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[TW]: why are you still alive?


AVEN #1 fan

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AVEN #1 fan

Possibly [TW]: religion, depression, anxiety, suicide, animal cruelty

 

Okay,  I don't believe In after life and I realized that I we all were literally born to die....It's the sad truth and I know a lot of people wish there was a reason for our existences and an after life. Everything in biology and history seems to repeat itself, people are born, grow up,  get molded inside social constructions, they commit the same mistakes, do the same things, get schooled, get a job, get a mortgage, etc and get old and die. I wish I knew what's the point of it or if there's an point at all, maybe the universe actually knows what it does? Why the cycle of life exists? Why life exists? Why we humans got the hability to think or feel at all?

I hate to believe that when we die we disappear forever and then the people who knew us disappears too. I wish there was a point. I wish there was an after life, even though I'm pagan/agnostic and don't believe in any gods or religions.

 

Off course as a biology student I understand we are capable of being rational bc the way our brains are made up, I know we die bc our genes say we have to, and actually our deaths are for the better of newer generations as if we lived forever we would eventually end earth's resources and overpopulation is an terrible problem, we would also be perpetuating diseases.  I also know life exists bc earth has the perfect conditions for life's existence, but I seriously wish life didn't pop up randomly bc it simply could.

I obviously understand we are still alive bc we are nourished and breathing and that pain was made to sinalize you that there's something wrong somewhere.

I also don't understand why humans don't learn anything from history, tragedies keep on getting repeated bc the ignorance of people.

 

Sometimes these questions about life bothers me and I wonder what I'm doing with my life, like all im actually doing is sitting on a chair and tryING to waste time the best way I can before I vanish. this feels so empty. like I try giving myself value and feeling important as I try to make the world a better place even if the best I can do is rant over the Internet and plant seeds, I also try waking up every morning thinking that if I didn't somebody would miss me.

 

I also don't understand why we have to have painful deaths, I also wonder why infants die. I wish life actually made sense and wasn't something melancholic, cruel and unfair. Like why tragedies happen to good people?

 

I wish someone or something could give us the answers, I wish my life was important, I wish I could do something useful with it, I wish there was an answer on why I'm here right now, I wish there was a after life. But anyway, what are your reasons to keep living? What's the meaning of life? Why life exists? Do you have any scientific proofs? Do you want to share your philosophical or religious point of view? Feel free but respect others.

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AVEN #1 fan

Who knows? Maybe this rant is part of what the universe wants.

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AVEN #1 fan

Seriously I want to belive that my existence is not just an random sperm cell fertilizing an random egg cell giving the possibility of an living being to later exist and just to later die an terrible death and get eaten by fungus and bacterias. Why do I have to be contious about my death if I know nothing about my existence ?

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AVEN #1 fan

Do you think someday we'll be able to understand life and the after life?

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Mainly, to fulfill my perceived duties to the planet.  I'm pretty indifferent about death, and in general I'd probably be less annoyed with life if humanity didn't create messes for me to clean up.

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AVEN #1 fan
Just now, Zerο said:

Mainly, to fulfill my perceived duties to the planet.

And what are they?  why they matter?

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Just now, AVEN #1 fan said:

And what are they?  why they matter?

Basically, to leave the environment better than how I found out.  They matter because I feel indebted to nature - animals and plants died so I could live, I want their deaths to mean something if only to me.

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AVEN #1 fan

I would also like to question people in this thread how do they feel as animals who eat dead animals.

 

 

 

II sincerely don't know how to feel about it, probably bad though, but I just can't change my habits.

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AVEN #1 fan
4 minutes ago, CBC said:

Because I'm a chicken. That's literally the only reason. I would've committed suicide years ago (I've struggled with mental illness essentially all my life) if I wasn't afraid. Due to physical health issues I've had in my lifetime, I've come close to death a few times and experienced plenty of physical discomfort and pain, and at least a couple of those experiences were very traumatising to me. As a result, I'm terrified of what it will be like to die. The physical experience. I'm not afraid of being dead, I don't give a shit about my existence, I just can't bring myself to inflict that degree of physical harm on myself because it scares me. Also because I'm a wishy-washy person who has trouble making decisions.

 

A lot of people cite not wanting to hurt their loved ones as a reason for not offing themselves. That's never been a factor for me. There's absolutely no one I care about enough to stay alive for them. Not even remotely. Perhaps that sounds selfish, but I don't give a fuck. I don't owe anyone my continued existence. Not my parents, not my husband, not some sort of deity (since some people proclaim suicide an affront to their god), no one. I'd never do it with the express intent of hurting someone, I'm pretty sure that would be psychopathic, but I'm not gonna stick around just to avoid causing others pain, either.

 

But, I know I'll never do it. I'm not that strong of a person.

I have diagnosed depression, anxiety and gender dysphoria among other illnesses. I also have chronic physical and emotional pain and traumatizing experiences bc I have an autoimmune disease. I do oftenly question life why do I have to suffer everyday and I sometimes wish I could not feel pain anymore even though I'd be dead. When I was younger I had suicidal thoughts but I too can't do it, I don't believe in the after life nor reincarnation and I don't want my existence to be worth nothing, I just want to make something good out of my painful time around.

And seriously you should talk to an skilled therapist, I did that and it helped me a bit. I feel sorry for you.

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chair jockey

As a biologist you probably know that the issues we all face as thinking beings arise from the undirectedness of natural selection and evolution. The need for life to make sense to us arose just as randomly as everything else about life does. It took root because our thinking brains made us good problem-solvers when it comes to practical problems. The extension of thinking from just a tool to solve practical problems to a way of pondering abstract questions was a sad misfortune arising from the fact that certain complex kinds of problem-solving require abstract thinking, so those of our ancestors born with the ability to think abstractly had a natural selection advantage over those who were not.

 

I spent some time extremely angry at the fact that my survival instinct is too strong for me to die by my own hand, but that survival instinct also arose in our distant ancestors completely randomly and was naturally selected for with increased reproduction. Being upset at a roll of the dice was stupid of me, so I stopped being upset and just turned to solving the practical problem of being forced to remain alive until I no longer happen to be for reasons other than suicide.

 

To everyone who struggles with existential angst, I recommend approaching it like a practical problem, with the practical problem being how you can make your own life livable if you are not in a position to end it.

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AVEN #1 fan
2 minutes ago, CBC said:

@AVEN #1 fan Well, thanks for the sympathy, but I don't need anyone to feel sorry for me. It just... is. It's life, I'm dealing with it as best I can. I've seen lots of therapists over the years and I still believe that perhaps the right one could be helpful, but thus far I haven't found such a person. I'm... getting by. Certain mental health issues of mine require intensive inpatient treatment (and have for many years) and I'm not at a place where I'm willing to commit to that. And I don't have the money for outpatient therapy and I'm just too tired to bother. So I'm just doing my own thing, and it kind of... is what it is.

Well, life can make us feel pathetic sometimes, maybe something good happens tomorrow, who knows?

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AVEN #1 fan
6 minutes ago, chair jockey said:

As a biologist you probably know that the issues we all face as thinking beings arise from the undirectedness of natural selection and evolution. The need for life to make sense to us arose just as randomly as everything else about life does. It took root because our thinking brains made us good problem-solvers when it comes to practical problems. The extension of thinking from just a tool to solve practical problems to a way of pondering abstract questions was a sad misfortune arising from the fact that certain complex kinds of problem-solving require abstract thinking, so those of our ancestors born with the ability to think abstractly had a natural selection advantage over those who were not.

 

I spent some time extremely angry at the fact that my survival instinct is too strong for me to die by my own hand, but that survival instinct also arose in our distant ancestors completely randomly and was naturally selected for with increased reproduction. Being upset at a roll of the dice was stupid of me, so I stopped being upset and just turned to solving the practical problem of being forced to remain alive until I no longer happen to be for reasons other than suicide.

