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You are currently reading a thread in /adv/ - Advice
You are currently reading a thread in /adv/ - Advice
Is the future actually worth seeing?
Bear with me here. It's a serious question I've been asking myself. For the past 2 years, I've gone through various stages of "critical thinking" about society and the world at large - From a skewed liberal point, to a skewed far right /pol/ hate, but then that hate faded away into a sort of nihilistic depression. I can't fucking see ANY sort of light, ANYWHERE I look.
I dislike literally everyone around me; my friends pool both online and in real life has shrunk by about 75% in the past few weeks for assorted reasons. My mother and sister (with which I live) stress me out to no end. I probably won't graduate high school. My mother doesn't know this yet, and probably won't for a few more weeks, so I'm just waiting for the storm there. No idea what she'll do. I wish I had dropped out at the end of 10th, because fuck these years are not worth jack shit.
I sit in my room with the blinds closed and the lights off. I used to enjoy music but it just grates on me now, and I had extremely broad tastes. I talk to a total of about 3 people who aren't blood-related to me. People always say "it'll get better" with this senseless optimism but I've weighed my options and it does not seem like that will be the case. I've tried a decent but not extensive slew of drugs to push me forwards, but it just takes me back to a normal and then drops me to lower than I was before.
Fuck this shit. I don't even know what kind of answers I expect. Maybe some messiah revelation shit.
pic is just an animal i like
>>16487324
There's nothing wrong or right. There's nothing good or bad.
There's only the importance of things existing.
Be a thing.
Zen Buddhism is your answer. The way or the Dao.
Listen to Alan Watts for a week, and come back next Sunday with your same OP image, and we'll talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv9zocKASsM
>>16487324
>high school
>muh darkness
>>16487324
I'm sorry, I almost just posted "AHAHAHAHAHAHAA", which wasn't terrible constructive.
You are a teenager. You have precisely dick in terms of life experience or applicable data with which to engage in critical thinking, and everything you think you've learned about the world in the last few years is wrong. In a decade or so you will look back on yourself and boggle at how you could ever have been so foolish.
If you want some positive fluff then try this: the world is a better place than it has ever been. Life expectancy is longer. Medicine works. Your average middle class American lives in more comfortable conditions that medieval royalty thanks to modern conveniences like gas, running water and electricity. The world population is becoming increasingly educated and informed. Globalisation may expose use to more depressing news, but those events were always there, we just know about them now thanks to mass media, and in the long term it brings cultures closer together. And in the last few decades an ever increasing proportion of the populace has gained unlimited access to information in the form of the internet.
Basically, a century or two ago you would likely be slogging in a mine or factory this very moment, whereas now you have the leisure time to get high and mope in your room about how much life sucks. On that note, all teenager think that, it's a phase you'll grow out of. I can't help but suspect that your shrinking pool of contacts has something to do with your wangsty behaviour and shallow emo navel gazing.
Also,
>I've tried a decent but not extensive slew of drugs to push me forwards, but it just takes me back to a normal and then drops me to lower than I was before.
If there's one thing that will most definitely make your situation less favourable to you it's continuing down this line of inquiry. Stop it, you silly dumbass.
Welcome to western civilization.
If you drop you of highschool in 2015 with the amount aid the teachers give to the students to not fail, then kill yourself.
You're depressed. Almost everyone gets depressed around your age. Why? You're too old for childish optimism and naivete, you understand the world a little too well to just be happy and hopeful all the time. But you're young enough that you don't have any REAL responsibilities yet, you're not obligated to feed and shelter yourself, you're still under the care of your parents.
Unless you're very, very rich, you'll snap out of this as soon as you have to earn your own money. You'll realize that it's much better to have a job where you can apply your skills and talents than it is to work a shitty retail job, and it takes effort to make that happen. It's better to earn a decent living than it is to earn minimum wage, and it takes effort to make that happen.
Unless you're very rich, you're going to need the help and support of other people at every stage of your life, it'll all go much smoother if you have friendly relationships with these people, and it takes effort to make that happen.
It's better to have a relationship than it is to sleep alone every night, and it takes effort to make that happen. Et cetera et cetera. And that's pretty much the meaning of life. You'll have to work hard to keep your life from being shitty, and that will occupy your time.
You're gonna be okay just like everyone else. This phase is not serious. Everyone goes through this. It's called being a shitty, naive, know-it-all teenager. It's temporary. Finish high school, do the shit you're "supposed to do" at this phase, don't set yourself back years just because you feel bad today.
>>16487324
That is one cool looking Axolotl - or Newt, as we call them in England.
Water lizards not withstanding, it sounds like you've got yourself a pretty bad case of depression. When you say you've tried a lot of drugs, do you mean "went to the doctor and got a prescription for something to make you feel better" or "went to see your mate Dave and bought a baggie of the good stuff so you could get high"?
>>16487353
Fuck that Buddhist "withdraw from the world" shit. What you need is a good dose of stoic reason. Freedom from struggle and fear, and true joy in living from conscious virtuous action.
Go read the Enchiridion of Epictetus, it's easy to find online
>>16487353
>>16487385
>conscious virtuous action
Not the guy you're responding to - that's actually what zen buddhism is all about. Just sayin'.
One of my senior theses was about zen buddhism relating to nietzsche and wittgenstein. All of the great philosophers are trying to get at the same thing - life is about finding that "life groove" where we're accomplishing our "destiny." most also agree that the best way to work toward this "life groove" is to lead a "virtuous" life. Zen doesn't come out and say this shit, but if you look at all of the zen masters, what did they do all fucking day?
>Grow food
>Write
>Make love to their women
>Teach and learn from each other
>Don't do violence except for survival and sometimes not even then
Give me a greek philosopher who disagrees that that sounds like a "virtuous" life?
Nihilism is kind of like a zen buddhist on a temper tantrum. Zen accepts what nihilism realizes and doesn't accept - that we can't *really* know we're right. Boo fucking hoo go be good people anyway because it has observable, tangible benefits
>Nihilism
>WAAAAA
>>16487385
Your only mistake is that you believe that "withdraw from the world" automatically leads to negecting everything else virtuous.
My advice was in reflection of OP's present nihilism, but a way that will flip his stance. You don't have to lose your stoic reasing. I'm not telling him to become a munk.
I will however take your recommendation at heart. Live long and star trekky.
>>16487407
I'm more partial to existentialism myself.
>Everything is meaningless and we're all going to die.
>But on the other hand, whoop de fuck, who cares?
>>16487324
>>16487407
And as for you young one, you just need to realize that you cannot be so hard on the world. The world isn't perfect. We don't know why. Apparently there are alternate universes or something now too. So who the fuck knows alright? Stop being so damn hard on the world and yourself.
We are all just trying to do the best we can with what we've got. That's all anyone can ever do really.
So stop being hard on yourself. You might also need meds; you should try to get an evaluation or talk to a therapist or something. But if you can't, you might want to spend time thinking critically about the phrase:
>this too shall pass
Everything can be changed to some degree. maybe you can't live a perfect life, but you can live a life of trying to be the best you can be and going after things that you want. The best time to experiment and explore to find the things you want is high school...
What do you want for your life? Just in general. No answer is wrong or right. Do you want freedom? Exploration? Help people? Money? What are some things that you want, realistically ?
>>16487407
family ITT
I tend to feel that there's not much really worth seeing in the current future. However, I would argue that you should want to see the future, because you should be working to create something better. Everything being shitty only means that you should be working harder. Take some of that time you seem to have in excess, and spend a couple weeks thinking of what one thing you're going to try to do with yourself, and then take another couple of weeks to think about how to go about doing it. And stop with those drugs, too. People keep telling me that they're fantastic, and it seems like everyone uses them, but it also seems like everyone just sits on their asses and does nothing about any of their shit. I can't help but wonder if they're connected somehow. Either way, go out and create a better future for yourself, so that you can live to see something more interesting.
>>16487324
When I was your age OP, I felt a lot of the same. Still feel that way really. With the world going the way it is, there might be no future at all. But that remains to be seen, and I think the question you have to ask yourself is the one you're asking us.
You're young enough to still do anything you want, and you have endless options. You can run away from home and live in the woods, you could work your ass of and finish high school next year, you could just go into a trade; or you could just jump off a tall building. And those are only a few of the things you could do.
It's up to you OP. Do YOU think the future is worth seeing?
