Everything seems empty and pointless. *discussion thread*? -

We seem to just be here… we’ve evolved over 4.2 million years and developed a sense of consciousness have advanced culturally. Now, to me, we are simply animals that are too far evolved and just interfere with our ecosystems and set up all these false values and ideals that really make no sense. This life just doesn’t appeal to me. Look at how we live. Situated in small, isolated nuclear families as opposed to our ancestors who lived in groups of at least 25 and hunted or just spent time communicating with each other, in whatever form. Now we need to grow up to earn money to be respectable. Wealth is in the hands of a few who usurp the world and create mass poverty in the majority of the third world. With consciousness we’ve acquired emotions such as attachment, which lead to greed, anger and delusion. Is this normal? Everything just seems so meaningless to me, why bother even going on? I used to think the reason to live was to help other people or find love. But then I’ve realised, we all just create reasons for existence to be meaningful. Religion is the worst[or best] at this. How easy would it be to just accept a religion, say Christianity, and believe in it? There you go, instant meaningfulness and a community who share your views. Look a little deeper though, it’s exactly that, a group of people accepting blind meaning to fulfil their wants to explain the unknown. Those who believe in the ideals such as those of having wealth, a good job and other commodities are just in an eternal meaningless cycle, but due to believing in it they are happy and fulfilled. Because of this, it is sometimes hard to know that everything is meaningless because I can’t confide in these easy solutions for life’s purpose. I have everything. A home, clothes, luxuries. I should be happy but I’m trapped. Some days I just sit for hours trying to figure all this out. For now, only my family matters to me, but everything else seems pointless. Everything is impermanent and always changing. Even unconditional love fades. Lifes taught me many lessons so far, but what are they for? Ultimately I just see everything as utterly pointless. Now don’t tell me to just live in the moment and have fun because I can’t do that. I can’t be blind and ignore my mind. If anyone would like to add to my argument or counter it with your own views feel free.|::::|Well said; I believe I am here because my parents couldn t resist their urges in a certain day and time, I share your nihilistic view however I keep going because of my primal instinct of survival.|::::|You sound depressed. Depression is not necessarily sadness, but an absence of joy or absence of meaning. I d recommend seeing a counselor so you can reconnect with the joy in your life. It s there, as is meaning, but it s hidden behind the mask of depression.|::::|You are absolutely correct that there is no meaning at all to anything. But you haven t taken the final step. Whenyou belittle the idea of quot;live in the momentquot; b/c u cant ignore your mind, you are missing it. If nothing matters, then all forms of dealing with existence are valid. Paris Hilton s life of vapid emptiness is no less valid than mother theresa s. When u truly understand that, you will be free.|::::|Actually, I have had these very thoughts with some slight variations. I know you can t just live in the moment and have fun, people say that like it is just a snap of your fingers and bam you can start having fun. but its not that easy. My family is all that matters to me as well. Without them, especially my husband and my best friend (who I consider my sister) I would be lost. they are the only ones who understand me, when I get down about what feels like hopelessness. not everyone is happy because they have wealth, or a high paying job. Maybe they do, but I know some of them are lost like us, or lost in their own greediness. Some of them have never known true happiness so they are happy because they don t know what they are missing. I do believe in God for many reasons, but I studied astronomy recently, and it amazed me. and while in astronomy they teach the big bang theory to death, there are flaws in that theory. but when i look at galaxies that are so far away they look like stars, and study the complexities I can t belive that something so perfect came by chance from nothing, anymore than I would believe a tree came from nothing, or a table just created itself. Without belief though life is meaningless. that is a fact. without a belief in something nothing we do matters, and when we die nothing happens. some people I do believe have been scared into beliefs because of such thoughts. which is unfortunate. I am not saying you have to believe in god or some form of a god, but you should find out whats missing in your life and for the lessons you ve learned you learned your lessons because as humans we grow, we learn we observe. you are smarter than most people in the fact, that instead of just following blindly you saw that something didn t make sense,and now you are logically trying to find an answer to why it doesn t make sense. You may never find the answer, but be glad you are not a mindless sheep who follows blindly. the link below is similar to the picture that was in my textbook. they are galaxies, billions of lightyears away. I am a strange sort of christian, I wonder sometimes, whether god created others races out there in the vast universe. anyways try looking into astronomy a little, its more complicated and interesting than you might think.|::::|Your view is interesting - no wonder you are depressed. However you confuse facts and opinions. quot;We seem to just be here…quot; Yes we are just here, however why the value judgement just the fact is we ARE here. quot;we’ve evolved over 4.2 million years and developed a sense of consciousness have advanced culturally.quot; I find that awesome, so awesome. Nothing planed us - nothing designed us - we evolved to be so amazing. quot;Now, to me, we are simply animals that are too far evolvedquot; How can we have evolved too far. We have just evolved to fit. quot;and just interfere with our ecosystems and set up all these false values and ideals that really make no sense.quot; I do have sympathy with your feelings here. However NOW is the time to change, to become more at one with each other and the ecosystem. How can we do this? By the very skills and powers then developed the problems in the first place.|::::|You ve been given an opportunity whether you were put here by a deity or evolved. You re incredibly lucky to even exist, the odds of you being here according to either viewpoint are so incredibly low it is safe to say you will never exist again. This life is your one choice at being a sentient being. With intelligence comes amazing achievements and discovery but it also makes us ask some tough questions. It is no co-incidence that there is a connection between depression and intelligence. Religion gives people who can t handle the thought of not existing a crutch so they don t kill themselves, the people that do face up to the facts have to be strong. But in a way you do live forever. The genes, values and ideas that you spread during your life are passed on from generation to generation. The quot;pointquot; is to better yourself and humanity so that one day, just maybe, we ll be able to answer that question. If you re worried about being remembered in future come up with an hypothesis and prove it, maybe in anthropology as it seems to interest you. Many of the worlds greatest discoveries came from quot;backyard scientistsquot; working away at something in their spare time. Few people have the lasting impact that great scientists and thinkers do. If you read the works of the great classical thinkers you can see their views in action 3000 years later. In the end would you ever give up your intelligence and knowledge for piece of mind? Or would you use it to explore and understand this insane universe that we are in?|::::|If you have that mindset then you will feel like your nothing. If you decide to change that by leaving the little box set that you re in then you ll feel like you have a purpose. Now i m not a bible-reader myself but i am spiritually open and that in itself makes me feel like i have a purpose. Oh and you better not think of ******* killing youself. That ll just prove them right. Think about it buddy. There s more to it than feeling like you re a nihilist. When you find the door,open it,and once you re in you won t want to go back.|::::|I feel exactly the same way, and I can t figure it out either. I kind of feel like we (humanity) has gone too far you know? It s so materialistic and we worry so much about things that simply don t matter. This may sound a little crazy, but I seriously just want to live in a Native American tribe in something like the tenth century style or something. That would be really living and really making your own way. Not all this city, office and material possessions crap we have going on right now. But to keep me from thinking about how meaningless it all is, I try to think like this: Our souls are reincarnated a number of times, and each life has a lesson you must learn... and each life presents the same challenge; to be the best human and the best soul you can really be- be selfless, be loving to all, and make the biggest positive difference you can. And I think it s like, at the end of each life, you either move up a level or stay on the same one, or move down one depending on how well you ve done in that life and if you learned your lesson. And if all goes well, each life gets better and better until you ve finished all the levels and won the game.... Yeah.. hmm I do sound a lot crazier in this comment than I actually am, but I want to tell you what I think, so it s going to stay!