I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE, /LIT/
Please give me resources to overcoming this overwhelming existential crisis I'm experiencing. I just feel so alone in this world and any literature I read doesn't seem to help.
>Inb4 baby's first existential crisis
Don't even think about posting that stupid flowchart, I've been staring at it for hours.
Pic semi-related
Have some pasta instead:
People don't change. You can try to change, and you can pretend to be the person you wanted to change into, and in effect you will be no different than if you had changed, except that it will require constant unceasing effort on your behalf to maintain your pretensions, and the slightest lapse will send you sliding immediately back to who you were before. Someone who is "naturally" that person maintains their behaviour without effort - someone who changes into that person will never do anything more than pretend, and the pretension will be constant and demanding.
It's why anti-suicide activists kill themselves out of the blue 30 years after they "beat" it. They never beat it. It was hounding them for the entire time, and all they ever did was pretend. It's why fat people who lose weight get fat again. It's why criminals reoffend despite their best intentions. Plus, you have so little control over your upbringing that you have practically zero input into what your "natural" state is going to be. You might as well be born that way for all you can change it. In this sense, some people are simply born to be miserable. Some people are born broken and they will never be mended.
>>8179355
Not sure I understand. Are you telling me to kill myself?
Not saying I wouldn't, I'm just afraid of the prospect
>>8179402
Gee, thanks for the useless fucking flowchart again
>Do you crave meaning?
How am I supposed to know, I don't know what I crave. Am I supposed to crave meaning?
>I just feel so alone in this world
Probably that's because you are. You're the only being capable of true experiences. Everyone else is in effect a robot. Life is a joke, and it was invented only to disturb and humour you. There's no way out. When you die it will start again.
Realize you'll never stop feeling that way. If you've read Camus you'd know that. Once you experience that feeling you don't have to escape it, you have to learn to live in spite of it, because it won't go away.
>>8179426
>When you die it will start again
Shut the fuck up
>>8179398
What is causing this existential crisis?
A thought? A belief?
Something you've added to your persona?
They are imaginations and only exist in your own mind.
Why are you identifying with these thoughts?
They are nothing, just some clouds in the sky, they change nothing.
Realize that you were there before your thoughts.
You even recognize it in what you type.
>...this overwhelming existential crisis "I'm" experiencing.
Who is experiencing the existential crisis?
Your mind? Your body?
If they are yours, then they are not you.
So who are you? And who is really experiencing the existential crisis? Not you.
>>8179343
Don't listen to these pseuds op. The meaning of life is whatever prevents you from killing yourself. If that means sipping on mtn dew and playing cod or posting on a Tibetan tofu thread then go for it.
>>8179355
what the fuck is this
this is not what kierkegaard means by the "true self"
>>8179635
Woah dude.
Existential crisis is an oxymoron. If you really took what was useful from the ole poppycock word banter around existenz, you would not be in crisis.
Read this
I'm dead serious
>>8179343
why did you come to 4chan for this? you realize that your probably going to get a shit ton of people telling you to kill yourself, right?
>>8179343
>Pic semi-related
maybe stop smoking.
If my pathetic ass can take it, you can too op. Don't try to fight it, learn to live with it.
>>8179355
Did you actually feel your cynical ramblings were worth sharing?
We grow, we evolve, we are shaped by experiences and our habits construct our character. Change is what we, humans, do. Until our death.
>>8179355
this is you
>>8179776
>cynical
Nice generalization, he's not wrong in saying most people don't progress, change is possible, but positive change in a non biased way, like learning a language and being a better person at the age of 30 is something that usually doesn't happen.
If people aren't changing their bad habits when they're younger chances are unless life forces them to people will remain people and be deeply flawed and digress or progress.
>>8179343
if your alone stop being alone. it isn't all that complicated, just not all that easy.
>>8179343
There's a bunch of different existential flavors you know. Just saying "existential crisis" doesn't really clue us into what you're actually thinking about. What exactly are you experiencing?
The crushing reality of death and the complete removal of your existence?
Materialistic determinism making you feel like nothing you do is really your choice?
Was there a previously held purpose in your life that you have since lost and can't reconcile the void that you feel?
Are the dizzying amount of potential choices in life giving you anxiety over the fact that you can only choose one path in your limited time here?
Is the lack of objective truth paralyzing you because you don't know the "right" way to live?
Is your desire for a communion with another human soul dashed by the reality that you can only ever know yourself and to truly know another is impossible?
Is your cosmic insignificance both stifling and liberating at the same time and you can't deal with the dissonance?
