I'm sure all of you have thought about 'the meaning of life' or something similar before, but just recent events and just this 21yo-just-graduated-but-don't-know-what-to-do period makes me think of it a bit more haha.
a friend that wasn't really close to me, but I did have some great times with recently passed away, and I found out that he was depressed and anorexic, and his body couldn't take it anymore. Fucking sad and shocked that it happened, but I guess it was because I had not talked to him for a long time. But still... I can't believe it happened. He was a smart guy (went to Brown) ... wonder what caused him to be so depressed?
anyway, what are some TLers thoughts about life? What do you live for? Is it just to find a partner to be happy with, and perhaps have kids? Or do you have some life goal you want to achieve?
I don't know, just thinking about it it all seems kind of pointless. You have kids, and then you die, then your kids might become depressed or drug addicts or maybe they'll be successful and happy and have their own families, but in the end, what is the point of continuing our species?
I can't find what I want to live for right now, but I'm not going to commit suicide or anything, but it just makes me feel like....I'm doing all this stuff for nothing? and makes me reconsider having kids or whatever because they might suffer in the world lol -_-;
Dude u should really feel happy you are into a body and "something" picked you up so you can live and do whatever you want, good or bad. I mean sometimes I catch myself thinking to myself that behind those 2 eyes its ME, im something that came out of pure luck. and im gratefull of it. because when u do think the happiest moments in ur life its what keeps you going, to have more of it.I could write more things but I prefer being short.
To see what happens in the future. I'm not scared of death, the thought just frustrates me because I wont be around to see some of the awesome stuff that will exist after my death.
I don't know, it's definitely I've thought about a lot for the last seven or eight years of my life (I'm turning 20 this month, btw). And over the years, I haven't been able to find an answer. At the moment, I'd say it's food, animals, and partially family. Which is really sad, and definitely isn't a happy living.
I say partially family, because I have a brother, sister, and mom, plus some relatives I see more often than others, but still not too often, spread out across the US. My brother, I love dearly, but he's moved out of town, so I see him a couple nights a week at best. I have nieces whom I love, but I see them even less than I see him. My sister, I'm not fond of, and while I'm living with her, I try to keep things civil, but I'm not sure I want her in my life ten years down the line. My mom and I support each other. I worry about her though, she's working too hard, and is easily depressed these days, and I question her health, as she's in her mid 50s and is a moderately heavy smoker. I do what I can to relieve the burden on her shoulders, but everyone else around does nothing but take, take, take.
Back when I was younger (5-11), my dad, sister, and ex-sister-in-law were heavily into meth, and I remember calling it to my brother and mother's attention the earlier years (I honestly remember going up to my mom when I was 6-7 and telling her that my dad and sister were doing drugs in the computer room). They chose not to see things for the longest time, and I remember a hurtful time when I told my brother what was going on, and he essentially called me liar. But who would believe a kid over and adult, so I can't necessarily blame him. Anyhow, this all continued on, eating away at our family (I remember another case, when my mom and dad were separated for a time. I was over my dad's for the weekend, in his apartment, and I was left in the living room, to watch tv, for hours, while he, my sister, and their friend did meth in a locked room - it's experiences like that that I remember most about my father these days), and the light bulb didn't go off in their head until my father died when I was 11.
The years since then have been pretty much just as rocky. My mom and I moved into a small two bedroom trailer, in an attempt to start fresh. It was supposed to be just the two of us, because this place is rather small, and not really big enough to house three people comfortably. Since we've lived here (going on 7 years now), I think the entire period of time its been the two of us is a combined 6 months. Alternating between my brother and sister taking over the living room (okay, it was pretty much my brother taking over my couch, but my sister takes over the entire living room, and bathroom, and pretty much everything). I can't really blame my brother, as he was trying his hardest, and he's also had to go through a lot, but my sister... she's just squandered every single chance she's been giving, and keeps on asking for more.
