what is the point in livng
September 15, 2011 8:48 PM Subscribe
Help me through an existential crisis.
I am young, healthy, intelligent, and lived a life of privilege and comfort, yet have been depressed since adolescence. I've gone through therapy, medications, etc, etc, to little avail. I grew up with only my mom and dad (no extended family or siblings), and I moved around a lot, so I never had lasting friendships or community. I am now a depressed and lonely adult. I cannot seem to form relationships of any sort. I am dispassionate and uninterested in most things. I've tried very hard to work through my issues, but I frequently find myself back in the same place. I don't think I've ever experienced true happiness or love. My concern is that because this has been going on for most of my life, I will never be able to feel otherwise.
In my time alone, I contemplate life and human existence. I'm an atheist, and I believe there is no grand meaning to life, but what makes it rich and worthwhile are the relationships we form. Human beings have evolved to be social creatures, and thrive when there is a sense of community and connection. What if I will never have this? What makes life worth living?
Even if I were passionate about activities and my career, what is the point with no one to share it with? How long can one go on filling up our time and space with things but never feel a connection with another being? Even spending time on experiences and knowledge seem futile when there's no one to laugh, discuss, or reminisce with.
Am I doomed? I yearn for love and community but am so closed off and don't know what openness is. Are there people out there that experienced little love and connection to learn to form fulfilling relationships as an adult? An how does one keep going when they don't see the point in life and aren't even enjoying the ride?
Thank you.
I am young, healthy, intelligent, and lived a life of privilege and comfort, yet have been depressed since adolescence. I've gone through therapy, medications, etc, etc, to little avail. I grew up with only my mom and dad (no extended family or siblings), and I moved around a lot, so I never had lasting friendships or community. I am now a depressed and lonely adult. I cannot seem to form relationships of any sort. I am dispassionate and uninterested in most things. I've tried very hard to work through my issues, but I frequently find myself back in the same place. I don't think I've ever experienced true happiness or love. My concern is that because this has been going on for most of my life, I will never be able to feel otherwise.
In my time alone, I contemplate life and human existence. I'm an atheist, and I believe there is no grand meaning to life, but what makes it rich and worthwhile are the relationships we form. Human beings have evolved to be social creatures, and thrive when there is a sense of community and connection. What if I will never have this? What makes life worth living?
Even if I were passionate about activities and my career, what is the point with no one to share it with? How long can one go on filling up our time and space with things but never feel a connection with another being? Even spending time on experiences and knowledge seem futile when there's no one to laugh, discuss, or reminisce with.
Am I doomed? I yearn for love and community but am so closed off and don't know what openness is. Are there people out there that experienced little love and connection to learn to form fulfilling relationships as an adult? An how does one keep going when they don't see the point in life and aren't even enjoying the ride?
Thank you.
Like a roller coaster, the ride of life has thrills that you have not even started to feel. To feel life you need to create. By this I mean the following.
Create the fate that you will love.
Live a life of meaning by being a part of humanity. You cannot share your gifts if you live in isolation. Fear of rejection, fear of nothingness and fear of living the gift that you have been given - life - are all reasons that you are feeling the way you do. You are the end result of someone surviving. Disease, accidents, death. The reason that you are here right now is because your ancestors survived. They did not fall when chased by the tiger. They ran and survived. You are the reason that they fought for life. They wanted you to be here - now. God has nothing to do with it. Become your own God. Find a path that takes you outside of the well trodden ones that have left you empty.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results"
Change is in you. Happiness is not an unreasonable expectation. Find a new path. The genes within you are ones of the survivors. Do not toss this gift aside lightly.
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 9:08 PM on September 15, 2011 [22 favorites]
Create the fate that you will love.
Live a life of meaning by being a part of humanity. You cannot share your gifts if you live in isolation. Fear of rejection, fear of nothingness and fear of living the gift that you have been given - life - are all reasons that you are feeling the way you do. You are the end result of someone surviving. Disease, accidents, death. The reason that you are here right now is because your ancestors survived. They did not fall when chased by the tiger. They ran and survived. You are the reason that they fought for life. They wanted you to be here - now. God has nothing to do with it. Become your own God. Find a path that takes you outside of the well trodden ones that have left you empty.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results"
Change is in you. Happiness is not an unreasonable expectation. Find a new path. The genes within you are ones of the survivors. Do not toss this gift aside lightly.
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 9:08 PM on September 15, 2011 [22 favorites]
Meaning, value and worth are human concepts. The universe doesn't know what those things are. They come from within yourself. You therefore have worth and value by definition: you are the source of worth and value.
No, you're not "doomed". Life is about possibilities. Life has possibility. As you have worked out yourself, death has no possibility for you - it the absence of you. Life is worth living because only life has possibility, and because you are the source of value and worth, and death is the absence of you.
I also felt an absence of love, and depression, and suddenly I found someone with whom I'm pretty confident I will stay forever. It's because I kept myself open to possibility and rejected despair as a waste of time. That's what it's about.
I've been working on a sort of secular Lord's Prayer that I think through in my head daily:
I am not a perfect man *
I have not led a perfect life
But I am here
And there is some good in me
I will do right by my wife and child *
And do right by myself
I will feel good when I can
And I will struggle through when I cannot
So that my future will be happier
And I will remember that others are struggling too
And I will value the long-term things
Because they will become short-term things
And I will stumble and try again
I will remember the good times of the past
I will appreciate the good times of the future
And that is the life I will lead today
* Replace as appropriate. You can do right by people who are alive and who you love or respect, or you can honor your memory of people who are gone. Both have value to you, which is what matters.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:12 PM on September 15, 2011 [46 favorites]
No, you're not "doomed". Life is about possibilities. Life has possibility. As you have worked out yourself, death has no possibility for you - it the absence of you. Life is worth living because only life has possibility, and because you are the source of value and worth, and death is the absence of you.
I also felt an absence of love, and depression, and suddenly I found someone with whom I'm pretty confident I will stay forever. It's because I kept myself open to possibility and rejected despair as a waste of time. That's what it's about.
I've been working on a sort of secular Lord's Prayer that I think through in my head daily:
I am not a perfect man *
I have not led a perfect life
But I am here
And there is some good in me
I will do right by my wife and child *
And do right by myself
I will feel good when I can
And I will struggle through when I cannot
So that my future will be happier
And I will remember that others are struggling too
And I will value the long-term things
Because they will become short-term things
And I will stumble and try again
I will remember the good times of the past
I will appreciate the good times of the future
And that is the life I will lead today
* Replace as appropriate. You can do right by people who are alive and who you love or respect, or you can honor your memory of people who are gone. Both have value to you, which is what matters.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:12 PM on September 15, 2011 [46 favorites]
Shit gets better, somehow. Set small goals. Find small joys. Life will be better next week because Gears of War 3 will be out, and I'll get to play that and I haven't played it before. Maybe I will meet a beautiful woman, or befriend an intelligent man. The sun will shine, and sometimes that will make you happy.