Is the wealth of information granted by our age making you question whether it's worth doing anything since there's nothing you can do or say that hasn't been done before?
What's on your mind?
>>8180160
All of those.
How too beat EC?
1. The world isn't the Matrix, people invented things that are 'like totally spooks' because they made life better. If you think this is wacky mystical information you're nuts.Calling things spooks is nothing. It's air. It's a spook lol.
2. Drop all you're abstract concerns. Stop caring about, career, relationships, fame, education etc..Just enough that they don't stress you don't quit your job or anything. Then your life will seem awesome compared to the cruel natural world and you'll be too happy/grateful to maintain the moods needed to facilitate pessimistic nihilism (Nihilism is fine if it's for science/learning, there's nothing sad about it for those people at all)
3. Consider the possibility that you are simply embodying a stereotype/posturing and try to seek out and emulate more worthwhile role models. Dark and mysterious philosophy may seem cool, but unless you get lucky it's pretty hard to build yourself a comfortable life acting like those guys.
Ideology is really more of a decision than an imposition once you're an adult. They are invented, not discovered, and you can pick any one or make up your own and you won't be right or wrong.
If you choose to be a sad old can't-handle-his-nihilism baby that's all well and good, but you can just as easily be an overly happy weirdo or a normal person and there's nothing really stopping you but you.
>>8179343
this is a weird suggestion, and has no relation to existentialism or philosophy in any way, but have you ever read the art of racing in the rain by garth stein? i picked it up randomly when i was sort of in an existential funk, and it made me feel a lot better about life in general.
it takes time, and quite a few personal crises, but you'll figure it out. life has different meaning and purpose for everybody, and there is no one model that fits. relax, and don't worry so much :)
>>8180215
lmao this rationalization
>>8180204
Have you tried cardio?
NEE CHU
C
H
U
>>8179343
"Existential crisis" doesn't exist. This is just you pretending your life is more complicated than it really is, because you're failing to man up and take responsibility around you. You KNOW there is shit you should be doing but you're not, right now. But you don't want to do it.
Thought that doesn't lead to action is merely the self-distraction of a spirit in decline. The solution is simple: get off your ass and do what needs to be done.
Drink or smoke weed and put on an early RHCP album
>>8180326
this is actually the best answer in the thread
>>8180330
If you want OP to become a lazy braindead twat full of arrogance, then yea.
>>8179343
that's pretty vague anon, but go now and do whatever is #1 on your bucket list. Nothing else matters, do something you've always wanted to do.
You know what I'd do?
>>8180160
>Is the lack of objective truth paralyzing you because you don't know the "right" way to live?
Oh man I need help with this
There are a lot of complex analytical ways to theoretically overcome an existential crisis, but what gets me through them is just sheer practicality. Ultimately I have to make a choice if I'm going to continue to live, or kill myself. For reasons of harming family/friends, I decide killing myself is not a good option. So I'm left with the fact that I must live. Not just exist, but exist in the world as an entity and do things. I can't remain catatonic in the face of the absurd or the state of decision making unless I want to be a useless leech on those around me. So I live. I try to leech off of others as little as possible and give back to the world however I can while keeping myself alive, and in the meantime I can simply enjoy existing.
The idea of there being some clean cut end-all concept that will immediately put existential dread to rest is just as absurd as existential dread itself. Instead of trying to find something to deflect it, I've simply embraced the absurdity of my existence, recognized that angst is a necessary part of existence, and found satisfaction in simply being in the world.
>>8179355
how can you possibly think this is true? fix your shit anon, stop making excuses.
T H E R A P Y
seriously, that's what it's for.
>>8179355
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BsLd4Y060Q
If you fall for pasta like this you deserve to kill yourself
>>8180204
Have the read the Myth of Sisyphus?
>>8180418
god that song was so awful
>>8180421
Can the rock meet the angels?
>>8180215
>The only truth is flesh
Stirner brah. Spooks are real, but shitposting them is not.,
The right course of action depends on what you mean by "I".
If by "I" you mean the guy who will exist for about another half a century, then Epicurus is your man. He describes the most pleasurable life in its truest sense. The life of consonance, tranquility and happiness that is actually achievable and that doesn't require some crazy ass zen meditation techniques (they become pointless in a truly happy life) or asceticism. He doesn't ask you to become some twisted hedonist dedicating his life to satisfying every whim that pops up in your head regardless of origin. Nor does he advocate creating some illusion of happiness by deceiving your mind with drugs or other addictions. Pure natural happiness with no strings or spooks attached. Epicurus even died happily, recalling that his insight gave him the coolest life possible.