Eh, sorry for ranting, but sometimes it just feels good to get a load off the chest. Back on topic. I had made some unfortunate decisions during my last few high school years, and dropped out at the beginning of my junior year, for health reasons. Looking back on it, I think it was mainly due to depression, but I also had some pretty severe sinus issues, that lead to headaches leaving me absolutely unable to concentrate. I didn't really do much for a year or two, and was essentially a shut in, with the worst possible thing in the world, WoW.
I got my GED back in 2008, without any trouble. I did have pretty decent grades in school, especially considering my absolutely terrible attendance, even before dropping out. But now I'm finally taking some community college classes, in an attempt to find something I enjoy in life. My plan is to get some general courses out of the way, as well as varying classes as much as possible, to get some feel for something I enjoy doing, and then transferring over to the university once I'm eligible. (I need 24 credits to be eligible for transfer, I now have 10, I think.) Unfortunately, I have no direction on what I want to do in life, and am essentially grasping for straws, attempting to find something that calls to me. Haven't had much luck so far.
I don't really have any interests in life. College is okay, and I'm immersed while in class, but once I'm out, my interest kind of dies along with it. I thoroughly enjoy watching StarCraft, and I'd say it's probably my greatest interest. I play games, but at this point, I'd say it's less of a passion, and more of a way to dull time.
My view on life is rather jaded. I'd like to have a family some day, but as to how I want to achieve that goal, and what I want to do with my life, I haven't the slightest clue. At the moment, I don't really see the appeal of making it past 60 or so, dealing with everything that occurs with age. I already feel pretty damn old. I'm sure this outlook with change if I manage to start a family, as I'd want to see my children grow up, and grandchildren too, but I definitely share a similar view as you: Would I really want to see my kids grow up if they become people like my sister or father? Not really.
To be honest, I consider these kinds of questions not worth considering during certain phases in life.
The answers are often terribly difficult to find, and by the time you do find them, what you were looking for in the first place may have changed entirely; and then you're back to square one in the cyclic game that is life.
My advice is to stop looking for purpose, go on with life, and appreciate your purpose when the answer stumbles across and finds you.
i can't believe what you've gone through, so no fek, it must be really hard.
my response to the OP...
i am also in this phase of life, i also have no clear direction in my life and still confused. what keeps me moving on is my optimism in the future and my faith in god that whatever my life would be years from now, everything's gonna be okay.
if you could think of atleast one reason to smile each day, whether it's starcraft, bf/gf, family, friends, pets, etc., then this could be the start of meaning in life. and yeah, sometimes you just have to stop searching, let's just go with the flow. cheer up guys
nice writeup so no fek, sounds like you're managing things much better now, which is good i guess i shouldn't 'search' for a 'meaning' to life.. although that kind of brings me back to the point that there's not much purpose to living - _-; lol
hm.......
thinking too much is bad i guess lol. just gotta keep it simple. wekjdsfk! o_o
strange dreams that i think are signs, killer whale cries, downloading anything i want to listen to and blasting it, meaningful interactions with people, the whimsical nature of things through a certain lense, the thought that there is some interesting female to spend my time with, the infinite questions about the world that aren't answered, the interesting ways the senses can be stimulated, trying to communicate forreal with cats and dogs. Simply, beauty and wonder if i wanted to be succinct.
if you think about it there isn't much purpose to anything, everything just kind of is.
On January 06 2010 00:08 alffla wrote: thinking too much is bad i guess lol. just gotta keep it simple. wekjdsfk! o_o
I totally share this attitude. Live to live, and try not to think too hard about it. Thinking is the enemy.
I spent most of high school helping my brother (+9 years on me) deal with his mental illness...We don't really know what it is but the diagnoses have varied between bipolar and schizophrenia. It has been really savage, as freshman, sophomore, and junior years (for me) he had incidents where he would totally disrupt our family life and threaten my mom and dad's lives. I think overall it adds up to 6 months I spent living with him while he was really off and would make up lies about my parents and think they were dangerous and think there were conspiracies/CIA/etc linked with my dad. And there were total 5 nights where I almost lost everything...my parents and my brother. It was really hard and the a) worries I had and b) despair over my brother's future/situation made me ask some of the questions you're asking.
