what doesnt kill you makes you wiser, not stronger?

[Amorphos]

"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" - does it?

prisons and diseases make you weaker for a start, and in my experience the things which make you stronger, equally make you weaker or leaves one wanting [e.g. for the lack of].

i've had my fair share of crap, as i suppose we all do. i couldnt put all that meaning into words, but i feel equally stronger and weaker for life's experience.

what doesnt kill you makes you wiser - would be truer imho.

[Fixed Cross]

I agree with you. I think the true meaning of the statement can be seen by applying it to its author.
And to be fair, he doesn't say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, just that it works that way for him. Maybe it's a very personal statement.
"What makes me wiser makes me stronger" is definitely befitting of a philosopher and not as much of a soldier, a clown, a nuclear scientist or any other terrain for which a certain disdain for consequence is required.

[Fixed Cross]

Faith, balls of steel or tragic joy are all forms of threatened innocence.

Growing up. Dealing with life. The philosopher does not grow up though, and he does not deal with life - he retains the sincerity of play and keeps access to the power to value absolutely while considering other perspectives.

[James S Saint]

There are a great many "truisms" promoted in the USA to make people weaker, not wiser.

"Don't knock it if you haven't tried it."
"Love yourself first so that you will have love to give."
"What you can't see, can't hurt you."
"Drugs liberate your mind."
"Two heads are better than one."

..and so on. The list is endless, starting from around 1970.

[Orbie]

Faith, balls of steel or tragic joy are all forms of threatened innocence.

Growing up. Dealing with life. The philosopher does not grow up though, and he does not deal with life - he retains the sincerity of play and keeps access to the power to value absolutely while considering other perspectives.

The philosopher does not grow up? He better, if not he is not really a philosopher.

[Amorphos]

fc. imho no-one has balls of steel, its all front - in the expression of the ego. tough guys are hard on the outside and weak on the inside, perhaps to a philosopher life can make the mind seem tough - which is quit different.

i can see the 'tough mind' in that sense, for me as a druid - strong [oak] perciever - a determined judging/assessing mind is the aimed for result of 20-40 years of 'training'. of course such things are just labels, my psychiatrist asked me to describe myself and such is more or less what i said. philosophers just seem to end up with that gnarly mind, torn apart and put back together many times in our search.

james. although i like the usa, i have to say that i dont like all that bullshit we see endlessly in films and shows. i understand the beginnings - where one lived survival, and freedom was something hard faught for, but hey, who's the roman empire now [like the british were in the days of washington [whom i am a fan of].

its the reason why you all appear to have guns galore - to survive? well if someone managed to overpower the army, they wouldnt have any problem with the armed masses. in fact that would make it worse, an enemy would have to do drastic things to a given state , such to show who's in charge.

'growing up' is questionable, in my experience it means being like all those numpties who think they are hardmen, or those who dont but are 'responsible' little breaders and such. its all 'the system' to me and i dont want to be an adult if [it does] it meens being a control freak.

why does everyone have to 'win' these days, when people say they are winners they just look so stupid, what are you going to win against [death? become a god?]???

i think it would be best if noone tried to win. isn't that the true meaning of childishness?

[Orbie]

Amorphos, that's really a tough one. Everybody act in the us, they got the profession mixed up with Shakespeare's dated dictum: "all the world is a stage" Who cares here what you are on the inside? My best friend one time told me he admired people who were honey on the outside but chicken shit in the inside , he had to act that way, to keep his job. But after i got to know him a little better, found that he was as tough as nails, no doubt about it. He had to be in order to be faithful to himself and those he loved. Failure was not an option.

After playing the role long enough the actor becomes his role, and cannot, willingly differentiate himself from the role he is in. If he tries, that is the end for him. Total existential meltdown. He knows, or should know, better.

[Dan~]

Strength is one of the most minor qualities when compared to virtue.
I'd rather have 1 kind weak person than 10 strong bad people.
Strength directly equates to destruction when in the wrong hands.
Also, strength is generally not that strong. So what if someone can lift 100 pounds? Look how many pounds the sun and earth are. 100 pounds is nothing, and will remain nothing forever.

[Amorphos]

Obe. Sure, well I understand its your culture which naturally I don't have a problem with, however...!

your nation was built that way for sure, but how much is it really like it now?