 

To everyone who struggles with existential angst, I recommend approaching it like a practical problem, with the practical problem being how you can make your own life livable if you are not in a position to end it.

Well, it's very hard to accept the fact you'll watch a lot of people and living beings you have affection towards die.... and soon you'll see your own death. And it's hard to deal with the 5 stages of loss, some people have it easier than others, some people simply prefer not to think about it, some just think after something awful happens near them. Some people have worst losses than others and worst deaths,  some people can't get over loss.

II feel so fragile as an human being.... I feel angst, nostalgia and depression and fear when thinking about life.

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It's possible to despair over the meaninglessness and absurdity of life, but it's also possible to embrace the apparent lack of inherent purpose as a gift. If there is no inherent purpose or meaning behind anything, then we are all free to create our own meaning for our lives. I can be content with the sense of meaning I create for myself even it's not the objective meaning of life. The objective meaning of life - if one exists - is probably beyond my comprehension anyway.

 

My views are heavily influenced by existentialist and absurdist philosophy, especially the work of Albert Camus. Camus recognized the conflict between humanity's search for inherent meaning where it repeatedly fails to find any. Suicide is an obvious way of escaping this absurdity, but Camus argued against suicide. Instead, he argued that we should embrace the Absurd rather than try to escape it - and then, in some sense, we can be free. It may seem bleak, but this way of thinking has helped me come to terms with some of my own anxieties about life.

 

Edit: How fitting that this would be my 666th post. :P

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This poem has often been attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, but there's a lot of disagreement about that.  The actual title is, "What is Success?", but it nicely expresses my purposes for staying alive; particularly the last 4 lines.

 

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

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Galactic Turtle

Ello. ^_^

 

This is a question posed or pondered at least once in everyone's life, I feel like. For some reason a lot of people become distressed at the prospect of falling back into nothingness, not being remembered in some way on the only plain we know exists, and often want answers to why anything happens the way it does. That's how I believe pretty much all religions are born - people want answers to questions that can't be answered. It's a question I haven't put much thought into outside of world creation for my stories, however. I never saw a point in searching for an answer to a question that has none that I or anyone else I will ever meet will ever reach. I think it's funny, sometimes. It's like I'm a fish in a fishbowl ashes to ashes, dust to dust... but I strive to really own my fishbowl. 

 

Not every story has a moral or a reason. Lots of stories are told just because of the journey. It's not a stretch either to say that most stories are eventually forgotten by all. I place value in experience. I find value in the experiences I gather. I like eating watermelon on the porch in the summer, sitting down for those midnight showings of the next Star Wars movie, and beating my opponents in sports so badly they go home crying. :P I don't like waking up in the hospital, looking at the dressed up corpses of the people I love, or walking home slowly late at night soaking in the lights of Central Park because I don't know if I'm going to make it to the next morning.

 

I'm a very selfish person. I suspect people unfairly who might be trying to help me while at the same time taking into consideration the opinions of "worthy" others to such an extreme that I end up hurting myself in some way. Like my parents I am very conscious of status and the way I'm perceived by "important" people. I do and care little for the immediate wellness of the planet or those who have far less than I do. I hate dogs. I am competitive and self loathing. I debate my worth with stuffed animals and imaginary friends. I hate losing yet I lose to myself, or the me I'm supposed to be, all the time. It's  a weird cycle pretty much all happening internally with external consequences. So I guess while I place no value in discovering the meaning of life or anything like that, my daily philosophy as is routine with my family is just... "be a winner" and experiencing that journey for myself.

 

 

 

 

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I don't think it's a dice roll as chair jockey mentioned but simply the result of evolution of life on our blue marble that started more than 3 billion Years ago, peanuts timewise compared to how old our known universe will become.

 

Higher sentient life as I know, understand and experience it can be boring, terrifying, filled with pain and deceptions but it can also be lovely, pretty and full of joy. I'm actually gratefull to be able to experience life the way I experience it, with all it's ups and downs. Because I live and do my part of the job as positively as I can, one day the human race (homo sapiens sapiens) will be able to evolve and who knows what the future generations will be capable off in a X amount of millenias.

