Stub thy toe.

If you aren’t stubbing your toe, you aren’t doing philosophy.

I think Buddism is a sign and symptom of not “stubbing thy toe”. A certain sense of desperate urgency is required and the impending doom of death and the unknown is needed to create philosophy of the highest caliber. Buddism preaches a bunch of “knowns”, like guaranteed utopia in the afterlife for good behavoir. What real philosophy could come out of that besides watered-down half-truths?

You ever have a good morning, then you stub your toe and you’re all like “Fuck”, it all comes swirling down the real gravity and seriousness of life. People go around with this Nihilistic attitude that death doesn’t really matter and doesn’t need to be studied. But when you stub your toe it’s like “Fuck”, shit becomes real serious. All of a sudden you sense a real urgency to uncover all the deeper secrets of existence. You start taking death research real serious. No longer are you passive nihilist and accepting, but now you want to discover the real truth.

It’s time people start “stubbing their toe” and start doing some real philosophy.

It’s not really backed up by the history of eastern religions, though, especially Buddhism and Taoism - which grew strongest in times of unimaginable hardship for most people. The Eastern Zhou/Qin/Han dynasties faced internecine wars, plagues and tyrannical dictatorships. As opposed to rich modern westerners, for whom stubbing their toe counts as ‘suffering’.

Stubbing a toe is certainly a sharp way to remind you that you exist.

I like to say pain is when you stub your toe, and you keep going, suffering is when you stub your toe and you want to commit suicide and never exist again - it puts you over the line.