More to the point at hand; 'the act becomes real' ~ is that really true? I have believed in it somewhat for as long as I can remember. Yet isn't it key to what and who we are as humans, that it isnt true, that from birth we act like how we think to, and we even think in a manner of an act. We are subjective [because spiritual] beings, and cannot [?] become our roles, not entirely, how can we if we are our own puppets and all we do is mimic how we assume the world wants us to act!

Every thought is an act, we read things >then< act accordingly. All we really got going on in here is that, the rest is brain function i.e. not who we truly are. We constantly watch thoughts go by in our heads, always the observer, always the actor, never the reality.

In a sense that is our greatest freedom. Albeit mostly delusion build upon the foundation of illusion.

[Orbie]

Obe. Sure, well I understand its your culture which naturally I don't have a problem with, however...!

your nation was built that way for sure, but how much is it really like it now?

More to the point at hand; 'the act becomes real' ~ is that really true? I have believed in it somewhat for as long as I can remember. Yet isn't it key to what and who we are as humans, that it isnt true, that from birth we act like how we think to, and we even think in a manner of an act. We are subjective [because spiritual] beings, and cannot [?] become our roles, not entirely, how can we if we are our own puppets and all we do is mimic how we assume the world wants us to act!

Every thought is an act, we read things >then< act accordingly. All we really got going on in here is that, the rest is brain function i.e. not who we truly are. We constantly watch thoughts go by in our heads, always the observer, always the actor, never the reality.

In a sense that is our greatest freedom. Albeit mostly delusion build upon the foundation of illusion.

Yes we cannot become as the results of our actions entirely, but, at times the situation, the context within which your perspective of what you have previously thought as absolute truth, adapts to changes. The defense of the truths with which You have been brought up, if they involve others whose safety and security appears to them as consequential to those beliefs, become an absolute constraint of adapting them.

Your thoughts and actions will work in concert, adapting each other to truths which may at this point become less then self evident. The heart and the head in pursuit of these 'truths' have to deal a game , like the prisoners' dilemma, a seeking for truth which has become more of a pragmatic co-ordination then the upholding of immutable ideals.

Your conscience dictates, rationalizes, bargains, and prays, that minimum damage will be sustained either way. At times it's Your thoughts which predicate, by initiating the right course of action, other times, instinctive, almost thoughtless action has to occur, in absence of any appreciable time to think about what options are available. You just have to follow Your best conscience in a case like that, You have to follow the intelligence of your heart.

[James S Saint]

james. although i like the usa, i have to say that i dont like all that bullshit we see endlessly in films and shows. i understand the beginnings - where one lived survival, and freedom was something hard faught for, but hey, who's the roman empire now [like the british were in the days of washington [whom i am a fan of].

its the reason why you all appear to have guns galore - to survive? well if someone managed to overpower the army, they wouldnt have any problem with the armed masses. in fact that would make it worse, an enemy would have to do drastic things to a given state , such to show who's in charge.

'growing up' is questionable, in my experience it means being like all those numpties who think they are hardmen, or those who dont but are 'responsible' little breaders and such. its all 'the system' to me and i dont want to be an adult if [it does] it meens being a control freak.

why does everyone have to 'win' these days, when people say they are winners they just look so stupid, what are you going to win against [death? become a god?]???

i think it would be best if noone tried to win. isn't that the true meaning of childishness?

I think you are missing a few points concerning owning guns, being a god, and winning, but why did you address all of that to me?

[Orbie]

blog deleted.

[Magnus Anderson]

Strength is one of the most minor qualities when compared to virtue.
I'd rather have 1 kind weak person than 10 strong bad people.
Strength directly equates to destruction when in the wrong hands.
Also, strength is generally not that strong. So what if someone can lift 100 pounds? Look how many pounds the sun and earth are. 100 pounds is nothing, and will remain nothing forever.

Strong = good, weak = bad. That's just ressentiment talking in your post.

[Magnus Anderson]

"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" - does it?

It's true, but only for the strong i.e. if you have that kind of body which can take a lot of damage and end up profiting from it.

[Blurry]

"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" - does it?

It's true, but only for the strong i.e. if you have that kind of body which can take a lot of damage and end up profiting from it.

Strength is not merely a physical attribute.

[Blurry]

Faith, balls of steel or tragic joy are all forms of threatened innocence.

Growing up. Dealing with life. The philosopher does not grow up though, and he does not deal with life - he retains the sincerity of play and keeps access to the power to value absolutely while considering other perspectives.

