Survival Manual for Desperate Optimists

[L'absent]

Humanity has spent millennia convincing itself that life has value, meaning, and direction. It has built cathedrals, empires, philosophies, and entire scientific disciplines to justify its existence, to ennoble its chaotic march toward inevitable dissolution. But the truth is that life is nothing more than a biochemical accident, a collective delusion imbued with meaning only because the alternative—the void—is too terrifying to accept.
Look at them: waking up every morning, dragging themselves out of bed, facing traffic and meetings to sustain a system that swallowed them at birth and will return them to oblivion without so much as a thank you. They struggle for careers no one will remember, build relationships doomed to decay, produce children who will repeat the same cycle of self-deception. They are prisoners in a cage without bars, where the sentence is consciousness and the executioner is hope.
Every era has sought its antidote to nihilism: God, Reason, Progress, Love, Family, Productivity. Yet, none of these substitutes have ever withstood the weight of reality. There is no ultimate purpose, only an absurd prolongation of existence in increasingly sophisticated forms, disguised as virtue, personal growth, or societal improvement. It is the philosophical equivalent of repainting the façade of a building doomed for demolition—a distraction to avoid admitting that beneath the surface, everything rots.
But do not worry, there is always room for the ridiculous. The optimists—those cheerful vendors of existential smoke—will tell you that life is beautiful, that it is worth living, that every moment is an opportunity. These are the same people who applaud marriages doomed from the start, who praise hard work while billionaires thrive on their backs, who post motivational quotes while crying in traffic or swallowing pills to get through another day. And yet, they insist: "Be positive!"—as if the problem were perception and not the condition of existence itself.
Life is not a blessing; it is a sentence with excellent marketing. We are taught to fear death, but no one tells us that the real horror is the slow process of living, the dilution of being into a routine devoid of purpose, the absurdity of accumulating experiences, money, and status only to be forgotten by a world that will keep spinning with the same cosmic indifference as always.
So, what remedy remains? None. Suicide is too theatrical a gesture for such a mediocre stage, and survival is merely a matter of inertia. The only option is to enjoy the spectacle with a touch of irony, to laugh at the farce, to embrace the nonsense, to play with the system without deluding oneself that it has any meaning. The awareness of nothingness is the last form of freedom left. Because in the end, if we must perform in this comedy, we might as well do it with style. And if you truly can't bear this farce any longer, then it's better to drop the curtain for good.

 

[The_Hunter]

So, what remedy remains? None. Suicide is too theatrical a gesture for such a mediocre stage, and survival is merely a matter of inertia. The only option is to enjoy the spectacle with a touch of irony, to laugh at the farce, to embrace the nonsense, to play with the system without deluding oneself that it has any meaning. The awareness of nothingness is the last form of freedom left. Because in the end, if we must perform in this comedy, we might as well do it with style.

I have actually thought a similar thing; that suicide is too serious an act in context of the absurdity of things itself. I like this idea of suggesting the act of embracing a theatrical context in face of things which cause issues when overimbued with meaning; hence, learning to laugh as opposed to trying to keep a straight face.

Though I may not agree with every paragraph of this work, I certainly pick the above quoted part as my favorite piece of this post of yours. And as always—am in awe of your utterly shocking & eloquent command of language.

I think there is genuine nuance & finer detail found within your words, here; one might look at your whole work and attempt to gloss over it all as if it were vast dunes of sand—but when examined closely, certainly, one finds sparkles amongst the littler grains.

Thank you for your thoughts; you clarify them to a glint.

 

[SoulCage]

Thank you for putting my rage into words. Last week I met a social worker who took on my "case". When I told her about all the things I tried and all the rejections and disappointments I had to endure she said the exact same words. "Be positive", "you gotta be an optimist to get better", "it can only get better now". I started crying, because I couldn't handle yet another human selling me the same bullshit and not being able to scream at her. In moments like this my head goes into chaos and I can't speak my thoughts anymore, because words are racing so fast that I can't catch them and speak out loud. I hate myself so much that I can't scream and let people know how fucked up existence is and that I don't want to hear their lies anymore. I wish I could show your declaration to everyone I encounter. It is one of the most powerful pieces I have ever read. You have no idea how much this means to me.

