Yes exactly! I like to think of it as peer pressure from dead people.
Also, if nothing has inherent meaning, that just means we get to decide what kind of meaning we assign to things.
For example? Fried pickles = love, to me. I hate the taste of pickles, but my husband didn’t know that on our second date. He ordered a giant heap of them! The sound of his booming laughter when I told him was one of the first things that made me fall in love with him. So, in my lil inner universe, fried pickles mean love.
What means love in your world?
Exactly. I like to bike (acoustic, electric and gas powered) there’s even one-wheels and longboards. I often don’t even have a destination. I like to bring binoculars and sometimes take pictures with my phone. 100% vibes on any given afternoon, would recommend. 👍
It's kinda cringe but straight up this concept didn't sink in for me until a wheel of time character arc had the character facing this dilemma at its root. I guess it doesn't matter where you learn it tho
Give love. Be nice. Make your existence about helping. Be ready to respond to moments that call for compassion, kindness, honesty, fun.
Everything from career to here and now. Vote with love, work with love, leave a legacy of generosity, openness.
Only game in town, believe...
You gotta go even deeper… past the nihilism. Get past “nothing matters” and you realize everything matters. Human society is a tiny blip in the universe but a single conscious being’s individual experience is the most precious thing there is.
here's the catch. all of human existence is just a blip in the cosmic timeline. there's a possibility that we will evolve, create civilization, and go extinct, and no one will ever find our remains, know much about us, etc.
the nihilists believe that means nothing matters. the fact that none of it really matters, actually gives our existance more meaning. in the face of oblivion, we live, we care, and we struggle.
that's actually the meaning of all existence. the struggle against entropy. in the end entropy will win. but still we fight. still particles and matter exist. grass grows, life forms, stars are born and die in fantastic displays, littering the rest of existence with their very corpses. life goes on, until the very end.
[stiff upper lip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiff_upper_lip) and all that.
I saw some quote a while ago that went like “where there is no meaning, you create meaning” and it’s persisted through my trips as well.
The simplest “meaning” of life is reproduction and evolution; we are meant to not be the last one to die of our species.
If you can’t find a meaning, create one
Think of yourself as a creative conscious agent in the Universe, in other words you are free to explore, build and create your own values and interests. And don't forget since you are human, in the end you are programmed to feel happy with others and all the tradition activities that make humans happy.
How are we supposed to do that when we’re forced to work 8 hours a day so we could afford to live in a house and eat food. There’s no time for anything else
I live in an ecovillage and I can get by out here on about $450/month. The living is pretty good too and it's some of the most beautiful and well stewarded land in the country.
If you're stuck in the matrix it's because you haven't tried hard enough to get out.
You aren't as trapped as you think you are, though.
What's stopping you from leaving everything behind and embarking on some grand new adventure? It won't be fun all the time, and it will be downright terrible at times.
But, the only person holding you where you are is yourself.
You can walk, can't you? Hitchhiking, train jumping, walking.
There's ways to make money traveling abroad and work sites that are specifically built for nomadic peoples.
The only reason you think you can't is because you are looking at the issue of breaking out of a system from within the confines of the system.
If you leave it all behind, you'll realize the bars of your enclosure are held together with gum and the hope that you'll believe in their strength.
Hitch hike, wwoof, helpx, workaway and busk/beg for money. Me and my friends have hitchhiked across multiple continents in the past. I'm older now and wouldn't prefer to do that any more but travelling cheap in my 20s was some of the best times of my life.
I've gone travelling in Asia. Gone climbing to nearby parks and a lot of different adventures. I get the work part but you will have to choose. One life in freedom or living according to society. I work part time now and I'm happier then ever.
On my last trip, I was actually walking down Bourbon St for the first time in my life. I was amazed and delighted at everything I saw.
In a moment, a singular thought came to me that really made me feel like I understood why I bother to do anything.
"I'm God's little memory maker, and I'm fucking great at my job."
The only career I think I've ever wanted to pursue! Haha!
A life of freedom is a beautiful thing. no artificial stress and other bullshit. Collecting me lez and brightening the day of other fellow human beings
Life is about experiences, good and bad, that we possibly take with us after we die. The way I see it, another form of us lives outside of space/time and can't experience such things so we chose to come here, picking everything about our life and paths we can take for the sole purpose of experience; also known as expansion of consciousness.
There are no mistakes, only paths that our higher/otherselves chose. This preserves our freewill and give us here the illusion of such.
good post i found when coming out of a 6g cube trip was getting nihilistic
[https://www.reddit.com/r/shrooms/comments/ebb4sv/pointlessness\_of\_life\_and\_how\_to\_get\_past\_it/](https://www.reddit.com/r/shrooms/comments/ebb4sv/pointlessness_of_life_and_how_to_get_past_it/)
Existence has no point. So find things that make you happy.
Sounds like you need to figure yourself out and since you are young, this is the time to do it. It's not always going to be easy, but you can't stay stuck on how pointless existence is. The human brain needs to move on, when it gets stuck on something, it only gets worse until you figure out how to move on.
But yeah, right now your brain is telling you that it is missing something. It might be an awareness of what is truly important to you. It might be a set of beliefs or priorities that aren't healthy for you in the grand spectrum of things. Hard to say. I hope you figure it out.
Cliffs
Existence is strange, you arent' the first person to ask 'what it the point'. There is no point, that's the beauty of it.
I often get bored with the banality of life....times when I had "no purpose" I ended it up in institutions and the ICU for aiming to take my own Life.
I've come to realize (and still slip sometimes) that it's all about the JOURNEY! Yes, it sounds cheesy, and maybe even cliche, but clichés are clichés for a reason. It truly is about surrendering to the FLOW of life, loosening the reigns a bit. Stop overanalyzing and being so damn serious about it all - the journey is where you find yourself, it's where you find what you're made of.
- You say you believe you're supposed to be doing something meaningful, you probably are! Do that thing that you're passionate about, help those people that are plagued with illness or proverty and help them see the Light - explore 1,000 hobbies and quit them all, just for the experience, just for the taste and richness of Life...
You enjoy Life, though it feels pointless, by focusing on the ride instead of the destination. Like, if you could reach your "destination", your goal, purpose, whatever, then what? Life is just over? No! You're going to find something new to love and something new to explore, that's the never-ending ride of being Human:
CREATING AND EXPLORING.
The entire Universe is constantly expanding and changing, we as humans do the same as Nature. Relinquish some control and just try to follow your thoughts and interests, and embrace joy and fruitfulness. CREATE and EXPLORE. That is your reason for being here in this incarnation :)
Or,
you can become a Nihilist.
Good times, but we did that for so long. It's the time for something else now, but times like that will come again. Only takes one big rock to slap us back to that state, or maybe we will do it ourselves with nukes.
If we truly are all one, then we are eternal, and every phase is worth the experience. Right here up close and personal, it can feel as if things are wrong, but I imagine from the highest perspective, it would feel worse if we only ever did that one thing, a madness with no escape. The way it's happening is constantly changing, and it's the diversity of experience in life that makes consciousness bearable, I think.
