How does one deal with an existential crisis? — FreeEnergy

everything feels meaningless — FreeEnergy

It depends on what caused it. Can you say more about how you went from having ambitions and direction to feeling that everything is meaningless?

When you want something, the things that help you reach what you want have meaning to you, so everything feels meaningless when you don't really want anything anymore, which is related to you not finding existence beautiful, focusing on the bad aspects of life and not seeing the good aspects as worth it anymore.

The inevitability of death does not make life meaningless, that's only the case if all you want is to live forever. And even then, you don't have to believe that death is the end of everything, it is no less rational to believe that death is a new beginning, somewhere else or in some other form.

What did you want in life before you fell in this depression?

Do you currently take medication for anything? Be aware that some medications cause some people to become severely depressed, to think about suicide and even to kill themselves, while some medications cause people who were severely depressed to feel good again. What will work for you will depend on your particular case, so the more you say the better.

It will pass. Go see a psychoanalyst perhaps.

Travel! see new sights, try new things, speak to different people. In my experience such thoughts generally come from having a hidden fear. Unearth it and face it. In the mean time equip yourself with some enriching experiences and live like you’re going to die - which shouldn’t be hard given you’re expressing the thoughts you’re expressing.

Can you say more about how you went from having ambitions and direction to feeling that everything is meaningless? — leo

My ambitions had to do with the belief that if I'll make my life better I would become happy, I don't believe in this anymore. In terms of the feeling that nothing has meaning - the blame goes to philosophy, science, and history. I feel like going thoroughly into all the theories will be too complex. The most compressed version is: Life is an evolutional process of entropy acceleration, there is no free choice, it's not even clear why there is consciousness, evolution is cruel, stupid and wasteful by design, nothing you do matters in a non-local scale, the "meaning of life" itself is nonsensical logically (Wittgenstein)

I don't have issues with death or the inevitability of death, I have issues with life itself.
I'm not taking any medicine, I'm also not depressed - I live a reasonably active life. Just neurotic.

I'm pretty well traveled, been to like 20 countries.
That's another issue: I feel like I did all the big things I wanted to do in life.

My ambitions had to do with the belief that if I'll make my life better I would become happy, I don't believe in this anymore — FreeEnergy

What made you stop believing this? How did you want to make your life better? How would the world need to be for you to be happy?

Life is an evolutional process of entropy acceleration, there is no free choice, it's not even clear why there is consciousness, evolution is cruel, stupid and wasteful by design, nothing you do matters in a non-local scale — FreeEnergy

If this is all that life was then indeed why is there consciousness? Why don't you see consciousness as a sign that your view of life is not the whole story?

I gather that you want there to be free choice and you want what you do to matter on a non-local scale, why do you believe this is impossible?

That is funny you are saying that science made you depressed because i actually saved me from depression, by giving me not only the feeling but the knowledge that I am part of and one with the cosmic process. The same for history, it cheers me up that we haven't reached the end of history and there is still hope for a world without war and injustice (on a political level).

Help someone else do what they want to do, go where they want to go.

Or just sit down and watch the movie Singing In The Ring. Worked for me :)

Seriously!

Nothing like a good art injection - whatever it is that grips you.

Hi there. I've been through something similar. Last year I realized life was meaningless. I also began to question my spiritual beliefs which felt like a kick in the balls. I felt existential truth would swallow me from above and I had nothing else to hold on to the ground. Embracing the void, as Camus put it, was something very hard for me to perform, I mean, that's the last thing one would embrace. However, I would not end my own life, I would just remain hopeless. That hopelesness started to decline when I talked to my mom about that. She burst into tears when she find out how I felt about that and she told me it was not a good idea to feel that way if I would eventually be forced to feel even worse (i.e. when somebody close to me died). Of course I told her that an existential crisis was still something hard to go through and that as long as I did not know how feeling worse was then I would not feel any better, I know that doesn't make any sense. Nevertheless, I took her words as a mantra and started to take any "bad" things that happened to me as meaningless. It became clear to me that problems were not worth my stress or anxiety.
Time went by and I felt some consolation: it was clear that regardless of my spiritual beliefs, regardless of the lack of meaning and the absurdity of it all, my family and friends remained as a constant. I remembered how fortunate I was to have the life I now have. I thought that if life is absurd then we can feel as victims because we were brought into it or we can just laugh at its absurdity, in fact, we frequently laugh at what is absurd. Why not laugh at life once in a while? I do.
I of course condemn people's evil acting but rather than focusing on it I focus on doing good. Goodness is from my point of view the closest thing to divinity we will ever manage to be.
Finally, I stay as close as I can to my passions. I love philosophy, so I try to frequently read about it. I love physics, so I read a lot about it. I love music, so I try to practice playing piano or whatever; you get my point. Passions fuel my will to live in a way I can't explain.
I sincerely hope you will get out of your crisis soon. Just hang in there.

