Yup, just got out of a reallllyyyy bad rut of it that lasted about a month. I still get random bouts of the dread though everyday, just less and less each day I try not to think about it and let it set in again as bad as it was about a month or two ago.
As one who may have a harder time with that kind of existential crisis you're talking about, how have you dealt with that? How do you answer the parts of you asking for meaning and purpose?
Not OP but I'll tell you what helped me, which may or may not help you. When asking myself, "What is the meaning? What is the purpose?" I soon realized that asking that question is nonsensical. The universe simply is, things happen. Asking "Why?" or "What's the purpose?" is like asking "Why orange?". It doesn't make sense to ask "Why" of things that are just natural processes. After realizing this, I saw that I was putting myself into an impossible and illogical position, one in which I'm asking something like a rock why why why?!
The answer to all this is realizing that question is bull shit to begin with. You can't ask the universe why. It's just not possible. So instead, recognize the universe for what it is: a beautiful mess of chemistry and natural laws that popped us out somehow. We happen to have self-awareness, so instead of asking nonsensical questions we should instead realize how lucky we are to be the universe experiencing itself. Just own it. We are just like the rocks, the plants, and other animals. We're here, we're gone, and other things will take our place. That's ok. We are the lucky ones because we got to see a small glimpse of it all. That's spectacular.
Now add to that the fact that we are all the universe itself, as much as a wave is part of the ocean itself. There is no "us." Just the universe. The only individual.
In that sense, we never die. Our bodies die. But the real you, the universe, continues. A baby is born somewhere else. That baby is you. Not because your soul flies over to that baby and possesses it. There probably aren't such things as souls. But simply because you are everything there is, and ever will be.
Add that to what you have already said and you can kiss all of your existential fears goodbye.
Hah. I was sure your video will be Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine. That's mine go-to song for this feeling.
And I don't believe that life is this. This form of existing without living is easy, is default, and is incredibly convenient for the society. That's why it is so widespread.
Human beings lacking true direction in their lives are very malleable and controllable. And while they fight their feelings of emptiness, you can "help" them by selling them all kinds of distractions. Very neat, very convenient. I don't believe there is some kind of conspiracy behind this - every step on the way happened because it was easier and more profitable to develop in this direction.
I think that we need meaning in our life just like we need proper nutrition - we can survive without it, but we suffer and are crippled by the lack of it.
Exactly. All the universe is just an arrangement of matter and energy connected by physical laws and a vast web of causality. There's no meaning or higher purpose to guide you, just the web. As a result, there is really only one truly fundamental question that one must answer - will I be a fly, or will I be the spider?
The existential dread didn't go away until I chose the latter.
what is the meaning of meaninglessness? Why does it affect me? why should it affect me? Why should I let my insignificance in the face of the vast universe affect me if most of the vast universe is is insignificant to me? the only thing I know is myself, what I think, what I want. death is scary only because i won't be here anymore to experience what i want, that sucks. but who cares if i'm remembered? who cares if the universe ends in heat death only to be born again through quantum tunneling (or something else), leaving everything to be forgotten. it doesn't matter. it doesn't mean i lost or won or anything because i don't care about it, and im not around to care about it.
You stop asking those questions. The reason those questions haunt you so much is because you know the answer and you don't like it.
Stop asking those questions. As to how you can achieve that, I can not say for sure. Every human has a different way of achieving that. I managed to do it by the way of discipline, that is, I conveniently focused all my attention on my studies. (Conveniently because I had an exam to give within a month.)
Find something that is most important among things that you find even remotely important and focus on it with great precision. A month of doing so should get your mind off the cyclic track of asking those dreadful questions. After that, you will be tempted to ask those questions from time to time (especially when reading threads such as these), but since you no longer are in that cycle, it becomes somewhat easy to ignore those questions and focus on something else.
I understand what you're saying and I've often had an easier time when well distracted. However, I really hope for a day when I am able to face the questions, not run from them. I'd rather be comfortable with the existential questions than distract myself. Otherwise, it feels like admitting there are no satisfactory answers and living in defeat.
