Overwhelmed And Underwhelmed By Life. Simultaneously

[Prosper]

For some time now I've been feeling vaguely confused about everything, as if existence was both too much and too little at the same time. I don't know how to interpret the surrounding reality, or what to think of anything. Everything can be explained in numerous rational and irrational ways, none superior than the other. Existential axioms can be swapped with new ones, changing everything and nothing. I can imagine any kind of identity for myself, yet feel familiar in none of them. Sometimes people seem alien to me, like I have descended to study some bizarre lifeform. I understand where I am, but it just doesn't seem familiar or relatable.

There is no way to verify whether or not there's an afterlife, or any kind of all-encompassing meta-context for our subjective experiences. I feel like I should believe in something. But at the same time I'm paranoid about believing in the wrong thing. There are an infinite potential ways to earn a metaphysical punishment for breaking the rules of a game you're not even sure exists in the first place. How to determine what is desirable and what is not? Christianity could be a true answer for everything. It could also be a destiny-defining litmus test. Same goes for breeding. Can creating a new experience of awareness without its consent ever be ethical? It could be that life is a test of compassion where the metaphysical winning move is to not pass it along and create more suffering and imperfection. Or, it could be that by not breeding something real is lost. Or, neither could matter at all.

How is it reasonable to expect to come upon any kind of agenda for my individual existence when everything seems to be fundamentally up to subjective interpretation? I feel so lost with everything. I'm paralyzed. Unable to to do anything of significance.

 

[raypeatclips]

Sounds like an existential crisis.

 

[theLaw]

Self Authoring - Plan a Better Life

I seem to remember Peterson's first piece of advice to anyone seeking purpose/direction was to clean their room (aka organize your life as a reflection of who you are.......or want to be).

 

[cyclops]

Sounds like you're really living in your mind dude, just thinking way too much.

Life is a mystery in many ways, we can never have all the answers. Why do you need to believe anything? Or create an identity for yourself? What is the consequences of not doing that?

Do you work? Providing a meaningful service is big part of life. Something that helps people/the world.

 

[shepherdgirl]

Embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those near to you are distant...

-Rilke

 

[damngoodcoffee]

Dark night of the soul

 

[Hazarlar]

I seem to remember Peterson's first piece of advice to anyone seeking purpose/direction was to clean their room (aka organize your life as a reflection of who you are.......or want to be).

This is serious advice actually, and I have not been able to do that for years and years ...

 

[DaveFoster]

Remember, serotonin promotes verbalization.

 

[Prosper]

Sounds like an existential crisis.

Without trying to sound edgy, that has been me for over a decade.

Why do you need to believe anything? Or create an identity for yourself? What is the consequences of not doing that?

Indeed. If I knew for sure, there would be no problem. Up until that point? Existential anxiety, paranoia, self-doubt, unwillingness to live.

Dark night of the soul

What's your story? Have you been through the forementioned process? I can relate to how it's described on the internet.

Sounds like you're really living in your mind dude, just thinking way too much.

Remember, serotonin promotes verbalization.

I hardly even think. The words I wrote in OP are more numerous than the content of what goes through my mind in a single day.

 

[cyclops]

Existential anxiety, paranoia, self-doubt, unwillingness to live.

This is all in your head though. You have existential thoughts, paranoid thoughts, self-doubting thoughts, etc. Stop thinking like this. Only use your mind when it is actually useful, making yourself crazy is not.

 

[Prosper]

This is all in your head though. You have existential thoughts, paranoid thoughts, self-doubting thoughts, etc. Stop thinking like this. Only use your mind when it is actually useful, making yourself crazy is not.

I know it is in my head, but I also acknowledge that they are potentially significant and legitimate concerns. For the sake of example, let's take Christianity, which teaches that one can live a 100% good life, yet suffer in afterlife if he fails to accept Jesus as his savior. This is only one perspective. Someone else might think that belief in Christian God is soul-destroying blasphemy. Then there is the rational man who sees both beliefs as irrational and therefore false. None of these perspectives can be embraced with full confidence without falling to self-righteous delusion. One can only gravitate towards one of them according to how they feel. What if you feel nothing? Should you just move on? Should you try harder? Who determines either to be a reasonable choice?

It seems that living for the moment is the only truly authentic thing anyone can do. But what if it is not enough? What if it is, in some indefinable way, a detrimentally wrong attitude? I may be relatively fine now, but it is fully possible that being existentially carefree in the present moment will lead to yet undetermined horrible consequences later on. If life is a test, then just about anything could be tested. If life is not a test, then it is something else. What is that? I don't know what is more terrifying, that existence has an objective purpose or that it has not. I'd rather exist in a limbo where neither is true.

 

[cyclops]

-

 

[DaveFoster]

Without trying to sound edgy, that has been me for over a decade.


Indeed. If I knew for sure, there would be no problem. Up until that point? Existential anxiety, paranoia, self-doubt, unwillingness to live.


What's your story? Have you been through the forementioned process? I can relate to how it's described on the internet.



I hardly even think. The words I wrote in OP are more numerous than the content of what goes through my mind in a single day.

"I feel like I should believe in something. But at the same time I'm paranoid about believing in the wrong thing."

Paranoia reflects a decrepit mental state, and apathy and depression cannot be "reasoned out of" in the long-run.

 

[Prosper]

"I feel like I should believe in something. But at the same time I'm paranoid about believing in the wrong thing."

Paranoia reflects a decrepit mental state, and apathy and depression cannot be "reasoned out of" in the long-run.

That is a borderline platitude. Perhaps my ambiguous rant does not invite much else than uninspired banalities?

