Hey everyone,
I have been a lurker here now for a few weeks, but I wanted to take the time to put my thoughts down in a coherent manner.
As long as I can remember, I have felt this primal fear in my guts. A feeling that I imagine is caused by some fight-or-flight instinct, which is broken and became overactive. This has shaped my personality, my life in ways that I cannot put into words. Everything I have ever done, all the decisions I have ever made were either made in name of this fear, or to appease it. Even now, I should have all the means to reach happiness, there is nothing of importance holding me back, my personal future looks bright, but still I am controlled by an existential dread. Why was I born? Why do I think the thoughts I do? Am I a slave to my physical needs and wants (to my Will, as Schopenhauer puts it)?
My perspective gets skewed more and more towards a state of general unrest, the longer I live and the more I experience. With climate change being a very real risk, even a collapse of our society as a whole becoming highly likely, I find it hard to get satisfaction out of the small things in life. All my actions, all my thoughts seem so very frail and useless in the grand scheme of things. My life will not have any importance, I will not cause any large reverberations through society. One might suggest that perceiving the value of a human life in this regard is counterintuitive and bound to make one unhappy, but that is wherein my problem lies.
If I have to adapt my thoughts to fit within a society that I perceive as sick and incurable to gain personal happiness, I don't find this worth the costs. Just because there exists a consensus that "healthy" thinking patterns should fit certain criteria, does that invalidate my feelings? I don't want to be "fixed", I can rationally point at the world we live in, at the atrocities that are committed on a day to day basis to humans and livestock. There exists this belief that any degree of happiness makes suffering worthwhile, but I can't support this notion.
Happiness based on cognitive dissonance (motivated by ruthless consumption under capitalism, no questions are asked about the origin of products), a lack of knowledge on how humanity functions (social connections are limited to a maximum of ten meaningful connections, we can't empathize with people across the globe) and a misunderstanding of the effects of climate change on our civilization, is meaningless in my opinion. Emotions live in an individual, but I cannot lie to myself to feel happy. These things matter too much.
My friends always tell me that I cannot carry the world's pain on my shoulders, and of course I can't. While they say that though, they will talk about a new gadget, based in human extortion and almost slavery, while eating mass farmed livestock which suffered tremendously. If everyone would open their eyes to all the suffering instead of averting their eyes, perhaps we could solve so many of the issues that our world is plagued by.
This is why I reason that happiness in any quantity is unattainable for myself. Ruled by fear and some twisted empathy for every living creature, I lead a wretched excuse of an existence. My overall cynicism and lack of belief in my fellow humans is slowly turning me into a social pariah. What I am certain of though, is that I don't want to be "cured". I don't want to talk to a therapist, I don't want medication. There exists this fantastic quote by Jacques Ellul which succinctly describes my predicament that I want to share with you:
"None of our wise men ever pose the question of the end of all their marvels. The "wherefore" is resolutely passed by. The response which would occur to our contemporaries is: for the sake of happiness. Unfortunately, there is no longer any question of that. One of our best known specialists in diseases of the nervous system writes: "we will be able to modify man's emotions, desires and thoughts, as we have already done in a rudimentary way with tranquilizers." it will be possible, says our specialist to produce a conviction or an impression of happiness without any real basis for it. Our man of the golden age, therefore, will be capable of "happiness" amid the worst privations. Why, then, promise us extraordinary comforts, hygiene, knowledge, and nourishment if, by simply manipulating our nervous system, we can be happy without them? The last meager motive we could possibly ascribe to the technical adventure thus vanishes into thin air through the very existence of technique itself."
My thoughts are not self-loathing, or irrational, if I must adapt to fit in society and experience happiness, I refuse to. The concept of suicide fascinates me, but I would not describe myself as suicidal. I flirt with the idea and I see it as a very viable way to leave this planet on my own terms, but it doesn't control my thoughts. It's something I can take comfort from while I lament the state of humanity and our planet.
That was longer than I intended to write, and also more personal. Perhaps someone can find some affinity with these feelings, or has another perspective to cheer me up, I would love any input. Cheers.