However, "I" could also mean the greater "I" something that survives beyond your life. Since new creatures are made from the remnants of the old, it's impossible to deny that reincarnation, at least in some sense, exists. It's important to keep in mind that it won't be the-existential-crisis-guy you, but a different entity, that perceives the world from a, possibly, very different perspective, cleansed from any falsehood of your previous life. Now, consider that Earth is the only known planet that has living creatures on it. There may be MANY more, there might have been many others, and perhaps, more will be formed. Perhaps life on earth occurred because of some other planet being destroyed and its remnants playing the crucial life-forging role here. Perhaps our planet, after its collapse, will be important in forming life elsewhere. The material, which you are made of, transformed many times and traveled from one galaxy to another for a quite while.
Meh.
>>8180868
if you close eyes, lay down (no need to sit for that) and just are with your mind do you not have enough of inner world to explore and amaze yourself with? If you explored what is there instead of trying to do stupid techniques that so called teachers give you would maybe have rougher ride but eventually you would end up genuinely enlightened, know things like your senses, know how to think!, solve issues within mind, experience pure ecstasy of God, etc. You can explore yourself 24/7, even getting enlightened dreaming. You get enlightened not by doing anything but because you you just become enlightened, just like that, it doesn't need any technique, any time to become true. Why you forbid yourself from becoming enlightened is YOUR THING, those are YOUR REASONS. Only you know then and only you can solve them and become actually SANE (and independent) person.
This writing was 'teaching' and is disguising to me. I should not need to write such obvious things. And even more disguising is that world dharma/spiritual teachers are not even on the level to know these things. They are bunch of idiots. And you want to trust them, make them tell you how you should use your mind? That is disguising, that is pure insanity.
Of course you can get tips from others but best way to advance is challenge every single one of these tips by improving them. Imho methods used by all traditions are garbage. Buddhist schools do not understand Buddha message one bit. Everyone is stupid including myself and should not be trusted with how to use mind. I do not trust myself with my mind, nor even God. It just is as it is and that is why I am a Buddha and all you knowers are idiots. Yet paradoxically I am the only one who know anything about mind and how it works and how to use it. Of course I won't tell you how. I will tell you: get to know it yourself, it is amazing adventure. You do not need teachers for that. The more alone you are with yourself the more real you become to yourself. So say goodbye to your teachers including yourself and start doing proper meditation. Until you do that you won't have neither my nor even your own self respect.
>>8179343
Philosophy's aim is to remedy this, welcome to the crisis point at which all philosophy begins, but don't worry - this overbearing burden you feel on your shoulders is not yours only to carry, since there a millions, of us, all alone.
>>8180884
You might say: they helped me. I might go insane without them.
So what? Get insane. If that is what you want then just do it!
There is too much people saying others how to live. And I am one of them, which is disguising. At least I am Dharma genius unlike other clowns.
I say this with full knowledge you will ignore me completely. I know exactly how you feel and where your minds perspective come from, how you feel and think. I am that insane that I go into other people's minds, violate them. I violate my own mind and even that of God. Why? Because I can and why not? Do it to your teachers and you will leave him in an instant. Do that to yourself and you get instant enlightenment. The mind that does it to itself is like nuclear reaction of super massive star, it synthesize things until it collapses and forms black hole which from its own perspective last no time and find itself in another universe after big rip as it itself being whole universe just right after big bang of itself. And that is in every single moment you do it which you can do every moment any time, in no time, just like that. That is enlightenment. The real one.
You cannot learn how to do it from anyone, even from me. Get real. Get alone with yourself and violate yourself by experiencing every part of yourself fully and not trying to avoid it with tricks, techniques and teachers. Maybe then you will feel this disgust I am talking about.
>>8179635
Jesus, this is pathetic; get out of here you Chinese obscurantist. How about a little haiku:
Man very confused,
Wiseman comes into /lit/ thread
And posts some bullshit
>>8180204
Start with Plato to get the sophism out of your system.
>>8179355
You had me until
>It's why fat people who lose weight get fat again
This is retarded, a lot of people lose weight and don't become fat ever again.
>>8179343
>Please give me resources to overcoming this overwhelming existential crisis I'm experiencing. I just feel so alone in this world and any literature I read doesn't seem to help.
it's fine. neither the world nor you are real, and the arrogance that allows you to see yourself as a distinct entity with a past, present and future will see you through this delusion of materialism far better than the truth ever could.
you just need to lie to yourself more often, now you're committed to the first lie.
