use of the word Sutra
Then the middle ages hit and philosophy became far more theoretic as it was subordinated to theology--it became the so called handmaiden of theology--now its whole purpose was conceptual clarification, system building, logic--in order that one might know God, might develop a theological framework, put all the cosmological ducks in order.
I scarcely have to describe how the analytic tradition in the 20th century drove this notion of philosophy primarily as systematizing, abstract, and having little connection with one's actual practice and way of living further, and indeed to an extreme. As someone once enmeshed in the analytic tradition myself, I find nothing more distasteful than stuffy academic philosophy--it is necessary sure, but we must recall that philosophy was foremost supposed to teach one how to live (or how to die ;) ).
Wittgenstein is perhaps the only "analytic" that offers a philosophy similar to those of the ancients--You'll find that even the Tractatus, which helped birth the most arid and abstract form of philosophizing, logical positivism, if you read it carefully, is actually a text meant to directly influence the way you live and resolve some problem of living more than it is the presentation of some metaphysical, logical framework--indeed, the propositional structure of that text is more or less a smokescreen--W., like Socrates, like Nietzsche, presents a mask--remove the numbers, re-title it "Aphorisms"--has anything changed?
Hadot's book, Philosophy as a Way of Life is a great study on this shift from philosophy as lived, therapeutic practice to philosophy as a primarily textual, abstract, academic profession--and like all professions, limited by exterior considerations.