There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

How do you deal with a existential crisis?

How to you come to terms with the fact that you will eventually not exist?

Rant: This has been keeping me up at night for way too long and every time I think about it I feel like am literally choking on my own thoughts. I have other shit to do but everything seems so inconsequential next to this. I just can’t comprehend why or how the universe even exists or how a bunch of atoms can think or that quantum mechanics literally revealed that the world is not loaded when you are not looking like how tf do you know that I am observing something.

Btw I am not looking for a purpose in life although this may be interpreted as me asking for that.

If anyone has the same problem as me good luck my friend just know that you are not alone.

eezeebee ,
@eezeebee@lemmy.ca avatar

How to you come to terms with the fact that you will eventually not exist?

I struggle with what happens before that. That’s the only relief I have, knowing that this shit parade will one day end and not matter at all.

Sidewayshighways ,

It is a relief, isn’t it? The notion that one day all the stress of keeping up with the pace of the world, all the obligations can someday be relinquished?

Agreed though, definitely don’t want a slow, miserable downward spiral before my hardware finally can’t sustain the ghost.

megane_kun ,

definitely don’t want a slow, miserable downward spiral before my hardware finally can’t sustain the ghost.

And this is why I reserve my right to self-deliverance. When I think my time is nigh, I’ll take a long walk into the mountains, without any electronic devices nor identification, and never look back.

Sidewayshighways ,

Haha! I’ve always said something similar! A stoic treck, putting myself out to pasture.

With a pound of magic shrooms of something lol. Like sure I’m done but I’m not going out easily.

The final right of passage

megane_kun ,

Haha! Yeah! Though my intention is really one last excursion out into nature. One last sight-seeing trip, one last camp out. No alarms, no surprises, just a nice walk out into the woods, and then silence.

It’d be really sad to go out in a hospital bed, surrounded by white walls, white ceiling, and white floors. I might not even be enjoying shitty hospital food. That’s just too sad.

NOT_RICK ,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

Personally I find it’s easy to not fret about it because I can’t control it. Also, I didn’t mind not existing before I was born so I won’t mind not existing when my time is up.

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

I see this experience as a once in a universe chance to explore. I try not to worry about the inevitable while I have control of the now. Buddhism has a great philosophy on the impermanence of things and existing in this moment.

Yondoza ,

I agree. Meditation in general - focusing on existence/experience without your mind’s narrative - would probably be good for the OP. The narrative is what is scary, because it is what’s afraid of not existing. Setting that aside can be very liberating.

WarmSoda ,

You’ve already not existed before. And then you were born.

agitatedpotato ,

I miss the nothing, what I ended up with here isn’t better, and damn sure isn’t as peaceful.

WarmSoda ,

You’ll be back there eventually, don’t worry.
Make the best of what you have in the mean time.

IzzyData ,
@IzzyData@lemmy.ml avatar

I think you will need to make the transition from negative nihilism to positive nihilism.

Aside from that I don’t think I’m really convinced that interpreting the quantum wave function collapse when observed as the world not being loaded when you aren’t looking at it is accurate. Even our best explanations could likely be a misinterpretation of what is really happening.

This channel is great by the way. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP6iyVJ70OU

Touching_Grass ,

Why do you care if you exist. Are you the Queen of england or something.

Mothra ,
@Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

I have some news about the Queen my friend. Brace yourself

Touching_Grass ,

I’m not ready for this

pancake ,
@pancake@lemmygrad.ml avatar

You are wired to think that you currently exist and that you should keep doing that at all costs, but those beliefs cannot be explained or comprehended in terms of logic, so for all purposes they are false, and acknowledging that has been useful to me.

Anyway, if your existential crises are very short and intense, accompanied by intense fear and feelings of impending doom, feelings that you can’t breathe, then they probably have a physical component to them. It is very important that you understand the difference between regular intrusive thoughts of death and panic attacks that express themselves as feelings and thoughts of death that you might already have interiorized. The former can be managed, the latter cannot, and are usually self-reinforcing and need a combined therapy.