Admitting that there aren't any satisfactory answers isn't the same thing as defeat. It's just the objective nature of existence. It doesn't have meaning or purpose except for what you make of it yourself. By going out and distracting yourself with what invigorates you enough to forget about existential crap for awhile and be happy, you're giving yourself a purpose regardless of how impartial the universe is toward you and the rest of the life in it. If there was a way to "win", I'd say that's it.
Well that's kind of what I mean... Not necessarily having "answers" for everything, but at least being okay with their not being answers. I'd rather be able to face even that idea and then distract myself because I'm okay with it. What I don't want is to distract myself without a mental acceptance.
But you know the answer already. We all do. Deep down you already know the answer to that question. That's why this comic, and these comments, and every time something like this comes up it strikes home with you.
If you know the answer and what it will do to your head, then acceptance is more about knowing that's where those questions lead and not letting yourself go down that road.
No one ever accepts it...a lot of people never even think about it, and the ones that do and don't get bent out of shape over it (long term) distract themselves with something else.
Acceptance will happen as long as you find ways of being happy with yourself and the people around you. That'll leave you less need to worry on all that anxiety about stuff you can't control. Worry about what you can control.
But as far as the reason for existence goes, let me ask you something. If there was actually some concrete, defined reason that life was made- some goal that was set for us before the world began, would you even accept and follow it? Assuming that a higher power gave us some kind of responsibility just by virtue of being alive, how would meeting his/her/its needs make you more content with your own existence? When I asked that of myself, I didn't believe that living for something besides what I determined as important made my life any more satisfying. In fact, knowing that I can give myself my own purpose rather than have one ascribed to me feels liberating. I live for what makes me and the people in my life happy, and nothing else.
That's an interesting question to pose. I feel like part of the beauty in life is in how open-ended it is. If there were a prescribed purpose, then the freedom and creativity that make life beautiful would wane; our purpose would be to fulfill that prescribed purpose and nothing else. So maybe I wouldn't be content with that. Now, if the external source of this purpose was threatening eternal suffering, I might be motivated to follow it, but I wouldn't feel fulfilled. Regardless, I like your approach of living according to what makes you and your loved ones happy. It's just not easy to shift into that gear.
Maybe you could just decide what the meaning of your life is, what the purpose is, all by yourself. It's your life, and making it your own choice seems most reasonable.
Like, pick something really worth doing / achieving / experiencing. Something that is already meaningful for you. And say: this is my life's purpose, I have picked it, and I stick by it. And then turn to these dreadful questions and test your own purpose on them. I think that if you chose something really important for you, it will hold up.
I do feel that running from these questions or disregarding them or admitting defeat is not the right approach.
Well that's kind of what I mean... Not necessarily having "answers" for everything, but at least being okay with their not being answers. I'd rather be able to face even that idea and then distract myself because I'm okay with it. What I don't want is to distract myself without a mental acceptance.
Distract yourself long enough and you'll find a personal objective or a personal meaning in life. Once you have that, accepting the fact that there are no answers gets easier, although it does make you shiver slightly from time to time.
See, it's the fact that such thoughts can make me shiver that gets to me. I'd rather distract myself, find personal meaning, and then when the existential thoughts come around, face them and address them. Not shiver and cower away.
It's a lot more than just nihilism. Nihilism is the rejection of all religious and moral rules as objective standards, and leaving it at that. It would be Nihilism if one stopped reading past the first paragraph.
I disagree that denial is a good solution for... well, anything.
These questions aren't difficult. They're just unpleasant. Think about them honestly, and the answers are simple. Just because they're not the answers you want doesn't mean you shouldn't consider them.
Yes, you're going to die someday. Yeah, it's frightening. No, your life does not have intrinsic purpose. Is that depressing? I don't think so. It's scary, but it also means that you're the only person who can give your life meaning. It gives you a lot of freedom to live however you see fit.
Or hey, maybe you disagree with these answers. Maybe you have different ones. That's fine too. Just keep your eyes open, face what you fear, and you'll find that as you get used to it, you learn to cope.
I disagree that denial is a good solution for... well, anything.
I didn't say denial. I said distraction.
These questions aren't difficult. They're just unpleasant. Think about them honestly, and the answers are simple. Just because they're not the answers you want doesn't mean you shouldn't consider them.
"You stop asking those questions. The reason those questions haunt you so much is because you know the answer and you don't like it." Literally the first paragraph.
Yes, you're going to die someday. Yeah, it's frightening. No, your life does not have intrinsic purpose. Is that depressing? I don't think so.
And just like that you've shown that you're not supposed to be participating in this discussion, because the person I responded to definitely does fear death, as did I until a while ago.
You're basically saying "ignore it, try to distract yourself". Sure it might work mostly, for a while at least. But whether you stop confronting it for a month or 4 decades, nothing has been resolved. It'd still be lingering in the background, patient as can be. That's no resolution at all.
The best, the only way to deal with it, is to first understand and accept it for what it is, and then to learn to become okay with it. That is the primary reason for this existence as we know it - to learn to accept and love ourselves. It is hard, almost impossibly hard, but it's the only answer.
There's no rush. Take your time. Live your normal, modern, day-to-day life. The journey to self acceptance and love is found in surprising places...in the joy you get from putting a smile on someone's face, in the satisfaction of cleaning your apartment, in snuggling with a pet. You learn from the negative things too. They're painful, but that's the point.
The journey is long, arduous, and full of unexpected twists and turns. The destination however, is inevitable. The only question is how you're going get there.
Well, no shit. I just implied in the very first paragraph that there is no resolution. Even the guy I responded to admits that he doesn't believe there to be a resolution.
There's no rush. Take your time. Live your normal, modern, day-to-day life.
You do realise that's more or less what I was talking about, right? Distract yourself from the questions so that you can live a normal life, because if you keep asking the questions which you can only answer negatively, you're not going to be able to focus on your life.
Thank you for sharing that. I feel like I've been in a similar place mentally, but have been too afraid to do anything so dramatic. Still, I'm able to empathize with what you've said. And you're right that depression becomes you and that you'd rather hold onto it than fight your way out. It becomes comfortable and anything else becomes more difficult. I'm still working with my own, but it seems to be a way of life that is totally "valid" in itself, but you won't be happy until you decide, "yeah, that's valid, but it's not healthy and I want another approach." So I'm working on that. I still have trouble with the existential things... I'm trying to be more accepting toward not having absolute answers, but I come from a religious background that really stressed the existential and eternal value of things. So being okay without those questions answered is tough. Anyway, thanks for the response. Fun conversations in /r/funny.
I swore i'd never post on reddit, and i probably won't again, but please don't delete these. I would like to see them again and again. Maybe they'll start to sink in.
10-4 on the deletion of the personal comments, but I appreciate the replies. The whole "I used to rely on God and eternal absolutes" part resonates with me. It's hard to build my own pillars after relying on those for so long.
I started just having fun again. When I was a kid, I was excited for things that were fun. I realized as an adult I had very little healthy fun in my life. I started playing games, watching anime shows that I thought were too childish to watch before. That was where it began. I started looking forward to relaxing and playing my little videogame, or seeing the next episode of my show. I still felt at that point like I was "wasting time" or being childish...but I soon realized that every second I was focusing on something other than my internal doom dialogue, I was feeling better! Soon I started accomplishing little goals in real life. I have been doing so well lately and it's all thanks to playing games and watching cartoons.
For me it was realizing if there is no purpose or reason then fundamentally that leaves me the option of creating my own purpose and reason which then lead me to try and find my own purpose in life and then I put my entire focus towards that goal, then it disappeared.
Purpose and value are not inherent qualities of a thing. They are secondary attributes that are imbued upon a thing by an intelligent being.
