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Life Means Nothing and is Going Nowhere. Somebody prove me wrong. Please.

@HCM

To get a rough idea of what problems relativism presents to the earnest philosopher, read this, if you please, with particular attention to 5.9 Self-Refutation.
 
snazzy_sn said:
I'm in a very poor state of mind right now, and to be quite honest I'm not even sure if any of this makes sense or is even in the right forum. It's probably just my usual garbage tweaker writing that I'll erase when I wake up.
I was gonna post this in the dark side, but this isn't really about my problems. I just need somebody to tell me the answers or how to find them before I lose myself completely.
Coming off of drugs tends to amplify these thoughts and beliefs, but hey this is why I'm doing drugs in the first place.
I'm not gonna really go in to detail because in my current state I'm incapable. This is the short version of my philosophy. That of an athiest. Someone who tries to see everything objectively. That of a junkie and a thief.
I don't believe in god. I don't believe in anything spiritual, other than drug induced experiences.
From a purely objective standpoint, there is no right and wrong therefore these are empty too.
Doing what makes you happy is probably the closest thing to what's right but this doesn't make it any more meaningful.

We are all bags of blood and we will all die someday. The world will end one day. Everything is essentially futile.
Happiness and our emotions etc are merely a series of chemical reactions nothing more, which is how I justify my drug use. Shooting up meth and heroin cause a maximum release of happiness possible. Psychedelics are where I find my "spirituality" and this too is nothing more than chemical reactions.

I have my reasons for believing these things. It's been like that since god "abandoned" me eleven years ago.
I've made various attempts since then to seek him out but I feel foolish. Like I'm trying to fool myself.

I want something. I need to believe in something. Even if it weren't real, at least I could be happy. I've been mad for quite some time now, but the reckless abandon derived from trying to cope with leading a meaningless existence and living in a meaningless world have been getting progressively worse. I'm 21 years old, and at the rate I'm going I'll be dead within the two or three years from drug overdose or the violence associated with drug addiction, or suicide.

My beliefs and my philosophy are strong, but I'm not strong enough to live with them.
Somebody tell me what to do, what to think, tell me I'm wrong, but most importantly tell me why I'm wrong. If you argue that life has meaning tell me why. I need a reason. I've been searching so hard this last month and found nothing other than things that have reinforced my beliefs.

Like I said, this post is probably garbage and I'll probably erase it tomorrow, but hey. Who knows? Couldn't hurt to ask.
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I am a Christian but have similar views on the meaninglessness of the way he world is going. I don't think you are wrong is what I am saying. Most people think I am very negative but I see wrong things everywhere I look. I think it is a sane reaction- drugs don't help at all and they create chemical imbalances to the bodies normal state. Nothing will compare to the euphoric feeling of drugs especially physically. They will stunt your emotional growth as well- I know all this from personal experience. I do believe there is meaning in "life" but I believe we have created a world where we are all living like the walking dead. I believe selfishness and seeking our own happiness is the cause. We think we deserve to be happy and we look for quick ways to make ourselves "happy".

I believe God knows us best and that He really did create us ( i realize its not a popular belief but just as believable f not more than the Big Bang). I believe because He created us He knows us and what will make us happy. I believe the Bible does answer the question of what we should do. Serve God and serve other people. Prefer others over our own happiness. Try doing this for 6 months and see what happens you have zero to loose. When anywhere and interacting with anyone and you see an opportunity to give or serve another person just do that instead the normal urge to feed your habits or do something for yourself. Warning! you will get rejected by people thinking you have an evil motive or you want something for yourself. Do everything in your power to continue "doing good" to others in spite of your hurt feelings. You can even say a "prayer" toward people who hurt you like " i forgive them even though they did wrong to me" even if you don't feel that forgiveness.

anyway this is my 2 cents- you see bad things and meaninglessness in the world- your job fill it with meaning- be your best self- don't deny the negative things but encourage the positive stuff if you see it- if not create positive stuff by doing good to other people.

ps: this advice is for me as well since I have gotten tired of doing good a long time ago- I a now almost 42 living in Tokyo
 
Psyduck said:
try to approach an understanding from the between

pleasure - pain
love - breakup-suffering
health - sickness
desire - boredom
life - death
good - evil
a sunny day on which you go out for drinks with your friends - a depressive rainy day where you stay inside
spontaneous positive opportunities - sudden inexplicable tragic events
laughter - tears
enthousiasm - depression
a friendly face - someone who is hateful to you
etc.