But I love my brother. He always had the illness, and it always fucked up our relationship, but he was a really awesome older brother at times too. So I would go on drives with him when he had the illness, was getting out of it, or was getting into it, and try to talk things through with him and reason it out. And one day we were talking about the worst kind of shit, about the prospect of electroshock and all the horrible things he might do and how his illness functioned etc etc, but it was a normal sane conversation at least, and then we pulled into my garage and he said:
"you know what david? I know this is hard, and I don't know what will happen in the future, but this thing, this thing we have right now...It's good."
So whenever I have trouble I go back to that, think on how hard things were and how fantastic every moment of my existence, absorbing the world for the pleasure of being, when I don't have to worry about my life collapsing around me like it once threatened to do. I try not to think too hard about the future, because while he has been perfectly sane and functioning awesome for two years (exactly two years like yesterday, haha) we have come to live with the expectation that his illness could control him again later...but for now, it's good.
To the young kids out there, just set your priorities up.. like you want to be financially free like em capitalist make some innovation or get a career in sales. if you just want to have a fulfilling career, then go for anything that will make you smile and work hard for it at the same time, like for example, being a pornstar is pretty okay since you get to get laid and paid for it at the same time.
but kidding aside, really, just check out what you need to do in life. you just need to set some long term goals where you want to be headed to then provided short term goals so that you can get to your long term goals.
it really doesn't matter if you want to set goals for yourself, your family, for your girlfriend/wife as long as you love that goal then you are going to do what ever it takes to get that.
Currently, my goal is to get 20,000 - 40,000 per year here. (which is a fucking big deal since stuff is cheap here. that's already 1 million to 2 million pesos, not going to be on the details how the fuck I'm going to get it) so that my girl doesn't need to bring her ass to another country (like Saudi Arabia which sucks for most women) just for the sake of earning more, which is the Filipino way of dreaming -_-.
If I were you guys, learn about financial shit and stuff, at my age it's kinda late already but still there is time. Most of the issues I found out has always something to do with money, if you're pretty disciplined already regarding how to spend money and doesn't financial fantasized that your money unlimited, then that shouldn't be much of an issue.
Since i don't want to be married and have children existence has no real meaning for me. If i wasn't a coward i wouldn't be affraid to die.
I wish i could be an artist or a genius thinker to leave a vast body of work instead of stupid genes but hélas it is easier to be mediocre. Hopefully we have beer.
edit: i'm an atheist also but that's easy to guess lol.
Past family, friends, girls, movies, biking, Frisbee, traveling, hanging out, shopping, hiking, doing drugs, pulling pranks, helping others, partying, education, discovering cures for diseases, saving lives, writing novels, going on adventures, seeing new things, inventing products, getting in movies, making a name for myself, making money, becoming famous, getting laid, getting married, having kids, landing a respectable, long-term job, securing a successful career, getting to know the world in more than one way, seeing my kids growing up, growing old with a soul-mate, living a life without regrets, and dying happy... whatever people want in life, for me...
To all of you that have had ridiculously hard lives with death threats, broken families and fatal diseases I offer you my condolences. A TON of people do not realize how lucky they are when it comes to upbringing and quality of life. Ignorance is bliss and sometimes bliss can be taken advantage of and not appreciated.
My goal in life is to explore as much of the universe as possible either directly or indirectly by designing spacecraft and satellites in order to do this. This is the ultimate goal: explore the unknown. Life is the unknown so why not try to explore as much of it as you can?
I'm graduating college in May and hitting that phase. I'm a 5th year senior, so a lot of friends are currently in the phase you're going through. It sucks. I'm experiencing the start of it too.
I started college with the idea of doing something I loved. I chose engineering combining two things I really enjoyed (chemistry and problem-solving), but then found that the real world was much different from my ideals, that most engineers in my field only work to increase profits.