I dunno... i kinda magically bootstrapped my way out of my last crisis through getting kicked out of home and going on antidepressents and listening to melodramatic music, but its a hard road and you gotta look for what works. MeMail me if you need to talk.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:12 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
I dunno... i kinda magically bootstrapped my way out of my last crisis through getting kicked out of home and going on antidepressents and listening to melodramatic music, but its a hard road and you gotta look for what works. MeMail me if you need to talk.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:12 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
I'm not a big fan of the word "never."
I feel like your first paragraph is attempting to explain why you feel the way that you do, and that this is the story you tell yourself in order to make sense of the feelings you currently have. However I wonder that there are other things out of order that make you feel this way.
Are you treating yourself well? How do you spend your day? Do you take care of your health and have enough time to relax? Do you have something that you enjoy doing? Build a relationship with yourself and the other relationships should follow with time.
Is it fear that is holding you back? Running from fear only gives it strength. See what you want to tackle in small steps and give yourself credit for trying.
Rather than tell yourself that you'll "never" have a real connection with anyone, go out and try to make a really small connection with someone. It doesn't matter who or how. It could be as small as saying "thank you" or "hello" to people who help you at the store.
Think back to the best relationships you've had, no matter how short they were. Think about what you enjoyed and what you would like to experience again. About what different things you would like to experience next time. The reality is that many of our relationships will end sometime, and few will sustain the test of time. It is a natural process that we shouldn't place blame on ourselves for.
There are many people who grow up facing very difficult things, and those things go on to make them stronger, make them someone who can see things in a unique and different way. Making them someone who see happiness in things others don't see, and feel deep gratitude in being alive. Your struggle with this can be better for you in the long run than you may realize. Good luck.
posted by fan_of_all_things_small at 9:23 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]
I feel like your first paragraph is attempting to explain why you feel the way that you do, and that this is the story you tell yourself in order to make sense of the feelings you currently have. However I wonder that there are other things out of order that make you feel this way.
Are you treating yourself well? How do you spend your day? Do you take care of your health and have enough time to relax? Do you have something that you enjoy doing? Build a relationship with yourself and the other relationships should follow with time.
Is it fear that is holding you back? Running from fear only gives it strength. See what you want to tackle in small steps and give yourself credit for trying.
Rather than tell yourself that you'll "never" have a real connection with anyone, go out and try to make a really small connection with someone. It doesn't matter who or how. It could be as small as saying "thank you" or "hello" to people who help you at the store.
Think back to the best relationships you've had, no matter how short they were. Think about what you enjoyed and what you would like to experience again. About what different things you would like to experience next time. The reality is that many of our relationships will end sometime, and few will sustain the test of time. It is a natural process that we shouldn't place blame on ourselves for.
There are many people who grow up facing very difficult things, and those things go on to make them stronger, make them someone who can see things in a unique and different way. Making them someone who see happiness in things others don't see, and feel deep gratitude in being alive. Your struggle with this can be better for you in the long run than you may realize. Good luck.
posted by fan_of_all_things_small at 9:23 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: It seems that the most common comfort for people asking about life and meaninglessness is to appreciate fellow human beings, volunteer, and love those few people in their lives. It always seems to somehow revolve around people. That's precisely my problem. I don't have people. I've never had people. I've already had crises about careers, meaning, purpose, and status. I'm concerned that I cannot even attain the modest comforts of quiet enjoyment and a few dear loved ones. I feel like I don't know and never new what it is to enjoy and love. What then?
posted by ribboncake at 9:24 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by ribboncake at 9:24 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
You haven't never had people. You've just never stopped to see what you actually had.
posted by fan_of_all_things_small at 9:25 PM on September 15, 2011 [5 favorites]
posted by fan_of_all_things_small at 9:25 PM on September 15, 2011 [5 favorites]
It seems that the most common comfort for people asking about life and meaninglessness is to appreciate fellow human beings, volunteer, and love those few people in their lives. It always seems to somehow revolve around people. That's precisely my problem. I don't have people. I've never had people. I've already had crises about careers, meaning, purpose, and status. I'm concerned that I cannot even attain the modest comforts of quiet enjoyment and a few dear loved ones. I feel like I don't know and never new what it is to enjoy and love. What then?
People have cared about you. Loved you, helped you, crushed on you, spent time with you. And if those people have, than other people will as well. Part of depression is not realizing that people really do care about you.
When I was a kid I used to complain about 'not having any friends', despite sticking with a close group of friends for 7 years. There are people who are there for you.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:27 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
People have cared about you. Loved you, helped you, crushed on you, spent time with you. And if those people have, than other people will as well. Part of depression is not realizing that people really do care about you.
When I was a kid I used to complain about 'not having any friends', despite sticking with a close group of friends for 7 years. There are people who are there for you.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:27 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
You will sometimes feel alone. Being able to feel content in those moments is something you have to cultivate in yourself. You are fortunate to be in a time and place where you never have to truly lose contact with other people: you're talking to a bunch of random benevolent strangers right now, for example. You can enjoy the culture and artworks and communities you enjoy, or explore new ones. Life and human society has a lot of imperfections in it, but it's damn good compared to the black void of space. There's light and warmth here, and a common humanity.
If you learn to attain comfort when you feel alone, by trying to appreciate life instead of despairing, you will get the bonus of increasing your likelihood of finding people with whom to share some of that life. You seem like a rational person. You can opt in to life, and there's no downside. Opt in.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:35 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]
If you learn to attain comfort when you feel alone, by trying to appreciate life instead of despairing, you will get the bonus of increasing your likelihood of finding people with whom to share some of that life. You seem like a rational person. You can opt in to life, and there's no downside. Opt in.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:35 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure if it's your depression talking, because depression certainly plays a role in leading people to underestimate the strength of their social ties. So let's assume for a moment that you currently don't have (many) social connections that you can feel good about.