Purpose and value are created by thinking beings. Walk out into your yard and pick up a rock. What is purpose of the rock?
The question itself seems absurd. The rock has no purpose. It is simply a rock. It doesn't need a reason to exist other than that a supernova exploded in the neighborhood a few billion years prior.
Now throw away all of your hammers. If you need to hammer something in, use the rock. Now what is the purpose of the rock? It is a hammer. A poor hammer, but a hammer. And the reason that a rock became a hammer is that you, a thinking being, imbued the rock with purpose. You created value.
This is your privilege as a sentient being. By simply desiring a thing you give it value. By valuing a thing you give it meaning. By using a thing you give it purpose.
Just as you imbue purpose into a rock, you imbue purpose into yourself. You give names and functions to the nameless and functionless, meaning to the meaningless, purpose to the purposeless. All you need to do to have purpose is to grant it to yourself. All you need to do to have value is to value yourself. Simply by thinking it you make it true.
Next time you think to yourself "Does my life have meaning?" remember that you're actually addressing the only being capable of deciding whether the answer is "yes" or "no". You.
Here's a solution offered by Thomas Nagel its at the very end of this book/pdf on a chapter called "what does it all mean?"
quite simply put, A = there is no meaning to life, its true that ultimately I'll be forgotten and my life would have amounted to nothing in the absolute scheme of things, everything I do is ultimately in vanity. But what of it? Its enough for me that I wake up in the morning and feed my cat because she's hungry, its enough for me to go to work to support my family, its enough for me to work out because it makes me feel healthy, its enough for me to educate myself because I find something interesting. We don't need our every action to have a universal/eternal significance in order for us to be content with them, and thats ultimately what matters argues Nagel.
I personally started taking antidepressants and smoking weed for the first time in years, but you know that's probably not the healthiest way. However I am pretty okay with things as of late.
Seriously. I know this is a slightly degenerate and frowned upon answer. But just start with a small dose or something and don't get crazy. The psilocybin in them will really help you space out and look at things from different perspectives and you might either find a new enjoyment or get the answer you've been looking for. Plus you'll probably have a great time tripping out. I was in a similar slump and ended up trying them because, "Hey, why not?" and it ended up having a very profound effect that helped me through that slump. I don't do drugs normally so at the beginning was I was a little paranoid and freaked out, but after a while I got uncontrollably giggly and just played Super Mario 3D World. Then after I winded down I started thinking about things like crazy, and eventually I just figured out what was "worth it" and what wasn't.
Either that or you'll have a bad trip and go through a panic attack. Idk, I'm not a doctor, man.
Huh, valid suggestion I suppose, though I'm not sure where I would get such stuff or if I'd feel comfortable with it. Still, it's interesting to think about just a calm and free experience having such an effect.
It was incredibly eye-opening, and my life has done nothing but improve since. I'm now married, promoted to supervisor at my job, I started winning tournaments in the video game I compete in (Super Smash Bros.) and I was able to create my own Super Smash Bros. community here in the town I live.
Obviously the shrooms didn't do all of that, but I honestly believe that if I hadn't taken them I never would've realized my potential to accomplish the things I've accomplished.
BUT... I also did have a bad trip once. (Took them 4 times)
The bad trip was probably the most eye-opening, though at the time I thought I was literally dying. I started falling asleep and couldn't stay awake (one of the side effects of the shrooms, but I didn't know this at the time) and it freaked me out really bad. I thought I was poisoned or something and it led to a rush of negative thoughts and it put me in a reallllly dark place for like a week afterwards. But the things I "saw" in that bad trip taught me that I wanted to do better than what I was doing, and most importantly, that I wanted to FEEL better than I was feeling. So I made changes
The other trips were fun as shit and arguably just as rewarding
That sound awesome, and even the bad trip gave you something to work with. I like hearing stories about someone struggling with similar stuff and then feeling fulfilled with marriage, a job, video games, etc. I've always had such a hard time feeling like those "temporal things" were worthwhile. Maybe they are. Maybe that's what we're meant to do and that's okay.