>>8179402
this flowchart is actually pretty shit
you can incorporate ideas from all over the existential spectrum without ever exclusively adhering to any one of the ends on this chart
>>8180912
This, why would the concepts be mutually exclusive (aside from there own insistence)?
>>8180884
>>8180884
>This writing was 'teaching' and is disguising to me. I should not need to write such obvious things. And even more disguising is that world dharma/spiritual teachers are not even on the level to know these things. They are bunch of idiots. And you want to trust them, make them tell you how you should use your mind? That is disguising, that is pure insanity.
Epicurus was a guide to lifestyle more than anything. I'm not worshiping him, like many people used to do in his time, but advocating to look at some of his points, because they are very applicable to the modern world.
I tried the true meditation, the one you're referring to. Simple exploration of mind, letting things pop up on their own, without judgment or enforcement. Yeah, it's interesting that your mind speaks the truth, it's interesting that you can communicate with your mind, that it can GIVE you solutions. I had all of that, but overall this amounts to little without changing your lifestyle that creates fertile ground for pleasure for your body and soul. But if I want to maintain that state, I must find a stable ground on Earth.
Frankly after such meditations all the universe seems tiny, dry and serene.
To cut it short, IMHO, the enlightenment takes more than it gives.
>>8180886
>You might say: they helped me. I might go insane without them.
>So what? Get insane. If that is what you want then just do it!
It's not that I'm afraid of radical change, but I'm afraid that it destroys a huge chunk of me, that I don't feel needs to be destroyed. Seems to me that body, soul and spirit have their own wills, and I want to satisfy all of them. Meditation couldn't give me what I could achieve with a different lifestyle.
But, nevertheless, I will reevaluate this again.
Meditate and drop acid
>>8181098
>meditate
Dull.
>drop acid
Even duller.
>>8180326
I never had an existential crisis until I tried smoking the devils lettuce and now whenever I smoke I just get nihilistic and think how easy it would be to just kill myself and be done with it all
>>8179343
This helped me immensely OP
>>8180416
>paying a jew to brainwash you
>>8181150
but anon I am jewish and my therapist is christian
>>8181125
>acid = dull
kek, you're not fooling anyone you fucking retard.
live life experientially, align with the absurdity of the universe.
>>8179343
Good. There's probably a reason.
>>8180303
Most helpful answer
>>8179343
you're not having an "existential crisis". if you were, you wouldn't be posting about it on here asking for "resources"
the reality is you're just feeling a bit mopey and miserable and sad because you're a bit lonely. in which case you won't find answers here. go outside and engage with the world. take up a hobby, learn to play an instrument or something. join a club.
maybe you're actually depressed, in which case someone with expertis
>>8179789
starting on my fourth language, turning 30 this year
if you truly want to change, then make the effort. it only takes like 28 days of repeating something before the physical pathways in your brain make it into a part of your nature
>>8181263
>28 days of repeating something before the physical pathways in your brain make it into a part of your nature
what do you mean by "repeating something"?
>>8180160
That all boils down to an inability to find meaning in existence though
>>8181303
He is talking about forming a habit.
>>8181326
It's much simpler than that, just tell why shouldn't I commit suicide right now?
>>8181176
dropping acid is completely banal
>>8179343
>look up physicalism
>acknowledge that 90% of man made concepts and ideas are utter meaningless bullshit created in our failed effort to understand 'life'
>acknowledge that everything you feel and do during your life is worth dog shit
>acknowledge that the only meaningful way to live is to spend the limited time you have as an animated physical entity with higher consciousness is to work hard and try to leave a meaningful contribution to humanity
>preferably in natural sciences or application of thereof, because any other discipline (unless it serves to maintain society and thus make possible the conditions necessary for scientific research and philosophical development) is bullshit
>watch the only known physical structure capable of intellect and thought advance and develop into something akin do Gods. In a way it is our moral duty to not only survive but evolve through technology, as the only known entities of higher consciousness in the Universe so far
>transcend the flesh, acknowledge yourself for what you are
>>8179355
>actually believing a copypasta at this level of down syndrome edge
>>8183314
self correction:
*technological development instead of philosophical
*and what you do during your lifetime is not necessarily dog shit - as pointed out, one should strive to accomplish something meaningful, something everyone benefits from
*read "A brief history of time", synthesise, see life from a more broader view, acknowledge how most of what you may hold dear is bullshit in the grand scale of things, accept work and contribution to mankind as only meaningful way to live
>what you feel and do as an individual for yourself means nothing, what you leave behind is everything. strive not to be happy, but to be useful instead
20 McNugget 'sharebox' ought to cure it.