The philosopher does not grow up? He better, if not he is not really a philosopher.

Does anyone really grow up? If so, when does it happen?

From what I've been able to surmise from talking to people and observing the world, nobody ever really grows up. The things we do change, we go through the motions of being "grown up". We buy houses, we pay bills, we have and take care of children (if that's your thing), but mentally....I dunno. Don't see it.

Do you remember, when you were a child, how you took for granted that the adults around you knew what they were doing and had all the answers? Yeah...when is that supposed to kick in?

[Magnus Anderson]

Strength is not merely a physical attribute.

Is there anything beyond physics?

[Stuart]

"What doesn't kill you makes you stranger." - LaughingMan

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!"

- Rudyard Kipling

[Fixed Cross]

"What doesn't kill you makes you stranger." - LaughingMan

That's really good.

Nietzsche: "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger."
Yes, but....

[Fixed Cross]

Faith, balls of steel or tragic joy are all forms of threatened innocence.

Growing up. Dealing with life. The philosopher does not grow up though, and he does not deal with life - he retains the sincerity of play and keeps access to the power to value absolutely while considering other perspectives.

The philosopher does not grow up? He better, if not he is not really a philosopher.

I don't think you understood what I meant by 'growing up'.
I should have laid it on thicker.

I mean "adapt to the way things go."

Part of the definition of a philosopher is that he does not, can not adapt, he has to invent a new way or die.

Does anyone really grow up? If so, when does it happen?

From what I've been able to surmise from talking to people and observing the world, nobody ever really grows up. The things we do change, we go through the motions of being "grown up". We buy houses, we pay bills, we have and take care of children (if that's your thing), but mentally....I dunno. Don't see it.

Do you remember, when you were a child, how you took for granted that the adults around you knew what they were doing and had all the answers? Yeah...when is that supposed to kick in?

I knew early on that there were a lot of answers they didn't have. A lot of questions they didn't ask.
I'm still waiting for the idea to kick in that there is anyone who has a clue about anything at all.

[Fixed Cross]

Strength is not merely a physical attribute.

Is there anything beyond physics?

Can you give me the physical definition of your verbal intelligence?

[Amorphos]

magnus

perhaps you could define what being strong is?

- once achieved, could any man take on a lion or a bear without using weapons. how ever strong you are, some weakling can just as easily put a bullet in your brain.

i expect that [certainly in my experience] intellectuals dont majoritively carry guns, not go around acting the tough guy nor cause trouble. ...but big tough guys do!

so in short, the 'strong' are just the pain in the arse idiots who cause all the trouble in the world.

what good does being a winner or being strong actually do?

wouldnt the world be a better place if people didnt act like that?

[Arcturus Descending]

"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" - does it?

what doesnt kill you makes you wiser - would be truer imho.

I think that would depend on the individual, don't you?
What doesn't kill us also has the capacity to make us much more vulnerable than even before - can leave us at the mercy of life at its worse.
What doesn't kill us can rob us of our desire to be wise - or to see wisdom in most things.

But I wonder if we are already born, certain individuals, with enough resilience to overcome and to transcend what doesn't kill us? Perhaps as human beings, we are made like all elastic bands, made differently. Some of us can be stretched more without breaking and others, have less resilience in their stretchability.

Does it come down to Will or to Resilence? If any of that made sense.

[Amorphos]

Hi arc,

people seem to use the saying as if to say there is some kind of strength to be gained by successive attacks ~ or resilience to such things. Also it seams more of a justification to be assholes to others, to justify egotism and bullying. I am all for people standing up for themselves, but that's not the same thing.

I agree there is only so far anyone can be stretched no matter how tough they think they are. indeed it seems as though the culture embodied by such sayings, is stating that we just keep getting stronger and stronger every time we are attacked. In fact we can run through whole armies of people with machine guns, and because we are tough-guys the bullets just bounce off of us.

- good point about the elastic.

[Ben JS]

We have many forms through which we can be strong.

Take sight away from a person.

Their hearing will likely become stronger.

Yet, overall, are they stronger or weaker?

Perhaps being blind broke them psychologically, or, perhaps it initiated a journey of self discovery and well being.

I'd say, if it doesn't kill you, it has the potential to make you stronger.

I always look at the saying from the POV of one who is wants to make the best out of adverse circumstances.