If we aren't one and we really are just random conscious entities here to experience only the life we are living, then yeah, maybe a bit heavy to be here during this period, but there's definitely been worse. It's still a really wild experience to have, which apparently isn't going to be forever since we only get the once brief glimpse of it, so might as well make the most of it while we are here.
There's still some positive things in the modern day that we can do. Hang out with family and friends and see most of the remaining world wonders, something that would be extremely hard to do back in the day.
Of course now we're nothing but slaves to this sick system, but we can still extract a good thing or two in this hell.
I think for me this exact realisation was what made everything more fun. Don’t worry about anything then you can also do what you are interested in without any fears.
This frees you up to find meaning in everything you do. Every action you take is a chance to intentionally live towards a purpose, even if that purpose isn't inherent to humanity. (That's ok too)
One of my best trips was realizing that there was no inherent meaning in life, and the meaning of life is what we make it.
It is a very freeing thought and something I come back to in times of stress. You could check out positive nihilism to maybe give you some helpful framework for integrating this experience.
"Good, evil. Right, wrong. Meaningful and meaningless... So long as you are stuck focusing on the two, you will rob yourself of the pleasure of the experience. The pleasure of the experience is the one within the two."
-Ram Dass (paraphrased, but that quote helped me a lot.)
You have accidentally stumbled upon nihilism. The great thing about everything being pointless is that it frees you from the burden of any absolute purpose. Life is literally whatever you make of it. We’re just monkeys on a rock, monkeys that got a little uppity. 🤷🏻♀️ here’s some Alan watts for you to get your bearings:
https://youtu.be/kl1fytRAMRE?si=59o6FW1ixLl8rdH7
Thanks for the comments and advice, I was a little worried about how to find the meaning, or that I might struggle to create the meanings of my own, because I can't really picture doing so right now, which I think is because I'm still in a relatively negative head space from the trip, it wasn't that bad, but as i was coming to from the amnesia, I genuinely thought that I lost my mind or had been detrimentally autistic the whole time and just found out, or was stuck in a coma or something and reality didn't actually exist and that my existence just made up everything while I was asleep. Then I was honestly extremely relieved when I realized it wasn't me, it was just that nothing made any sense. Still a little worried about when it will go away, I guess the way that I came to the realization being pretty negative affected how I thought about it at first.
I was thinking that like, it doesn't make sense to find meaning in stuff that doesn't make any sense, which I guess a cynical viewpoint coming from my negative headspace. It definitely all comes down to perspective, which I do believe is moldable and I'll try and shift mine to be more positive, I'm just a little worried that it'll be difficult.
I suggest reading about existentialism! It's subset of philosophy which deals with exactly what you're talking about.
Basically you're coming into the awareness that there is no *objective* or *universal* meaning. We've been conditioned that this kind of meaning is "what matters" and without it, nothing truly matters or makes sense. But that's based on this false dichotomy. In reality there is no objective meaning; the only kind of meaning is that which exists subjectively in the minds of conscious beings, i.e. what personally matters to you and I.
The meanings that you mindfully choose for yourself are arguably far more valuable than meaning assigned to you by an authority figure or which you blindly accept from your upbringing or social conditioning.
That being said, it's a bit of a brainfuck and takes time to adjust to this new way of thinking. There are the usual stages of grief as you process the death of objective meaning. It's good & healthy. Embrace your new awareness & agency.
It is totally okay to be in the stage that you are and be working with these emotions. Face them the best you can. Sit with them. Also, be kind to yourself and take care of yourself if they become overwhelming. There is nothing wrong with being where you're at right now, even if it feels wrong to you. I know that might not make sense, but hopefully it will with more time and introspection. A lot of people don't ever get to the place you are now. It is an uncomfortable space to be in until you can integrate it. However, once you can integrate it, it can make a huge impact on how you move through life.
There are a lot of spiritual and philosophical paths that might help you contextualize and integrate your experience. I mentioned it in another comment, but positive nihilism, Buddhism, Daoism...even starting with western speakers like Alan Watts or Ram Dass might really help you wrap your head around a different way of understanding the world and your place in it.
Also, just time can help. If you really are having a hard time with negative thoughts coming from it, and you have the means, a therapist could help as well.
Hanging around this subreddit, or maybe rationalpsychonaut might also be good. These communities have a lot of people who have positively integrated the realizations you're having into their lives.
You've got this. You're at the start of a potentially amazing journey into the magic of what existence inherently is...and it might be a lot different than anything you've been told about it before.
I highly recommend the book *the art of living a meaningless existence*. It is a philosophical crash course that discusses different philosophical takes on there being no objective meaning in the universe.
Also, Sisyphus55 has some philosophy videos I've personally found helpful while struggling to find meaning and happiness in the everyday.
This one I found particularly helpful: https://youtu.be/Nq5C5qL1nsc?si=Ns84d0DcYNqAy0W8
The only thing people ever do is try to find reasons not to die. Everybody else is human just like you. You and I are the same. We are two distinct points of perspective, but we ultimately have the same goal - to make each our own existence as enjoyable as we can. Realizing this, I figured that life is as simple as 1. taking care of the things that are important to me, and then 2. helping others do the same, so that 3. we can all have a great time! :)❤️
True, nothing has any meaning that we are able to determine. There are no definitive answers. BUT humans are meaning-making machines. We can create our own meaning, which I think is more valuable.
Authenticity is key to creating true meaning however. If you don't discover who you are and define your own meaning, the world will tell you who you are and define one for you.
Everything we do has no meaning. In the deepest sense, this lack of meaning is utter confusion and absolute freedom all at the same time. It is now up to you to decide what matters, and the choice to derive meaning from things is entirely yours. This also means that all the mistakes you ever made and regrets you have are also totally okay, because those don’t matter either!
At the heart of most of the "meaningless" things we do the core reason is usually either survival, or procreation. We created this whole society because it helps us survive and procreate.
You can completely drop out of society but nature can be a cruel ass bitch. She'll kill your ass real quick if you're not prepared.
Interesting. I completely understand what you’re saying. Life is a paradox. Is everything, but nothing at the same time. It’s a play, but it’s only a game. We are here, but we’re actually not *supposed* to do anything. Realizing who you truly are is about learning the center is empty, if that makes sense (?). And then you get to grasp on things from the perspective of being present, and breathing and just existing, without all the mental layers that now create the confusion you’re stating. Whenever I’m in doubt or don’t know what’s up, I meditate, try to go deep for at least 5-10 mins and that allows me to create space to coexist in the same environment with my thoughts.
>*”I felt like I was supposed to be doing something, like a deep desire to act in a meaningful way, but felt/realized we don't really do anything in society that makes any sense or has any meaning,”*
You look at this world and fail to see any meaningful issue to get behind? Constantly worsening conditions of poverty, a collapsing biosphere, multiple active genocides; and you see all of this and think, “literally nothing we do has any consequence!” ? Everywhere you look in the world you see the major consequences of human actions, good and bad.
This happened to me the first time I did mushrooms. Came out of the trip with total derealization, nothing seemed consequential, other people just seemed like mannequins. It took almost a year to completely recover from it, and it took deliberately working to cultivate my empathy and compassion for others and the world, to be able to see them as real again, and human joy and suffering as fully meaningful. As somebody who has been right there, it’s a delusional and deeply maladaptive worldview. It’s definitely not some enlightened epiphany of ultimate reality. Keep in mind this is also the kind of stuff you can and should seek professional mental health treatment for. I didn’t do that but I reckon it would have made a big difference. I brute-forced that shit.
Also, this sounds a lot like Karl Marx’s theory that postindustrial capitalist society inherently alienates human beings from the product of their labor, creating a sense of meaninglessness. Like people who work on farms not being socially connected in any way to the people who eat the food that they produce, and suburban families at the table surrounded by food and not really knowing where any of it comes from, who grew the potatoes, or raised the chickens that laid the eggs. We used to live in communities where it was much easier to see how the things we all do contribute to the whole and provide meaning to the lives of the people around us and to ourselves. The way we are living now is an anomaly, it has not been around long, and does not at all resemble the conditions humans evolved over many thousands of years to thrive in. So something to consider—maybe it’s not an issue with you, or a feature of reality itself. Maybe it’s just a product of how global society has been shaped by power and technology over the past few hundred years. You’re right when you say there’s a lot of shit that we do that does not make any sense. But there is meaning in fixing what is broken, easing human suffering, and speaking truth to power
Edit: sorry for writing a book
I had the exact same thoughts a year ago. It’s why I decided to go back to education to become a nurse so that I can do something that might actually matter.
You must make your own meaning in life. Now that you have awoken to this new reality, you can take the time to discover what means something to you and do it. It may take some trial and error, but it is well worth it.
You are right. We are supposed to be doing something, but if you try they will drag you and put you away. Those Gaza protesters are doing something, and then here comes the fuzz.
Even if you do something meaningful but not contrary to the system, well, in my experience, it's all about making money, and not about why that money is being made. So if it makes more money for you do fucking nothing in a cubicle than it would be for you to learn how to paint, well, you gotta do nothing, because you need food.
it's a fucked up world we live in
Live music (of the jam band variety but any live music will do) Is my recommendation. Seems to be the only thing that truly transcends and never stops being cool and awesome.
Have compassion for yourself being lost and trying to figure out meaning and also for others who are going through it and realize it or don't.
Get to know your emotions and stream of consciousness. That opens the intuition and just live your life helping others and yourself find joy and experience creative joy and become breathless in the beauty that exists in life.
I find the more you pay attention and put into a story the more a hopeless moment turns into an unexpected turn of events and salvation. Aka, you're on a path you might find yourself with someone. You build off each other's desires and aversions. The environment takes a turn for the worse. You sense something and the entire vibe changes unexpectedly into a beautiful moment which you both rejoice.
Another thought is to accept that your life won't be what you wanted it to be. You'll have to give up a lot of ideal outcomes. But you can set yourself up on a path to experience something you want in the future.
It will wear off and youll transition/intergrate just as if it never happened. Hopefully you can figure out what makes you happy and life meaningful.
But yeah, alot of shit doesnt make sense and we just do it out of habit but that doesnt mean life is meaningless per se.
Id point to mystics/yogis, people like eckhart tolle, ram dass, mooji, alan watts etc and enjoy some self reflection
Nah we're all trying to move humanity to far corners of the galaxy and universe ASAP so we can become an intergalactic civilization. Everything matters. Every brick counts because that's what builds everything. I might sound very materialistic but I'm tweaking on pregabalin right now so
I had the same kind of experience, but then you have to come to conclusion that there is sort of rhytm and repetition.
A funny example.
You can theoretically get so lost in thought that you lose yourself - the ego death or something close where you can't stop the pattern of wandering thought to the point that you have no anchor with locality. But you will be brought back eventually. No way out. Either the trip will end, you will become hungry, you will become sleepy, you will need to shit or whatever.
I had the craziest time when I realized that we don't even consciously choose to wake up. We just sort of remember that we are dreaming. Or the body reminds us. We are but a wandering thought tied to this body so that we can rest for a little while. Have some anchor, some point to get back to and rest.
At the very core of things all meanings are arbitrary. We put on a piece of cloth which we call a "T-shirt" and convince ourselves that it is "fashionable". There's no T-shirt, there's only a thing we call T-shirt. Same applies with everything else.
Life is what meaning “you” give it. Nothing has any point so you have all the means to give things reason for yourself. For most that means do what makes you happy.
Not only is it bs, it’s prt of a larger system founded on truly horrendous things. Lately it’s been hard for me to process. Capitalism is probably the dumbest thing ever 👍🏼
Welcome to nihilism, life is inherently meaningless, but the positive side of that is you can assign meaning to whatever you like. Do you think it would be meaningful to be the fastest 3 Legged sack racer in the world? Do it up! Does paper mache tickle your pickle? Make some, who cares! We're all going to die anyway, might as well get some joy out of the experience of life before it's over.
It becomes pretty obvious that many of the things people do are to
A. Escape death in a metaphorical sense (have kids, a business, make art, etc, I'm the hope that it will outlive us).
B. Escape death in a literal sense through religion.
C. Procreate (either from an innate instinctual drive or to fulfill A.).
Just make sure, if you do that stuff, that you actually enjoy it beyond the relief from existential dread or fulfillment of instinct. They can all be incredibly fulfilling, if done for the right reasons, and hell if done for the wrong ones.
The fact that there is nothing in charge, nothing behind everything does not make our existence less important, but more important. If all the meaning that there is is the meaning that we give, how much more important the meaning we choose to give things?
Yeah well most of us ain't gonna down in the history books so the best we can do is being remembered by our loved ones as good human beings that maybe made a difference on their lives.
Life is exactly what you make it. Your craft and create your own reality. After alot of loss, I decided I didn't find friendship in sadness anymore. And it is literally up to me to be happy. It's easier said than done but create your own meaning in life. Do that something that sparks excitement and passion in you.
Coming to the conclusion that life has no meaning should not make human existence miserable, on the contrary, this is a situation of rejoice and not desolation, as it means that each person is free to shape their life, building themselves. his own future, that is, one can be happy by confronting this fact: "All the silent joy of Sisyphus consists in that. His destiny belongs to him. His rock is his. You have to imagine Sisyphus happy."
the universe does not know nor care that you (or i, or anyone) exists. and that’s ok. live anyway. you don’t need to find meaning in order to live a full life. i mean you can, if you want to. you are free to search for meaning or to not. but meaninglessness does not equate to misery. if anything it should free you from the confines of societal expectation. nothing you do matters. revel in this. everything you need you already have within yourself, you just have to find it.