everything in reality moves "between" opposites. Analyse them and learn to live with them. If you want to take a reflective (philosophical) attitude towards it, try to "see" something beyond these opposites. No element can exist without the other (and a life without suffering would not be a life). But maybe there is somehing beyond (read: "between") these transitional oppositional states that was worth living for (e.g. "between" good and evil there is the constant strive to undo the evil and strive for the good; the world will probably never be completely good, neither completely evil; but what remains constant throughout these opposites is the strive towards the good). Similar reasonings can be applied to all opposites, in particular meaningfulness vs. meaninglessness. Life is not completely meaningful neither completely meaningless, probably something "between," and what remains constant "between" is the human spirit transcending its own meaningless condition craving always greater meaningful realizations in this world. If we could fix the meaning (i.e. "the meaning of life is X") then this exact univocal definition will destablize itself and become something meaningless itself. Compare this with our understanding of love-relationships, if we could define the essence of a love-relationship in 100 propositions, the love-relationship becomes something meaningless itself. You have to learn to live with the ambiguity of things, and try not to be to eager for one fixed universal meaning of life. Reality (in particular, the meaning of life) cannot be understood in a "determinative" univocal way, but maybe there is an understanding from the between where we learn something through all these opposites, and learn to embrace them (that is, both pleasure and suffering, both life and death, both good and bad, both meaningfulness and meaninglessness, etc.)
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this is eastern philosophy- yin and yang Taoism
 
qwe said:
here is my hypothesis about who god is (and why some people can relate to him as if he actually is the silly "giant guy in the sky" type god), and it should go well with your nihilist philosophy. god could be a piece of ourselves that we "split off" at an early (infant) stage of our development. that might be why psychedelics seem to "turn everything on", connecting everything eg early memories, and at the same time the psychedelic state (with the right set/setting) is indistinguishable, as far as any scientific instrument can tell, from sober spiritual experiences.
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or the drug effect is a counterfeit of true sober religious experience-the triggers in the brain have a use but can be artificially stimulated by drugs
 
Help?!?! said:
I always wonder what the point of worrying about this is. You will most likely never know what the point or meaning to life is, in your lifetime, so worrying is beyond pointless. Besides the more important question is this, since you have no clue what or whether there even is a meaning to life, how does this even affect you? Only by how you think about it, would be my answer. IDK if i'm just one strange mother fucker, but to me, whats the difference if there is no point? I'll still live the same life I was going to regardless so I suppose thats a reason I could care less but.......

The only thing futile is the mind and its sad thoughts IMO. Just because there isn't some sign in space thats numbered 1. 2. 3. and lists things for us to do doesn't make life any more or less pointless in my mind. In fact, I believe I would find the giant numbered sign life more futile as I would have to do what some dumbass sign says instead of what I really want to(pointless's meaning pretty much to me! wasting time doing things you don't want to or in other words pointless activities....). A word like pointless will always come down to your interpretation as only things you find worthwhile, contain a point where as things that aren't are pointless.....
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I disagree- we have lost the will to ask the hard questions- this could be his point as part of this generation- get people back on track- how do you know how to get somewhere if you don't know where your going? that is not only pointless but aimless wandering through life-The equivalent to loitering. We have sadly replaced meaning with "happy" in our world. People are feeling the symptoms of abandoning purpose in life. Philosophy has a purpose. It may be painful but so what? We have become so pleasure centric- I would say we went way off track in the 1960's and never came back- drugs helped us get there and now prescription meds keep us from asking these hard questions.
 
webbykevin said:
why is meaning so important, who told you the universe has some ultimate purpose or meaning ?

What is the point of dancing ?, there is no point, the point IS the dance as it is happening, well perhaps the universe is like that, like music maybe, no point or meaning to it, just the experience as it unfolds.
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dance is expression- that is the meaning in dance- dance without any meaning means you are a lunatic. We express joy, sorrow, whatever. Just dont tell a dancer it has no meaning. maybe we just want to express our ability to do fantastic movements. how can you compare Life with dance anyway?
 
OP: I've been there. I just read the first page of this thread, but I wanted to say that when it comes to literature for the journey, I don't think that it's necessary to move away from your current views. Maybe the problem lies in the conclusions and choices you make on the basis of this views and not so much in the views themself.

I recommend reading Max Stirner. I think the english title is "The Ego and its Own". Most people find him disgusting because they only focus on the Egoism/Amoralism he stands for, but i think that his work has much to offer for a search like the one you're on. It changed my life, and opposed to what most people think, accepting (to a certain degree or even in most aspects) Stirner doesn't mean you automatically turn into an egoistic asshole. But it can give you a different perspective, especially on yourself.
 