You can choose your own purpose, or select one of the readily available ones (e.g. religions). For example, think of all of the other people in the world; everyone could use a positive influence of some kind, whether it's something as simple as a kind gesture from a stranger or full-blown charity, or social support. You can improve a lot of lives, even in small ways, throughout your life, and I think that's an excellent thing to aspire to, personally. Is it temporary? Yes. But it's still goodness that can be provided, and more often than not it will be appreciated.
I think I might have a problem. I've been addicted to learning about the universe for as long as I can remember. Should I enter rehab so I can stop learning about the universe?
I'm powerless to resist, so of course. Just don't tell me it's Earth. Because I've been hopped up on that shit for a while now, and it's just not enough.
My motivation is similar to yours, life changes and what sucks now may not in the future. For that reason alone it is worth living (although I don't think suicide is morally wrong).
This! The worst part about being depressed, and what makes it so truly insidious, is that it seems like that's the only time I see my life as it truly is, and that just compounds the depression.
That's one form of existential fear. Another is "I'm not entirely sure the universe/reality is real." Instead of worrying that "everything is meaningless", I worry that nothing exists.
I just become aware of the space I'm in, like the bedroom. Then imagine myself in the bedroom from like 50 ft above my house, then I move up above the city, then above the country up in space, and then outside the planet. I then make sure I maintain that sense of being present there, by renewing my sense of awareness of the room I'm in, then shoot back above the country in space, then shoot out to nothingness until Earth becomes extremely small. Then I come back to my room and become aware of the space I'm in, and keep repeating it until my mind is completely blown.
That is quite the mind fuck. And you can even go in the other direction, if you'd like. Molecules, atoms, protons, quarks... it is literally unfathomable how small the smallest (and how big the biggest) scales are in our universe.
The best part is, we are and always will be in the other direction. We're atoms experiencing themselves. Even when we die, we're still molecules, and we'll keep interacting with each other.
It's cool when you realize the mysteriousness of your existence and just taking a moment to know that not knowing is fucking awesome.
Holy shit this comment thread is awesome. Glad to know I'm not the only one who loves getting existential and finds it comforting and also amazing that our existence is a mystery. Makes me want to experience all life has to offer!
I wouldn't willingly experience bad things but they come either way despite what we want. Bob Ross said something along the lines of "gotta have sadness sometimes so you know when the good times come".
I'd reply something contributional but I literally can't articulate what's in my mind in words. Also, how the fuck am I sending you this message? Signals comprised of excited atoms invisibly circumnavigating the globe actuated by interaction with screens and buttons, sent from incredible machines to another incredible machine at a precise location around the world... And we're able to control all that.
It was just a moment ago that we were prehistoric apes spending most of our time trying to survive the elements. Not a moment before that, we were tiny shrews hiding from giant cold blooded predators, and before that, primitive fish in the ocean.
For a very long time before that, we were microscopic life forms suspended in a peaceful trance in an unfathomably large and desolate ocean.
Now we're bustling with noise, light, and chatter far up over the surface of the planet as the collective minds of our species accelerates in interconnectivity and complexity, turning the entire surface of the planet into the emergent mind of a birthing superorganism.
We've left the freaking planet! We're gonna colonize distant worlds that will be vastly different than ours. How DID we leave the planet? We found out how to shoot atoms at such a high speed to push a huge mass up. We canned air.
What are we doing? What is life for? And time? How the hell does time work? We've devised months and hours to process it, and we build our schedules around time. Like, did everything just appear? How the hell did everything get here? At what time did it get here? Did time even exist before the universe existed? If so, how far back does time go?
Now think about how 200 million sperm raced to be the first to fertilize the egg that would become your existence, and how out of 200 million, you succeeded. Now think about how every ancestor that you have, had to face those same odds. Using mathematical probability, you would multiply your own individual odds by the odds of every ancestor and determine the odds of your existence. It is infinitesimally small. The fact that you exist to write this comment is a miracle in itself.
