Growing cold

“From childhood on people are given responsibilities and duties which harass them from the first moment of each day. You will say that is an odd way to make them happy: what better means could one devise to make them unhappy? What could one do? You would only have to take away all their cares, and then they would see themselves and think about what they are, where they come from, and where they are going. That is why people cannot be too much occupied and distracted, and that is why, when they have been given so many things to do, if they have some time off they are advised to spend it on diversion and sport, and always to keep themselves fully occupied. How hollow and foul is the heart of a man!” – Blaise Pascal

Your post deeply moved me, enough for me to forsake my lurker status here and post. I am also in my mid-twenties, and have come to the same conclusions you have about the world. As you say, I think you have to force yourself not to think about the pointlessness of existence through work, hobbies, and so on to “get through life.” But isn’t this all completely ridiculous because we die anyway? What does it say about life that you have to keep yourself from thinking about it to retain any semblance of happiness?

I am not saying any era in human history has been a happy one, but god how empty and sterile our current one is. Just as you put so beautifully in your post . . . the never-ending highways going to nowhere, the inane conversations about nothing, the concrete jungles of urban landscapes, and so much of our lives consumed in various bills and papers. And when you travel, you realize that everywhere you go the world is filled with ignorant people who aren’t tormented by doubts of any kind, as long as they can go on eating and excreting and fucking for another day.

I wish so badly that there were at least one older person I looked up to, who could show me a fulfilling way of living life. But I am only struck by the self-complacency of older people, how satisfied they are with this futile existence. Parents, teachers, coworkers . . . not a single person has ever provided me with one legitimate reason why we struggle for nothing.

Like you say, I can’t imagine the cruelty of forcing this existence on a child just to satiate my own feelings of vanity. If my child ever called me to task, if he ever voiced the question “Why was I born?” . . . what could I possibly say in response that didn’t reek of deceit?

I’m sorry, your post just struck such a chord with me. I want to help you, but I just identify too strongly with what you wrote that I don’t know what to say. I just want you to know that there is someone else out there in the world who understands and agrees with what you’re saying. You are not crazy; if anything you suffer from an excess of sanity and mental clarity. And I don’t know any cure for that.