I think I have a massively distorted sense of what might make a life meaningful (romantic love, beauty.) Possibly because I’ve never had those things in my own life, it’s allowed my mind to magnify their significance over the years. Perhaps those who do experience them are more able to view them through an appropriate perspective. But to attach so much meaning to something so trivial/inconsequential definitely seems like evidence of delusional thinking. I think a sheltered upbringing and susceptibility to modern cultural narratives has also played a part.
It might also be that I’ve clung on to the significance of those things for so long because otherwise, I really don’t see the good in living. I could tell myself that even if these things were unlikely to be a part of my own life, there was still some positive value in the world, at least in theory.
This thought leaves me wondering what the fuck I’m doing here. If the things in this world that feel meaningful are really just superficial and transitory, what does that leave? If nothing would fill the emptiness inside. There’s nothing to actually live for, or hope for. Only the avoidance of pain.
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“susceptibility to modern cultural narratives” – I think that’s what’s really killing us. Instead of being told the truth about the world, that we are solitary individuals who must find meaning in personal ways, we are brainwashed to believe that we must reach the popular goals (romantic love, beauty, money, etc) to find any meaning in life. Those who fail are worthless.
I suppose this narrative has been baked into society since the beginning. But I think the last 20+ years have gotten really bad because we’re bombarded with it nonstop through technology that we’re plugged into 24/7.
But if you think of it, if we were each raised in a vacuum with no social comparisons then we’d adapt to whatever we’re dealt in life. If you never felt love or luxury, no big deal you wouldn’t care about what you’re missing. Unfortunately we’re constantly reminded what we’re missing.
So…I wouldn’t quite say we’re solitary individuals (at least not naturally.) And I do think that people derive a lot of meaning from relationships, especially family. I think it’s just that the narratives that have been increasingly emphasized focus on specific kinds of love, and exceptional beauty, rather than what is actually realistic for the majority of people.
Rather than movies focused on old couples who are long past finding each other attractive, but still feel an enduring affection, we have stories about the plucky guy who manages to get the improbably attractive woman through sheer persistence/strength of character. And they lived happily ever after…but you never see that bit. You rarely see stories focused on characters growing old, getting tired of each other, after the initial spark has faded.
You’re right that technology has allowed us all to constantly see what we’re missing. But I do think the degree to which my mind fixates on that kind of thing is particularly pathological. I think I must have been especially susceptible to those cultural narratives growing up, so there’s a kind of expectation/need to focus on that stuff, no matter how clear it is that it’s not going to be part of my life.
Good point, some relationships can give us a genuine meaning in life. A selfless love where your purpose is to protect and care for someone else, that can be fulfilling, so I’m told. But yeah, the superficial aspects of relationships keep getting dangled in our faces like clever advertisements: gotta find a hot girlfriend, gotta find a rich husband, gotta have the sex life of a porn star, gotta live happily ever after… There’s no way anyone can keep up with all that.
What you said reminded me of the 90s movie “Forget Paris”. It’s the only romcom I’ve ever seen that asks the question, what happens *after* happily ever after. It’s about a couple that’s hopelessly incompatible, but they keep trying. It’s actually a fun movie, takes a depressing topic and makes it entertaining. Billy Crystal wrote & directed… I think it was his pseudo-cynical answer to When Harry Met Sally.
I get what you mean about your pathological fixation on these standards we’re being shown. Probably is a personality thing, I’ve got it too. Although I’ve managed to tune out certain things, like big houses & fancy cars which I’ll never have and don’t really care about, there are other things that plague me, like the concept of a “soul mate”. As ridiculous as it is to believe 1 person out of 8 billion is out there waiting to make our life perfect, I can’t shake the idea. It leads to a lot of self doubt & hate for failing to find mine. We can thank the movies for that, even childhood fairytales beat it into our minds before we can even read.
Sounds like a good plot. I feel like it would be healthier for kids to grow up with some stories focused on characters really struggling to maintain relationships, rather than all the adversity being before the relationship begins, followed by happy ever after. Then again, maybe most people are far less impressionable than I am, and can just enjoy it as fantasy without being affected.
