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So lately I've been feeling quite depressed. I've felt like this before, but after a while of either talking with friends and family, sleeping, playing starcraft, or doing something else the depression eventually faded away. But now I feel like no matter what I do I can't make it go away. I feel helpless, caught in the vortex that is called life.
Yesterday I played a couple games of starcraft. I won the first one against a D Korean in a ZvZ even though I forgot to make a spire after my lair was complete. I had made a hydralisk den but then I realized, only after my opponent was already making mutas, that I had completely forgotten to construct a spire. He had about 7 mutas outside my natural when I wasn't even finished with my hydra den but he decided, mysteriously, not to attack either my hydra den or my drones. After that I decided to go hydraling against his mutaling and destroyed his natural. After that I proceeded to his main, killing a few drones. Before he GGed, I told him that he was pretty good, but he responded "No, in Korea I am fool".
I thought about that statement. I was so happy beating this D ranked Korean who only thought of himself as a fool.
My second game was a ZvP where, for some reason, my opponent decided not to expand at all, macroing his 5 gate zealot/goon army off of one base. After I held off his initial attacks with 2 sunkens, lings and hydras, I decided to expand to about 6 bases. I went hive tech and made about 11 ultralisks. As soon as he saw that many ultralisks melt his unupgraded goons and zealots, he quit the game. No GG, no nothing.
Needless to say, i lost about the next 10 games I played, all to people who at least had some idea how to play the game. One terran guy even told me to stop wasting my time playing a game "that you obviously suck at". I love playing starcraft, even though I obviously have no talent for it. I can't even consistently get above D-.
Later that day I was talking with my buddies about life. Of course, no one until now has come to a consensus about the meaning of life. But I told them that I thought that life inherently has no meaning. Do what you love doing, get burned by people who are better than you at it. Do what your heart tells you, get criticized by pragmatists. Try choosing your own plan in life, get yelled at by parents and elders who insist that they know what's best for you.
I'm trying to distill the essence of life. But lately I realize that any essence I could come up with is but an illusion, an arbitrary construct with no real meaning. Trying to look for patterns and ideas is useless, life is just an amalgamation of things with no inherent order or beauty. Life is ugly. You do things you think will bring you happiness but no happiness ever comes. People always expect more no matter how high you go. You make 99 correct choices and 1 wrong one and people shun you forever. I'm not a perfectionist. I think there's no point to being one. Get a good grade on a test, maybe you're happy for the next 12 hours. Flunk a test because you just got laid the previous night and didn't have any time to study --- maybe that gives you a more profound happiness in some respects, but even more short-lived. On top of that you have people starving all over the world, corruption, greed, political and economic strife, corporate dominance, misery, misfortune, crime, animal abuse, the list goes on. Yet most of us live our lives oblivious to the fact that we are powerless beings, being given only a semblance of freedom. I am not free. You are not free. No one is free.
I can play starcraft now, or I can go outside and perform some community service or hang out with friends, but is either going to necessarily make me happy? Of course not. I'm doing it because I want to escape reality. We all want to escape reality. We don't want to be reminded of the poverty and social inequality and prejudice and misfortune plaguing the rest of the world. Running away from reality can never make you happy.
I'm not saying that solving all the problems of the world is going to make you happy either. Happiness is subjective, and that's only if you think the meaning of life rests in the pursuit of happiness. Billions of people barely struggle to get by every day. They might even be happier than you are, even with all the material comforts and things you possess. Happiness means different things to different people. But everyone reaches the same conclusion: happiness is overrated. Life is overrated. Life doesn't equal happiness, but somehow life is empty and meaningless. There's no point. You do something over the course of your life, and you never get anywhere. You go to college, join the military, get drunk, philosophize about life, get married, have kids, whatever. But you aren't either any happier or smarter than the day you were born.
We are born 1 day, we live for maybe 80 years, all this time accomplishing nothing of any great importance to anyone (maybe getting some happiness for ourselves or giving happiness to others --- but how long does that last before people start rejecting you for being too emotional?) and then we die. We get rich, buy new and expensive things, entertain family and friends, get involved in relationships, all the time running away from life. We study and get jobs because we don't want to end up poor and living on the streets like the majority of the 6 billion or so people on the planet. We don't want to be controlled, we want to control our own destinies. We don't want to be helpless pawns controlled by our governments. We do things so we can hope to get political power and rights of any good citizen and economic sway. But these are images fed into our minds to keep us satisfied. I don't want to resort to a Matrix cliche here. But at the end of the day we are but zerglings forced to obey the will of the Overmind.
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happy and sad are just emotions, you must control them or they will control you.
by the way you dont know nothing about depression until you hit 1point on iccup ladder.