What made you stop believing this? How did you want to make your life better? How would the world need to be for you to be happy? — leo

Nothing, Happiness is just bodily sensations it's obvious the world outside won't make you happy. Maybe wireheading will help? Maybe other things? I don't know - I've tried many things in my life but I still felt generally somewhat unhappy. Why should I assume I will succeed after years of trying and failing?

I feel like if I had a sense of meaning or Ideal driving me forward I could go through the daily grind, but no narrative can convince me anymore.

What I see is that you have beliefs that are in conflict with what you want, but if you critically analyzed these beliefs you would realize that they are not as certain as you think they are. But by sticking to these beliefs no matter what you push yourself into an impasse that you can't get out of.

So why do you want to stick so hard to the belief that you don't have free choice or that what you do cannot matter on a large scale? Why do you focus so much on the cruelty and stupidity in the world and not on the people who are here this very moment to help you?

but no narrative can convince me anymore. — FreeEnergy

That's obviously not true. Hence why you're here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIw3BtSPHtI
.... Shine into the future! Cheer up man! :)

I don't really stick to them, the only thing I stick to religiously is rationality in the larger sense. I believe in things that make sense. Do you feel I'm wrong in any of my assumptions? Can you prove me otherwise?

Regarding why I focus on the negative: I don't, I look at the world as a whole - and the Sum seems to be negative. I do understand that for other people it seems positive, but that's obviously a completely subjective view. I see nature and how wild animals live and I'm disgusted, I'm not sure how to change it.

That's obviously not true. Hence why you're here. — Alan

Agreed, No narrative that I heard until now convinced me.

I've been there before. It began 10 years ago when my dad was sick and then it turned into a really intense bout of depression when he died in about a year's time afterwards. For me, because knowing is a big part of how I deal with things, I ventured into spirituality with the aim of uncovering whatever lies hidden in the realms of "spirit" or "soul" or anything that will get me closer to the inner knowledge of "consciousness", "psyche", etc. And I mean I seriously went about it. Anyway, years later, I realised I was tired of being depressed, I was tired of hints and hidden or mixed messages and so I decided to reconcile my life, to "balance it out" up to the point in life that I was then. So, I determined what made sense and what didn't and formed my own fundamental principles of what my life will be based on.
For example,

• 1. If there's a God (superior force, being) then He gave me the abilities I have and use. If He's got a problem He will do something about it. Till then, I Am Who I Am and I DO What I Do.
  2. Everything I do is according to what I think is best for me.
  3. The mistakes I made and will make are in pursuit of experience, knowledge or interaction. I'm going to make as many as is necessary to achieve my goals.
  4. All actions have consequences and I have no choice about it, etc, etc.

But before all that I had to settle one fundamental score - that is, the answer to why am I here?

It's simple, I'm here because I chose to be here. That may not make sense when you reference ideas such as I had no choice in the matter of my birth, or my parents, or the when, how and any number of factors that came into play to bring about your presence on this little blue planet. But, consider this - why should oxygen combine with hydrogen to make water?

This is not about free will or choice, it's about NATURE. If an oxygen atom knew what scientists know about its components and their configurations, about its affinities and aversions, its latent, active and potential capacities, etc, then it would not question its role in water (if it questioned, that is). So my point is - LEARN YOUR NATURE!

There is nothing more true than energy. Your energies, whatever they are, act in accordance with their nature and thus they direct the why, where, how, what, when, etc, you are and will be.
So, what is the nature of your energies that they should manifest the conditions you refer to as you, here, now?

Also, as a parting gift, life is boring only when you are too lazy to do the only thing you are here to do - BE. So, why not take this opportunity to be the scientist that discovers who they are. It is hard work, it takes time and effort, and you will likely not attain the target. But, on the off chance that you realise what it means to be one person in a billion or seven billion, you just may succeed. (Also, there are about 200 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, approximately 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, etc.)

So, now the question becomes,

Do you really want to quit? REALLY? :brow:

There are many examples of people who have had a positive impact on a non-local scale for instance. Why do you believe you have no free choice? If you give the argument I could point out assumptions that are not necessarily true.

It is problematic if rationality is the only thing you stick to religiously, if you look at the whole of existence through the filter of rationality. Intuition is not rational, creativity is not rational, spiritual experiences are not rational, feelings are not rational, you can attempt to analyze them rationally but the very moment you do that you are missing their essence.

