I know that there's a time that everyone in their life contemplates the more grand spectrum of our brief, personal existence. The isolating fear can be anything from maddening, to depression inducing, it causes you to become dissociating, apathetic, irritable, self-destructive or even as far as suicidal. I know that, the paranoia that comes with the existential fear is not something to shake a stick at, and when the panic attacks come in, I know personally how dangerous and painful any situation can escalate with no telling how, or when the cruel attack will end. This is the thread I'd like for others to utilize in case of anything they'd like to express, or seek advice regarding to the topic of the existential terrors. I know there are a lot of others with good things in mind to share with others in need of direction or quality information to help them along the idea of accepting the inevitability of death, and/or debating the idea of what may, or may not come after the moment of passing.



I've struggled with this for a very long time, and I've experienced several lapses in psychosis because of my inability to distract myself from the inevitability of death. I fell heavy into nihilism, I began to drink heavily and I would smoke my mind away with marijuana until I had a panic attack and blacked out, the one time I woke up in the hospital with no memory of the night before was a personal low for me. The point being, no matter what I did to run away from the fact that there's nothing we can do to avoid the moment of our personal demise, the death of our consciousness, nothing seemed to help. I fell deeper and deeper into a the pit of despair desperately clinging to life like a terrified child. I'd smoke, I'd drink, I'd get into fights, I'd have meaningless and mechanical sex with strangers. It was a very bad scene, and I was doing nothing but destroying myself when it was being destroyed that I feared to begin with. I was becoming, the worst possible kind of person, and I remained that way for years.

It wasn't until recently that I started to change that tune, I remember one night in particular I was looking up at the stars at a park near my house, still buzzed. When I began to think "What if, I am my own greater purpose? What if all things are created through a subjective mentality, and not as objective merit? What if all things exist only through individual perception of subjective intricacy, and not through the objective fabric of reality itself; being, the mind details the reality around it, contrary to the reality influencing the mind to be at is whim?"

That was the moment that I believe everything changed, I has one of those eerie, still-silence moments when everything just kind of clicked and things just sort of.. made sense. I remember I woke up the next morning, and I felt that as long as I can find some sort of satisfaction not in the futility of human-life, but the simple, petty, insignificant happening that go on around me everyday, that I could make the through this life with less to fear about what's to find on the other side. And slowly, everything changed. With that moment I was on the road to recover from my six year binder of debauchery and personal pleasures.

I'd like to hear what others have to say, and if anyone has a story of their own, or are going through any of the existential terror themselves, this is a safe-place to channel those thoughts. Thank you for taking the time.

Bump.

This is important to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxepnIG1yQQ

Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that, although my script had a limited number of pages, I could write it anyway that I wanted. We all die, but a small number of us will be remembered. And surely humanity will one day die off, but not in the absence of an evolutionary successor that will carry on the legacy of life (assuming that successor is not Artificially Intelligent machines). And even when those die off, and there is nothing left in the world, we will have played the part. Some say that you don't have purpose if your end is guaranteed, but I think the opposite. A door opens, and it closes. One day its building will be torn down and the wood from the door will be recycled into something else, but that doesn't mean it didn't have purpose. It opened, and it closed. People are the same way, in that our purpose can be noted in the actions that we take. Or maybe its that we all make different choices that give our lives significance beyond the unstoppable wave of the end. The mystery of our purpose exists because we do, for if we didn't have purpose we wouldn't exist.

>>3

<3

I don't know.

I feel like a mortal plunged into the nightmare of the gods, who know one day they will be forgotten, for those who followed them will all have died out, along with mankind's history.

They tell me I am intelligent, but I don't WANT this world anymore. I don't want to be human, to make limited contributions that in the end do little, and die.

I feel like there needs to be rhyme and reason, but it's toxic. It's like the more you know, the more pains and burdens you carry.

I'm so tired, because I know despair is not going to stop death (which benefits society), but I still feel it. Good to know I'm not the only one with existential crisis.