Do you have any insight into why you don't have the kinds of meaningful relationships you'd like to have? Is there a pattern of when your efforts to connect with people start to become less promising? Do you put a reasonable amount of effort into maintaining your relationships (again, this can be an issue when you're depressed and stop recognizing your existing relationships as meaningful)?
posted by thisjax at 9:38 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
Do you have any insight into why you don't have the kinds of meaningful relationships you'd like to have? Is there a pattern of when your efforts to connect with people start to become less promising? Do you put a reasonable amount of effort into maintaining your relationships (again, this can be an issue when you're depressed and stop recognizing your existing relationships as meaningful)?
posted by thisjax at 9:38 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
There was a time many years ago, in my early twenties, when I first started to figure out I'd been depressed since adolescence. I could have written this post, then, word-for-word. Seriously. (Except not as honestly or eloquently.)
After a couple false starts I found an excellent therapist and was finally starting to make some progress. At that particular point in time I was having difficulty with a romantic relationship that I very much wanted to work but which just wasn't, and at the time it seemed to me that my struggles with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, etc. were big obstacles. I said something to my therapist to the effect of, "Well, maybe I should just wait and not have any relationships until I've sorted out my depression etc. Then I'll be able to finally be able to form and maintain healthy relationships." His response was along the lines of: "You're not going to sort out your issues in isolation. It's only through interacting with others, forming and participating in relationships, that we're able to learn about ourselves and grow."
Best advice I've ever gotten.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 9:56 PM on September 15, 2011 [16 favorites]
After a couple false starts I found an excellent therapist and was finally starting to make some progress. At that particular point in time I was having difficulty with a romantic relationship that I very much wanted to work but which just wasn't, and at the time it seemed to me that my struggles with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, etc. were big obstacles. I said something to my therapist to the effect of, "Well, maybe I should just wait and not have any relationships until I've sorted out my depression etc. Then I'll be able to finally be able to form and maintain healthy relationships." His response was along the lines of: "You're not going to sort out your issues in isolation. It's only through interacting with others, forming and participating in relationships, that we're able to learn about ourselves and grow."
Best advice I've ever gotten.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 9:56 PM on September 15, 2011 [16 favorites]
Viktor Frankl said "success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as an unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself."
Love is giving yourself to other people (or sometimes abstract goals) and expecting nothing in return. Sometimes the others (or goals) choose to give back, and that makes it meaningful. I'm still fairly lonely and self-isolating, but I'm slowly getting better. Like anything else, it takes practice and humility.
You mention crises about careers, meaning, purpose and status. For happiness, what exactly you choose is less important than that you work and train to better serve (your loved ones/ muse/ Gods/ ideals).
In fiction, supervillains are selfish people with willpower and skill. They are usually defeated by people with less willpower and skill who become stronger by helping each other. So, even if you are really focused on achieving the status or career you want, you'll do it better if you do it out of love rather than greed.
To "go on"...well, Douglas Adams wrote "How can I tell that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?" It takes a fraction of a second for me to become aware of a new sensation or thought, so by the time I think a thought, the self that experienced that thought no longer exists. There is only the now. I am always ending and beginning, even as I sit here.
posted by sninctown at 9:57 PM on September 15, 2011 [15 favorites]
Love is giving yourself to other people (or sometimes abstract goals) and expecting nothing in return. Sometimes the others (or goals) choose to give back, and that makes it meaningful. I'm still fairly lonely and self-isolating, but I'm slowly getting better. Like anything else, it takes practice and humility.
You mention crises about careers, meaning, purpose and status. For happiness, what exactly you choose is less important than that you work and train to better serve (your loved ones/ muse/ Gods/ ideals).
In fiction, supervillains are selfish people with willpower and skill. They are usually defeated by people with less willpower and skill who become stronger by helping each other. So, even if you are really focused on achieving the status or career you want, you'll do it better if you do it out of love rather than greed.
To "go on"...well, Douglas Adams wrote "How can I tell that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?" It takes a fraction of a second for me to become aware of a new sensation or thought, so by the time I think a thought, the self that experienced that thought no longer exists. There is only the now. I am always ending and beginning, even as I sit here.
posted by sninctown at 9:57 PM on September 15, 2011 [15 favorites]
I know what you're saying. I know, it's really really hard. I know that you know that, also. I spent a lot of my life in similar circumstances and the only reason my circumstances changed was because I got some lucky breaks, and I was ready to take advantage of them. (Not saying you have let your lucky breaks go.. I don't know that about you.)
It kind of sounds like you're in a vicious cycle. Lack of human interaction makes you depressed, and being depressed makes it hard to nourish those interactions when they're little germinating seedlings. You need to find a way to break the cycle. Keep persisting until you break through.
In my time alone, I contemplate life and human existence. I'm an atheist, and I believe there is no grand meaning to life, but what makes it rich and worthwhile are the relationships we form. Human beings have evolved to be social creatures, and thrive when there is a sense of community and connection. What if I will never have this? What makes life worth living?
This whole paragraph is part of your problem. You don't need to spend time thinking about any of this. It's not helping, it's just digging you deeper into depression, which makes it harder to connect with people, which makes you (as an analytical creature) want to ponder what it is to be alone and why you are in this predicament which makes you more depressed which makes it harder to connect with other people. At the very least you'll be a little freer mentally.
I know you said you did therapy, but have you tried Cognifitve Behavior Therapy? It helps you learn how to stop with old, destructive thought patterns like this one.
posted by bleep at 10:00 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]
It kind of sounds like you're in a vicious cycle. Lack of human interaction makes you depressed, and being depressed makes it hard to nourish those interactions when they're little germinating seedlings. You need to find a way to break the cycle. Keep persisting until you break through.
In my time alone, I contemplate life and human existence. I'm an atheist, and I believe there is no grand meaning to life, but what makes it rich and worthwhile are the relationships we form. Human beings have evolved to be social creatures, and thrive when there is a sense of community and connection. What if I will never have this? What makes life worth living?
This whole paragraph is part of your problem. You don't need to spend time thinking about any of this. It's not helping, it's just digging you deeper into depression, which makes it harder to connect with people, which makes you (as an analytical creature) want to ponder what it is to be alone and why you are in this predicament which makes you more depressed which makes it harder to connect with other people. At the very least you'll be a little freer mentally.
I know you said you did therapy, but have you tried Cognifitve Behavior Therapy? It helps you learn how to stop with old, destructive thought patterns like this one.
posted by bleep at 10:00 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]
There's rarely enough good said about getting over yourself.
Seriously. Go out and volunteer for the sake of the work (make meals for the homeless for the purpose of making excellent meals, etc.) Take a class in something you're interested in. While doing the stuff on the cliche list of ways to broaden your horizons and find meaning in life, practice being nice, considerate and demonstrative of an interest in others. Do not do this because you like people or want to jump into bed with them but for the sake of becoming good at doing these things.
