Venting Pointlessness of life

[alwaysbored]

Lately I have been struggling with the will to complete tasks. Even menial things, cooking for myself and what not seem like a drag. I enjoy the fruits of the labor, when I take the time to preform my skin care routine I am prettier which makes me happier. When I take the time to cook myself a nice meal it tastes good and I enjoy myself for a brief moment. But it's not enough, I procrastinate towards everything. I have to force myself to do anything and the enjoyment of it is very hard to experience.

I have desires and goals I would like to complete but even beginning to do them and undertaking such effort to learn a skill or better myself in some way feels so impossible. The process makes me insanely bored, I just can't focus long enough to make myself do it. And even when I do inevitably give up I'm left with nothing to do. I could play video games, watch movies or random entertainment online but the act of doing so feels pointless and my awareness of my deteriorating situation in life with no purpose makes enjoying these "fun" activities very unfun. I am left to sit around waiting for the next day to come unable to enjoy anything.

When trying to convince myself to do certain things, I end up getting in these thought loops questioning their ability to give me happiness in the first place. If I learn to say play an instrument will doing so really improve my life at all? Will forcing myself to do this thing bring me any purpose? What is the purpose? To play for someone else? To fulfill myself with creativity? It slowly devolves into this awareness that it's all meaningless and I must make my own meaning. This life is just some sandbox game with the sole goal to convince myself of some happy reality my own little state of psychosis believing in a meaning that is in reality my own made up rationality. To know that my meaning is up to me, when I am living life in a state being unable to make anything feel meaningful I think to myself I might as well just die.

And yet.. I don't want to die. Every bit of my very being desires life, so obviously there is some primordial part of my being that is separate from my thoughts. How can one desire both life and death unless there is more than one me? I am a paradoxical biological system which is both calming and infuriating, as at least there is some piece of me that is happy that I'm alive. What even is alive? What is death? There is a deeper understanding to these things that I know I do not grasp. To think about my own consciousness and the fact that everyone else is barred by their own human state to see in truth of what this consciousness even is leaves me fearing what could be on the other end. Not to mention the task of doing it, to convince myself I should go through such effort is also dumb and pointless to me. If it truly is nothing when I die, why is nothing more meaningful than suffering? If I am just gone, is that really better? I cannot image what that is like because I cannot experience nothing. Why not trudge through life experiencing the little ups that will inevitably come my way the next time I decide to cook myself a meal for example? I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know how I'll conjure the magical reasoning to do something that some part of me thinks is meaningful. I hope I find meaning, or a will to meaning one of these days. I don't know anything really, I just know I'm unfulfilled and it's only up to me to fix it.

 

[Boxoftools]

You sound exactly like me 4-5 months ago. My daily routines pretty much went to shit, and soon thereafter my willingness to do anything at all. I've turned myself into a vagabond figuring that by the time my money ran out so would my will to live, and I was right. its a strange thing coming to terms with your own death, if I survive I'm screwed because I'm too comfortable with the thought of dying.

Honestly, your body is built to resist death, and it will fight you. I went through a phase where the idea of getting out of bed would pretty much give me a panic attack tingling body, throwing up, the whole 9 yards. then I just started smoking weed every day just to make it through the day, I think in a lot of ways this has helped me come to terms with it.

Now that I've finally hit this point I'm finally ready, and I'm sure if its something you want you will get there too.

 

[sólstafir]

Do you also get these sudden waves of energy when you feel you want to do these simple tasks, but you also feel it never lasts - the energy I mean?. Some sort of emptiness and boredom always comes back and then it's hard to pick yourself up even for tiniest tasks. It's like sometimes I 'use' that energy I get from some thought "I'm sick of vegetating, I want to do something" but sometimes I just feel the energy and still don't bother to do something. I also contemplate deeply why I'm doing something since I have a lot of free time currently. I guess when you're already living in some sort of routine, you don't overthink so much anymore? What is the purpose of doing something other than constantly working towards that I feel good all the time?
Afraid a bit to move forward and get a proper job, because I'm not sure I can be every day motivated, because sometimes just thinking about walking longer distances outside makes me feel like I may collapse there, so not sure I could manage any job.
And I pretty often don't want to die neither, but just the boredom, sometimes pain, anxiety, fears, thinking of my failures, whatever I'm facing every day - I'm just sick of it... Tired of being alive, but death also doesn't seem the perfect solution often times. I don't know.