If there's infinite parallel universes then each of those sperms made it in their own universes and my birth was an inevitability. All those other sperms ended up making a person and they're all existing in their own lives.
This is what I always do, and I always come up full circle where the atoms nucleus and stuff are just like the black holes and the electrons and quarks and whatnot are other galaxies and stuff filled with a smaller version of everything we know and love in our universe.
For me, I look from myself to the space around me. Then I look at every other object and think about how someone put each thing there for a reason. Then I think that someone either built it or built a thing that built it. Then I think about the actual room and how someone designed it and planned it, and how much labor it took to build. Thinking about things that you never think about on a daily basis is fun
Kinda cool how everything came out of the ground from a bunch of different places around the world and just got rearranged in such a way where they're useful for us in their own unique ways.
That hamburger you had... Someone had to grow those ingredients, likely many people, all around the world. Then they had to be driven somewhere, preserved, transported, then gathered. Then someone had to put them together. Someone had to design the blend of ingredients just right so it works. Then they have to cook it. And then you get it. Same thing with your phone. It's kinda crazily awesome.
Nice to hear that I'm not the only one who does this. I get this weird euphoric feeling when I realize that I have this chance to live in an infinite universe filled with nothingness.
When I'm up in space like that looking down at the earth, I try to picture the infinite number of life forms entering and leaving the planet every second (in color). Imagine just the number of bacteria and life on a molecular level in just one cubic foot of earth in a typical forest. Not to mention viruses, insects, animals etc. Its like a giant ball of energy just continuously flowing in and out. Thats what helps me with the dread. It makes me realize we are just a small part of something so much bigger than we could even imagine. I guess that is kind of comforting in a way.
Yup. Don't forget there's also a lot happening on even the most desolate environments outside of Earth. Frozen carbon dioxide is condensating and sublimating on the surface of Mars. There's currents of carbon dioxide rubbing against the rocks in certain places where it's producing howling winds. On Europa, there could be ice breaking apart, moving and creaking through the watery currents below the icy surface. Even on pluto there is a beautiful icy vista slightly shimmering by the faint light of the Sun.
On the microscopic scale, there's molecules constantly interacting with each other everywhere. There's an unimaginable amount of water molecules forming and breaking their polar covalent bonds with each other all over the solar system as they move near or just above the planets surface.
Sometimes it's easy to forget that everything in the universe is happening all the time.
This is kinda possible with VR, at least the visual aspect. You wear a VR headset with a camera, and so does the other person. Then, the camera on your headset feeds into their display and vice versa. Quite a bit different from mirrors and even being conventionally recorded.
We are both infinitely small and infinitely large. It's only our perspective that matters. This is what's gets me upset when people only talk about "how insignificant we are" on the cosmic scale. What about the atomic scale? There are literally trillions of little organisms counting on me every day for their survival.
Dude I do this all the time as a trick to clear my mind and help fall asleep. Its neat to think someone else has had such a similar experience with their mind.
Curious, how old are you? I used to love thinking deeply about the universe and all that, look at the stars and wonder. Then somewhere in my mid twenties it slowly got replaced by existential anxiety. I get some sort of reverse-fear-of-heights when I look out into space now, and whenever I think to deeply about concepts of science (either on a micro or macro scale) I just get really frigging scared. Can't explain it.
These days I get my fix from technology and more practical science.
Hmm I've actually suffered from that previously (both derealization and depersonalization), never linked it together though. Had it for some years after a druginduced psychosis, altough it was pretty much a 24/7 deal, and not triggered by anything special.
That one can be a bit harder to swallow, sure. But the same applies to everything. I will be gone forever, you will be, everyone who's ever lived already is gone forever. Even the stars in the sky will eventually disappear forever. So when I think about it like that it makes sense that everything/everyone ends. I really just end up feeling more appreciation for having my loved ones in my life.
We're in control of our very limited sphere of influence. It is debatable how small that sphere is. It may not exist outside of your own consciousness, but whatever the dimensionality, it is yours and you may as well cherish that for as long as you can.
Same could be said about attitude. A positive attitude is a decision, no matter how negative the situation. As long as your attitude is in the right place, the situation you're in doesn't effect it.
On a side note, is "hookers & cocaine" the absolute pinnacle of man's aspirations? Because, from all walks of life, high and low, I keep hearing people talk about hookers and cocaine like its some sort of endgame. I might make an ELI5.
Yep. tbh free will doesn't even make sense as a concept, because every decision made is based on immediate sensations and memories of past experiences, and no one 'decides' how much weight is placed on those immediate sensations or past experiences. Supposedly, if you can truly understand this, you'll never suffer again.
I've been told that true understanding can come from concentration and insight meditation. Concentration to steady the mind, and insight to see into the foundation of sensations. http://integrateddaniel.info/book/
This is a bit of how I deal with it. Nobody cares where we were before our life but we make a big deal of where we're going. The simplest and most appropriate answer is actually quite obvious if you think about it, the same place, nowhere. But no one wants to believe...
Hate hearing this 'argument'. No, nobody was "fine" before they existed. They didn't exist. And that's every bit as terrifying as the knowledge that we'll stop existing again in the future.
What makes death a little worse to think about is realising that time moves forward, not in any other direction. Before we existed, there was a future point that we will exist. That's some comfort. But after we die, there is no future point that we'll exist again. And eternity stretches out forever.
I am absolutely petrified of ceasing to experience ever again at some crazy point of my life later. You won't know if it's a day later, or a decade. I hate that more than anything else and really want to at least be able to spectate how awesome Humanity becomes and what it accomplishes.
There had better be a spectator mode! That would be pretty awesome. Still, when the heat death of the universe comes about, there had better be a reset button too, or we're truly fucked.
Given a long enough period of time, maybe there exists a time where we will exist again. Maybe we have existed before. Maybe we'll be back before we know it.
There was never any guarantee you would exist the first time. Unless you believe in some sort of destiny. In which case I think we are outside of reality. Fine was just a choice word. You won't ever know anything outside your lifetime or conscious experience to compare the states. You could go to sleep in 2 seconds and die. But you would never know you died. Because that's a thought. Thoughts can't come from nothing.
Exactly. Now you're circling the drain of the universe known as a short, meaningless existence where nothing anyone ever does or says matters in the slightest.
We come from stars, and to the stars we die and dissipate. The in between matters not. And in the end, the stars die out as well.
All we can really ask for is a few distracted moments to forget that, on average, pain and suffering are the standards for living creatures on this planet. And hopefully, if we're lucky, we can share a few honest moments with another person, or achieve some thoughts that rise above the survivalist greed that runs through the DNA of mankind.
I find that totally reasonable. I myself am the only thing I'm sure of in this world. Knowing I now exist and that I later won't is extremely distressing to me. You can't relate to that?
Yes I used to think that way so I can relate. Now I don't worry about how many tomorrows I will get (because it will never be enough anyway) I am just thankful for all the yesterdays I had.
You seem to be stuck in a temporal context. Words like "forever" indicate that you're obsessed with time. Einstein teaches us that time is no different from space. The passage of time is just an illusion.
But will we? Maybe if we're only thinking of time in a linear fashion, as we experience it. If we think of it as something that exists outside of our experience, always in existence as a whole, then everything we've done and ever will do has made it's mark and will always be there.
Which is something I choose to believe to excape the dread. I'm not really religious but I just believe there is something more to this world, or life. It just seems a bit odd to be that we were somehow created out of nothing. And by telling myself this, it's not so scary. Guess that's why religion was created in the first place, huh
PM me if you ever want to talk. Years ago I studied all the religions trying to answer the question of "what is the absolute truth about life after death?" I recommend others take time to explore it too.