 

[cyclops]

yet suffer in afterlife if he fails to accept Jesus as his savior. This is only one perspective.

How would anyone possibly know this? You're a human, and you don't know, so why or how would any other human know? What do they have that you don't? If you know someone who believes things that cannot be known, ask them how they know these things. If their answer satisfies you, now you can believe these things too.

It seems that living for the moment is the only truly authentic thing anyone can do. But what if it is not enough? What if it is, in some indefinable way, a detrimentally wrong attitude? I may be relatively fine now, but it is fully possible that being existentially carefree in the present moment will lead to yet undetermined horrible consequences later on.

What if. What if. What if. You can do this indefinitely with anything.

 

[cyclops]

How do you spend your days right now Prosper?

 

[Peatful]

For some time now I've been feeling vaguely confused about everything, as if existence was both too much and too little at the same time. I don't know how to interpret the surrounding reality, or what to think of anything. Everything can be explained in numerous rational and irrational ways, none superior than the other. Existential axioms can be swapped with new ones, changing everything and nothing. I can imagine any kind of identity for myself, yet feel familiar in none of them. Sometimes people seem alien to me, like I have descended to study some bizarre lifeform. I understand where I am, but it just doesn't seem familiar or relatable.

There is no way to verify whether or not there's an afterlife, or any kind of all-encompassing meta-context for our subjective experiences. I feel like I should believe in something. But at the same time I'm paranoid about believing in the wrong thing. There are an infinite potential ways to earn a metaphysical punishment for breaking the rules of a game you're not even sure exists in the first place. How to determine what is desirable and what is not? Christianity could be a true answer for everything. It could also be a destiny-defining litmus test. Same goes for breeding. Can creating a new experience of awareness without its consent ever be ethical? It could be that life is a test of compassion where the metaphysical winning move is to not pass it along and create more suffering and imperfection. Or, it could be that by not breeding something real is lost. Or, neither could matter at all.

How is it reasonable to expect to come upon any kind of agenda for my individual existence when everything seems to be fundamentally up to subjective interpretation? I feel so lost with everything. I'm paralyzed. Unable to to do anything of significance.

I think this is great.
It clearly doesn't feel great, but asking this...searching...not settling...not numbing....not distracting....not reasoning... but wrestling.
Seems like you have resisted for sometime now?
To me, it takes more faith to believe in nothing than to believe in something.

Ask God to show you.
I believe He will.

 

[damngoodcoffee]

What's your story? Have you been through the forementioned process? I can relate to how it's described on the internet.

I'm not saying I'm in some blissful communion with God now 24/7, but maybe I have gone through something like that. I was an eastern philosophy kinda guy for maybe seven years or so. Obsessed with Osho etc. Then after trippin with mushrooms a few times I hit a wall with everything. I was horribly anxious, paranoid and empty for many months. I was certain that my soul had been destroyed or something. Felt like I didn't have any identity. I felt super awake and clear, but in a bad way. I felt the presence of chaos and of evil. I was quite certain I was possessed. Maybe I was who knows.
It's hard for me to really describe how I felt cause I'm so over it now. Which feels freakin awesome. I feel safety. I feel warmth. I feel trust.

All in all it took me about two years to heal from all that nasty stuff. I did become a christian of some sort for a while. Now my religion is pretty much the religion I had when I was a small child and didn't know anything really from any religion, just that there's a God. Well personally I feel like I "know" that but I understand that it's a belief. I'm interested in the religions of the world and do still research them but I can't say I think any of them is totally the right answer. Or totally the wrong answer. If I had to choose I think I'd choose christianity of some sort or judaism. But jews have good points on why Jesus can't be the messiah the torah talks about, and secular scholars have good points on why judaism is just a mix of older stuff etc. But there's a lot of rabbis on youtube that have some sort of insight anyway I think..
I'm rambling a bit but yeah, I feel happy nowadays and I think those difficult times happened for a reason.

 

[LUH 3417]

For some time now I've been feeling vaguely confused about everything, as if existence was both too much and too little at the same time. I don't know how to interpret the surrounding reality, or what to think of anything. Everything can be explained in numerous rational and irrational ways, none superior than the other. Existential axioms can be swapped with new ones, changing everything and nothing. I can imagine any kind of identity for myself, yet feel familiar in none of them. Sometimes people seem alien to me, like I have descended to study some bizarre lifeform. I understand where I am, but it just doesn't seem familiar or relatable.

There is no way to verify whether or not there's an afterlife, or any kind of all-encompassing meta-context for our subjective experiences. I feel like I should believe in something. But at the same time I'm paranoid about believing in the wrong thing. There are an infinite potential ways to earn a metaphysical punishment for breaking the rules of a game you're not even sure exists in the first place. How to determine what is desirable and what is not? Christianity could be a true answer for everything. It could also be a destiny-defining litmus test. Same goes for breeding. Can creating a new experience of awareness without its consent ever be ethical? It could be that life is a test of compassion where the metaphysical winning move is to not pass it along and create more suffering and imperfection. Or, it could be that by not breeding something real is lost. Or, neither could matter at all.

How is it reasonable to expect to come upon any kind of agenda for my individual existence when everything seems to be fundamentally up to subjective interpretation? I feel so lost with everything. I'm paralyzed. Unable to to do anything of significance.

Wow you're like a personal zeitgeist

 

[DaveFoster]

That is a borderline platitude. Perhaps my ambiguous rant does not invite much else than uninspired banalities?

Sorry to say that happiness remains an "uninspired banality," and if you disagree, maybe you should hang out with some behaviorist psychologists and see how far that gets you.