What do you think is the most horrible thing about being alive?

[NSA]

Having to shop at Wal-Mart because you can't afford to go anywhere else. Having to live with other people because you can't afford your own place. Having to reapply for the right to exist just above destitution (disability income) every 3 years and convince stupid doctors every month your not a druggie* just to get your "controlled" prescriptions.

Why am I sticking around again???


*Fuck the DEA. Everything should be legal.

 

[TAW122]

It would be the fact that we never consented to being born or alive. We simply "are" through no free will of our own. Hence I'm also an antinatalist (but that's another topic altogether). Also, pretty much what others said, no guarantee of a peaceful, dignified exit, forced to exist by law, society, and the people around us until something takes our lives away from us (natural causes, natural disasters, others' actions, illnesses, disasters, accidents, etc.).

 

[freedompass]

i'm not talking about Death. Just being old is hell , the constant pain and torture for most not all but eventually all who at 90 feels good? Death/ non-existence to me is the best thing because it solves all my problems , stops all pain forever, never a chance for suffering or disease.

Oh man. I'm 60, my mum is 90 and she was always a pretty cheerful soul. She has one especially troublesome knee that slows her down and makes her feel frail I think, or that it could give way at any moment. From the times in the past when I've had an injury affecting my mobility I know that you do adjust and find alternative ways of doing things that accommodate whatever disability you have. But yeah old age really throws a lot of stuff at you, it's like life's one last hurrah of suffering. While it may be true that no one likes being 90 I do think there is still some enjoyment to be had at any age. For those with loving close family members the path is smoother. For the rest of us? I suppose a nice cuppa will have to do.

I think being in horrendous pain physically
and mentally/ emotionally with no viable way to end it , if there was a way I could do it I still couldn't bear to hurt my family - I've already been a worry to them for a long time , they would be devasted ! So I'm trapped - to add to it my elderly mum is seriously ill in hospital and I know she's not going to come through this - she's tired and given up - I don't know how to carry on without her - watching her suffer is heartbreaking !

So sorry to hear about your mum, I can very much relate. Mine is 90 and doing relatively well for now, I do hope I don't have to witness her giving up. And yeah, bereavement didn't affect me much up till now (touch wood) but losing her will affect me enormously, it can't not as she is pretty much my only close family member (I have a son who is currently estranged). She's always just been there. I'm sure it's the same for most humans even with difficult relationships with their mothers. I seem to be rambling now haha and still haven't responded to OP really, sorry!

 

[starryeyedgemini]

Trying to move on with your life despite all the shit thats been thrown your way. In my case an eating disorder that was brought on by an abusive stepdad as a teenager which involved self harming. Being diagnosed with a progressive chronic illness that causes a lot of pain. Countless heartaches etc. Life just feels like an endless void and unless something drastic happens i dont see my mental health getting any better.

 

[Superdeterminist]

The phenomenon of suffering is the most horrible thing. This is maybe a vague and uninteresting answer though, so I'll give one example of something that for me personally has been a very horrible experience - never finding love.

 

[JaiLuLesCGU]

The fact that we, humans, suffer a lot because our powerful brains can make our lives miserable and at the same time we are stuck in this shitty life because of its self-preservation instinct. We are suffering machines.

The fact that however you look at it, life always contains a great deal of suffering. There are preys and predators, there is death, diseases, pain and so on. Suffering is not an imperfection you could fix somehow, it is indistinguishable from life itself. Some happy few people win the lottery of life, while others are doomed to have shitty lives, that's just natural order. This is why I don't care about climate change if it spells the end of our specy... what's the point in perpetuating life?

 

[JBVN]

Loneliness.

 

[Vault of Memories]

This is going to sound weird. I've suffered from extreme social anxiety and depression since early high school and am now on the verge of 30. I still have a great discomfort knowing there are so many people I knew from my early childhood that think I just ignored them in high school.

I thought so low of myself that I didn't think anyone would want to be associated with me in the public. People I've known my whole life I didn't speak to, because I assumed they didn't want me to speak to them.

A large amount of my pain is derived from my four years in high school.

 

[Euthanza]

Religions and nationalism/tribalism, it's the product of stupid and wrong bad ideas, used to divide, discriminate, dictate, enslave, manipulate and control the masses

 

[Foresight]

Dealing with other people definitely. Vile treatment.

 

[_Minsk]

Having to live inside decaying bodies

 

[Dot]

B-ing awke

 

[Klophy]

The unfairness.

Some people have it all from the begininng. A loving family, supportive social circle, an understanding partner, wealth, access to help, talent, passion, drive, stable mind, intelligence, and so on.

Other people work their asses off to achieve those things and there's people who don't achieve anything even after a life time of work.

There's so much inequality in the world.

 

[Julgran]

For me it would be impossible to decide what is the most horrible. Maybe it would be the fact that so much pain exists and that anyone can end up in the worst pain possible. Our bodies can torture us to such great extent with health problems. For me it is also the fact that it is so hard to leave this world and that many methods come with the risk of failure.

Life in general is what I see as being the problem. Life can be so pointless and tedious but can also be terrifying. It seems like there is nothing really positive about being here. Even if someone has the life they want all that can be taken away from them. The future is unpredictable and uncertain, and things can easily get so much worse. Life is cruel like that. I could never see life as being worth living. Society needs to allow people a guaranteed, peaceful and reliable way to exit. It seems impossible to escape from suffering in this life. To me, wanting suicide can be perfectly rational in such a horrible world, it is all that could ever feel right for me.

