I wake up every day and feel more and more like no individual matters

[Tintypographer]

Every morning I wake up. There is an overnight list of emails from India and Europe asking me to meetings that morning. There are problems and schedules and events and deadlines. I read the paper and wade through junk and crap. And I realize how totally and completely an individual doesn't matter. Your thoughts, opinions, desires, hopes, dreams and overall world view doesn't matter.

You are a number. And you are a number that doesn't matter. To the internet and globe you are an eyeball to bring in advertising dollars. To your job you are a cog to get unpleasant things done that, if the work was pleasant they would charge someone to do it. You only work in order to earn a living which is actually a bizarre statement. Why does it cost and require work to earn living that you never asked for in the first place. Being alive wasn't your choice yet once you are here the world view is that "this world is a harsh place and you must accept that and deal and do what the system expects or you won't have the resources to survive".

My only value at all is to spend all day solving problems for people who would rather to solve those problems on their own and the purpose of that is so that those people can impress others above them.

My thoughts and desires and life don't matter. There really isn't a value to anything.

I look at any activity and the purpose of it is some work related way to earn money. And I don't want for anything. I have money. But I don't matter. Not in the big picture. Our stupid species doesn't even matter. All that we do is try to find ways to use each other. Every day I wake up to the exact same set of issues. Another list of people begging me to do things for all the purpose of checking boxes that are required because some audits say they are required.

 

[Pluto]

This is true. Thousands of years ago, ancients of India made the same observation about nature. Earthly life is a formless collective in which countless individual life forms appear and disappear uneventfully. There is no sense of individual units mattering.

Somehow, this aspect of nature has been emulated in a perverse way by modern human systems. Here, instead of survival, it is built around the universal pursuit of a thing called money. Yet money doesn't actually exist if you look to its origins and its foundations. Deep sacredness or beauty that can be felt in nature is destroyed in the soullessness of human industries, which are in turn proving incapable of coexisting with the underlying ecosystem.

Our usual sense of individual importance - or for that matter the notion that anything is worth worrying about - is a result of viewing our small and short-lived existence from up-close and without perspective. Like how the moon appears the same size as the sun, despite being many millions of times smaller.

 

[Huntfish34]

I agree with you wholeheartedly on this , which reminds me of something I say to myself on an almost daily basis..... I'm not living or surviving, I'm merely just fucking Existing, trudging through the muck and mud. Which is certainly no way to carry on Imo. Fuck life and this world.

I wish you the best in whatever may happen.

 

[FuneralCry]

I do view life itself as being so useless and unnecessary, there was never a reason for any of this to exist in the first place and yet it does. To me this is incredibly tragic. It would had been better off for life to had never been a thing at all, life is centred around fulfilling endless needs, dealing with unnecessary problems which come about as an inevitable consequence of the world that we exist in and the way that society is. I despise all of it and of course our lives could never matter in any way, we only exist just to die and eventually be forgotten about. The thought of everything ending for me is ideal, and whatever happens the one thing that is guaranteed is that someday we will finally be free from the burden that is existence. This is the only thing that could ever be close to a relief.

 

[Tintypographer]

I truly dislike reframing to a more positive outlook. I don't place joy in mundane activities. I don't like the simple beauty of existence. I'm also completely at peace that others do have these feelings. I simply don't and have never been able to view the world like this. I don't see myself as alive and happy to be so. I seem myself as an organic pain collector racing toward oblivion and eventual worthlessness. There is that rosy view that king Tut or Abraham Lincoln will be remembered. But the statistics show that you as an individual won't matter in 100-200-500-1000 years. Yes you will have existed but it's highly unlikely that in one generation from now no one but your immediate family.will know you and in 2 generations you won't exist. Also the thought that you somehow through a butterfly effect change the future is a zero chance. You could invent some world changing energy device or time travel but I know that for me, my only contribution will be that actuarial number crunching proved that we didn't underpay female employees so that governments don't fine us. No contribution to the good of the world or anything else. If I hadn't been there to do that critical work on an insane delivery who knows what terrible events would have occurred. It could have been like stopping 9-11 or to quote office space "my tps reports didn't have the right cover letter"

 

[Tintypographer]

I've lost so many friends (stopped spending time with me, not passed away) because of severe depression. It's so isolating and the fact that I won't simply "look on the bright side" or "make the most of it" or "just enjoy the absurdity of life" means that they can't keep trying to justify time. I understand it and wish them no I'll well. There are those who aren't in toxic severe suicidal depression. I wish I wasn't. But there is no wishing this away.