I'm very focused on people, and that's where a lot of fulfillment comes from. I'm an RA at my University and it's the most fulfilling job I've ever had. The best is the look residents get when they take control of their life. I love the feeling of helping them along their way. A lot of this is practice from being a big brother, but it is hinting towards something more. About a year ago I determined that what I really wanted to do was become a father. I'm only 23, so that's not happening anytime soon; I need a LOT more life experience before I'm ready for that!
So what is next? I could try and find someone to spend the rest of my life with. It's very hard and discouraging, plus all the best women in my life have come in when I haven't been looking. Employing that strategy, all that's left is my potential career. I have only had one other job that left me feeling fulfilled: my tenure as a high school janitor. I love being the behind-the-scenes worker and cleaning up the mess left by others. No matter how bad life was on the outside, my job was to clean. To this day I look at things I did at that school and feel nothing by pride. Three years ago I did hurricane relief on the US Gulf Coast after a devastating hurricane and experienced many of the same feelings. This is why I want this drive and my gifts for chemistry and problem solving; I want to engineer manmade systems to emulate natural systems to remediate hazardous waste, pollution abatement, and recovery. I need an advanced degree for this kind of work and research, so now I'm applying to graduate schools.
The message I'm trying to get across is that my life lacked meaning until I experienced a wide array of people and places. Through them I found what I consider to matter the most. We all follow different paths, but I've never seen anyone that just KNOWS what they want. You need to experience life to know what it's all about.
I'm trying to have a lot of good and crazy experiences that turn into great memories. Totally got thrown of course today though as I noticed that the tickets that I had bought for a crazy weekend abroad were for a flight that left Norway one month ago :D
When I'm done experiencing the world, crazy weekends and a variety of beautiful women then I'm chosing between these two options:
-Become an air traffic controller and make a really good buck working standard hours. Travel a lot and live a comfortable life.
-Become a scientist in a pointless subject (like astrophysics or something) so that I don't have to worry about ethics (like with pathology which I also find interesting) and just learn, learn, learn shit. I love learning stuff.
Doesnt matter how much life sucks, music and the will to learn to play instruments will always be reason enough for me to keep on living, however sad and retarded it sounds.
To all of you that have had ridiculously hard lives with death threats, broken families and fatal diseases I offer you my condolences. A TON of people do not realize how lucky they are when it comes to upbringing and quality of life. Ignorance is bliss and sometimes bliss can be taken advantage of and not appreciated.
This is so true. All I want is a normal life, really, and sometimes it just feels impossible..watching my friend having a loving family with 2 children and all just makes me feel so crappy.
On January 06 2010 00:08 alffla wrote: thinking too much is bad i guess lol. just gotta keep it simple. wekjdsfk! o_o
I totally share this attitude. Live to live, and try not to think too hard about it. Thinking is the enemy.
Can't stand this mentality. Running from something you're not capable of confronting makes no sense when that something is inescapable and the act of running keeps you incapable of facing it.
I often find myself trying to do something in order to avoid avid thinking about where my life is and where my life is going. That's why Starcraft became so important for me during high school it just got me so drawn into something that I rarely had time to think about other things.
Now, that I hardly play Starcraft. I find myself aimlessly searching for random stuff on the internet, playing quick games of quake live or watching videos on youtube just to sustain my sanity. Honestly, if it wasn't for my family and girlfriend I wouldn't have much to live for.
School isn't fulfilling and I find myself more worried about coasting through + getting good marks rather than actually learning anything.
I guess I look forward to having a family, most importantly a daughter since I never had a sister. The simple things in life and well just trying to make a positive difference in the world. I know it sounds corny, but I really don't have much else.
edit: I've also started enjoying watching horror movies and classic action movies.
On January 06 2010 00:08 alffla wrote: thinking too much is bad i guess lol. just gotta keep it simple. wekjdsfk! o_o
I totally share this attitude. Live to live, and try not to think too hard about it. Thinking is the enemy.
Can't stand this mentality. Running from something you're not capable of confronting makes no sense when that something is inescapable and the act of running keeps you incapable of facing it.
Some things in life you don't beat or get over. Some things really aren't capable of confronting. "Running" is just a buzzword that implies living with any failure is bad, but failures exist in life.