 

[Boxoftools]

Do you also get these sudden waves of energy when you feel you want to do these simple tasks, but you also feel it never lasts - the energy I mean?. Some sort of emptiness and boredom always comes back and then it's hard to pick yourself up even for tiniest tasks. It's like sometimes I 'use' that energy I get from some thought "I'm sick of vegetating, I want to do something" but sometimes I just feel the energy and still don't bother to do something. I also contemplate deeply why I'm doing something since I have a lot of free time currently. I guess when you're already living in some sort of routine, you don't overthink so much anymore? What is the purpose of doing something other than constantly working towards that I feel good all the time?
Afraid a bit to move forward and get a proper job, because I'm not sure I can be every day motivated, because sometimes just thinking about walking longer distances outside makes me feel like I may collapse there, so not sure I could manage any job.
And I pretty often don't want to die either, but just the boredom, sometimes pain, anxiety, fears, thinking of my failures, whatever I'm facing every day - I'm just sick of it... Tired of being alive, but death also doesn't seem the perfect solution often times. I don't know.

I know exactly what you are talking about, today was one of those days for me, otherwise I honestly probably wouldn't have even got my computer out. I used to have a business and it was doing fairly well, even then it was incredibly hard to force myself to go to work that's actually the reason I started it, I could work at home a lot of the time and still make money.

I went to an inpatient program through the VA and sold my business so I could do it and honestly, it just made things worse for me haha. they would force us to do "exposure" exercises where we would have to put crazy looking shit on and go to the mall so people would talk to us and we would be forced to talk back. this wore me out really quickly and soon just re-enforced my isolation.

Lesson learned you cannot force yourself to do something you just simply aren't ready for.

 

[alwaysbored]

You sound exactly like me 4-5 months ago. My daily routines pretty much went to shit, and soon thereafter my willingness to do anything at all. I've turned myself into a vagabond figuring that by the time my money ran out so would my will to live, and I was right. its a strange thing coming to terms with your own death, if I survive I'm screwed because I'm too comfortable with the thought of dying.

Honestly, your body is built to resist death, and it will fight you. I went through a phase where the idea of getting out of bed would pretty much give me a panic attack tingling body, throwing up, the whole 9 yards. then I just started smoking weed every day just to make it through the day, I think in a lot of ways this has helped me come to terms with it.

Now that I've finally hit this point I'm finally ready, and I'm sure if its something you want you will get there too.

Today I slept in until 6pm before I even managed to get out of bed. So I get you there, procrastinating towards literally everything. Alarms don't even work anymore I just sleep through them not caring. Hard to keep on a sleeping schedule, but I do find I am so much happier when I can wake up early to a bright sunny day.

For me money isn't even that much of a inspirational factor towards goals as I am on disability for my inflammatory disease. As long as social security remains as a system within the US I can just lay around all day doing nothing and not worry about my future. I couldn't even really work a normal job if I wanted to. If I had to to survive I probably would kill myself.

I've never drank alcohol, or smoked weed. I do wonder if my life would be better if I would turned to rely on substances like these though.

Do you also get these sudden waves of energy when you feel you want to do these simple tasks, but you also feel it never lasts - the energy I mean?. Some sort of emptiness and boredom always comes back and then it's hard to pick yourself up even for tiniest tasks. It's like sometimes I 'use' that energy I get from some thought "I'm sick of vegetating, I want to do something" but sometimes I just feel the energy and still don't bother to do something. I also contemplate deeply why I'm doing something since I have a lot of free time currently. I guess when you're already living in some sort of routine, you don't overthink so much anymore? What is the purpose of doing something other than constantly working towards that I feel good all the time?
Afraid a bit to move forward and get a proper job, because I'm not sure I can be every day motivated, because sometimes just thinking about walking longer distances outside makes me feel like I may collapse there, so not sure I could manage any job.
And I pretty often don't want to die neither, but just the boredom, sometimes pain, anxiety, fears, thinking of my failures, whatever I'm facing every day - I'm just sick of it... Tired of being alive, but death also doesn't seem the perfect solution often times. I don't know.

Yes, I often get random short bursts of motivation, energy. Moments in time where I am able to push away any thoughts of pointlessness and genuinely believe in some purpose or goal. Experiencing this is probably why I still have hope at all. I do genuinely believe in a future where I could actually be a happy normal productive person if I could just push myself through all the effort required to complete my goals and aspirations. There's just not enough will power in me in the moment when I actually try to do so though.

 

[Life sucks]

Humans are a contradiction. The brain and mind which contains the logical processing wants death if it works properly. But the body wants life and fulfill its needs, when someone is hungry for example, the natural action is to eat and avoid hunger.