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

View attachment 160339

Humanity has spent millennia convincing itself that life has value, meaning, and direction. It has built cathedrals, empires, philosophies, and entire scientific disciplines to justify its existence, to ennoble its chaotic march toward inevitable dissolution. But the truth is that life is nothing more than a biochemical accident, a collective delusion imbued with meaning only because the alternative—the void—is too terrifying to accept.
Look at them: waking up every morning, dragging themselves out of bed, facing traffic and meetings to sustain a system that swallowed them at birth and will return them to oblivion without so much as a thank you. They struggle for careers no one will remember, build relationships doomed to decay, produce children who will repeat the same cycle of self-deception. They are prisoners in a cage without bars, where the sentence is consciousness and the executioner is hope.
Every era has sought its antidote to nihilism: God, Reason, Progress, Love, Family, Productivity. Yet, none of these substitutes have ever withstood the weight of reality. There is no ultimate purpose, only an absurd prolongation of existence in increasingly sophisticated forms, disguised as virtue, personal growth, or societal improvement. It is the philosophical equivalent of repainting the façade of a building doomed for demolition—a distraction to avoid admitting that beneath the surface, everything rots.
But do not worry, there is always room for the ridiculous. The optimists—those cheerful vendors of existential smoke—will tell you that life is beautiful, that it is worth living, that every moment is an opportunity. These are the same people who applaud marriages doomed from the start, who praise hard work while billionaires thrive on their backs, who post motivational quotes while crying in traffic or swallowing pills to get through another day. And yet, they insist: "Be positive!"—as if the problem were perception and not the condition of existence itself.
Life is not a blessing; it is a sentence with excellent marketing. We are taught to fear death, but no one tells us that the real horror is the slow process of living, the dilution of being into a routine devoid of purpose, the absurdity of accumulating experiences, money, and status only to be forgotten by a world that will keep spinning with the same cosmic indifference as always.
So, what remedy remains? None. Suicide is too theatrical a gesture for such a mediocre stage, and survival is merely a matter of inertia. The only option is to enjoy the spectacle with a touch of irony, to laugh at the farce, to embrace the nonsense, to play with the system without deluding oneself that it has any meaning. The awareness of nothingness is the last form of freedom left. Because in the end, if we must perform in this comedy, we might as well do it with style. And if you truly can't bear this farce any longer, then it's better to drop the curtain for good.

you through all that suffering only to exist under threat of extreme torture.

Thank you for putting my rage into words. Last week I met a social worker who took on my "case". When I told her about all the things I tried and all the rejections and disappointments I had to endure she said the exact same words. "Be positive", "you gotta be an optimist to get better", "it can only get better now". I started crying, because I couldn't handle yet another human selling me the same bullshit and not being able to scream at her. In moments like this my head goes into chaos and I can't speak my thoughts anymore, because words are racing so fast that I can't catch them and speak out loud. I hate myself so much that I can't scream and let people know how fucked up existence is and that I don't want to hear their lies anymore. I wish I could show your declaration to everyone I encounter. It is one of the most powerful pieces I have ever read. You have no idea how much this means to me.

i would like to tell that social worker when she tells "be positive" "you gotta be an optimist to get better", "it can only get better now".

me: ok i'll be an optimist . will have great confidence that i will achieve my goal of my suicide very very soon , and i will think it will work to kill me to non-existence. that's having a positive outlook that my suicide method and plan will work no doubt. yes nothing can be better than non-existence forever so in non-existence it can only get better for me

 

[Valhala]

In principle, I generally agree with what has been stated, but there are several existential questions that should be considered from several aspects, value, phenomenological, ethical. For example, the question arises whether transience is what gives final validation to the process of existence or is there something outside the framework of that, terminological-empirical determinant? Considering that changeability and transience are a general determinant of all things, beings and phenomena, one might think that this is the case. The difference between purposefulness and value is also one of the crucial questions. Can something that is purposeful be worthless, or can something valuable be valuable in itself, per se, without any purposefulness. And finally, there is the issue of temporality, or the so-called "vulgar concept of time" (Heidegger) as a successive continuum that flows linearly. If we start from Heidegger's fundamental ontological analysis of being, according to which "the most peculiar property of being is "being-towards-death" (dasein-zum-Toden), we arrive at our initial of the questioning or construction of an existence that is from the very beginning, necessarily and inevitably, doomed to decay and end or transformation to the level of its own unrecognizability where a living organism, by completing its own existence, decomposes into the chemical elements of which it is actually composed. Is there anything truly valuable in that "in-between space" that we call life that would justify all the potential torments of existence is a completely rhetorical question that inevitably arises by itself. The answer you gave with your thread some would call cynical, but I personally believe that it is the best possible in terms of the most painless "delay" of existence without unnecessary pathos and theatricality, so just consciously observing the play with a mild dose of cynicism regarding the meaningfulness and purposefulness of the entire process - it seems to me that this is the most correct attitude.