I don’t really crave wealth or status either, but I do have incredibly unrealistic aspirations when it comes to romance. I don’t know if it’s so much a “soulmate” for me, but I do think there’s this need for the other person to seem “special”, which is very rare for me to feel.
It seems to be primarily looks based, however much I’d like to believe otherwise. For example, there’s a live streamer who I’m low-key infatuated with. Every time I watch her, my day brightens up (which is so sad.) And I’ll tell myself it’s because of aspects of her personality that are similar to mine, or her sense of humour. But the reality is, I probably wouldn’t notice any of that if she wasn’t also exceptionally pretty.
And that really shouldn’t be at all important, when thinking about what I’d want from a relationship. And the only explanations I can think of for why my mind should be get so fixated on such superficial factors are the narratives I absorbed as a kid, and the accessibility of new technology.
So many of the stories I encountered as a kid were about guys who felt the need to go above and beyond, to risk it all, just to win over the girl who was “special”. Hardly any were about average guys meeting partners of similar attractiveness with compatible personalities, and deciding to build a life together. And possibly because I had such a sheltered upbringing, or spent so much of my adolescence avoiding people, I was able to more deeply absorb those distorted messages, and invest them with much more meaning. So that anything that wasn’t that “special” didn’t seem worth pursuing.
I think we probably disagree on what purpose is necessary to stay alive. To me, it’s just enough to make death unattractive. I get that much meaning out of my dogs.
Every time I reach for more, I come up short. Hence, very low standards for the world I live in.
Getting deeper into it though, a lot of why I don’t die has to do with the narrative of my life. I’m obsessed with how my story will end. The ending is so much of what makes a story good or not, and regardless of whether I’m a good person, I want to be a good story.
I can’t stop imagining how my story would end if people find my body after I ended it.
So I keep struggling, and apparently that struggle is some form of noble and grants my story more meaning than it might have had otherwise.
I also tend to focus on stories that are told about people in terrible situations, the Holocaust for example. The ways they resist is what is remembered, not when they lost hope.
Yeah, I suppose I do feel the need for there to be something more than that. I guess it’s this emptiness inside, possibly created by false expectations. The nagging insistence that there should be more is itself a kind of suffering. Dogs are great and all, but it gets old.
That’s interesting… does it matter to you whether or not anyone actually tells your story? Is the meaning for you in others being entertained/interested in hearing about your life? I think that’s somewhat alien to me. I would like people to think well of me, but I don’t think I have any regard for whether my life would make a good story once I’m gone. Possibly because most good stories involve an unusual amount of violence and suffering, the holocaust being a good example. If you persevere through something like that, your name may well be remembered. Personally, if something like that happened to me, I wouldn’t want to hang around. The chances of being able to resist in a way that’s worthy of a story are low. The vast majority become a forgotten statistic, regardless of whether they meet their end with head held high or cowering in fear.
It is true though that people close to you would generally be less likely to want to tell stories about your life if you died by suicide.
I have the dubious quality that people tend to remember me, at least as long as I’ve been talking to people. Being forgotten would be somewhat of a relief. Which is kind of my plan, slip away to somewhere quiet, develop no interesting news for years on end and die quietly.
It occurs to me that this perception of myself as memorable may be inaccurate. I guess the reason people remembering my death bugs me is the people in my life I remember dying. If it’s even somewhat preventable I torture myself for years wondering if I could have prevented it.
It’s much harder to kill the idea of me than my body, which is no small feat either. Really killing the idea accomplishes much more, because what shame can there be if no one notices?
I fear I have the opposite effect. People frequently seem to forget that I exist, sometimes while I’m standing right by them.
I agree our deaths and the manner of them can have a massive impact on those close to us. Suicide in particular can leave loved ones with a lot of unresolved guilt, anger etc. I think for me that’s less a concern about whether they’d be able to tell a good story afterwards, and more not wanting to inflict the kind of depression I experience on them.
I think in order to really kill the idea of yourself for others, you’d have to isolate yourself to a truly miserable degree, like me. I wouldn’t recommend it. Once my parents are dead, pretty much no one will really care about my death. Except my sister. But perhaps that’s justifiable, and I only see her a few times a year. And possibly my nephew…ah shit. Realistically, it’s going to have to be a case of my being so fucking miserable that I no longer care about fucking up their lives.