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Calgary25980 Posts
I agree with this specifically:
Later that day I was talking with my buddies about life. Of course, no one until now has come to a consensus about the meaning of life. But I told them that I thought that life inherently has no meaning. Do what you love doing, get burned by people who are better than you at it. Do what your heart tells you, get criticized by pragmatists. Try choosing your own plan in life, get yelled at by parents and elders who insist that they know what's best for you.
I'm not sure how that makes you depressed. Then it devolves into some sort of 1984/determinism place that I really don't agree with.
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live with what you already have and make the best of it, it could be worse
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man i don't know where to begin
you have 1 life, it is short
you probably wont be the best at anything
nor will you ever find "the meaning of life"
don't dwell on bad things, instead do more good things
live with what you already have and make the best of it, it could be worse
and HAVE FUN
if you seriously are depressed change the environment you live in, change what you eat/drink and your sleeping habits. if nothing gets better then seek help.
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I live life as if there's no point
What's my motivation? Might as well have a damn good time!
How do I go about this?
Well, there are short term investments in happiness like friends and parties
and there are long term investments like school and education.
I plan on having as much fun as possible for maybe 35-40 more years? Sounds like a good range
And really longevity is no measure of a good life for me, because of the good time/ time spent ratio 
I've thought about it a lot... lol
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i'm not trying to bash you or anything but as a person who's actually went through depression, you wouldn't have tried to play starcraft, talk with family, or try to solve the problem if you were really depressed. you don't want to do ANYTHING when you are depressed, all you wanna do is sleep. you don't even want to talk about it to other people, hell post it on a public forum! maybe you just need to find someone (a girl) that will help to get your real you back.
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Honestly, I think you lack in the vitamin D department, get some sun
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Meow. Meow!!!!
Young Australian-kin, consider these famous quotes of great philosophers... I hope it leads you somewhere else than what I like to call the "triforce irl" mode of thinking. Perhappens, it'll probably lead you straight back into the circle :/
"What does it mean to be a 'good' person?" - Aristotle
"What does it mean to be?" - Descartes
"What does it mean?" - Nietzsche
"What does 'it' mean?" - Bertrand Russel
"What does it?" - C.S. Lewis
"What?" - Lil' Jon
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On April 30 2010 00:55 Ghostcom wrote:Honestly, I think you lack in the vitamin D department, get some sun
Thanks for reminding me of that essential vitamin!
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On April 30 2010 00:41 G4T0R4D3 wrote:
i'm not trying to bash you or anything but as a person who's actually went through depression, you wouldn't have tried to play starcraft, talk with family, or try to solve the problem if you were really depressed. you don't want to do ANYTHING when you are depressed, all you wanna do is sleep. you don't even want to talk about it to other people, hell post it on a public forum! maybe you just need to find someone (a girl) that will help to get your real you back.
Symptoms and severity vary of course, so this is not very helpful. You haven't even met him.
@ OP You find meaning through love, and helping others. You need melancholy to make experience more varied and to appreciate. You need death to motivate you. Life is only 80 years man you have to remember to try and stay happy. Its not right to think about things that get you down.
Find something that really intrigues you, and learn it without caring about where things may lead.
And most importantly, remember not to take things to seriously. Lifes just a big story movie and you can control some things and not others. If you take it as no more than this when something goes wrong it will be pitiful. roll with it. OO how cheezy am i?
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On April 30 2010 00:41 G4T0R4D3 wrote:
i'm not trying to bash you or anything but as a person who's actually went through depression, you wouldn't have tried to play starcraft, talk with family, or try to solve the problem if you were really depressed. you don't want to do ANYTHING when you are depressed, all you wanna do is sleep. you don't even want to talk about it to other people, hell post it on a public forum! maybe you just need to find someone (a girl) that will help to get your real you back.
Symptoms and severity vary of course, so this is not very helpful. You haven't even met him.
@ OP You find meaning through love, and helping others. You need melancholy to make experience more varied and to appreciate. You need death to motivate you. Life is only 80 years man you have to remember to try and stay happy. Its not right to think about things that get you down.
Find something that really intrigues you, and learn it without caring about where things may lead.
And most importantly, remember not to take things to seriously. Lifes just a big story movie and you can control some things and not others. If you take it as no more than this when something goes wrong it will be pitiful. roll with it. OO how cheezy am i?
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The best things you can do in life are those that make you proud.
Mindless hedonism is a retarded conclusion to draw from the premiss 'life is worthless'
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ahh existentialism... I thought about this a lot in my early teens. Then I decided gaming, eating, sex, and writing were more than awesome enough reasons to wake up in the morning.
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On April 30 2010 00:58 ShroomyD wrote:
Meow. Meow!!!!