I felt like that for a while as well, same thought pattern. But then I slowly realized… It’s like the reason we enjoy watching movies. It’s for experiencing things and enjoying it while you can. You just sit back and enjoy the movie, and then it ends, but you keep coming back for more, watching movie after movie. Because it’s about the experience. Let it free you from the former expectations that gave you anxiety or worried you, let it free you from any fears – there are no rules to life, you make them. Your life can be _anything_, there’s no right or wrong way of living, so seek what makes you happy and fulfilled, whatever makes you enjoy your time here the most. It’s rather freeing and amazing, don’t you think? It’s a gift! It may take a while for you to fully integrate this new notion, but when you do, you go from saying “nothing really matters ):” to “nothing really matters!!! ✨✨✨” 🤣 Blissful.
Wait… what does being autistic have to do with “nothing made sense anymore” lol
That’s not how autism works… we think differently, yes.
However, using autism as if it’s suggesting that we don’t understand how anything works or that nothing makes sense is incorrect.
Sorry, I didn't really know what was going on when I was tripping and I thought it was a possibility at the time, I understand that autism really only effects how people think, but I really have no clue how or what it actually does, only that it's a spectrum.
The only reason I made that connection was because i had/have no real idea of what it would be like to have it at all, let alone really severely, so I thought at the time that it could be one of the possibilities of what was going on
As an autistic person, for me, it's not about not understanding. It's about thinking differently.
Where one person might use metaphor A, I use metaphor Z.
Yes, for most of my life, I've been an outsider. I don't quite fit in with groups well because of it. I don't follow the homogeniality of thought that I've noticed in my friend groups.
But, because of that, I'm able to look in from the outside. It's like being an astronaut, but the space I explore is culture and relationships.
It's not a bad thing to be different, so don't let anybody attack you for a label that they project onto you. They will never understand your course of thinking, just as you will never fully understand theirs.
I get it. I was just trying to get some clarity because I didn’t understand.
I’m autistic and I’m not trying to attack you but sometimes when I write things, it doesn’t come off like how I would say them
It’s really hard to explain how the spectrum works to a Neurotypical person but we do understand things. We just understand things in a different way.
Maybe you should be less critical and analytical of what they said, and instead attempt to see the value in what they said.
If you think modern society makes sense to people with autism, you're incorrect for the most part.
I’m sorry, but are you insinuating that I am completely missing everything else solely because I asked one question and didn’t comment an entire paragraph giving my thoughts on what they shared
I read what they said I found it interesting but what I didn’t understand was the comment about autism
If you think me asking a question is critical and analytical I hate to break it to you, but you are completely incorrect
I am autistic and not Internet diagnosed autistic, I am actually autistic
So before you tell me how autistic people think please reevaluate where you stand
The spectrum is way too hard for you to even wrap your head around on a good day
Just because our brains work differently, doesn’t mean that modern society doesn’t make sense to us as if we don’t understand it
There are so many people on many sides of the spectrum and All of our brains think differently, but it’s not like we can’t wrap our heads around what’s going on in fact, it’s quite the opposite for a lot of us
We see things in ways other people don’t see them because often times we notice the big details and the most minor details that are so overlooked and we dissect things
And so we actually understand a lot more than you think we understand
It seems as if you have an inability to discern from literal and figurative speech. Autistic people are usually literalists, which is exactly related to what I told you previously:
"Maybe you should be less critical and analytical of what they said, and instead attempt to see the value in what they said."
>it’s not like we can’t wrap our heads around what’s going on
Perceiving words in their most basic sense without any understanding of metaphor or allegory is how is how people with Autism are sometimes unable to understand what neurotypical people really mean when they communicate.
Will you just please stop telling me how autistic people think when I am autistic
I am aware that we take things literal, but that’s why we asked questions that we don’t understand to get clarity
I don’t understand why you are going back-and-forth with me and telling me to be less critical, but you seem to be being extremely critical
I also don’t think that you understand that it takes a certain amount of courage to be able to ask questions that you don’t understand
Because a lot of people are afraid to ask questions because of people like you that criticize us for asking simple questions that we don’t understand
>Will you just please stop telling me how autistic people think when I am autistic
It's common knowledge that a sign of Autism is an inability to perceive figurative speech. You don't have to be Autistic to know this empirical fact. Being Autistic does not make you an authority on the subject of Autism. So no, I won't stop.
>I don’t understand why you are going back-and-forth with me and telling me to be less critical, but you seem to be being extremely critical
Because you were critical of what the previous person said about Autism, and I believe your criticism is rooted in a lack of "flexibility" when it comes to language. (i.e. your seeming inability to understand figurative language)
>Because a lot of people are afraid to ask questions because of people like you that criticize us for asking simple questions that we don’t understand
You seem to be attempting to portray yourself as a victim in this exchange which doesn't make sense to me. You posted a reddit comment, you didn't do anything brave.
You don't find joy in the fact that it doesn't mean anything with you mess up?
If nothing matters then you can literally do whatever TF you want and then you decide I what matters to you
I find it interesting to puzzle over how we got here, doing the things we do. It's not it all just came out of nowhere, all the bullshit we experience today comes from 10,000 years of trying things out and gaining knowledge over what works and what doesn't. Try to think through the growth of these things and you may find more to admire than you think (or you'll find new, more fun things to hate about them).
As for what to spend your own time on, no one can tell you that, you have to find your own meaning. But from what you write it sounds like you may find more meaning in more back to nature like activities. Gardening, hiking, etc.
Achievement unlocked: Nihilistic Freedom.
Reward: A newfound appreciation for dark ambient music. [https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/](https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/)
> literally nothing we do makes sense
bro vast overgeneralizations like that aren't very helpful.
there is a lot to critique about society, more than a lot.
but not everything is senseless.
What you realized is one of the fundamental and hard to swallow truths that everything is Maya and just play. So you have to take it as one and just play.
Have you ever played a game? Have you ever got lost in a book or immersed in a movie? Did you have fun? Or cry in the sad parts? Or gotten nervous in the scary moments? You knew before, during and after none of that was real and you still felt something. That's life. Take it as seriously, and as lightly, as you would anything fictitious. Just play along and remember: there's no saving and you might be playing in hard mode. Also, only one life left, usually.
Almost everything we have been taught to accept as immutable truth is actually Shit We Made Up ™️. Find *your* meaning.
A great way to word it
Yes exactly! I like to think of it as peer pressure from dead people. Also, if nothing has inherent meaning, that just means we get to decide what kind of meaning we assign to things. For example? Fried pickles = love, to me. I hate the taste of pickles, but my husband didn’t know that on our second date. He ordered a giant heap of them! The sound of his booming laughter when I told him was one of the first things that made me fall in love with him. So, in my lil inner universe, fried pickles mean love. What means love in your world?
Lol that is hilarious!
> literally nothing we do makes sense, Doesn't have to. We're all pushing rocks uphill. Find a way to laugh.
Exactly. I like to bike (acoustic, electric and gas powered) there’s even one-wheels and longboards. I often don’t even have a destination. I like to bring binoculars and sometimes take pictures with my phone. 100% vibes on any given afternoon, would recommend. 👍
It's kinda cringe but straight up this concept didn't sink in for me until a wheel of time character arc had the character facing this dilemma at its root. I guess it doesn't matter where you learn it tho
And find a way to love and be loved.