 

My opinion,

but I don't see the point of an afterlife and certainly not a "spirit" based eternal one as we are made of at least matter, radiation and energy and need at least those three components to exist on a concious sentient level. Life, at least on earth, seems to be adaptive and evolve over time for "improvements" for a certain specie or race, so eternal stagnation of a counciousness through an eternal afterlife doesn't make much sense.

 

I do like the idea of the fiction based concept "ascending/ascension". The idea that one day, may be, humans will have evolved to the point they lose their depedency of matter, the need of a physical body.

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swirl_of_blue

For me there are separate issues of why I am still alive. I know for a fact that it would hurt my family very much if I took my life, and I don't want to hurt them. I don't know how bad it would be for any of my friend or aquaintances, but I know I can be of use to them and there are responsibilites I have taken for myself. If I died suddenly, someone would have to take those and I feel it would be unfair for them as there would be no possibility of telling me to just do what I have agreed to do. I take responsibility and duty very seriously, and that makes me feel like I have to stay alive. Sometimes this can backfire, too, and make me feel that if I can't do more good than harm I should help the society get rid of me... If I feel suicidal it is, at least nowadays, not because I don't want to live but because I feel I don't have the right to live!

 

There have been times when I really didn't want to live anymore, but that depression I think is gone. There are enough things in life I can enjoy to keep me going. The pressure to die I sometimes feels comes 100% from society telling everyone to be useful and to not bother people who are "above" you in some sense. I sometimes feel like a broken tool that should just be thrown away and replaced instead of being repaired to be useful again. Still I am selfish enough to stay alive even if the right thing to do would be to remove myself so that no one would have to spare a thought to my problems any more.

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I'm alive because I can't be bothered to put in the effort to die. I've gone through phases of suicidal ideation but they were not really worth it, so now I figure I'll get to it when it happens - I don't look forward to the pain but I'll be happy to stop existing. I have depression and anxiety as well, but my life has been otherwise fine so I'm lucky.

 

I don't believe there is a point to anything. We aren't put here for any particular reason, and if we are, no one bothered to explain it to us coherently so it probably doesn't really matter. I figure I'll just get by with taking care of myself, living life as well as I can, and being as happy as I can, when my depression allows it... because honestly I think that's all one can really do. There isn't anything deeper and I've done my best to make peace with that.

 

If people think that's selfish, then they are free to think so. I'll be doing my best to make myself comfortable while I live out of their way.

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andreas1033

The only reason i stayed alive, to upset those whom wanted me not here, i mean those whom targeted me.

I do not care about dying, i was born into this world like everyone else, and i had a right to my existence, like everyone else. I had to pay for being different, but i like the way i am different.

So i just stayed alive, to upset the gov that targeted me, and wanted me dead. They assumed i would be dead by now, the targeting they did to me, probably drives most to suicide, or early death.

These gov that targeted me, are just monsters, and they do not stand for whats right, or true. I would think in every country, a minority are treated like second class citizens. I was glad i found out about my targeting before i became an adult, the timing was perfect in my life.

Even though my life has been rotten, i am glad i found out what gov do, and how they are not what the vile media portray them as.

They thought i would be dead by now, lol.

I am so glad, i was asexual, and i knew when i was young, and i found out about gov targeting at the right age in my life. Monsters.

They thought there organised targeting of my life, would drive me insane, or to commit suicide. I am glad, i found out, before i became an adult, and was under no illusions, to what these people are like. Govs targeting can be horrible, and they can absolutely destroy your life.

Who knows why some commit suicide, and some do not, going through horrible lifes. Me personally, i stayed alive, just to upset those that is behind my targeting to they never got what they wanted.

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binary suns

but think about this - when exactly is a baby - not its mother? our skin cells split from our own cells, and we still call it ours. This is the thing - our consciousness appears to be new life, but our life is actually just eternally linked to itself. we are one life!