If you can do that - for real, not just for show or to say you did it - and still feel a complete lack of connections to other people and broader sense of meaning in your life, I'll do something extraordinary and possibly deviant to demonstrate my astonishment. But I don't think that'll be necessary.
posted by SMPA at 10:09 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
Seriously. Go out and volunteer for the sake of the work (make meals for the homeless for the purpose of making excellent meals, etc.) Take a class in something you're interested in. While doing the stuff on the cliche list of ways to broaden your horizons and find meaning in life, practice being nice, considerate and demonstrative of an interest in others. Do not do this because you like people or want to jump into bed with them but for the sake of becoming good at doing these things.
If you can do that - for real, not just for show or to say you did it - and still feel a complete lack of connections to other people and broader sense of meaning in your life, I'll do something extraordinary and possibly deviant to demonstrate my astonishment. But I don't think that'll be necessary.
posted by SMPA at 10:09 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
There's rarely enough good said about getting over yourself.
'Get over yourself' isn't helpful advice when dealing with depression.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:11 PM on September 15, 2011 [7 favorites]
'Get over yourself' isn't helpful advice when dealing with depression.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:11 PM on September 15, 2011 [7 favorites]
Although I agree with all of the above that you're probably just in a hard spot right now and will work out some connections eventually because, hey, human beings who need a friend are pretty common, I think there's a faulty premise here that relationships are what make life worth living. I mean, If I were stuck on a desert island, I realize I would undoubtedly suffer--maybe in a sanity-threatening way--from the isolation.
But in my moments of lucidity, I would try to pull myself together and still aim at what Nietzsche called amor fati: love of one's fate, love of every moment that has culminated in who I am, and love of the world around me. "I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer."
So, you know, at the times when you have to be alone, be one of those who makes things beautiful.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:15 PM on September 15, 2011 [3 favorites]
But in my moments of lucidity, I would try to pull myself together and still aim at what Nietzsche called amor fati: love of one's fate, love of every moment that has culminated in who I am, and love of the world around me. "I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer."
So, you know, at the times when you have to be alone, be one of those who makes things beautiful.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:15 PM on September 15, 2011 [3 favorites]
Wow, a great comment from snibctown.
I am not sure how this answers your question, but recently, some really unfortunate stuff has happened to me, and at the moment that life got really hard, my friendships split into those that got much closer and those that disappeared. I previously would've said I had some friends, sure, but I still felt adrift. The other new feature to enter my life along with all this Fail is more clarity on what I really want to do, all things I cannot do, but it's quite obvious what I would do now if I could.
I think in your situation, the best thing to do would be to throw yourself into helping people as part of some sort of team, and make a long-term commitment to it. Habitat for Humanity? Soup kitchen? Team In Training race?
posted by salvia at 10:19 PM on September 15, 2011
I am not sure how this answers your question, but recently, some really unfortunate stuff has happened to me, and at the moment that life got really hard, my friendships split into those that got much closer and those that disappeared. I previously would've said I had some friends, sure, but I still felt adrift. The other new feature to enter my life along with all this Fail is more clarity on what I really want to do, all things I cannot do, but it's quite obvious what I would do now if I could.
I think in your situation, the best thing to do would be to throw yourself into helping people as part of some sort of team, and make a long-term commitment to it. Habitat for Humanity? Soup kitchen? Team In Training race?
posted by salvia at 10:19 PM on September 15, 2011
Find someplace you can volunteer on the weekends. Try to find a community garden co-op or a children's program in the city that needs volunteers. Find something that you can do for others that will help them and do it regularly, as a private exercise in changing your inner world. Help clean up a playground or serve some meals at a homeless shelter. Or learn to garden and grow something. Everywhere, listen to people. Really listen and see what you hear.
Here's the thing about love: Love is awesome and we all need it. I'd go so far as to say it is the main thing that matters in life. And you can always have it if you focus on giving it rather than trying or hoping or waiting to get it. If you just start somewhere and love people a little bit and try to do it better every time, before long you will find that something has changed for you. You will have love in your life. Keep your focus on the giving of love and keep going.
Read Victor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning or read the Dalai Lama on kindness. Or just go deliver meals on wheels. Anything that helps you take baby steps in learning how to love people. Then it's just a matter of time, as Dorothy Parker said, in a different context, before you find you've loved them until they love you back.
posted by Anitanola at 10:33 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
Here's the thing about love: Love is awesome and we all need it. I'd go so far as to say it is the main thing that matters in life. And you can always have it if you focus on giving it rather than trying or hoping or waiting to get it. If you just start somewhere and love people a little bit and try to do it better every time, before long you will find that something has changed for you. You will have love in your life. Keep your focus on the giving of love and keep going.
Read Victor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning or read the Dalai Lama on kindness. Or just go deliver meals on wheels. Anything that helps you take baby steps in learning how to love people. Then it's just a matter of time, as Dorothy Parker said, in a different context, before you find you've loved them until they love you back.
posted by Anitanola at 10:33 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
How about "forget yourself" then?
Seriously, OP, try losing yourself in an experience that involves others, for the sake of that experience alone. I agree with whoever it is that said you're not getting much healthier by sitting alone and thinking.
(Though mindfulness and meditation kind of look like rumination, they are not like it at all. Sitting around feeling hopeless isn't effective for any purpose you want for yourself.)
posted by SMPA at 10:38 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
Seriously, OP, try losing yourself in an experience that involves others, for the sake of that experience alone. I agree with whoever it is that said you're not getting much healthier by sitting alone and thinking.
(Though mindfulness and meditation kind of look like rumination, they are not like it at all. Sitting around feeling hopeless isn't effective for any purpose you want for yourself.)
posted by SMPA at 10:38 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]
I still think it's a bit short-sighted. He should work on himself first.
I'd like to quote some advice somebody gave me yesterday, a bit further down the page:
Life is a farce, why bother living? Well, I can't think of a big grand reason to live, but...I'd like to surf just one more time. I want to hear Ocean by Sebadoh just one more time. I'd like to eat another bowl of pho. I want to play Karma Police on the piano. I want to make my own book scanner. I want to hear my friend's awesome laugh one more time. I want to buy something from a local craftsman. I want to hear about my mom's day. I want to see what the world looks like from the top of Cowles Mountain. I think these things...and then I go out and try to make them happen. If they don't, well, it's not like I'm going to regret not doing them on my deathbed. And if they really were, I could just quit living. Somehow when I live my life from one moment to the next, I forget to be overwhelmed by the bigger picture. As long as there's just one more thing I want to do, I'm going to be okay. It's funny--the more I do, the more I think of to do. And that's...how I cope. It seems to be working well so far. I smile a lot more these days.
posted by millions of peaches
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:41 PM on September 15, 2011 [7 favorites]
I'd like to quote some advice somebody gave me yesterday, a bit further down the page:
Life is a farce, why bother living? Well, I can't think of a big grand reason to live, but...I'd like to surf just one more time. I want to hear Ocean by Sebadoh just one more time. I'd like to eat another bowl of pho. I want to play Karma Police on the piano. I want to make my own book scanner. I want to hear my friend's awesome laugh one more time. I want to buy something from a local craftsman. I want to hear about my mom's day. I want to see what the world looks like from the top of Cowles Mountain. I think these things...and then I go out and try to make them happen. If they don't, well, it's not like I'm going to regret not doing them on my deathbed. And if they really were, I could just quit living. Somehow when I live my life from one moment to the next, I forget to be overwhelmed by the bigger picture. As long as there's just one more thing I want to do, I'm going to be okay. It's funny--the more I do, the more I think of to do. And that's...how I cope. It seems to be working well so far. I smile a lot more these days.
posted by millions of peaches
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:41 PM on September 15, 2011 [7 favorites]
Me mail me and we can be e-pen-pals and I will tell you boring stories about my kids and you will tell me interesting stories about your work and we will connect because I'm a good connector and you are clearly not a douchebag. And then you'll have at least one person you've connected with.
I've been where you are, I know it blows, I know it doesn't last forever, and I'm totally serious about memailing me.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:44 PM on September 15, 2011 [10 favorites]
I've been where you are, I know it blows, I know it doesn't last forever, and I'm totally serious about memailing me.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:44 PM on September 15, 2011 [10 favorites]
Whoops, I hit post too soon so the ideas above are a bit sketchy. My point was that for me, things (including relationships) lacked meaning and heft until all of a sudden, they had it. I think this shift happens to others when they lose a loved one like a parent or when they have a child. You're in a particularly adrift time of life, having recently graduated, so in part the answer is just, hang in there. You might also find some of that meaning by putting yourself in situations where you're helping others to whom things do intensely matter right now (such as people who are broke, grieving, sick). If you did work to serve them, and particularly as part of a team effort in which you had to rely on others, you might start to break through some of that distance from others.
posted by salvia at 10:48 PM on September 15, 2011
posted by salvia at 10:48 PM on September 15, 2011
My concern is that because this has been going on for most of my life, I will never be able to feel otherwise.
Not true. You're just at the start of figuring it out. Nothing up until now counts. (Moving sucks.) My family moved a lot, and after college, I had thoughts like yours. But it will get better and better. It just takes a while.
posted by salvia at 10:52 PM on September 15, 2011
Not true. You're just at the start of figuring it out. Nothing up until now counts. (Moving sucks.) My family moved a lot, and after college, I had thoughts like yours. But it will get better and better. It just takes a while.
posted by salvia at 10:52 PM on September 15, 2011
Even if I were passionate about activities and my career, what is the point with no one to share it with?
Here's my viewpoint. I simply do not care. As well put by a saxophonist:
To maintain Artistic Integrity, one must not need the approval of others to survive. I don't care if you like my music or think I am a great sax player. I honestly don't care. It does not challenge my reality or shake my sense of self worth. I don't care if you don't like me, think I suck or anything else. I am not driven by the need to get others approval. I am driven by the need to be me and be growing, with every new project being the next step of who I am becoming.
To be honest I shared some of those thoughts and feelings some time back. What changed me is a) I kept learning more about myself, who I am b) Accepted myself c) Doing things and meeting people proved that hey, I'm not doomed, I can actually meet people and I'm pretty good at what I put my mind to. d) Less "future thinking" and living in the present.
You are not "doomed" unless you make a concious choice to be doomed. Few can change the world directly; change your mind. The world will re-arrange itself for you.
posted by TrinsicWS at 1:54 AM on September 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
Here's my viewpoint. I simply do not care. As well put by a saxophonist:
To maintain Artistic Integrity, one must not need the approval of others to survive. I don't care if you like my music or think I am a great sax player. I honestly don't care. It does not challenge my reality or shake my sense of self worth. I don't care if you don't like me, think I suck or anything else. I am not driven by the need to get others approval. I am driven by the need to be me and be growing, with every new project being the next step of who I am becoming.
To be honest I shared some of those thoughts and feelings some time back. What changed me is a) I kept learning more about myself, who I am b) Accepted myself c) Doing things and meeting people proved that hey, I'm not doomed, I can actually meet people and I'm pretty good at what I put my mind to. d) Less "future thinking" and living in the present.
You are not "doomed" unless you make a concious choice to be doomed. Few can change the world directly; change your mind. The world will re-arrange itself for you.
posted by TrinsicWS at 1:54 AM on September 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
I don't have people. I've never had people.
Well, then get people. Friendships are really hard. They involve putting yourself out there, take long to form (a good friendship takes at least a year IMHO), hard to keep up and the success rate of getting from acquaintance --> true friend is pretty dismal. I've moved around a lot in my life, so I know how tough it can be. But if you don't try, you'll never get anywhere. Sure you'll make mistakes and get hurt, but, hey, join the rest of us.
posted by moiraine at 2:08 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
Well, then get people. Friendships are really hard. They involve putting yourself out there, take long to form (a good friendship takes at least a year IMHO), hard to keep up and the success rate of getting from acquaintance --> true friend is pretty dismal. I've moved around a lot in my life, so I know how tough it can be. But if you don't try, you'll never get anywhere. Sure you'll make mistakes and get hurt, but, hey, join the rest of us.
posted by moiraine at 2:08 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
"To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair." —The Noonday Demon.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 6:28 AM on September 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by RJ Reynolds at 6:28 AM on September 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
I don't have people.
moiraine beat me to it.
Join a running group that hangs out at the coffee shop after running. Join a volunteer organization. Join meetup.com. Go to a metafilter meet up. Talk to people while you are there. Not just the people that are most like you, talk to older people, talk to younger people, learn to appreciate what they have to say and what you can learn from them. You'll get better at making connections (although it won't be overnight, no one can do that).
posted by Neekee at 6:37 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
moiraine beat me to it.