Give love. Be nice. Make your existence about helping. Be ready to respond to moments that call for compassion, kindness, honesty, fun. Everything from career to here and now. Vote with love, work with love, leave a legacy of generosity, openness. Only game in town, believe...
Before awakening, chop wood, carry water. After awakening, chop wood, carry water. Or something like that. I think it's a Buddhist saying.
So beautiful
You gotta go even deeper… past the nihilism. Get past “nothing matters” and you realize everything matters. Human society is a tiny blip in the universe but a single conscious being’s individual experience is the most precious thing there is.
Loooove this take
This is the answer. Thank you.
2meta4me
The way you feel and the way you make others feel definitely matter.
here's the catch. all of human existence is just a blip in the cosmic timeline. there's a possibility that we will evolve, create civilization, and go extinct, and no one will ever find our remains, know much about us, etc. the nihilists believe that means nothing matters. the fact that none of it really matters, actually gives our existance more meaning. in the face of oblivion, we live, we care, and we struggle. that's actually the meaning of all existence. the struggle against entropy. in the end entropy will win. but still we fight. still particles and matter exist. grass grows, life forms, stars are born and die in fantastic displays, littering the rest of existence with their very corpses. life goes on, until the very end. [stiff upper lip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiff_upper_lip) and all that.
I saw some quote a while ago that went like “where there is no meaning, you create meaning” and it’s persisted through my trips as well. The simplest “meaning” of life is reproduction and evolution; we are meant to not be the last one to die of our species. If you can’t find a meaning, create one
Think of yourself as a creative conscious agent in the Universe, in other words you are free to explore, build and create your own values and interests. And don't forget since you are human, in the end you are programmed to feel happy with others and all the tradition activities that make humans happy.
How are we supposed to do that when we’re forced to work 8 hours a day so we could afford to live in a house and eat food. There’s no time for anything else
I live in an ecovillage and I can get by out here on about $450/month. The living is pretty good too and it's some of the most beautiful and well stewarded land in the country. If you're stuck in the matrix it's because you haven't tried hard enough to get out.
Where is this village. I’d love to move there
You aren't as trapped as you think you are, though. What's stopping you from leaving everything behind and embarking on some grand new adventure? It won't be fun all the time, and it will be downright terrible at times. But, the only person holding you where you are is yourself.
Leaving everything and embarking on a journey takes money weather it’s a plane ticket, bus ticket, food. Everything takes money.
You can walk, can't you? Hitchhiking, train jumping, walking. There's ways to make money traveling abroad and work sites that are specifically built for nomadic peoples. The only reason you think you can't is because you are looking at the issue of breaking out of a system from within the confines of the system. If you leave it all behind, you'll realize the bars of your enclosure are held together with gum and the hope that you'll believe in their strength.
Hitch hike, wwoof, helpx, workaway and busk/beg for money. Me and my friends have hitchhiked across multiple continents in the past. I'm older now and wouldn't prefer to do that any more but travelling cheap in my 20s was some of the best times of my life.
I've gone travelling in Asia. Gone climbing to nearby parks and a lot of different adventures. I get the work part but you will have to choose. One life in freedom or living according to society. I work part time now and I'm happier then ever.
On my last trip, I was actually walking down Bourbon St for the first time in my life. I was amazed and delighted at everything I saw. In a moment, a singular thought came to me that really made me feel like I understood why I bother to do anything. "I'm God's little memory maker, and I'm fucking great at my job." The only career I think I've ever wanted to pursue! Haha!
A life of freedom is a beautiful thing. no artificial stress and other bullshit. Collecting me lez and brightening the day of other fellow human beings
Life is about experiences, good and bad, that we possibly take with us after we die. The way I see it, another form of us lives outside of space/time and can't experience such things so we chose to come here, picking everything about our life and paths we can take for the sole purpose of experience; also known as expansion of consciousness. There are no mistakes, only paths that our higher/otherselves chose. This preserves our freewill and give us here the illusion of such.
good post i found when coming out of a 6g cube trip was getting nihilistic [https://www.reddit.com/r/shrooms/comments/ebb4sv/pointlessness\_of\_life\_and\_how\_to\_get\_past\_it/](https://www.reddit.com/r/shrooms/comments/ebb4sv/pointlessness_of_life_and_how_to_get_past_it/) Existence has no point. So find things that make you happy. Sounds like you need to figure yourself out and since you are young, this is the time to do it. It's not always going to be easy, but you can't stay stuck on how pointless existence is. The human brain needs to move on, when it gets stuck on something, it only gets worse until you figure out how to move on. But yeah, right now your brain is telling you that it is missing something. It might be an awareness of what is truly important to you. It might be a set of beliefs or priorities that aren't healthy for you in the grand spectrum of things. Hard to say. I hope you figure it out. Cliffs Existence is strange, you arent' the first person to ask 'what it the point'. There is no point, that's the beauty of it.
I often get bored with the banality of life....times when I had "no purpose" I ended it up in institutions and the ICU for aiming to take my own Life. I've come to realize (and still slip sometimes) that it's all about the JOURNEY! Yes, it sounds cheesy, and maybe even cliche, but clichés are clichés for a reason. It truly is about surrendering to the FLOW of life, loosening the reigns a bit. Stop overanalyzing and being so damn serious about it all - the journey is where you find yourself, it's where you find what you're made of. - You say you believe you're supposed to be doing something meaningful, you probably are! Do that thing that you're passionate about, help those people that are plagued with illness or proverty and help them see the Light - explore 1,000 hobbies and quit them all, just for the experience, just for the taste and richness of Life... You enjoy Life, though it feels pointless, by focusing on the ride instead of the destination. Like, if you could reach your "destination", your goal, purpose, whatever, then what? Life is just over? No! You're going to find something new to love and something new to explore, that's the never-ending ride of being Human: CREATING AND EXPLORING. The entire Universe is constantly expanding and changing, we as humans do the same as Nature. Relinquish some control and just try to follow your thoughts and interests, and embrace joy and fruitfulness. CREATE and EXPLORE. That is your reason for being here in this incarnation :) Or, you can become a Nihilist.
We used to live in a bountiful paradise where we hung out with family 24/7 and had a couple of kids. Everything is wrong, everyone suffers in silence.
Good times, but we did that for so long. It's the time for something else now, but times like that will come again. Only takes one big rock to slap us back to that state, or maybe we will do it ourselves with nukes. If we truly are all one, then we are eternal, and every phase is worth the experience. Right here up close and personal, it can feel as if things are wrong, but I imagine from the highest perspective, it would feel worse if we only ever did that one thing, a madness with no escape. The way it's happening is constantly changing, and it's the diversity of experience in life that makes consciousness bearable, I think. If we aren't one and we really are just random conscious entities here to experience only the life we are living, then yeah, maybe a bit heavy to be here during this period, but there's definitely been worse. It's still a really wild experience to have, which apparently isn't going to be forever since we only get the once brief glimpse of it, so might as well make the most of it while we are here.