I spent my childhood doing math and science. I went to college and then grad school and then post graduate school and then career and employment with accolades. But I did it all because it was what I was supposed to do. Not because it makes me happy. And there is no way back. There isn't anynway to ever fix all the things you have done wrong, no way to correct anything and no way to escape your failings. Who you are is who you are when you are alive then all will forget you when you are dead. My existence isn't even a ripple in the waves of an endless ocean and in no way will I ever matter. The therapists can give platitudes about what matters and how we can choose. But that's all just a rose colored mirror or a Snapchat filter.

What I imagine is the case of whether my suicide will matter in 50, 75, 100, 150 years or more. And will I actually feel bad after I'm gone. I just don't think it will matter. And I don't expect anyone to try and convince me it will.

 

[Exact Change]

I've lost so many friends (stopped spending time with me, not passed away) because of severe depression. It's so isolating and the fact that I won't simply "look on the bright side" or "make the most of it" or "just enjoy the absurdity of life" means that they can't keep trying to justify time. I understand it and wish them no I'll well. There are those who aren't in toxic severe suicidal depression. I wish I wasn't. But there is no wishing this away.

I spent my childhood doing math and science. I went to college and then grad school and then post graduate school and then career and employment with accolades. But I did it all because it was what I was supposed to do. Not because it makes me happy. And there is no way back. There isn't anynway to ever fix all the things you have done wrong, no way to correct anything and no way to escape your failings. Who you are is who you are when you are alive then all will forget you when you are dead. My existence isn't even a ripple in the waves of an endless ocean and in no way will I ever matter. The therapists can give platitudes about what matters and how we can choose. But that's all just a rose colored mirror or a Snapchat filter.

What I imagine is the case of whether my suicide will matter in 50, 75, 100, 150 years or more. And will I actually feel bad after I'm gone. I just don't think it will matter. And I don't expect anyone to try and convince me it will.

Your description is very much like myself. I have isolated myself and lost long time friends. It was ingrained in me to go to college, grad school, grad school again. Career, money, possessions....but I've been unhappy throughout. The numbers on my finances are only meant for my kids now. I have no use for it. At the very least, the longer I choose to live, the more I can leave them.

I've lost so many friends (stopped spending time with me, not passed away) because of severe depression. It's so isolating and the fact that I won't simply "look on the bright side" or "make the most of it" or "just enjoy the absurdity of life" means that they can't keep trying to justify time. I understand it and wish them no I'll well. There are those who aren't in toxic severe suicidal depression. I wish I wasn't. But there is no wishing this away.

I spent my childhood doing math and science. I went to college and then grad school and then post graduate school and then career and employment with accolades. But I did it all because it was what I was supposed to do. Not because it makes me happy. And there is no way back. There isn't anynway to ever fix all the things you have done wrong, no way to correct anything and no way to escape your failings. Who you are is who you are when you are alive then all will forget you when you are dead. My existence isn't even a ripple in the waves of an endless ocean and in no way will I ever matter. The therapists can give platitudes about what matters and how we can choose. But that's all just a rose colored mirror or a Snapchat filter.

What I imagine is the case of whether my suicide will matter in 50, 75, 100, 150 years or more. And will I actually feel bad after I'm gone. I just don't think it will matter. And I don't expect anyone to try and convince me it will.

Your description is very much like myself. College, grad school, grad school again. Career, money, possessions....but I've been unhappy throughout. The numbers on my finances are only meant for my kids now. I have no use for it. At the very least, the longer I choose to live, the more I can leave them.

 

[Pluto]

What I imagine is the case of whether my suicide will matter in 50, 75, 100, 150 years or more.

Time isn't something we have to worry about too much, for the same reason that a bee or a platypus isn't concerned about future centuries.

Reminds me of a joke historian John Green made about King Tutankhamen. 'King Tut' became a big celebrity in recent centuries despite being a relatively obscure king in his day. But all the fame in the world hardly means much to him when he's still dead.

 

[StrangeAndDeath]

My philosophy exactly. So tiring