Young Australian-kin, consider these famous quotes of great philosophers... I hope it leads you somewhere else than what I like to call the "triforce irl" mode of thinking. Perhappens, it'll probably lead you straight back into the circle :/
"What does it mean to be a 'good' person?" - Aristotle
"What does it mean to be?" - Descartes
"What does it mean?" - Nietzsche
"What does 'it' mean?" - Bertrand Russel
"What does it?" - C.S. Lewis
"What?" - Lil' Jon
Haha I've seen that line of quotes before, but it gets me every time.
I think I might start reading some Nietzsche soon, anyone have suggestions on where to start?
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Eat more fruit and vegetables. You'll be amazed how much better you feel if you eat less calories in meat, fats and sugars and more in (preferably raw) fruit and vegetables. No joke, I snapped out of 2 years of pretty serious depression after I improved my diet.
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want to play some games with me? I am also bad (~D) I am also depressed but simply over time I became just apathetic. One thing I have learned: Life does not have some unique meaning it has a meaning and purpose if you give it and if you set a goal yourself (In case you want to play PM me)
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On April 30 2010 02:08 MourningWould wrote:Surprised nobody recommended this yet 'image of bible' + Show Spoiler +
I was honestly about to cry, until I saw JK In the spoiler xD
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well, op, you can take solace in the fact that you are probably directly responsible for the korean fool impaling himself on a sword in his local town square
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Agree with Chill. Determinism and the endless troubles of people around the world don't really bother me, but as I reflect on life I find it increasingly pointless. Accomplishments seem like more work than they're worth (mostly) unless you care about being proud of yourself which means you're going to have a big ego which I don't personally care for. Our psyches are subtle - we want to accomplish shit, feel proud, but convince ourselves that we enjoyed it because of the nature of the activity, not pride, because pride detaches us from those around us. It's so drilled into us that we're supposed to accomplish all kinds of things in our lives, and yet look at any animal - they don't care. Why should we? My opinion is that values like being hardworking and ambitious were pushed by the wealthy and powerful onto those who weren't (think of the church and ascetism and how much they affected society throughout history) so now it's 100% established into society that if you work hard and accomplish shit you're a better person. No one wants to challenge that because when you argue for laziness and hedonism as lifestyles you usually get put down as a slacking unemployed loser.
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Man, don't take things too seriously. Live a little, laugh a lot. Play some SC, drink some beers, have a good time with what we got here. We're all stuck on this rock, we might as well make the most of it.
In my experience the meaning of life is totally up to to the individual: You choose what your life means, you choose what your life should stand for.
This is sappy but if it helps at all, I've found that my purpose in life is to be happy and go wherever life takes me. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have my ups and downs (we all certainly do.) But I always find myself coming back to the idea of just "BE HAPPY."
I wish you luck on your journey through all of this. I hope you find a little something that can uplift your spirit. Don't sweat the small stuff.
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"And most importantly, remember not to take things to seriously."
Great call meteor skunk. This is the best advice anyone can ever get.
http://www.guba.com/watch/3000028405
Watch george carlin. He is smarter than most of us, but knows life isn't a joke per se, but it doesn't need to be serious business. Don't look for goals, just do what you do as best you can, with as much conviction, and love everyone to the full capacity of you heart(s). It's hard, but it's all I need.
Also, I'm totally into what Dr Tran says.
Dont let US tell you what YOU need to do, dont let anyone do that. If you want to rot and waste you 70 or so years here, I completely support your choice!
But to me, that's like going to an amusement park and not going on any of the rides because hey, you have to leave at some point, so why bother?
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Also, I'm utterly astounded at how defeated some of the members here sound. You're only 20, don't get too dreary.
Animals perform the functions they do to the best of their ability, I am no different. I have no idea how you can't be fulfilled in life if you sincerely try your best in the pursuits that matter _TO YOU_
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I've been having thoughts about this for several years now and what I realized was that no accomplishments ever really make you happy. You look forward to achieving, receiving, buying, and meeting something, fantasizing about all the possibilities, yet once it happens, they're all overrated. Life is like that too I guess. I don't think I can find true happiness but I'd rather be a fool expecting some grand fanfare rather than a partypooper cynic. That's what I came up with at least - people who are enjoying themselves never really talk to you about these things seriously.
I've also found that things that make you happy really are the smallest, simplest things. Thanks for sharing, at least now I know someone knows how I feel.
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On April 30 2010 02:20 TwilightStar wrote:I was honestly about to cry, until I saw JK In the spoiler xD
Cry from joy or amusement or sadness....
The Holy Bible is no joking matter
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EPT![[image loading]](http://truereligiondebate.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/bible3.gif)