In existentialism, life essentially has no meaning. I don't agree with this - however, even if you think this, you can decide to imbue your life with YOUR meaning. Please don't give in. I have often felt despair, when suffering from extreme tiredness. This can send me into a painful altered state. However, since I changed my lifestyle (I won't go into too much detail, but I did let go of all the material possessions I didn't need, which was most of them) I think the despair has gone.

I agree with one post I saw, that you'll need to get over the drug dependency. I had a possessions/craving dependency - it's still an addiction.

Best wishes, and please keep going.
 
"As for the "solitary confinement of the mind," my theory is that solipsism, like other absurdities of the professional philosopher, is a product of too much time wasted in library stacks between the covers of a book, in smoke-filled coffeehouses (bad for brains) and conversation-clogged seminars. To refute the solipsist or the metaphysical idealist all that you have to do is take him out and throw a rock at his head: if he ducks he's a liar. His logic may be airtight but his argument, far from revealing the delusions of living experience, only exposes the limitations of logic."

"Freedom begins between the ears."

"An empty man is full of himself."

~edward abbey
 
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I just got back from shopping, and I'm pleased to report that the American nightmare is still alive.

I am a 72 year old male living in Santa Fe, NM. Through the course of my life I have always thought everything was futile, life was meaningless, and you might as well be dead. Silly me, I thought that old age would bring me (finally) wisdom and happiness. No luck, bro.
I was raised in France. My dad worked for the American army and was an artist. My mom was a painter. My parents were sort of bohemian, so I had a "hands off" childhood, what my therapist calls "abandonment." I went to French schools, where they hated Americans. The Americans hated the French, so I was caught in the middle and was pretty lonely kid. I dropped out of high school, and bummed around Spain and Morocco. Later on, I went to college in Munich and started doing drugs seriously, everything from acid to slamming chiva. Truth is, I never enjoyed it. Just over the Spanish/French border, I had the first of many anxiety attacks, which have been my "dark passenger," (C.f. Dexter) all my life. I took my drug habits with me (mainly cocaine) when I moved to Taos. There I fell in with Dennis Hopper's crew, and I got drunk AND snorted as much coke as I could find. Had multiple women sex partners. When I travelled to India and Nepal in hopes of finding a guru, but got malaria and had to come back. I spent a long time in South America and Mexico, steeped in anxiety and unhappiness and Peruvian flake. Went to grad school at the University of New Mexico, and with an M.A., became a Head Supervisor on many archaeological projects. For the next 30 years, I was a drunk (albeit a highly functional drunk - whatever that means). I was a pretty good looking adult, and never had problems getting girls. Now, obviously, I ain't got game (but I do kind of miss the excitement of walking into a disco with a gram or two in my pocket and having sex with some random woman - damn sexist). I have been to 4 rehabs, have 4 DUI's, and have attempted suicide several times. My sister successfully committed suicide, and my mother got brain cancer. In 2010 father died of pneumonia in Chiang Mai. I was a first responder at 9/11. I have never been married. Never had kid. I have never been in love. I retired early from the Museum of New Mexico. I got a pension and good benefits. After over 50 years, I still have anxiety and depression, for which I take more pills than Elvis. I own a nice house on two acres outside of Santa Fe which I share with a one legged woman and two dogs. We are thinking of moving to Portugal or France. So Should be happy, right

So boo-hoo Steve. Cry me a river. As I said, was banking on old age to bring me wisdom, peace, and comfort. Just goes to show that expectations will let you down every time. Now, near the end of my life, I realize I did everything I thought would make me happy - women, alcohol, drugs, meditation, meetings, a comfortable retirement, travel, writing, and failed. I've had an "interesting life." So what.
Trust me, none of it worked. I am currently an existential nihilist. And you know why.
Please don't respond with "life is precious, enjoy every moment" and other other Polyanna bullshit. Face it, life is shit and then you die. All the other stuff is just window dressing.

If I've contributed to your angst, I apologize. I know that there are some people (bless their hearts) can be very happy. Most human behavior is chemical anyway, so there's some determinism in there. I guess I got the wrong chemicals. So all of you out there, don't be like me. Remember, it's all an inside job.
 
Sorry you're struggling. I agree that life is a struggle. Sometimes the struggle is such that it doesn't feel worth it, and sometimes the good outweighs the bad. At least that's been my experience. I am not as old as you (I'm 38), but I stopped trying to assign any greater purpose and meaning to life other than simply to have an experience. That, along with thinking about the fact that we are a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust, ie, utterly nothing and insignificant in the face of the majesty of the universe, is what helps me have perspective.