 

[Boxoftools]

I've never drank alcohol, or smoked weed. I do wonder if my life would be better if I would turned to rely on substances like these though.

HAHA I didn't either :) Not that I'm condoning heavy drug use.....but for me, it helped me sort things out.

 

[sólstafir]

Today I slept in until 6pm before I even managed to get out of bed. So I get you there, procrastinating towards literally everything. Alarms don't even work anymore I just sleep through them not caring. Hard to keep on a sleeping schedule, but I do find I am so much happier when I can wake up early to a bright sunny day.

For me money isn't even that much of a inspirational factor towards goals as I am on disability for my inflammatory disease. As long as social security remains as a system within the US I can just lay around all day doing nothing and not worry about my future. I couldn't even really work a normal job if I wanted to. If I had to to survive I probably would kill myself.

I've never drank alcohol, or smoked weed. I do wonder if my life would be better if I would turned to rely on substances like these though.



Yes, I often get random short bursts of motivation, energy. Moments in time where I am able to push away any thoughts of pointlessness and genuinely believe in some purpose or goal. Experiencing this is probably why I still have hope at all. I do genuinely believe in a future where I could actually be a happy normal productive person if I could just push myself through all the effort required to complete my goals and aspirations. There's just not enough will power in me in the moment when I actually try to do so though.

I'm the same - today, but there are also days, minutes or hours when I'm extremely suicidal because of pointlessness and lack of belief in myself and hundred other things. Thank you for that thread, I read it five times at least, so you're understood as much as it's possible, even when I didn't respond to all the things you talked about. I have actually same thing with music btw and siimilar thoughts about learning an instrument too. Maybe I can motivate you a bit by saying that you never know what amazing feelings wait you later when you can play some instrument and improvise/jam in some band. I've done it a bit and just communicating with people without words, through music feels sometimes wonderful. Undescribable in words. But even with music, there are many empty days and feeling of hopelessness sometimes. I'm glad you haven't lost hope actually and hope you will accomplish the dreams, live inside your dream :)

 

[alwaysbored]

I'm the same - today, but there are also days, minutes or hours when I'm extremely suicidal because of pointlessness and lack of belief in myself and hundred other things. Thank you for that thread, I read it five times at least, so you're understood as much as it's possible, even when I didn't respond to all the things you talked about. I have actually same thing with music btw and siimilar thoughts about learning an instrument too. Maybe I can motivate you a bit by saying that you never know what amazing feelings wait you later when you can play some instrument and improvise/jam in some band. I've done it a bit and just communicating with people without words, through music feels sometimes wonderful. Undescribable in words. But even with music, there are many empty days and feeling of hopelessness sometimes. I'm glad you haven't lost hope actually and hope you will accomplish the dreams, live inside your dream :)

I really appreciate the kind words. (: Just venting helps a lot with feeling like maybe I can work things out.

I bought myself a piano and some books to teach myself, whenever I do feel the energy to teach myself I do and have made some progress on it enough to actually play a few basic songs and read simple sheet music. It's something I feel like would be good for me, as I rely a lot on music through the day so it's something meaningful to me. It's a lot to undertake when I often don't even eat much out of what I call laziness to myself, but I have a lot of time ahead of me. Maybe I'll make it there.

HAHA I didn't either :) Not that I'm condoning heavy drug use.....but for me, it helped me sort things out.

I have nothing against drugs, so I have definitely considered it. I've always sort of been of the mindset that I should preserve my body in whatever way I can and only use drugs that would overall benefit my health. Do to liver damage and all that I don't think I'll ever drink alcohol, but from what I've read about weed it doesn't seem that bad especially if I were to use edibles and avoid smoke.

Does it just make you feel happy, free of inhibition? Do you feel like you can do things while on it that you otherwise can't or is it more so a sit around kind of thing. The stigma surrounding the drug gives me the idea that all it would do would make me more lazy.

 

[Boxoftools]

Does it just make you feel happy, free of inhibition? Do you feel like you can do things while on it that you otherwise can't or is it more so a sit around kind of thing. The stigma surrounding the drug gives me the idea that all it would do would make me more lazy.

It kind of just takes the edge off, its hard to obsessive over stuff when you're stoned out of your mind

A while back I got curious and tried LSD. after a couple hours I couldn't stop smiling and was hyper-focused. if you move from full doses down to microdoses its an amazing anti-depressant without all the crazy side effects of medication, and if you do true microdosing you will never get the visuals. this is still when I was finishing my MS in Pysch and it's probably the only reason I got anything done at all with my rapidly declining motivation.