-Matton38
I have been a lurker here now for a few weeks, but I wanted to take the time to put my thoughts down in a coherent manner.
As long as I can remember, I have felt this primal fear in my guts. A feeling that I imagine is caused by some fight-or-flight instinct, which is broken and became overactive. This has shaped my personality, my life in ways that I cannot put into words. Everything I have ever done, all the decisions I have ever made were either made in name of this fear, or to appease it. Even now, I should have all the means to reach happiness, there is nothing of importance holding me back, my personal future looks bright, but still I am controlled by an existential dread. Why was I born? Why do I think the thoughts I do? Am I a slave to my physical needs and wants (to my Will, as Schopenhauer puts it)?
My perspective gets skewed more and more towards a state of general unrest, the longer I live and the more I experience. With climate change being a very real risk, even a collapse of our society as a whole becoming highly likely, I find it hard to get satisfaction out of the small things in life. All my actions, all my thoughts seem so very frail and useless in the grand scheme of things. My life will not have any importance, I will not cause any large reverberations through society. One might suggest that perceiving the value of a human life in this regard is counterintuitive and bound to make one unhappy, but that is wherein my problem lies.
If I have to adapt my thoughts to fit within a society that I perceive as sick and incurable to gain personal happiness, I don't find this worth the costs. Just because there exists a consensus that "healthy" thinking patterns should fit certain criteria, does that invalidate my feelings? I don't want to be "fixed", I can rationally point at the world we live in, at the atrocities that are committed on a day to day basis to humans and livestock. There exists this belief that any degree of happiness makes suffering worthwhile, but I can't support this notion.
Happiness based on cognitive dissonance (motivated by ruthless consumption under capitalism, no questions are asked about the origin of products), a lack of knowledge on how humanity functions (social connections are limited to a maximum of ten meaningful connections, we can't empathize with people across the globe) and a misunderstanding of the effects of climate change on our civilization, is meaningless in my opinion. Emotions live in an individual, but I cannot lie to myself to feel happy. These things matter too much.
My friends always tell me that I cannot carry the world's pain on my shoulders, and of course I can't. While they say that though, they will talk about a new gadget, based in human extortion and almost slavery, while eating mass farmed livestock which suffered tremendously. If everyone would open their eyes to all the suffering instead of averting their eyes, perhaps we could solve so many of the issues that our world is plagued by.
This is why I reason that happiness in any quantity is unattainable for myself. Ruled by fear and some twisted empathy for every living creature, I lead a wretched excuse of an existence. My overall cynicism and lack of belief in my fellow humans is slowly turning me into a social pariah. What I am certain of though, is that I don't want to be "cured". I don't want to talk to a therapist, I don't want medication. There exists this fantastic quote by Jacques Ellul which succinctly describes my predicament that I want to share with you:
"None of our wise men ever pose the question of the end of all their marvels. The "wherefore" is resolutely passed by. The response which would occur to our contemporaries is: for the sake of happiness. Unfortunately, there is no longer any question of that. One of our best known specialists in diseases of the nervous system writes: "we will be able to modify man's emotions, desires and thoughts, as we have already done in a rudimentary way with tranquilizers." it will be possible, says our specialist to produce a conviction or an impression of happiness without any real basis for it. Our man of the golden age, therefore, will be capable of "happiness" amid the worst privations. Why, then, promise us extraordinary comforts, hygiene, knowledge, and nourishment if, by simply manipulating our nervous system, we can be happy without them? The last meager motive we could possibly ascribe to the technical adventure thus vanishes into thin air through the very existence of technique itself."
My thoughts are not self-loathing, or irrational, if I must adapt to fit in society and experience happiness, I refuse to. The concept of suicide fascinates me, but I would not describe myself as suicidal. I flirt with the idea and I see it as a very viable way to leave this planet on my own terms, but it doesn't control my thoughts. It's something I can take comfort from while I lament the state of humanity and our planet.
That was longer than I intended to write, and also more personal. Perhaps someone can find some affinity with these feelings, or has another perspective to cheer me up, I would love any input. Cheers.
-Matton38
