I have a really hard time relating to and understanding people and their feelings, for whatever reason (one therapist thought I might have autism). I don’t seem to feel love or intimacy or emotional connection to the same extent that others do, and empathy is a struggle. I’ve been in a few relationships, but after several months it always got to the point where the emotional demand was simply too exhausting and overwhelming. I’ve also pretty much given up on finding a “dream job”, if such a thing even exists — I can’t really imagine what that might be.
Meanwhile, it’s hard to think that we’ll be able to get through the next few decades without more disasters – environmental crisis, war, another pandemic, you name it. Sometimes the US, where I live, seems like it is on the verge of civil war already.
So what do I have to look forward to exactly? Based on all my past experiences, I have no reason to believe that I’ll somehow find a job I actually enjoy or a relationship that doesn’t feel suffocating, or that the depression and anxiety and chronic physical health problems I’ve been dealing with for two decades will go away. I imagine that making friends, which I’ve never been good at, will only get harder in middle age. I’ve been “taking things one day at a time” for quite a few years now, but that approach is getting old. With all the unavoidable everyday pain and uncertainty in life, particularly in our society right now, it’s hard not to have some kind of light at the end of the tunnel.
I honestly feel like I’ve done everything I wanted to do in life and to keep living for years or decades would just be adding on pain for almost no reason at all.
8 comments
Only you can answer this.
I have had many therapists over my years and most have them have advised me at one point or another to have something to look forward to, even if it is something small, like enjoying you breakfast. Most of them believe these small things will snowball into something bigger.
Unfortunately you just can’t choose to believe something good will happen no more than you can choose to believe the earth is flat.
There are always small things, but those small things don’t take away suffering.
There are a few small things, which is essentially what has been keeping me functional for the past six years. Exercise and music mostly. They help me forget, at least temporarily, that I have to work and live in society.
I guess what I’m looking for, similar to you, is some kind of purpose that would make the daily struggle seem not so pointless. But I know only I can answer that one, as well.
I enjoyed your post. I can relate to much of it. As I’ve aged, the veil has lifted, and I clearly see that we are a confused species with absolutely no idea how to find contentment. Captives of our need for perpetual forward motion and progress, we’ve created a society in which we add layer after layer after layer of complexity, rules and regulations governing every aspect of life as we believe it should be, and the net result is this – the tangled web of insanity we call life. We’re clueless. Nothing more than a colony of ants with the gifts of speech, music, art, science, religion and opposable thumbs scurrying about maintaining our tunnels with no real idea of why we scurry. Thanks for the post.
You’re welcome. Thanks for the response as well. I agree with you, society is just cluttered with an insane amount of complexity. And I don’t see a way of escaping it, really. Not with everything being so interconnected. Eventually you’re going to be forced to keep up with the scurrying or be trampled.
I think the song by Styx The grand illusion says it all. We compare ourselves to everyone around us and everyone is filled with lies from the schools, churches MSM and The Boob tube. How many here could live in a third world country for more than a week? Don’t get me wrong Im ripped apart inside and want to die but why those of us in the Western world become so damn weak and screwed up? For me I lived too much and got too high. I have also fulfilled most of my dreams and of course they all turned to shit but thats life right. I have nothing left either.
The Grand Illusion”
Welcome to the Grand illusion
Come on in and see what’s happening
Pay the price, get your tickets for the show
The stage is set, the band starts playing
Suddenly your heart is pounding
Wishing secretly you were a star.
But don’t be fooled by the radio
The TV or the magazines
They show you photographs of how your life should be
But they’re just someone else’s fantasy
So if you think your life is complete confusion
Because you never win the game
Just remember that it’s a Grand illusion
And deep inside we’re all the same.
We’re all the same…
So if you think your life is complete confusion
Because your neighbors got it made
Just remember that it’s a Grand illusion
And deep inside we’re all the same.
We’re all the same…
America spells competition, join us in our blind ambition
Get yourself a brand new motor car
Someday soon we’ll stop to ponder what on Earth’s this spell we’re under
We made the grade and still we wonder who the hell we are
Wow. I like that song. I guess I just never listened to the lyrics that closely.
Exactly.
Another song off the Grand Illusion album that is close to how I feel.
“Man In The Wilderness”
Another year has passed me by
Still I look at myself and cry
What kind of man have I become?
All of the years I’ve spent in search of myself
And I’m still in the dark
‘Cause I can’t seem to find the light alone
Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness
I’m a lonely soldier off to war
Sent away to die – never quite knowing why
Sometimes it makes no sense at all (makes no sense at all)
Ten thousand people look my way
But they can’t see the way that I feel
Nobody even cares to try
I spend my life and sell my soul on the road
And I’m still in the dark
‘Cause I can’t seem to find the light alone
Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness
I’m a lonely sailor lost at sea
Drifting with the tide
Never quite knowing why
Sometimes it makes no sense at all
(I’m alive)
Looking for love I’m a man with emotion
(And my heart’s on fire)
I’m dying of thirst in the middle of the ocean
I’m alive!