I used to have a total rational basis atheist perspective on life...That changed on the second or third of my five nights, when my brother was dangerous and armed and drove away in his car. There was nothing I could do, so I prayed. I didn't face my problem, did I? There was nowhere for me to face. To be honest, at that moment I didn't know if I believed in God, but I needed to feel better about it...reality is not cast in the black and white heroics your post implies.
This is something I've been troubled by lately. I don't know what I'm living for. I've had this idea that I want to be a full-on teacher with my own classroom and my own students but so far I haven't even made the first step towards that goal beyond earning my BA (1.5 years ago) Music usually puts me in a good state of mind, or at least helps me to relax and analyze things more objectively. I feel sorry for people for whom music isn't an important part of life.
When I look at what's going on in my life (or rather, what isn't going on) I realize I have it way easy compared to so many people (thanks so no fek for sharing your touching story) I really should just "man up" and focus on getting things done, but it is very difficult because I'm lazy and a procrastinator with a horrible past experience working on schedules and deadlines. I've had it too easy so I've never been forced to focus on keeping on task for extended periods of time.
On January 06 2010 16:25 FastEddieV wrote: This is something I've been troubled by lately. I don't know what I'm living for. I've had this idea that I want to be a full-on teacher with my own classroom and my own students but so far I haven't even made the first step towards that goal beyond earning my BA (1.5 years ago) Music usually puts me in a good state of mind, or at least helps me to relax and analyze things more objectively. I feel sorry for people for whom music isn't an important part of life.
When I look at what's going on in my life (or rather, what isn't going on) I realize I have it way easy compared to so many people (thanks so no fek for sharing your touching story) I really should just "man up" and focus on getting things done, but it is very difficult because I'm lazy and a procrastinator with a horrible past experience working on schedules and deadlines. I've had it too easy so I've never been forced to focus on keeping on task for extended periods of time.
I don't know, just thinking about it it all seems kind of pointless. You have kids, and then you die, then your kids might become depressed or drug addicts or maybe they'll be successful and happy and have their own families, but in the end, what is the point of continuing our species?
pretty much the way i've felt since I was like 15. The meaning of life is that there is no meaning.
As lucky as we are for this planet even being formed, with the distance to the sun perfect, with water, and surviving major catastrophes, rising to dominance in the ecosystem, etc. you'd think we would be due for some random gamma ray burst, or comet, or whatever to just wipe our whole planet out of existence. No trace, no data left behind, no monuments, nothing that will ever show that we existed at all. No purpose and no worth to the entire universe. Life is so insignificant and meaningless and the more of us there are, it loses even more worth.
I guess this is why lots of people believe in a religion. It gives them hope of some worth, something surreal to look forward to a meaning after this meaninglessness. But as logic and science would defunkt so many things from religion, it's hard to believe in these days.
What I really wonder is how life will be in 50 years, how much technology will have advanced (maybe I could take a commercial space flight one day), how people and things will have evolved and work more together, how government & peoples' mentalities and general ideas will have changed, how the style of everything will evolve.
I am sort of inclined to believe that we have reached/are reaching some what of a plateau for technology and evolution in thought/ideas and society. Take clothing styles or car styles for example; There is only so much that can be done with these things as long as efficiency and aesthetics are balanced. So I am anxious to see if anything unorthodox changes them if anything can at all. Then take all the sci fi elements from tv and movies and filter out all the retarded shit like flying cars and bubble clothes and we pretty much have a lot of it now. The only things left are the really crazy ones, like time travel, teleportation, Robots/AI, Aliens, Nuclear Apocalypse, etc etc.
I want to prove myself wrong and live some sci fi.
EPT
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Back on topic. I had made some unfortunate decisions during my last few high school years, and dropped out at the beginning of my junior year, for health reasons. Looking back on it, I think it was mainly due to depression, but I also had some pretty severe sinus issues, that lead to headaches leaving me absolutely unable to concentrate. I didn't really do much for a year or two, and was essentially a shut in, with the worst possible thing in the world, WoW. 
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