Life is pointless

Originally posted by Reddupo
YOU are the point of life. To just BE is the point of life. Your realization has brought you suffering but really it should bring you freedom and joy. I suppose the suffering is because everyone around you is on the opposite wavelength. I imagine this will change in due time.

Exactly how I see it. It's very draining, very difficult to try to live up to the expectation's that we as a society create. Not everyone can get the most Prestigious degree, land the Right type of job, live in the Best area, have the Ideal family unit. (These are the social constrictions imposed in the wee bit of the world I'm from.)

And not one bit of it matters. You didn't ask to exist. But you do, and so why not continue. I feel freedom in the knowledge that I am just myself, an individual, with my own agenda. Jump into society if want, if not; play computer games if you want.

Ultimately, I feel the detachment you feel gives you a greater level of freedom.
If the world feels unreal, you're free to create your own reality.

The way I see it;

You're here whether you like it or not. Thusly, you have two options....

Either live or die. It's really that simple.

Choose to live, you may just work out you have a great gift, people who do really care about you, something to live for, etc, etc.

Choose to die. Well I guess you'll never know.

I used to think like you. I got over it, and started being the first choice.

Now life is awesome. Yes, some days it sucks, some days it's boring, some days it's downright depressing.

Most days however, it's great. Because I choose it to be.

reply to post by morpheusxxz


morpheusxxz,

Congratulations. Why do I say that? Well, you have been brought to this state of mind so that you can make a choice. We all get nudges all the time, but you have been given a 2x4 to the back of the head. So had I, bereavement in my case.
Anyway, I was feeling as you probably are now and I said "God I don't want to die feeling like this." This is not religious in any way, but I did say it in a heart felt way. The changes that occurred since then you wouldn't believe, I have been taken on a spiritual journey step by step towards The Truth. I won't spoil it for you but The Truth is amazing.
So, why not give it a try, what have you got to lose? All He needs is some sort of invitation from you.

Unconditional Love,

John.

reply to post by morpheusxxz


I have felt the same way a couple of years ago... I didn't feel like indulging myself into the illusion and was not doing anything for a couple of months. I was like why do I do this, because at the end this all is just an illusion. Even this body that we call "Me", "I",etc. is not us. But then came the next question then who am I then? I read around the internet and other sources, and it says that it is the universal consciousness. It is a hard concept to accept but at the end you must realize that you are a part of the universal consciousness. So imagine yourself as a cell in your body, and you know that everything you do is a waste and is finally at the end is pointless. and you know that the cell is not you, you are a part of the body. even if you are a part of the body you are unable to say that you are the body. You realize that the cell is just a vehicle, that you have been given. So if you do nothing, the vehicle will die, and you will rejoin the energy of your body... but instead if you keep the vehicle fit and well but realize/learn how to take control of your higher self, i.e. tissue-muscle-organ and finally the body itself, then life is no longer pointless and there is an aim. So to keep your vehicle fit and well you must indulge it with the illusion until you realize your higher self.

It is said that when you go into deep sleep you are in connection to your higher self. When you are in deep sleep you don't dream or realize the time or yourself. So how do you take control of your higher self... That is the question I would like to ask the community.

reply to post by morpheusxxz


I can relate 100% to what you are saying, and have during the last months found myself thinking the same thoughts over and over. -whats the point with this ride?!?

But the other day I got myself a little 125cc ATV, and have been hanging in the bushes the last weekends, having alot of fun on my own ...so I guess you need to keep looking for new moments to enjoy

Some call life a blessing, others doom.
The reality is that you have another 30-40-50 (?) years on this rock, try to find meaning and most important of all, Have fun!

But yes, I do know how you feel...

OP, I go through periods like you described from time to time. (Though I do suffer from clinical-severe depression and am on medication, not sure about your situation.) The feeling is not a pleasant one; you feel like an empty shell devoid of happiness, your life lacking purpose and meaning. Everything feels like an insurmountable challenge not worthy of effort. Mostly everyone around you seems like a robot, completely immersed in things that don't truly matter. Both illusions and delusions abound and there is no escape, even when you desperately need one just to cope. (I too use video games to escape my painful reality when I need to.)

The thing you need to remember is that these feelings are temporary. While they are intense and feel like they will last a lifetime, they really are just passing emotions that will die down. While life might seem - and actually be - pointless in the long run, there is no reason why you cannot enjoy yourself and experience peace, fun and happiness. All you need is that one spark in your day to effect positive change.

In 2007 I was told I had about 18 months to live. I was at the stage of putting together a will, even though deep down I knew I was still gonna be around for a while. But it really focussed things for me. I remember walking through a field and being stung by a nettle and thinking, will that be the last time I ever get stung by a nettle? Everything took on more significance, as it felt each moment in my life could be the last time something could happen to me. Once you realize you haven't got that long you start to appreciate life more. Even the bad bits.

Don't get me wrong I wasn't living everyday as my last, I still had problems coming to terms with my diagnosis, which sometimes were quite debilitating.

I got myself into a rut at one point. I was just sitting around almost waiting to die, then i realised it is impossible to live life in the present if you don't have some goals for the future. As soon as I realised this my outlook totally changed and I began doing voluntary work in my community and saying yes to things where before i would have said no. I decided that even if I didn't reach my goal, I was still going to make the journey to get there. It was either that or lay around waiting for the inevitable. Needless to say my life has improved dramatically, I now know so many people in my town and I get satisfaction from doing the voluntary work, working with young people.

The reason no one wants to die is because there is value in this life, you can't put a cash price on it. When you are lying on your death bed you will not regret spending more time at the office or at work, but maybe regret not making the most of what life has to offer. Spending more time with family or friends, taking the opportunities that come along .

Originally posted by Dark Ghost
OP, I go through periods like you described from time to time. (Though I do suffer from clinical-severe depression and am on medication, not sure about your situation.) The feeling is not a pleasant one; you feel like an empty shell devoid of happiness, your life lacking purpose and meaning. Everything feels like an insurmountable challenge not worthy of effort. Mostly everyone around you seems like a robot, completely immersed in things that don't truly matter. Both illusions and delusions abound and there is no escape, even when you desperately need one just to cope. (I too use video games to escape my painful reality when I need to.)

The thing you need to remember is that these feelings are temporary. While they are intense and feel like they will last a lifetime, they really are just passing emotions that will die down. While life might seem - and actually be - pointless in the long run, there is no reason why you cannot enjoy yourself and experience peace, fun and happiness. All you need is that one spark in your day to effect positive change.

Good stuff, DG. Instead of video games, I read a lot of books - sci-fi and fantasy. When people ask me why I read so much I tell them it's to escape this reality as much as I can. It's not only that this life is pointless, but societies have made this existence trivial and repititious. I can't do the holidays. I just can't! For me, time goes by so quickly that it's like the holiday seasons never end. They just run right into each other. I blink my eyes and all the cheerful smurfs come out saying, Merry Christmas! When the holiday is finally over, zoom! there's that same freakin' holiday and all those freakin' smurfs AGAIN. Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! I'm sick of it! Gotta work. Gotta pay taxes. Gotta celebrate everyone's freakin' birthday, wedding, graduation, anniversary...

Every year is a rerun of the year before.
Every generation is a repeat of the generation before.
Every decade is a remake of the decade before.
Every century faces the same problems as the century before.
In our personal lives we have learned nothing because there's nothing more to learn.
People ate, slept, drank, made love, stole, cheated, killed, and went to war five thousand years ago. Not a damn thing has changed.

The best we can do, the ONLY thing we can do, is enjoy our moment in the sun.

I've read many of the replies here and there is a lot of great advice. The complete answer I found to the question you're asking was spiritual in nature. But as some have said, you will certainly find much meaning through friends and family - through Love. Love is universal.

Some day you could be pulling your Lambo into your 24 stall garage @ your 124 room castle and feel just as empty as you are feeling now.

You could have the best this planet has to offer and more and still be empty if you are w/o love.

Even being in a relationship devoid of love is empty and meaningless.

Love yourself. Love those around you. Love even those you consider enemies.

Your world view will most certainly change and you will be on the right path if you learn how to Love.

Love is a choice. It is not a feeling. Love is something more. It endures.

It's a way of life which gives you hope. It will guide you to the place where hopes manifest.