 

[L'absent]

In principle, I generally agree with what has been stated, but there are several existential questions that should be considered from several aspects, value, phenomenological, ethical. For example, the question arises whether transience is what gives final validation to the process of existence or is there something outside the framework of that, terminological-empirical determinant? Considering that changeability and transience are a general determinant of all things, beings and phenomena, one might think that this is the case. The difference between purposefulness and value is also one of the crucial questions. Can something that is purposeful be worthless, or can something valuable be valuable in itself, per se, without any purposefulness. And finally, there is the issue of temporality, or the so-called "vulgar concept of time" (Heidegger) as a successive continuum that flows linearly. If we start from Heidegger's fundamental ontological analysis of being, according to which "the most peculiar property of being is "being-towards-death" (dasein-zum-Toden), we arrive at our initial of the questioning or construction of an existence that is from the very beginning, necessarily and inevitably, doomed to decay and end or transformation to the level of its own unrecognizability where a living organism, by completing its own existence, decomposes into the chemical elements of which it is actually composed. Is there anything truly valuable in that "in-between space" that we call life that would justify all the potential torments of existence is a completely rhetorical question that inevitably arises by itself. The answer you gave with your thread some would call cynical, but I personally believe that it is the best possible in terms of the most painless "delay" of existence without unnecessary pathos and theatricality, so just consciously observing the play with a mild dose of cynicism regarding the meaningfulness and purposefulness of the entire process - it seems to me that this is the most correct attitude.

What intrigues me about your response is the idea that value and purpose can be separated. But if value does not require purpose, then it is nothing more than an arbitrary construct of the mind, a necessary illusion to avoid admitting that nothing has intrinsic worth. In this sense, trying to justify the 'value' of something destined to dissolve is just a more sophisticated way of refusing to acknowledge its complete irrelevance.
Even Heidegger, with his concept of 'being-toward-death,' ultimately did nothing more than ritualize nihilism. He turned the awareness of the inevitable into a philosophical process, as if giving it a complex terminology could somehow dignify it. But the truth is that any attempt to rationalize our condition crashes against the brutal fact that the cosmos is indifferent to our existence. Humanity is nothing more than a biological system attempting to comprehend itself, a mechanism that questions its own being simply because it has the capacity to do so, not because there is any inherent meaning in the inquiry.
So the question is no longer whether there is something valuable in the 'in-between' space of life, but rather whether the need to assign value to that interlude is just another conditioned reflex of the mind—an error in cognition that we mistake for existential depth. Because if everything transforms to the point of becoming unrecognizable, if all things decay, if every conceptual structure we create is doomed to collapse, then our very search for meaning is nothing more than a symptom of our inability to accept reality as it is: a random, purposeless flow in which we briefly exist before dissolving back into nothing.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable truth is that we are not actually seeking answers—we are merely seeking anesthetics. Thought itself is a drug that keeps us distracted just long enough to avoid seeing the trap we are in. And even this realization, in the end, is just another way to pass the time before dissolution.

Thank you for putting my rage into words. Last week I met a social worker who took on my "case". When I told her about all the things I tried and all the rejections and disappointments I had to endure she said the exact same words. "Be positive", "you gotta be an optimist to get better", "it can only get better now". I started crying, because I couldn't handle yet another human selling me the same bullshit and not being able to scream at her. In moments like this my head goes into chaos and I can't speak my thoughts anymore, because words are racing so fast that I can't catch them and speak out loud. I hate myself so much that I can't scream and let people know how fucked up existence is and that I don't want to hear their lies anymore. I wish I could show your declaration to everyone I encounter. It is one of the most powerful pieces I have ever read. You have no idea how much this means to me.

I understand. That moment when someone tells you to 'be positive,' as if your suffering were just a matter of perspective, is one of the most infuriating aspects of existence. They repeat these empty phrases not because they truly believe them, but because they need to believe them. Because if they acknowledged the void, they would have to face the same chaos you do, and most people are too weak for that. So they cling to their scripts, hoping you will play along and make their illusion easier to sustain.
But you owe them nothing. You don't have to pretend, you don't have to accept their lies, and you don't have to scream to be understood. The truth doesn't need to be shouted—it just is. And whether they choose to see it or drown in their own delusions has nothing to do with you. What you feel is real, and you are not insane for rejecting their pre-packaged optimism. If anything, you might just be one of the few who can still see through the fog.

I have actually thought a similar thing; that suicide is too serious an act in context of the absurdity of things itself. I like this idea of suggesting the act of embracing a theatrical context in face of things which cause issues when overimbued with meaning; hence, learning to laugh as opposed to trying to keep a straight face.

Though I may not agree with every paragraph of this work, I certainly pick the above quoted part as my favorite piece of this post of yours. And as always—am in awe of your utterly shocking & eloquent command of language.

I think there is genuine nuance & finer detail found within your words, here; one might look at your whole work and attempt to gloss over it all as if it were vast dunes of sand—but when examined closely, certainly, one finds sparkles amongst the littler grains.

Thank you for your thoughts; you clarify them to a glint.

Clarity, like absurdity, is only a matter of perspective. Some find it in grand theories, others in grains of sand.