If you think you might be having the latter (I did for a couple of months), avoid alcohol for a while, and talk to a doctor; you may be advised to take a low dose short-acting anxiolytic drug whenever you feel like you’re going to have one (I started with 0.5 mg lorazepam sublingual, then switched to 0.25 mg).

Chefdano3 ,
@Chefdano3@lemm.ee avatar

Man, I can’t wait until the day I don’t exist anymore. My existential crisis is that I’m currently forced into existing.

xuxebiko ,

You and me both.

lol3droflxp ,
@lol3droflxp@kbin.social avatar

That one is easy

FollyDolly ,
@FollyDolly@lemmy.world avatar

Came here to say this. Won’t have to pay bills if I’m dead!

uxia ,

Ha yeah, I kinda have this outlook too a lot of days.

foggy ,

Whenever I’m anxious about something in my life, I take a deep breath and remind myself “none of this matters.”

The idea of the universe’s indifference can be crushing, and it can be liberating.

Daft_ish ,

Definitely. I take what ever is bothering me and remind myself if my entire world crashed around me tomorrow I’m not going to just drop dead or anything. Time will march on, life will go on. There may be many stages of grief and things that make me feel uncomfortable but ultimately every night I will still go to sleep and wake to start again.

Life is just a series of events. Not inherently bad, not inherently good, just the results of a universe in spin. We can direct the course of our life but if a meteor strikes tomorrow there is nothing an individual themselves could have done to stop it.

megane_kun ,

That it is ultimately inconsequential is the reason for me to relax and enjoy what we have right now. Easier said than done, of course, but the way I think of it is this: if nothing I do matters, then it doesn’t really matter what I do. And when I find myself taking things too seriously, it helps to be reminded of it. Life is absurd, but it doesn’t matter, so why not have some silly fun in the meanwhile?

What the ultimate reality of things are doesn’t really matter to us living in this reality. To whatever end this reality was created for, if, for example, we’re just a simulation, we can’t really know and at the end of the day, shouldn’t really care about. It’s literally (in both senses of the term) way beyond us.

joucker29 OP ,

This is a really liberating way to think about life basically making the most out of a really shitty situation. Instead of dreading death take comfort in the fact that what ever you do is meaningless. Thank you for this.

megane_kun ,

You’re welcome. Others might think it’s too bleak, and I sort of agree. But it’s freeing, as you’ve said. It allows us to focus on the here and now. And while we’re here (for whatever reason, be it by choice or not), why not enjoy what we can?

Varyk ,

I spent a lot of time as a child thinking about this.

I came to the conclusion that there’s not much I can do about it, so I’ll enjoy life while I can, although I am going to enlist in cryonics just in case.

lvxferre ,
@lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

Eventually you learn - not just rationally, but also behaviourally - that insignificance gives you a sort of freedom. Even if not solving the most important questions in the universe, you still got to live your life. Your pleasure might be meaningless, but so is your suffering - so you’re free to choose one, another, both, or neither.

Kind of off-topic, but regarding QM: what you’re saying is the Copenhagen interpretation. I tend to side more with Einstein in this, the moon doesn’t “magically” stop existing once you stop looking at it; it’s just that the difference between “it exists” and “it doesn’t exist” becomes insignificant from your subjective PoV.

GammaGames ,

Have you tried therapy?

joucker29 OP ,

No. Probably should tho.

UziBobuzi ,
@UziBobuzi@kbin.social avatar

I don't struggle with it. When the end finally comes it will bring peace the likes of which I've never experienced. Life's been hard and as I age, my body is breaking down in little annoying ways that add up into a larger annoyance. The only thing I fear about the end is dying in pain.

kubica ,
@kubica@kbin.social avatar

I've heard you get used to the thought with age. Not much thinking going on if you are stuck in it. I do revisit the same thing from time to time, and sometimes it seems true that as time passes the perspectives change a bit.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •