Viewing Thread:
"Do you ever feel..."

Do you ever think about life, look ahead at your future, and feel like it doesn't matter bit, like you could live forever or die tomorrow and it wouldn't matter at all.

I used to want to do something important. I realised the only real 'good' anyone can do is by benefitting other people (or 'other living things' if you want to drag animals and stuff into it). Otherwise whatever you do is ultimately meaningless abstract changes.

Well a few years on and I've got disillusioned. People suck. Too many are out there to screw everyone else over for all they can get. Too many would be except they don't have the nuts, or they miss their opportunities. And most everyone else is appathetic and detached.
What the f*** do I want to help these people for? These people who would given the chance screw me over, these people who won't even help themselves. Why would anyone want to devote themselves to these people?
And the few good people? They don't need me.

Then where do I figure - who am I? A little from column A, a little from column B. Maybe we all are. I have thoughts that would put me with the people screwing everyone else over if they stuck around long enough. Or maybe they're there enough but I don't have the nuts. Most of the time I'm as lazy an apathetic barstub as everyone else.

So, we're not helping people, and everything else is meaningless.
What's left to sap from your life? Just enjoy it I guess.
If you do, all credit to you. Not me, not really. Everything is dulled, viewed through a dirty window. Feutile.

I wanted to make a stand against something. Maybe one last push with the last of my will to try to make a difference. Maybe a weak effort to drag myself into the minority of people I can look up to. Maybe just so I can say that I tried to make things better. I think I just wanted to make one effort, just so I'd know I tried.

I don't know if you saw my web site. It may have been lefty liberal whining, but I believed in every word I wrote, and if anyone saw the 'what can I do' section, there was a shot at changing things. A slim one.
It'll almost certainly change nothing. But I tried, I made my stand.

*Checks the last thing from the list of stuff to do before I die*


I'm not saying I want to die. But I'm not that desperate to live either.

Whenever you're ready for me Grim.


Thanks for listening.

I hated my life last Winter

I couldn't find a job
I hated my last year of school and it was waste of time
I became reclusive and had no friends

And now a few months on

I'm on my second job which I enjoy
School is finished and I'm going to Glasgow University
I now have lots of friends and a girlfriend who I all adore

Just got to ride out the bad times

dum dum

That's life though isn't it. One minute intriguing, fascinating, strange, the next minute as dull as dish water. You can't escape the cycle of happines and sadness, of ups and downs. Focus on what you have affinity with and live them to the hilt. That's all anyone can do.

Maybe I'm freakish, but I enjoy my life.
Sure I didn't when I was in my teens, but that's the point of being that age. To live in abject existential angst with a suitable soundtrack courtesy of Leonard Cohen/The Cure/Morrisey/Joy Division, until one day you wake up and think "Heh, boy was I surly".

I dont know whether it's getting older, doing things I've always wanted to do or cheap meaningless sex with randomn partners - but 9/10 I'm a cheerful chappie.

Thank goodness, another cheerful outlook. I was beginning to feel abnormal.

Hehe

A lot of people are feeling like this a lot earlier than they have done historically. What am I doing with my life? What am I going to achieve? What will be my legacy? etc.


The fact is, while some of the most rewarding things are, as you say, to help other people, there are more ways than you might think to help them. Everyone will always be selfish, even by helping other people, you're typically doing so for some moral reward, even if you're the only one who will recognise it. Moral highground, bragging rights etc.

You want to help people? Try to publish something that helps people find meaning in their lives. Write a book, script a play, direct a budgetless movie. Stand outside a Sainsbury's store, and hand a few people some spare change on their way in. Walk into a pub and buy some random person a drink and walk away. Bring some light into people's existence. They'll still be selfish, but maybe they'll want to get their kicks by helping others too.

You can't tell me that there is nothing in life "for you". You can make a living making things that fly to the moon, or scrape dirt off Mars, researching more efficient energy lines, or a stronger type of glass. You can put your mind into a pool of like-minded individuals and strive to create something that benefits the world. Even in old age, the world is yours to take, and it's always within reach.

Reach up and pluck an apple from the tree of knowledge. There's no sin in indulging yourself, and no sin in using your experience to help other people.

What is the meaning of life? To find what you think makes it worth living, and live for it.

Some people have trouble with the idea that "it's all been done before", but people also say that "anything is possible". Well, in a world of infinite possibilities and a finite number of people to fulfil them, there is always room for everyone to carve out their own little piece of history. To me, that's worth living a thousand lifetimes.

Okay I'll let you off.....

this time.

I meant the last line "Sorry for sounding like an emotional sap". For some reason I found it to be quite amusing.

Not the rest, obviously. I'm not a freakish imbecile, you know.

Unbeliever wrote:
> Hah hah! I still appreciate humour!

Um, was that aimed at my post?

It wasn't supposed to be funny. :(

To quote the Fun Loving Criminals, "I want supermodels on my D!"

But, yes. I see what you mean. Hmmm...I better give this some thought before the darkness descends on me.

The only way to get through those kind of feelings is by learning to have faith in yourself. That's not easy, because these days we are all encouraged to have faith in institutions, or in others, but not ourselves.

If you stop looking to others for validation of your life and start to think about what YOU really want, that might help.