At the moment, life feels unmanageable, this is largely due to a life situation I am struggling to resolve combined with addiction. At the same time, a few years ago I had the best 2 years of my life and every day was an adventure due to rediscovering music and dedicating my time to something that fulfills me, joining an active band on the up-and-up. I am still doing that so I hold out hope that things will swing up again and I'll have more years of life feeling exciting and fulfilling.

One of the big takeaways for me has been that drugs just make things worse, except in my case, psychedelics, which, although they brought a lot of questions and difficult transitions, have continued to bring light into my life, more than dark.

I'm not trying to tell you how to feel by any means though. I am also lucky to have had a very good childhood and have a supportive family and friend group. Without those things, I would probably feel differently.

Ultimately, life is a trip and then you die. I try to make the most of the time until then, just because I see no other choice. Right now it feels like a chore. The idea that I will die some day is a comfort, I wouldn't want to be on this ride forever.
 
I know its all mythology and children's stories and even if it were true I'm probably going to hell anyway but nevertheless I choose to believe that I'm obligated to to do something with my life to show God I understand and appreciate the gift of life given to me. As in "love conquers all" - you know not in the sense that God or love is on my side or is going to conquer every struggle I have or give me some kind of reward - I mean as to my priorites in life - love should always be at the top of my priorites list no matter what. I'm a very flawed person and I know I'll never 100% get there, but if there's any meaning to life, that's it.
 
Stephen Chastain Lentz said:
I just got back from shopping, and I'm pleased to report that the American nightmare is still alive.

I am a 72 year old male living in Santa Fe, NM. Through the course of my life I have always thought everything was futile, life was meaningless, and you might as well be dead. Silly me, I thought that old age would bring me (finally) wisdom and happiness. No luck, bro.
I was raised in France. My dad worked for the American army and was an artist. My mom was a painter. My parents were sort of bohemian, so I had a "hands off" childhood, what my therapist calls "abandonment." I went to French schools, where they hated Americans. The Americans hated the French, so I was caught in the middle and was pretty lonely kid. I dropped out of high school, and bummed around Spain and Morocco. Later on, I went to college in Munich and started doing drugs seriously, everything from acid to slamming chiva. Truth is, I never enjoyed it. Just over the Spanish/French border, I had the first of many anxiety attacks, which have been my "dark passenger," (C.f. Dexter) all my life. I took my drug habits with me (mainly cocaine) when I moved to Taos. There I fell in with Dennis Hopper's crew, and I got drunk AND snorted as much coke as I could find. Had multiple women sex partners. When I travelled to India and Nepal in hopes of finding a guru, but got malaria and had to come back. I spent a long time in South America and Mexico, steeped in anxiety and unhappiness and Peruvian flake. Went to grad school at the University of New Mexico, and with an M.A., became a Head Supervisor on many archaeological projects. For the next 30 years, I was a drunk (albeit a highly functional drunk - whatever that means). I was a pretty good looking adult, and never had problems getting girls. Now, obviously, I ain't got game (but I do kind of miss the excitement of walking into a disco with a gram or two in my pocket and having sex with some random woman - damn sexist). I have been to 4 rehabs, have 4 DUI's, and have attempted suicide several times. My sister successfully committed suicide, and my mother got brain cancer. In 2010 father died of pneumonia in Chiang Mai. I was a first responder at 9/11. I have never been married. Never had kid. I have never been in love. I retired early from the Museum of New Mexico. I got a pension and good benefits. After over 50 years, I still have anxiety and depression, for which I take more pills than Elvis. I own a nice house on two acres outside of Santa Fe which I share with a one legged woman and two dogs. We are thinking of moving to Portugal or France. So Should be happy, right

So boo-hoo Steve. Cry me a river. As I said, was banking on old age to bring me wisdom, peace, and comfort. Just goes to show that expectations will let you down every time. Now, near the end of my life, I realize I did everything I thought would make me happy - women, alcohol, drugs, meditation, meetings, a comfortable retirement, travel, writing, and failed. I've had an "interesting life." So what.
Trust me, none of it worked. I am currently an existential nihilist. And you know why.
Please don't respond with "life is precious, enjoy every moment" and other other Polyanna bullshit. Face it, life is shit and then you die. All the other stuff is just window dressing.

If I've contributed to your angst, I apologize. I know that there are some people (bless their hearts) can be very happy. Most human behavior is chemical anyway, so there's some determinism in there. I guess I got the wrong chemicals. So all of you out there, don't be like me. Remember, it's all an inside job.
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hope to hear more from you
 
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