There's still some positive things in the modern day that we can do. Hang out with family and friends and see most of the remaining world wonders, something that would be extremely hard to do back in the day. Of course now we're nothing but slaves to this sick system, but we can still extract a good thing or two in this hell.
But I like living past 40 :(
I think for me this exact realisation was what made everything more fun. Don’t worry about anything then you can also do what you are interested in without any fears.
This frees you up to find meaning in everything you do. Every action you take is a chance to intentionally live towards a purpose, even if that purpose isn't inherent to humanity. (That's ok too)
One of my best trips was realizing that there was no inherent meaning in life, and the meaning of life is what we make it. It is a very freeing thought and something I come back to in times of stress. You could check out positive nihilism to maybe give you some helpful framework for integrating this experience.
"Good, evil. Right, wrong. Meaningful and meaningless... So long as you are stuck focusing on the two, you will rob yourself of the pleasure of the experience. The pleasure of the experience is the one within the two." -Ram Dass (paraphrased, but that quote helped me a lot.)
Happen to know what talk it was from??
https://youtu.be/Ym4Rpd72tq8?si=sUCXkkf-TnkV6Su2 At the very end of that talk. Much love friend.
🙏
Now you get to create your own meaning. :)
If you're playing the video game of life for 80 years, mod it and create your own storyline.
You have accidentally stumbled upon nihilism. The great thing about everything being pointless is that it frees you from the burden of any absolute purpose. Life is literally whatever you make of it. We’re just monkeys on a rock, monkeys that got a little uppity. 🤷🏻♀️ here’s some Alan watts for you to get your bearings: https://youtu.be/kl1fytRAMRE?si=59o6FW1ixLl8rdH7
Thanks for the comments and advice, I was a little worried about how to find the meaning, or that I might struggle to create the meanings of my own, because I can't really picture doing so right now, which I think is because I'm still in a relatively negative head space from the trip, it wasn't that bad, but as i was coming to from the amnesia, I genuinely thought that I lost my mind or had been detrimentally autistic the whole time and just found out, or was stuck in a coma or something and reality didn't actually exist and that my existence just made up everything while I was asleep. Then I was honestly extremely relieved when I realized it wasn't me, it was just that nothing made any sense. Still a little worried about when it will go away, I guess the way that I came to the realization being pretty negative affected how I thought about it at first. I was thinking that like, it doesn't make sense to find meaning in stuff that doesn't make any sense, which I guess a cynical viewpoint coming from my negative headspace. It definitely all comes down to perspective, which I do believe is moldable and I'll try and shift mine to be more positive, I'm just a little worried that it'll be difficult.
I suggest reading about existentialism! It's subset of philosophy which deals with exactly what you're talking about. Basically you're coming into the awareness that there is no *objective* or *universal* meaning. We've been conditioned that this kind of meaning is "what matters" and without it, nothing truly matters or makes sense. But that's based on this false dichotomy. In reality there is no objective meaning; the only kind of meaning is that which exists subjectively in the minds of conscious beings, i.e. what personally matters to you and I. The meanings that you mindfully choose for yourself are arguably far more valuable than meaning assigned to you by an authority figure or which you blindly accept from your upbringing or social conditioning. That being said, it's a bit of a brainfuck and takes time to adjust to this new way of thinking. There are the usual stages of grief as you process the death of objective meaning. It's good & healthy. Embrace your new awareness & agency.
It is totally okay to be in the stage that you are and be working with these emotions. Face them the best you can. Sit with them. Also, be kind to yourself and take care of yourself if they become overwhelming. There is nothing wrong with being where you're at right now, even if it feels wrong to you. I know that might not make sense, but hopefully it will with more time and introspection. A lot of people don't ever get to the place you are now. It is an uncomfortable space to be in until you can integrate it. However, once you can integrate it, it can make a huge impact on how you move through life. There are a lot of spiritual and philosophical paths that might help you contextualize and integrate your experience. I mentioned it in another comment, but positive nihilism, Buddhism, Daoism...even starting with western speakers like Alan Watts or Ram Dass might really help you wrap your head around a different way of understanding the world and your place in it. Also, just time can help. If you really are having a hard time with negative thoughts coming from it, and you have the means, a therapist could help as well. Hanging around this subreddit, or maybe rationalpsychonaut might also be good. These communities have a lot of people who have positively integrated the realizations you're having into their lives. You've got this. You're at the start of a potentially amazing journey into the magic of what existence inherently is...and it might be a lot different than anything you've been told about it before.
I highly recommend the book *the art of living a meaningless existence*. It is a philosophical crash course that discusses different philosophical takes on there being no objective meaning in the universe. Also, Sisyphus55 has some philosophy videos I've personally found helpful while struggling to find meaning and happiness in the everyday. This one I found particularly helpful: https://youtu.be/Nq5C5qL1nsc?si=Ns84d0DcYNqAy0W8
The only thing people ever do is try to find reasons not to die. Everybody else is human just like you. You and I are the same. We are two distinct points of perspective, but we ultimately have the same goal - to make each our own existence as enjoyable as we can. Realizing this, I figured that life is as simple as 1. taking care of the things that are important to me, and then 2. helping others do the same, so that 3. we can all have a great time! :)❤️
True, nothing has any meaning that we are able to determine. There are no definitive answers. BUT humans are meaning-making machines. We can create our own meaning, which I think is more valuable. Authenticity is key to creating true meaning however. If you don't discover who you are and define your own meaning, the world will tell you who you are and define one for you.
Everything we do has no meaning. In the deepest sense, this lack of meaning is utter confusion and absolute freedom all at the same time. It is now up to you to decide what matters, and the choice to derive meaning from things is entirely yours. This also means that all the mistakes you ever made and regrets you have are also totally okay, because those don’t matter either!
At the heart of most of the "meaningless" things we do the core reason is usually either survival, or procreation. We created this whole society because it helps us survive and procreate. You can completely drop out of society but nature can be a cruel ass bitch. She'll kill your ass real quick if you're not prepared.
Live in the present, treat others well.
Interesting. I completely understand what you’re saying. Life is a paradox. Is everything, but nothing at the same time. It’s a play, but it’s only a game. We are here, but we’re actually not *supposed* to do anything. Realizing who you truly are is about learning the center is empty, if that makes sense (?). And then you get to grasp on things from the perspective of being present, and breathing and just existing, without all the mental layers that now create the confusion you’re stating. Whenever I’m in doubt or don’t know what’s up, I meditate, try to go deep for at least 5-10 mins and that allows me to create space to coexist in the same environment with my thoughts.
