So I tend to assume that the problem is me. With the destructive ways of thinking and habits that I cling to. Or with my defective body. With my distorted, twisted personality. I look at the people around me, and think ‘They look happy. I should be like them.’
If I could only be like everyone else, and feel a sense of meaningful connection with others, then my life would be worth living. It gives me something to aspire to. Got to find a way to fix myself, and then everything will be ok. Or, if that’s not possible, got to keep a lid on my despair, to prevent it from ruining the lives of those around me.
But what if there’s no such thing as a good human life? What if everyone’s really miserable, and desperately trying to run from their own misery? If happiness is always postponed, just over the hill. What if human life is just a tragic random event, producing endless desires that can never be satisfied, longings that can never be fulfilled, and a pervasive feeling of dissatisfaction in everyone. Is that a good thing to continue? Or would it really be better for us all to unite in collectively ending our own existence as a species?
These are the things I ponder, at my lowest.
19 comments
You’ve written down all the questions that have crossed my mind.
If I knew the answers I’m not sure if things would be better…or worse.
I suppose that depends on what you could do about it. If you knew that life wasn’t a good thing, would it make it easier to stop?
If it turned out that life was a good thing, would it make it easier to change your own life to make it like that?
Personally I just want some resolution. So that I have the strength to face the world. Or the confidence not to. Being caught between seems about the worst place you could be.
everyone wants more,
at some point, some people, achieve the things they want, and then they are happy for a retime until they find something else that isn’t the way they want it, then they strive for it.
Then there are people that are never sastified, they look at what others have and are jealous, which fuels their depression, then they become more depressed because they are depressed.
and also people like myself, who had everything, and then suddenly it was gone.
Nobody is truly happy. happiness is a temporary state. we all want something, and if we get it we are happy. if we cant achieve it or lose it, then we are sad.
Life is generally a shit sandwich, and we all have to take a bite.
Ok, so happiness is a transitory state, but it does exist? So in that case, is human life (as a whole) good because of those temporary periods of happiness? Do they make all the negative experiences people go through worthwhile? Is it worth it to have loved and lost?
And if you are one of the people who is never satisfied, is that something you can change?
If life as a whole is a shit sandwich, why do we have to take a bite? Would it not be prefferable in that case to refuse it – or to spit it out?
Life is a choice.
In order for something happiness to be a transitionall state, it would indeed have to exist.
Life is neither Good nor bad, as those two things are objective. what one perceives as a good life another would perceive as bad.
The next two questions are again answered differently according to whom you ask. Negative experiences are formative of the person you are right this second. The worth of those experiences are up to the individual to decide. I believe loving and losing is far worse than never having loved at all. It is relative to the person though, as I would rather maintain a constant low, then to be at the highest tops and fall to the lowest valleys.
Its not the fall that kills you, it is the sudden stop at the end.
Life is a shit sandwich, misfortune and negative experiences happen to everyone. The only way to avoid taking a bite, would be to cease living. Some people are lucky and their bite is mostly bread. Others are not so fortunate….
@Hazy – but to make a meaningful choice, you need reasons, one way or the other.
Why do I need a reason? It is afterall my life, your life. I own my life. I am free to end it right? Ultimately the reason is utterly pointless if I’m dead. Hey this is way too negative for me to be doing sobor… Sigh. Things are getting pointless for me again.
Just the thought 8f going to a fucking marriage counselor makes me want to stick a gun in my mouth. I hate talking about my feelings. No one’s fucking business anyway how I feel. Just do something…anything to change thd circumstances…who fucking cares about how everyone in the situation feels right?
@Hazy – sorry, didn’t mean to suck you into my existential crisis. I’m in a questioning mood. Good luck with the marriage counsellor. Who knows, maybe it’ll help your husband to change?
Nope this existential crises has been ongoing apart from the lively folks at SP. You go for me thehusk…it will likely have a better outcome. Frankly I don’t give a shit how anyone irl feels about me or the current trainwreck of a situation I’m living. I’d rather just coexist and not talk. When I allow myself to tell people how I feel they ultimately use it as ammo against me later. I’d rather swing a hammer at the whole mess and be done with it. I would if it wouldn’t destroy my son’s mdntal health.
@run rabbit run
But surely human life, as a whole, can be seen as a good thing (or not.) Regardless of subjective perceptions, if the cumulative experience of happiness and other positive emotions outweighed that of negative experiences in the human population as a whole, then surely we could say that human life was a good thing?
If the negative experiences people endure facilitate a happiness that outweighs that suffering, then surely it is worth it? If it doesn’t, then surely it isn’t? Although individually that experience is subjective, cumulatively it can be said to be either good or bad.
@Hazy – fly me out to the states, and I’ll happily represent your interests in all things therapeutic – I love talking about other people’s feelings 🙂
Great then I can take this gun out of my mouth. My jaw was starting to hurt and my tea is getting cold.
@thehusk
your mistake is you are trying to quantity something that can only be done by the person asked. Good, bad, righteous, and evil are all completely subjective. Everything is both and neither at the same time. The mere act of observation and the opinions formulated of such are the deciding factor
@Hazy
Try a smaller barrel next time.
@run rabbit
Each person’s individual experience is subjective. I get that. One person gets hit and experiences intense suffering. Another gets hit the same and finds it pleasurable (it takes all sorts.)
But take all those individual experiences together, and you have a pattern – a collective experience.
I disagree that good is subjective, but let’s try another word – ‘positive’. I would say that the experience of happiness is, by definition, a positive one. If the collective experience of human positive emotional experience outweighs the collective experience of human negative emotions, then I would say that the existence of human life was a positive thing – worth working to preserve.
I did but it kept clinking the tea cup.
@thehusk youtube.com/watch?v=VJ6ofd0pB_c
The lyrics are unreal.
Mmm, thanks for that, very nice.