As I see it, the contrast between being a young child, on the one hand, and then growing up into an adult, on the other hand, brings with it the ultimate letdown - meaning that, as a young child, I looked up to adults, always tried to be upstanding and proper, had high hopes and demands for myself and others, and thought that people generally were honest and hard-working - as if everyone and everything was purposeful. This is not the world that I then grew up into, which is why I feel let down and don't see myself as part of this failure of a society. It's as if life is another version of the commercial variant of Christmas - it's meant be enjoyed by children, but then it loses all its meaning in adulthood.

It was probably my perception of adults and this society while growing up that was the problem all along, but that doesn't detract from the point.

 

[Deleted member 847]

you can be tortured/be in constant pain/lose what you value (From your possessions to your health or mental lucidity)

I think that's pretty much all existing problems condensed in a few words

The problem with life is pain,exploitation and loss

There is no god watching over us making sure we're all okay
It's a cosmic jungle with no laws and finite resources

Every thing decays, breaks, dies...

Sometimes I visualize how I'd go about making this jungle a paradise out of hobby


I think about a world where we're all immaterial spirits and can just create everything we need with our minds
You're hungry? Just think of spaghetti
You're lonely? Just think of a girlfriend, she'll always love you and be loyal to you because the universe obeys your will and desires
And in this imaginary world you get to own your own private universe (there's also a multiplayer shared universe. with rules agreed upon by all the players in it) where you're always the hero
of the story that you decide to write for yourself, and you can never die or even be hurt (without your consent) physically or mentally
by other players, you can't even be slightly irritated without your consent by other players or the environment
But then I come to the realization that even if such a world was possible to build (with some advanced sci-fi technology), it
would still be nothing more than a cheap pointless novel, an existence without any reason to it other than the hunger
that motivates its continuation
You save the princess today, and tomorrow you have to save her again, and so on for eternity


Better that than worrying about cancer, don't get me wrong, but it's still meaningless
Life is repetitive, in any form it can exist
The problem I think is that consciousness is just a puzzle solving machine, and there's nothing else to it, that's what you are: problems
There's nothing in life to do other than solving problems, because life is nothing but a generator of problems

Without problems you don't have movement, without movement you're unconscious - dead

If you read any story there's always going to be a problem in it or a conflict, otherwise the characters can't move

There's no titanic without the iceberg

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Having to watch other people enjoy it in ways I never could.

 

[KiraLittleOwl]

There's too much suffering and uncertainty.

 

[tetra]

The waiting and the dreading. Waiting to fall asleep. Dreading waking up for another daily dose of life. Waiting until i'm inevitably hungry again so I can go get food, go to the bathroom, repeat. Dreading all those Mondays when I have to pause my routine of rotting alone in my room. The time drags on and on and trying to pass the time by focusing on the things you love to do will exhaust your interest. And then you're back to waiting for the things you enjoyed doing to be fulfilling again. Dreading all of the responsibilities that I don't have the motivation to perform and how they will catch up with me and keep me here longer. More waiting. I dread the waiting. People would probably tell me "less waiting, more doing" but life has an unnegotiable schedule, and i'm only adjusting to it so I can get out of it.

 

[CemetryGates]

For me it's the feeling of suffering and knowing you have to suffer for years and years.
If there's a God then it's quite clearly psychotic.

The waiting and the dreading. Waiting to fall asleep. Dreading waking up for another daily dose of life. Waiting until i'm inevitably hungry again so I can go get food, go to the bathroom, repeat. Dreading all those Mondays when I have to pause my routine of rotting alone in my room. The time drags on and on and trying to pass the time by focusing on the things you love to do will exhaust your interest. And then you're back to waiting for the things you enjoyed doing to be fulfilling again. Dreading all of the responsibilities that I don't have the motivation to perform and how they will catch up with me and keep me here longer. More waiting. I dread the waiting. People would probably tell me "less waiting, more doing" but life has an unnegotiable schedule, and i'm only adjusting to it so I can get out of it.

You've hit the nail on the head here.

 

[PaperGodzilla]

conservatives beliefs, having to work, to fit expectations others place on you

 

[NotHuman]

For me it's the sheer unfairness of it all. Light and dark, cold and hot, etc. are all two sides of the same coin, but that is certainly not the case with things that make life worth living and things that don't.

While pleasure is considered the opposite of pain, it is scarce, fleeting, and often requires tearing out the necks of competitors to attain. On the other hand, pain is abundant, readily available, and can be consistent and lifelong without the same diminishing returns as pleasure. Pleasure has limits whereas the only known limit to pain is death. Even the things that can alleviate pain to any significant degree are highly regulated and restricted.

Relationships take great luck to establish and arduous labor to gradually build ever so slowly, and yet are so fragile that the slightest word, the barest misstep can destroy it all and render the whole exercise meaningless. Meanwhile, loneliness is pervasive, constant, and can easily become permanently debilitating with irreversible effects on the brain.

And it's all only made worse through the dedication to maintaining the just world fallacy. Often this is enforced through rugged individualism assuring society that everything is already fair; one need only adjust their attitude to fit the collective mold and pull on their bootstraps. The reality of our dog-eat-dog world is papered over with the feel-good sentiment that therapy and positive thinking will put everyone on the same level playing field.