Join a running group that hangs out at the coffee shop after running. Join a volunteer organization. Join meetup.com. Go to a metafilter meet up. Talk to people while you are there. Not just the people that are most like you, talk to older people, talk to younger people, learn to appreciate what they have to say and what you can learn from them. You'll get better at making connections (although it won't be overnight, no one can do that).
posted by Neekee at 6:37 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
Volunteering can help. You get stronger by helping other people and then you meet girls who like you. Kinda works. Feels like hell most of the time though. Most people give off that 'dead' vibe, like even though they interact it's meaningless and they're totally lost, empty sacks of flesh. You just have to stomach them for the rare gem. If you can find a genuinely nice prostitute, you can now buy MDMA safely online, and those together make a very pleasant afternoon while you're working on a longterm plan. Gotta have a plan. Exercise is a trick too: buy or download Insanity or P90x; you're more optimistic when physically healthier. Tricks aren't cheating and they can lead to real stuff.
posted by fraac at 7:34 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by fraac at 7:34 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
If you want to have people, find something you love doing and do it. You will, in the process of that, find other people with similar interests. You'll do things with those people. And then you'll have people.
That something can be anything from hiking (there are always groups looking for help with trail maintenance parties) to plastic model building to cooking to volunteering to just being around for an hour a week to people who lack other support. Groups that form around all of these things are available everywhere.
Yes, your atheism may conflict with the views of some of those around you, volunteer situations are sometimes populated by church-goers, and you don't say where you are geographically, which is why I pointed out that it can be fun to rub people's noses in "yeah, I'm doing something you thing is positive, and...".
Heck, the group of people I feel most connected to in the world formed because I chose to have a BLT for lunch at the same coffee shop, for years. My being a fixture on a stool there led to another regular saying "hi", led to people knowing that if they were looking for human contact there'd be people who were open to talking about everything from philosophy to tech to economics at that coffee shop at 11:45, led to a couple of businesses being founded and life-long friendships formed.
And, yes, I know what it means to have been withdrawn and depressed and feel alone. I have walked through the forest in an ice storm (literally) feeling like there was nobody else in the world who cared. Which is why I'm giving the advice I am.
posted by straw at 8:26 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
That something can be anything from hiking (there are always groups looking for help with trail maintenance parties) to plastic model building to cooking to volunteering to just being around for an hour a week to people who lack other support. Groups that form around all of these things are available everywhere.
Yes, your atheism may conflict with the views of some of those around you, volunteer situations are sometimes populated by church-goers, and you don't say where you are geographically, which is why I pointed out that it can be fun to rub people's noses in "yeah, I'm doing something you thing is positive, and...".
Heck, the group of people I feel most connected to in the world formed because I chose to have a BLT for lunch at the same coffee shop, for years. My being a fixture on a stool there led to another regular saying "hi", led to people knowing that if they were looking for human contact there'd be people who were open to talking about everything from philosophy to tech to economics at that coffee shop at 11:45, led to a couple of businesses being founded and life-long friendships formed.
And, yes, I know what it means to have been withdrawn and depressed and feel alone. I have walked through the forest in an ice storm (literally) feeling like there was nobody else in the world who cared. Which is why I'm giving the advice I am.
posted by straw at 8:26 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
It seems that the most common comfort for people asking about life and meaninglessness is to appreciate fellow human beings, volunteer, and love those few people in their lives. It always seems to somehow revolve around people. That's precisely my problem. I don't have people. I've never had people.
You have yourself. Maybe it's time to start there.
And I don't mean "love yourself, kiddo, becuase that's where it all starts!" because sometimes if you don't have experience with that, that's hard.
What I mean is: maybe you need to start really small, and focus on simple, ethereal joys, just for the experience of just having joy. Some ideas:
1. Your bed. Take a good look at your bed. In fact, get INTO your bed and have a good FEEL of your bed. How comfortable is it? Is the mattress saggy? Is it big enough? How plush and comfy are the sheets? Think about what would make your bed the most lush, comfortable, cozy, bed ever -- what would make it The Platonian Ideal Of A Bed. Then whatever you can afford right now, get it -- maybe it's just new sheets. Maybe the duvet is a color that's always bugged you. Maybe it could be two inches higher off the floor. Maybe it just needs to be moved across the room. Do it.
Then every night before you go to sleep, just...enjoy how awesome that bed feels. And then do that every morning right before you get out of it. No matter what else happens, you have The World's Most Awesome Bed, and you get to enjoy it every day and every night. Enjoy it a few minutes before you get up and before you go to sleep.
2. A food. Think of some kind of food that you really, really like -- a specific dish, a whole cuisine, whatever. If you cook, take the time to try out different recipes for that food; if you don't cook, take the time to try different restauant's versions of that food. Find the best one. Treat yourself to that at least once a month. (Ifyou don't cook, this is the perfect excuse to learn how -- concentrate on just that one thing, and on perfecting your recipe for that one thing.) This way, you know that no matter what else happens, you can go home and get yourself the World's Most Perfect Plate Of [whatever] whenever you want.
3. Underwear. Yes, I know it's the done thing to spruce up underwear for others, but I also believe in doing that for yourself. Get The World's Best Underwear and wear it often. This way, no matter what happens during the day, you can think to yourself, "however, I am still wearing Excellent Undergarments, which is a delightful thing in the midst of this madness."
4. Books. Find a favorite one. Find a favorite passage in that book. Turn back to it often, whenever you want. Maybe you just want to hear it again. Maybe you just want to get cheered up. Maybe you just plain feel like it. Collect a few such passages or books for different circumstances (there is one Maeve Binchy book I only read after a breakup, and one book I only read when I'm sick). It doesn't matter why you want to read it, you just want to read it and htat's that.
5. Music. Find favorite songs. Pay no mind whether you should or should not like those songs, just find favorite songs. Get them. Play them often. For no reason at all, other than to just hear them. Play them 63 times in a row if that's what you want to do. Stop in the middle of one of them if you feel like it.
I have suggested these very small, sensory comforts as a starting point. It is when you have started to take care of the one person that is you that you may feel stronger to include other people. But taking delight in the vocal harmonies in the Barenaked Ladies' cover of "Lovers In A Dangerous Time", or in how that Buffalo-Wing sausage you discovered in your local supermarket is the PERFECT amount of spice for your jambalaya, makes you start to realize that you are DESERVING of those pleasures. Which also distracts you from the heavy existential ideas; yes, we don't know where we go when we die, but in THIS moment we are eating jambalaya, not dying, so let's deal with the jambalaya instead.
And that's how you find the strength to start including other people - maybe one day you are picking up the Buffalo wing sausage and someone asks you "how is that, have you tried it?" Or you see someone with a shirt in the exact color you want for your bed and you can ask "what color is that? I'm trying to order something in that color." Or you're in the park and have just finished reading your favorite poem for the twelfth time and someone passing by says, "oh, Yeats! I love him too!" And you start there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:12 AM on September 16, 2011 [18 favorites]
You have yourself. Maybe it's time to start there.
And I don't mean "love yourself, kiddo, becuase that's where it all starts!" because sometimes if you don't have experience with that, that's hard.