I wrote an entirely beautiful post and somehow it never got posted. DansGame.

https://youtu.be/Br1sGrA7XTU

I have depression and im not smart

Correlation doesn't imply causation. That's one of the biggest problems with this post. If they do share a common cause, then why do we have scientists and philosophers who are incredibly smart and are actively working to understand the nature of reality? Why haven't scientists committed suicide after the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle?

>>7 >>8
The post isnt saying "intelligent people are depressed", its saying "higher intelligence is positively correlated with depression". Its important to understand the difference.

"What this indicates is that if the mind understands too much about reality (and it needs to be intelligent to do so), it wants to destroy itself."

So ive looked up the definition of indicate and it can mean both that its possible and that its guaranteed...

I guess it was phrased poorly. It still doesnt change that what you wrote has basically nothing to do with the post. The fact that there are smart people still doesnt mean everyone who understands reality will commit suicide, nor does it mean that the philosophers and scientists understand reality.

I consider myself fairly intelligent and my observation of the world around me caused me to be more cynical.

I didn't have the best childhood but I saw that the world had numerous tragedy caused by the hands of man. War, slavery, greed, starvation, mass executions, etc. I just wanted to reset humanity after seeing how a lot of the world revolved around that crap.

What changed my stance is I became ignorant to the outside world. I focused my intelligence into something that I wanted to do, not with the occurrences in the world. It had nothing to do with my self awareness, but the awareness of the world around me.

What motivated me to go back to school, and change my life, was goals. I never had any goals until 2 years ago. Just setting a goal can change your life. Mine was/is to design computer chips, since I always researched computer technology in my free time.

There is numerous more things to be depressed about too. But what helped me is that ignorance is bliss and having a goal.

Do what you want to do, or try to get a career in what you do in your free time.

>12

Well that's just fine to understand the cold reality of things all that is left to do is to accept it and move on with your life knowing when to use that knowledge. Even if you realize something so horrifying then just accept it and choose whether you want to change that or just ignore it and reach what you can only reach. To me I can see the world that is perfect to be in the middle example if you luck self steam your too afraid to do anything but if you have too much self steam then your head will begin to grow big so the only right place to be is in the middle not too confident not too afraid. So in this situation if you were to be depressed and start to observe things more learning something horrifying then what can you do about that if it's something unavoidable. Eyond your own capabilities so it's either you die caring so much or not care at all but there's a third choice is to care evenly not too much not too little as long as it's in your capabilities to do something about it if you want to. You can't deny the world because you live in it and you can't care too much about it because your not a god just do what you can do although I guess caring too much or caring too little is still something that humanity do and is unavoidable so what can you do I guess this is what makes humanity diverse and life to be not so simple, don't neglect the world because it's complicated or cry because you can no longer reach higher than human limitation the perfect object I say the middle wouldn't be so perfect because it would just be plain simple not complicated unlike the different spectrums of human emotion choices and different ideals this is what will bother you if you care too much about the world asking yourself what I can do or how can I do it all leading to either giving up and just live your life or not caring anymore about the world
I understand if you can't understand don't hurt your brain trying to those who understand then I hope this helped

So in conclusion just leave your life what ever you feel what wrong or what you realize and regret is part of human life, running away or facing problems is fine, doing wrong and right is fine because we are not still and angel we're humans half is good and the other half may be bad, we do sins with out even realizing it, different ideals it just escalates and escalates till you reach despair so the only way to live is to live regret, greed,hate all those things occur in this world to think of human starvation or meaningless war the choice is your if you want to help or not care at all whatever you choose is fine it's what makes human and life so diverse to even understand

So I've had a lot of these existentail crises and Tbh the way I've learned to deal with existing is basically just accept the fact that you are here for however long and it's up to you to make the most of it.

>>17 agreed.
I guess then I came back from most of trip out of the other side alive.Even with all the pain,struggle,stress,lost of emotion/numb feelings. You would still need to eat and drink and live. I come to a point that I realize that taking your own life isn't going to change a thing about the world.And so I chose to make the world see the reality as I see it. I tend to make them look from another angle both good and bad.
I accept my weakness and I try my best to be better myself . . . . even with numb feelings and a psychopathic smile.