 

what if there is no afterlife! oh no! then make the best out of this one. make it last. make it interesting! let go of the boring or painful or depressing things, they are nothing but trouble. 

what if there is an afterlife? only a fool would end it only to go there! do we really know where we will go? in Christianity it is said that those who suicide only go to hell anyway. what is the message? find enjoyment in life. make it last. we know that people find happiness in this life. and we know that people are all built the same. any differences are minor in compared to our adaptive bodies and minds.

 

Again, if there is pain or depression or boredom, then leave those things behind, find a way to put them in your past and replace them with new things, until you find your happiness. and don't think it is easy - sometimes it takes exploring what hurts directly in order to understand how to dismantle it. and doing that can be risky if you rush into it. reward is in patience. strength is found by building yourself up over time. 

 

 

 

why am I still alive? I'm gonna be honest. I never understood the whole "pursuit of happiness" thing and despite being quite easy to diagnose as with heavy depression, I never said I was depressed. why? because I noticed something curious. in every day, there were moments where I was satisfied, pleased, happy, excited, thrilled, had joy, had something. Even in the hardest days, even sometimes within the same moment as negative feelings! I saw those glimmers of hope and I knew. all feelings are temporary, and while I am temporary on this world, in comparison to the pains I am quite permanent. my existence is the dominating force. and so I would do my best to make the good parts last, and seek them out. and let the bad parts pass, and move on from them. 

 

Will we ever eliminate suffering? I suppose it is possible. but really it is just natural. it is a cycle, even when we live the happiest of lives there will be times when it isn't as good and in those moments we will wonder why life sucks.. it's kind of funny really! It is yin and yang. the bad highlights the good, and the good creates the bad. work towards noticing and caring about the good more. it takes time to learn that skill, but it is a sweet skill to have!

 

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J. van Deijck

honestly, I have no idea why.

 

but at the same time I don't really want to die.

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ChillaKilla

Because for the first time in ages I can see a future for someone like me. I can imagine living well and doing things with my life. It doesn't sound special or big but for a while even trying to think about what my life would look like more than a month in advance was inconceivable.

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Honestly, the way i look at it, your purpose, my purpose, everyone's purpose in life, is simply to try to enjoy the life we have. and if you aren't happy, then go and find something that makes you happy, be it a hobby, a person, or (for those who are clinically depressed) some medication and someone to talk to. And if we can benefit the earth in some way by doing that and leaving it better for future generations then great. But i think that the best thing we can do with the life we have is just be happy living it. We don't have to have a purpose, so many things in life lack a purpose, but we can make our own, or we can be happy just being happy. 

 

Idk this probably comes across as stupid, but i think we should all just strive to be happy and be the best person that we can be, whatever your perceived notion of "best" might be. 

 

Sorry if i offended anyone, that was not my intent

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Welcome to existentialism.

 

Yes, there is no meaning for living, other than to live. There is no right or wrong way to live, and nothing matters. So people try to establish meaning by building walls and rules. Living their lives how they want. Like an artist's drawing has lines, that take the shape of desired meaning. Everone is burdened with the task of defining who they are, and how they want to live. The true task, is figuring out how to be. The Japanese have a saying, that the true purpose in life is to find your Ikigai.

 

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Anthracite_Impreza

I am only still alive because Clutch was there for me during my darkest times, and without me he and Blitz will have no one to look after them. I'm basically alive because there are no rescues or charities for cars.

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AVEN #1 fan
2 hours ago, fiѕh said:

skit made a good point tbh... 

Haha, I already said it before, but anyway why do they want their organs to work?

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I personally have moved on from the thought of pointlessness. I don't consider suicide as an option anymore. Instead, I have changed my mindset to experiance everything before I die. Even if I don't make an effort. If an option presents itself. I'll do it. I don't even fear death. It will come one day, so I want to work with what I have. Since I don't know if there is anything else. One must remember, you are the artist of your definition of life. If one form doesn't work. Change it.

 

Many people are alive, and born each day. Yet only a few have ever lived. 

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I've got a lot of life aspirations. I want to make a positive change in a lot of different aspects (sexual education, sex workers, etc.).

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