What I mean is: maybe you need to start really small, and focus on simple, ethereal joys, just for the experience of just having joy. Some ideas:
1. Your bed. Take a good look at your bed. In fact, get INTO your bed and have a good FEEL of your bed. How comfortable is it? Is the mattress saggy? Is it big enough? How plush and comfy are the sheets? Think about what would make your bed the most lush, comfortable, cozy, bed ever -- what would make it The Platonian Ideal Of A Bed. Then whatever you can afford right now, get it -- maybe it's just new sheets. Maybe the duvet is a color that's always bugged you. Maybe it could be two inches higher off the floor. Maybe it just needs to be moved across the room. Do it.
Then every night before you go to sleep, just...enjoy how awesome that bed feels. And then do that every morning right before you get out of it. No matter what else happens, you have The World's Most Awesome Bed, and you get to enjoy it every day and every night. Enjoy it a few minutes before you get up and before you go to sleep.
2. A food. Think of some kind of food that you really, really like -- a specific dish, a whole cuisine, whatever. If you cook, take the time to try out different recipes for that food; if you don't cook, take the time to try different restauant's versions of that food. Find the best one. Treat yourself to that at least once a month. (Ifyou don't cook, this is the perfect excuse to learn how -- concentrate on just that one thing, and on perfecting your recipe for that one thing.) This way, you know that no matter what else happens, you can go home and get yourself the World's Most Perfect Plate Of [whatever] whenever you want.
3. Underwear. Yes, I know it's the done thing to spruce up underwear for others, but I also believe in doing that for yourself. Get The World's Best Underwear and wear it often. This way, no matter what happens during the day, you can think to yourself, "however, I am still wearing Excellent Undergarments, which is a delightful thing in the midst of this madness."
4. Books. Find a favorite one. Find a favorite passage in that book. Turn back to it often, whenever you want. Maybe you just want to hear it again. Maybe you just want to get cheered up. Maybe you just plain feel like it. Collect a few such passages or books for different circumstances (there is one Maeve Binchy book I only read after a breakup, and one book I only read when I'm sick). It doesn't matter why you want to read it, you just want to read it and htat's that.
5. Music. Find favorite songs. Pay no mind whether you should or should not like those songs, just find favorite songs. Get them. Play them often. For no reason at all, other than to just hear them. Play them 63 times in a row if that's what you want to do. Stop in the middle of one of them if you feel like it.
I have suggested these very small, sensory comforts as a starting point. It is when you have started to take care of the one person that is you that you may feel stronger to include other people. But taking delight in the vocal harmonies in the Barenaked Ladies' cover of "Lovers In A Dangerous Time", or in how that Buffalo-Wing sausage you discovered in your local supermarket is the PERFECT amount of spice for your jambalaya, makes you start to realize that you are DESERVING of those pleasures. Which also distracts you from the heavy existential ideas; yes, we don't know where we go when we die, but in THIS moment we are eating jambalaya, not dying, so let's deal with the jambalaya instead.
And that's how you find the strength to start including other people - maybe one day you are picking up the Buffalo wing sausage and someone asks you "how is that, have you tried it?" Or you see someone with a shirt in the exact color you want for your bed and you can ask "what color is that? I'm trying to order something in that color." Or you're in the park and have just finished reading your favorite poem for the twelfth time and someone passing by says, "oh, Yeats! I love him too!" And you start there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:12 AM on September 16, 2011 [18 favorites]
Join two groups:
1. Join some sort of charitable association or advocacy group that will make you do nice stuff for others. It could be a group that people would almost expect you to join because that's just the kind of person you are. Even if you're just stuffing envelopes, you're doing it for a cause you think is important.
2. Join a group you would never logically join, never normally admit to joining, like, I don't know, the Rotary Club? The local church choir? Drum corps? It depends what you're like. Make a list of all sort of groups that try to do nice social things and then join the one that people would least expect you to be in (as long as it doesn't go against your principles).
posted by pracowity at 10:42 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
1. Join some sort of charitable association or advocacy group that will make you do nice stuff for others. It could be a group that people would almost expect you to join because that's just the kind of person you are. Even if you're just stuffing envelopes, you're doing it for a cause you think is important.
2. Join a group you would never logically join, never normally admit to joining, like, I don't know, the Rotary Club? The local church choir? Drum corps? It depends what you're like. Make a list of all sort of groups that try to do nice social things and then join the one that people would least expect you to be in (as long as it doesn't go against your principles).
posted by pracowity at 10:42 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
It might sound extreme if you're not into traveling, but a few weeks in a place like rural Africa could really change your entire worldview. There are many good lessons to be learned and you can volunteer with a good cause while you're at it.
Once you see how happy a 5 year old orphan is playing with a discarded plastic bottle he made into a pull toy, or a soccer ball made out of plastic bags, or joke with a smiling HIV positive person living in a mud hut with nothing who looks like the happiest person alive despite having a T cell count of near zero - it puts everything else into perspective. Changed my life. I highly recommend it.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 12:44 PM on September 16, 2011
Once you see how happy a 5 year old orphan is playing with a discarded plastic bottle he made into a pull toy, or a soccer ball made out of plastic bags, or joke with a smiling HIV positive person living in a mud hut with nothing who looks like the happiest person alive despite having a T cell count of near zero - it puts everything else into perspective. Changed my life. I highly recommend it.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 12:44 PM on September 16, 2011
There are many relationships we can have, and not all of those are necessarily with people in our immediate social environment. If we conceive of “relationship” in a much more general sense: “an association, a bond between two or more things (people, objects, events, ideas etc)”, you do, in fact, currently have innumerable relationships – just not all with the people around you.
I’ve had non-immediate-human-environment "encounters", sitting by the sea, in the mountains, watching sunlight on treetrunks, maybe just lazing about in a sidewalk café, watching the world flit past, or whenever a momentary relationship with my surroundings has come into being. It felt like a relationship because of the mindfulness that was brought to me through this (initially absent-minded) interaction, and which enabled me to respond in the same way. These are all wonderfully active relationships as well – for instance, to the extent that I am environmentally minded, it is due to the deference and love such encounters engender.
Building relationships with people around you, especially meaningful ones, can be very hard: the socially anxious might be afraid of being judged, or of failing to decipher the right set of codes, or of just taking the plunge, others might be afraid of losing themselves if they open up too much, or indiscriminately, to others, others yet might not have the logistics, and be unsure how to go about it. You yourself might simply lack practice.