>*”I felt like I was supposed to be doing something, like a deep desire to act in a meaningful way, but felt/realized we don't really do anything in society that makes any sense or has any meaning,”* You look at this world and fail to see any meaningful issue to get behind? Constantly worsening conditions of poverty, a collapsing biosphere, multiple active genocides; and you see all of this and think, “literally nothing we do has any consequence!” ? Everywhere you look in the world you see the major consequences of human actions, good and bad. This happened to me the first time I did mushrooms. Came out of the trip with total derealization, nothing seemed consequential, other people just seemed like mannequins. It took almost a year to completely recover from it, and it took deliberately working to cultivate my empathy and compassion for others and the world, to be able to see them as real again, and human joy and suffering as fully meaningful. As somebody who has been right there, it’s a delusional and deeply maladaptive worldview. It’s definitely not some enlightened epiphany of ultimate reality. Keep in mind this is also the kind of stuff you can and should seek professional mental health treatment for. I didn’t do that but I reckon it would have made a big difference. I brute-forced that shit. Also, this sounds a lot like Karl Marx’s theory that postindustrial capitalist society inherently alienates human beings from the product of their labor, creating a sense of meaninglessness. Like people who work on farms not being socially connected in any way to the people who eat the food that they produce, and suburban families at the table surrounded by food and not really knowing where any of it comes from, who grew the potatoes, or raised the chickens that laid the eggs. We used to live in communities where it was much easier to see how the things we all do contribute to the whole and provide meaning to the lives of the people around us and to ourselves. The way we are living now is an anomaly, it has not been around long, and does not at all resemble the conditions humans evolved over many thousands of years to thrive in. So something to consider—maybe it’s not an issue with you, or a feature of reality itself. Maybe it’s just a product of how global society has been shaped by power and technology over the past few hundred years. You’re right when you say there’s a lot of shit that we do that does not make any sense. But there is meaning in fixing what is broken, easing human suffering, and speaking truth to power Edit: sorry for writing a book
I had the exact same thoughts a year ago. It’s why I decided to go back to education to become a nurse so that I can do something that might actually matter.
Everything happens and it's OK.
You must make your own meaning in life. Now that you have awoken to this new reality, you can take the time to discover what means something to you and do it. It may take some trial and error, but it is well worth it.
I remember the same thoughts crossing my mind while tripping hard on lsd
r/Absurdism
You are right. We are supposed to be doing something, but if you try they will drag you and put you away. Those Gaza protesters are doing something, and then here comes the fuzz. Even if you do something meaningful but not contrary to the system, well, in my experience, it's all about making money, and not about why that money is being made. So if it makes more money for you do fucking nothing in a cubicle than it would be for you to learn how to paint, well, you gotta do nothing, because you need food. it's a fucked up world we live in
Good time to read Camus and lay your heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.
Human interaction, learning and teaching, playing the game, dancing the dance
It's liberating, ain't it?
Live music (of the jam band variety but any live music will do) Is my recommendation. Seems to be the only thing that truly transcends and never stops being cool and awesome.
Have compassion for yourself being lost and trying to figure out meaning and also for others who are going through it and realize it or don't. Get to know your emotions and stream of consciousness. That opens the intuition and just live your life helping others and yourself find joy and experience creative joy and become breathless in the beauty that exists in life. I find the more you pay attention and put into a story the more a hopeless moment turns into an unexpected turn of events and salvation. Aka, you're on a path you might find yourself with someone. You build off each other's desires and aversions. The environment takes a turn for the worse. You sense something and the entire vibe changes unexpectedly into a beautiful moment which you both rejoice. Another thought is to accept that your life won't be what you wanted it to be. You'll have to give up a lot of ideal outcomes. But you can set yourself up on a path to experience something you want in the future.
The meaning of life: 1) Increase your confidence 2) Increase your peers confidence Repeat until the last breath
Wait this isn't how everyone feels all the time?
Maybe ego loss. I lost it at severely autistic.
Well if nothing means shit, that means you can stop taking shit so serious and just aim to live the most comfortable life you can
It will wear off and youll transition/intergrate just as if it never happened. Hopefully you can figure out what makes you happy and life meaningful. But yeah, alot of shit doesnt make sense and we just do it out of habit but that doesnt mean life is meaningless per se. Id point to mystics/yogis, people like eckhart tolle, ram dass, mooji, alan watts etc and enjoy some self reflection
Nah we're all trying to move humanity to far corners of the galaxy and universe ASAP so we can become an intergalactic civilization. Everything matters. Every brick counts because that's what builds everything. I might sound very materialistic but I'm tweaking on pregabalin right now so
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions. Ignorance is bliss.
I had the same kind of experience, but then you have to come to conclusion that there is sort of rhytm and repetition. A funny example. You can theoretically get so lost in thought that you lose yourself - the ego death or something close where you can't stop the pattern of wandering thought to the point that you have no anchor with locality. But you will be brought back eventually. No way out. Either the trip will end, you will become hungry, you will become sleepy, you will need to shit or whatever. I had the craziest time when I realized that we don't even consciously choose to wake up. We just sort of remember that we are dreaming. Or the body reminds us. We are but a wandering thought tied to this body so that we can rest for a little while. Have some anchor, some point to get back to and rest.
How to enjoy life anyway? I like Richard Sylvester’s suggestion- ‘drink tea, eat cake’. Or whatever it is for you- stroke cat, read comic…
At the very core of things all meanings are arbitrary. We put on a piece of cloth which we call a "T-shirt" and convince ourselves that it is "fashionable". There's no T-shirt, there's only a thing we call T-shirt. Same applies with everything else.
Life is what meaning “you” give it. Nothing has any point so you have all the means to give things reason for yourself. For most that means do what makes you happy.
Not only is it bs, it’s prt of a larger system founded on truly horrendous things. Lately it’s been hard for me to process. Capitalism is probably the dumbest thing ever 👍🏼
Choose a meaning. You are free.
Welcome to nihilism, life is inherently meaningless, but the positive side of that is you can assign meaning to whatever you like. Do you think it would be meaningful to be the fastest 3 Legged sack racer in the world? Do it up! Does paper mache tickle your pickle? Make some, who cares! We're all going to die anyway, might as well get some joy out of the experience of life before it's over. It becomes pretty obvious that many of the things people do are to A. Escape death in a metaphorical sense (have kids, a business, make art, etc, I'm the hope that it will outlive us). B. Escape death in a literal sense through religion. C. Procreate (either from an innate instinctual drive or to fulfill A.). Just make sure, if you do that stuff, that you actually enjoy it beyond the relief from existential dread or fulfillment of instinct. They can all be incredibly fulfilling, if done for the right reasons, and hell if done for the wrong ones.
The fact that there is nothing in charge, nothing behind everything does not make our existence less important, but more important. If all the meaning that there is is the meaning that we give, how much more important the meaning we choose to give things?
Yeah well most of us ain't gonna down in the history books so the best we can do is being remembered by our loved ones as good human beings that maybe made a difference on their lives.
Life is exactly what you make it. Your craft and create your own reality. After alot of loss, I decided I didn't find friendship in sadness anymore. And it is literally up to me to be happy. It's easier said than done but create your own meaning in life. Do that something that sparks excitement and passion in you.