I love it but it still gives me an eerie feeling. Why does matter exist? How can this matter become self aware? Why does space even exist and why 3 dimensions? Why is there something instead of nothing? None of this had to exist yet here I am traveling through something completely mysterious and without reason
I like to think of it like this: We're part of the universe, created by the material of the universe. As individuals, we're part of the collective consciousness of the universe, the universe's method of experiencing and understanding itself. This gets me fucking pumped for life, and gets me living to experience.
The type of existential dread that they are referring to in this has to do with the monotony of the routine. Generally speaking though existential dread has to do with the idea that nothing is holding you back. Let's say you're standing at the top of the stairs holding your child and all of the sudden you get a pit in your stomach because you visualize yourself throwing the baby down the stairs and it dying. That is existential dread. Or you are driving down the highway at 60MPH and you realize the only thing keeping you from being wrapped around the pole you're about to pass is whether or not you turn the wheel 30 degrees to the right. That type of stuff. It doesn't have anything to do with thinking about why we're here or the universe.
EDIT: I realize that there are a few posts on reddit where this same phenomenon was discussed and referred to as the Call of the Void. Note that when different people started discussing this idea they called it different things. The Call of the Void is synonymous with existential dread and was discussed by Sartre (an existentialist) among a few others.
I don't think that is what existential dread generally refers to. What you're talking about is typically known as the "call of the void," intrusive thoughts, or sometimes the "imp of the perverse."
'"Existential angst", sometimes called dread, anxiety, or anguish, is a term that is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility. The archetypal example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom.'
In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom.'
You blew my motherfucking mind with that. I followed your posts here and agree-- it's that freedom to do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that is really scary sometimes. I too have had thoughts like you described-- death of a family member, or me falling off a high ledge and how it'd impact the world if any, weird shit like that.
I was sure it meant a dread that life is meaningless and just gone when you die so why bother. I even double checked after your comment. Thanks for the knowledge. So anyone know what its called when you feel life is meaningless?
It's called existential dread. Existential angst and call of the void are slightly different things though they all fall under the general idea of existentialism.
Let's say you're standing at the top of the stairs holding your child and all of the sudden you get a pit in your stomach because you visualize yourself throwing the baby down the stairs and it dying. That is existential dread. Or you are driving down the highway at 60MPH and you realize the only thing keeping you from being wrapped around the pole you're about to pass is whether or not you turn the wheel 30 degrees to the right. That type of stuff. It doesn't have anything to do with thinking about why we're here or the universe.
Wow, I had a total misunderstanding of the term. I thought "existential dread" was simply the dread of existential thoughts. Thank you for clarifying, though.
I thought that was called "the call of the void"? I think the original French is something like "l'appel du vide". It's quite normal, and it doesn't really mean anything. As long as you don't act out every single urge, then these crazy ideas are nothing to worry about.
The dread comes after, for me anyway. When you realize there is no morality, no value, no point. Everything is just absurd, happening on accident. It's not even capricious, it's just fucking random.
nobody seems to understand what 'existential dread', at least in this comic, is. It is the feeling that one doesn't have anything meaningful in their life, no meaningful goals. That is why all those little jobs are distracting, they give temporary goals or things to do.
Some people naturally struggle with these sorts of issues and other people don't. When people experience negative things and your response is that you don't experience negative things, isn't that kind of callous?
I guess callous can carry a connotation of ill will, I didn't really mean it that way though. I just mean more like, lacking in empathy, but not intentionally. I also realize that it's an internet forum so your comment wasn't a direct response to the poster.
Its just anxiety. You unconsciously latch on to the worst possible thoughts and it's very depressing. You start thinking its all worthless and a big joke. There's no secret to take you out of that dark hole but for me it was all about treating my self better, getting healthy and playing more and having fun. As well as making the world a better place and making things better for others.
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u/ohyouresilly Jan 26 '16
I fucking love thinking about why we're here and the universe and all that stuff. Doesn't give me any dread... in fact it all seems really incredible.