The advantage of these other relationships is that they happen off-line, as it were, they hone your skills, refine your antennae, open your appetite in a (socially) danger-free environment. When reading a book, watching a film, looking at a painting, you are interacting, and that interaction can gain the weight and meaningfulness of a genuine relationship (EmpressCallipygos’ food suggestion reminded me of Babette’s Feast, for how sensorial experience can become “relationship”, and how that, in turn, affects human interaction and relationships. Also, watch the way the camera lingers, as though it were building, or revisiting, relationships with the objects it alights on). As per Bighappyfunhouse’s excellent advice, you can also build a relationship with your forefathers, who passed on those excellent genes to you. Other people have suggesting volunteering – again, this is taking your practice out of the (sometimes gruelling) thick of things, socially – people who are in need of your help are going to be much less daunting; also, helping others is extremely rooting. In short, every step you take contains the seed of a relationship, and all it needs in order to grow is for your eyes/ears/mind to be willing to linger mindfully.
Clearly, some of these relationships are ephemeral, others feel so permanent as to be virtually indistinguishable from our “self”, etc. But there are also those which endow us, and life itself, with meaning. These generate in us the certainty that despite all its horrors and disillusions and flaws, the world, and our life in it, is fundamentally anchored somehow, somewhere. That despite our shortcomings and our feeling, at times, that we are floating adrift in a sea of absurdity, we, too, can reach port. That there is something right about us being in the world, and that it could not be any different.
This isn’t to say that you should go hug trees, or become a flaneur, or, thinking back to EmpressCallipygos advice, that you should become a hedonist (even though, in your current state of mind, you could do worse). But there are places that are less obvious, less visited, which might answer your yearning for love and community, and you might find that other such experiences, with real people this time, will flock to you.
And lastly, whenever I feel like you, I go to this passage from Eliot’s Preludes – invariably my life-juices start flowing again, slowly at first, but then they find their rhythm:
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
posted by miorita at 2:51 PM on September 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
I’ve had non-immediate-human-environment "encounters", sitting by the sea, in the mountains, watching sunlight on treetrunks, maybe just lazing about in a sidewalk café, watching the world flit past, or whenever a momentary relationship with my surroundings has come into being. It felt like a relationship because of the mindfulness that was brought to me through this (initially absent-minded) interaction, and which enabled me to respond in the same way. These are all wonderfully active relationships as well – for instance, to the extent that I am environmentally minded, it is due to the deference and love such encounters engender.
Building relationships with people around you, especially meaningful ones, can be very hard: the socially anxious might be afraid of being judged, or of failing to decipher the right set of codes, or of just taking the plunge, others might be afraid of losing themselves if they open up too much, or indiscriminately, to others, others yet might not have the logistics, and be unsure how to go about it. You yourself might simply lack practice.
The advantage of these other relationships is that they happen off-line, as it were, they hone your skills, refine your antennae, open your appetite in a (socially) danger-free environment. When reading a book, watching a film, looking at a painting, you are interacting, and that interaction can gain the weight and meaningfulness of a genuine relationship (EmpressCallipygos’ food suggestion reminded me of Babette’s Feast, for how sensorial experience can become “relationship”, and how that, in turn, affects human interaction and relationships. Also, watch the way the camera lingers, as though it were building, or revisiting, relationships with the objects it alights on). As per Bighappyfunhouse’s excellent advice, you can also build a relationship with your forefathers, who passed on those excellent genes to you. Other people have suggesting volunteering – again, this is taking your practice out of the (sometimes gruelling) thick of things, socially – people who are in need of your help are going to be much less daunting; also, helping others is extremely rooting. In short, every step you take contains the seed of a relationship, and all it needs in order to grow is for your eyes/ears/mind to be willing to linger mindfully.
Clearly, some of these relationships are ephemeral, others feel so permanent as to be virtually indistinguishable from our “self”, etc. But there are also those which endow us, and life itself, with meaning. These generate in us the certainty that despite all its horrors and disillusions and flaws, the world, and our life in it, is fundamentally anchored somehow, somewhere. That despite our shortcomings and our feeling, at times, that we are floating adrift in a sea of absurdity, we, too, can reach port. That there is something right about us being in the world, and that it could not be any different.
This isn’t to say that you should go hug trees, or become a flaneur, or, thinking back to EmpressCallipygos advice, that you should become a hedonist (even though, in your current state of mind, you could do worse). But there are places that are less obvious, less visited, which might answer your yearning for love and community, and you might find that other such experiences, with real people this time, will flock to you.
And lastly, whenever I feel like you, I go to this passage from Eliot’s Preludes – invariably my life-juices start flowing again, slowly at first, but then they find their rhythm:
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
posted by miorita at 2:51 PM on September 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
you can now buy MDMA safely online
If the OP is clinically depressed the serotonin loss from the comedown could be devastating.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:31 PM on September 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
If the OP is clinically depressed the serotonin loss from the comedown could be devastating.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:31 PM on September 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
If you can stomach it, existentialist literature such as Camus' The Stranger, Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground and Wilson's sort of meta The Outsider. YMMV
I read that Nietzsche in his later years had a spell in Italy, making friends, and onto accounts preoccupying himself with enjoying life.
posted by yoHighness at 2:45 PM on September 22, 2011
I read that Nietzsche in his later years had a spell in Italy, making friends, and onto accounts preoccupying himself with enjoying life.
posted by yoHighness at 2:45 PM on September 22, 2011
"If the OP is clinically depressed the serotonin loss from the comedown could be devastating."
I'm clinically depressed and I appreciate the variation.
posted by fraac at 3:05 PM on September 22, 2011
I'm clinically depressed and I appreciate the variation.
posted by fraac at 3:05 PM on September 22, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
So pick some peers and get their approval. Seriously: Find some people whose opinions you respect, and make them proud of ya.
The reason I don't have my name on my profile here is that I can recount being a sanctimonious asshole without it seem terribly self-aggrandizing, so let me tell ya a story about that: This last weekend, my wife and I were at the ordination of a team member on a volunteering effort we participate in. So there we were, first time in a church for a religious purpose in probably 20 years, I was kinda disappointed that there wasn't spontaneous combustion when we entered, at the reception afterwards, and we got to talking about how we met X. As we talked, one of the congregants asked "so, are you studying for the priesthood too?", and I had the amazing self-satisfaction of saying "naw, we're just people."
The great thing about atheism and volunteering is that you can go out there, change the world, and then totally mess with people's world view when you tell 'em that nope, sorry, it isn't likely that Jesus is ever gonna be your lord and savior.
So, yeah, find a worthy cause, some way you can change the world for the better, and get involved! You'll meet cool people, you'll get a bunch of different world views, and you get to mess with people's minds. What could be better?
posted by straw at 9:08 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]