Nature can seem cruel, heartless, but that is a subjective interpretation. Another way to look at it is to see beings who desperately want to live and who do what they need to do to survive. A wild animal usually won't be cruel if you feed him and he doesn't have to worry about surviving, he might even become your friend and care about you. There again you can take the depressing stance that he uses you and only cares about you so you can keep feeding him, or you can imagine that he really has feelings like you would have for a friend. Interacting with animals leads one to see that they have a rich inner world, they aren't just a chunk of meat. If you eat meat someone has killed an animal for you, but if you don't want to participate in that you can go vegan.

I see nature and how wild animals live and I'm disgusted, I'm not sure how to change it. — FreeEnergy

Why would you feel disgusted about that? Is it because of what humans have done to them? Otherwise, they don't care about their own way of living and will care much less if we do or not. I have no concerns on the way they behave, I do worry about the impact of our selfish actions on them but even now there are people trying to fix that, which by the way, gives a lot of meaning to their lives.

No free will - Quite long, but it's a complex issue.

When I say I believe in rationality I mean only towards what I think is true or false in the world, I don't claim that this is the only modus operandi one should have, but if you will ask me to accept truths that don't make sense it's something I cannot and will not do.

Regarding wild animal suffering.
"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored" - Richard Dawkins

You can read here more about it, it seems that Wild Animals suffer immensely.

Another thread about meaning without a clear definition of meaning. Life has meaning. Your actions have meaning. Anything that has a causal relstionship has meaning. Its just a matter of finding the causal relationships that you want to create for yourself. Make friends. Get married. Have kids. Help others that deserve it. The choices are many.

I serously contemplated suicide when i was a teen. I was ready. Life sucked. Now im 46 and glad i didnt. Why didn't I do it? Fear of the pain of death. Fear of losing the potential I had with life. What helped me through my recovery was the realization that pain and suffering are required in order to appreciate pleasure and beauty. Yin and the Yang.

No free will - Quite long, but it's a complex issue. — FreeEnergy

There is the saying that if you can't explain it simply then you don't understand it well enough. In that complexity lie a bunch of implicit assumptions, and if you haven't identified them then you may come to see the conclusion as irrefutable while it really isn't so.

During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored — FreeEnergy

Indeed at first glance this sounds horrible, but isn't it possible that our idea of it is much more horrible than the real thing? What does it feel like to be eaten alive? Sometimes people who have very serious injuries to the point that we don't know how they can be still alive don't feel a thing. Maybe as you are eaten alive you don't feel a thing, you have accepted your fate and you're letting go. Maybe it's the adrenalin, maybe it's something else. Is running for our life such a bad thing when we manage to escape the threat? On the contrary the victory is glorious.

If humans had such a horrible life back when they had to hunt and were hunted, why didn't they all kill themselves? Why do some primates kill themselves when they are imprisoned in a small cage but not when they are free? What if it is those who want to kill themselves who suffer more than those who don't?

It is possible you’re sick. Go to the doctors and get a consultation - health check up wouldn’t hurt. May just be a hormonal imbalance or due to a change in diet? Either way it doesn’t sound like fun so it wouldn’t hurt to seek some medical advice.

If it turns out that you’re in perfect physical shape seek therapy. If that doesn’t help then ... well, the demons are going to come out (metaphorically speaking!) Good lick with that and do the best you can :)

There is the saying that if you can't explain it simply then you don't understand it well enough. In that complexity lie a bunch of implicit assumptions, and if you haven't identified them then you may come to see the conclusion as irrefutable while it really isn't so. — leo

You confuse between simplicity and length, Sam Harris explanation isn't complex - it's just long. That's the TL:DR:
A choice can be made in two ways and two ways only, algorithmically or random. I challenge you to imagine any other way of making choices. You can't. Neither algorithm or random is "free", it's either arbitrary or predetermined.
There are a bunch of experiments that show that your body starts to implement the choice before you even know about it consciously --> means you couldn't take it consciously.

What does it feel like to be eaten alive? — leo

Watch this (NSFL) Does it seem like the gazelle doesn't feel a thing?

Many of your other questions and arguments are answered in the article I've linked to regarding wild animal suffering.
Regarding human suicide:
1. As Viktor Frankel said, “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'. Religions, false narratives, and ignorance helped people to create meaning in the world.
2. Suicide is very hard, the life instinct is very strong to override.
3. For some people, life is actually happy if they have the right genetic luck.

Did both, I'm fine. The urge to label pessimists as mentally/physically ill instead of really tackling the arguments is understandable but quite annoying :\

Hmm, it seems to be that existential crises are not the same as contemplating or looking at the lure of suicide. At least, in severity I've never come across people suffering from existential bouts of anxiety or depression as enduring to the point of consideration of the escape from pain that suicide is.

How long have you had these thoughts for?