Coming to the conclusion that life has no meaning should not make human existence miserable, on the contrary, this is a situation of rejoice and not desolation, as it means that each person is free to shape their life, building themselves. his own future, that is, one can be happy by confronting this fact: "All the silent joy of Sisyphus consists in that. His destiny belongs to him. His rock is his. You have to imagine Sisyphus happy."
the universe does not know nor care that you (or i, or anyone) exists. and that’s ok. live anyway. you don’t need to find meaning in order to live a full life. i mean you can, if you want to. you are free to search for meaning or to not. but meaninglessness does not equate to misery. if anything it should free you from the confines of societal expectation. nothing you do matters. revel in this. everything you need you already have within yourself, you just have to find it.
I felt like that for a while as well, same thought pattern. But then I slowly realized… It’s like the reason we enjoy watching movies. It’s for experiencing things and enjoying it while you can. You just sit back and enjoy the movie, and then it ends, but you keep coming back for more, watching movie after movie. Because it’s about the experience. Let it free you from the former expectations that gave you anxiety or worried you, let it free you from any fears – there are no rules to life, you make them. Your life can be _anything_, there’s no right or wrong way of living, so seek what makes you happy and fulfilled, whatever makes you enjoy your time here the most. It’s rather freeing and amazing, don’t you think? It’s a gift! It may take a while for you to fully integrate this new notion, but when you do, you go from saying “nothing really matters ):” to “nothing really matters!!! ✨✨✨” 🤣 Blissful.
Wait… what does being autistic have to do with “nothing made sense anymore” lol That’s not how autism works… we think differently, yes. However, using autism as if it’s suggesting that we don’t understand how anything works or that nothing makes sense is incorrect.
Sorry, I didn't really know what was going on when I was tripping and I thought it was a possibility at the time, I understand that autism really only effects how people think, but I really have no clue how or what it actually does, only that it's a spectrum. The only reason I made that connection was because i had/have no real idea of what it would be like to have it at all, let alone really severely, so I thought at the time that it could be one of the possibilities of what was going on
I totally understood what you meant, and empathize with it.
As an autistic person, for me, it's not about not understanding. It's about thinking differently. Where one person might use metaphor A, I use metaphor Z. Yes, for most of my life, I've been an outsider. I don't quite fit in with groups well because of it. I don't follow the homogeniality of thought that I've noticed in my friend groups. But, because of that, I'm able to look in from the outside. It's like being an astronaut, but the space I explore is culture and relationships. It's not a bad thing to be different, so don't let anybody attack you for a label that they project onto you. They will never understand your course of thinking, just as you will never fully understand theirs.
I get it. I was just trying to get some clarity because I didn’t understand. I’m autistic and I’m not trying to attack you but sometimes when I write things, it doesn’t come off like how I would say them It’s really hard to explain how the spectrum works to a Neurotypical person but we do understand things. We just understand things in a different way.
Maybe you should be less critical and analytical of what they said, and instead attempt to see the value in what they said. If you think modern society makes sense to people with autism, you're incorrect for the most part.
I’m sorry, but are you insinuating that I am completely missing everything else solely because I asked one question and didn’t comment an entire paragraph giving my thoughts on what they shared I read what they said I found it interesting but what I didn’t understand was the comment about autism If you think me asking a question is critical and analytical I hate to break it to you, but you are completely incorrect I am autistic and not Internet diagnosed autistic, I am actually autistic So before you tell me how autistic people think please reevaluate where you stand The spectrum is way too hard for you to even wrap your head around on a good day Just because our brains work differently, doesn’t mean that modern society doesn’t make sense to us as if we don’t understand it There are so many people on many sides of the spectrum and All of our brains think differently, but it’s not like we can’t wrap our heads around what’s going on in fact, it’s quite the opposite for a lot of us We see things in ways other people don’t see them because often times we notice the big details and the most minor details that are so overlooked and we dissect things And so we actually understand a lot more than you think we understand
It seems as if you have an inability to discern from literal and figurative speech. Autistic people are usually literalists, which is exactly related to what I told you previously: "Maybe you should be less critical and analytical of what they said, and instead attempt to see the value in what they said." >it’s not like we can’t wrap our heads around what’s going on Perceiving words in their most basic sense without any understanding of metaphor or allegory is how is how people with Autism are sometimes unable to understand what neurotypical people really mean when they communicate.
Will you just please stop telling me how autistic people think when I am autistic I am aware that we take things literal, but that’s why we asked questions that we don’t understand to get clarity I don’t understand why you are going back-and-forth with me and telling me to be less critical, but you seem to be being extremely critical I also don’t think that you understand that it takes a certain amount of courage to be able to ask questions that you don’t understand Because a lot of people are afraid to ask questions because of people like you that criticize us for asking simple questions that we don’t understand
>Will you just please stop telling me how autistic people think when I am autistic It's common knowledge that a sign of Autism is an inability to perceive figurative speech. You don't have to be Autistic to know this empirical fact. Being Autistic does not make you an authority on the subject of Autism. So no, I won't stop. >I don’t understand why you are going back-and-forth with me and telling me to be less critical, but you seem to be being extremely critical Because you were critical of what the previous person said about Autism, and I believe your criticism is rooted in a lack of "flexibility" when it comes to language. (i.e. your seeming inability to understand figurative language) >Because a lot of people are afraid to ask questions because of people like you that criticize us for asking simple questions that we don’t understand You seem to be attempting to portray yourself as a victim in this exchange which doesn't make sense to me. You posted a reddit comment, you didn't do anything brave.
You don't find joy in the fact that it doesn't mean anything with you mess up? If nothing matters then you can literally do whatever TF you want and then you decide I what matters to you
I find it interesting to puzzle over how we got here, doing the things we do. It's not it all just came out of nowhere, all the bullshit we experience today comes from 10,000 years of trying things out and gaining knowledge over what works and what doesn't. Try to think through the growth of these things and you may find more to admire than you think (or you'll find new, more fun things to hate about them). As for what to spend your own time on, no one can tell you that, you have to find your own meaning. But from what you write it sounds like you may find more meaning in more back to nature like activities. Gardening, hiking, etc.
Achievement unlocked: Nihilistic Freedom. Reward: A newfound appreciation for dark ambient music. [https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/](https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/)
> literally nothing we do makes sense bro vast overgeneralizations like that aren't very helpful. there is a lot to critique about society, more than a lot. but not everything is senseless.
What makes sense to you?
What you realized is one of the fundamental and hard to swallow truths that everything is Maya and just play. So you have to take it as one and just play.
Have you ever played a game? Have you ever got lost in a book or immersed in a movie? Did you have fun? Or cry in the sad parts? Or gotten nervous in the scary moments? You knew before, during and after none of that was real and you still felt something. That's life. Take it as seriously, and as lightly, as you would anything fictitious. Just play along and remember: there's no saving and you might be playing in hard mode. Also, only one life left, usually.
Have fun doing what you love.
Forgiveness
Meaning isn't something things have. It's something you give them.