Originally posted by GmoS719
The fact that you are relying on answers to come from ATS means you have a problem.

This is a discussion site and the fella is looking for answers.
I fully understand why he'd ask questions here and with people IRL.

Originally posted by redbarron626
Now, Pull yourself up by your boot straps. Take a deep breath(or 2)and......

People with clinical depression can't do that.
You can't shake off clinical depression .. which he may have.

To the OP ... Life is either completely pointless OR it has infinite value that we don't know about.
It kinda has to be one or the other. I too am looking for answers to 'why' and 'does it matter' ...

My suggestion to you is to seek someone to speak with .. a professional 'someone'.
Carefully seek out a trained psychologist ... just talking with someone can help sort things out.

Good luck to you. I hope it all works out for the best for you.

Your bored of the simulation? How is that possible we created everything
needed to keep people occupied and to not find out that they are in a
computer generated environment. Is it not enough that we are able to give
you a all you want simulation in your sleep? (Dreams).

Do the things that you have never wanted to do then. Best medicine for a
pointless life is to be out of normal. a.k.a insane. Do what's not expected for
a change and you will enjoy life once more. Don't go killing people though!

I felt the same way for most of my life, but then I had a baby girl and everything changed. Life seems to have more meaning now. It's all about her and no longer about "poor me". Love is not an illusion, it is very real. It offers rewards that make life worth living, but you have to take chances and seize the right opportunities to get past the "illusions" you've experienced thus far. Keep your head high and don't give up.

reply to post by morpheusxxz


Get a boyfriend. If you're straight, and he will be your first boyfriend, look for someone with energy and a resilent curiosity. His presence in your life should help you to use new perspectives to view the universe and the life it has to offer. If you're gay look for one as much like you as possible. And then look at him often. And after him, too.
This should work for either sex.

We make life meaningful, no one else is going to make that for us. Start psychoanalysis, it will truly help you. It saved me from my own abyss. Produce stuff, write how you feel, make drawings, poems, learn to write and play music through an instrument, try to channel that energy you have into something productive. I've found that the really good stuff is made under the influence of strong emotions like love, longing, sadness, euphoria, etc. Before I started psychoanalysis, I wrote everything down in a little book, and it kept me going, I was still suffering, but this was the barrier which was keeping me upright. I don't really know how to say all this, excuse me if it's a little confusing. My main point is, don't let yourself go. There's always something to live for, you just have to go out there and find it.

Be strong.

Just know that you are not alone. You have put into words what many people feel in this life, and especially now at this point in our existence. I can't take your pain away...I would take it away and accept it as my own if I could, just so you could feel some relief from this life. But as humans we cannot operate in that kind of manner. i don't know you, nor you me.....but I just want you to know that I can relate and that some pain is universal amongst those you have opened their eyes but now feel overwhelmed at the heartlessness of the world. The only hope I have is the hope to feel some hope,lol. But for what its worth.....i feel you. Thanks for your words my friend.

Originally posted by Dark Ghost
OP, I go through periods like you described from time to time. (Though I do suffer from clinical-severe depression and am on medication, not sure about your situation.) The feeling is not a pleasant one; you feel like an empty shell devoid of happiness, your life lacking purpose and meaning. Everything feels like an insurmountable challenge not worthy of effort. Mostly everyone around you seems like a robot, completely immersed in things that don't truly matter. Both illusions and delusions abound and there is no escape, even when you desperately need one just to cope. (I too use video games to escape my painful reality when I need to.)

The thing you need to remember is that these feelings are temporary. While they are intense and feel like they will last a lifetime, they really are just passing emotions that will die down. While life might seem - and actually be - pointless in the long run, there is no reason why you cannot enjoy yourself and experience peace, fun and happiness. All you need is that one spark in your day to effect positive change.

I can relate to everything you said in the first paragraph. But I do not know if this is temporary. And tbh I sometimes feel good being like this when I see the crowd running like crazy and knowing that I am not among them.

And my experience with video games was far more better than other things that I tried to keep myself away from reality. Mostly I play role playing games in which I assume the role of a particular character and then make the decisions the way I have had made in this physical reality and shape the journey. Sometimes both this physical reality and computer generated 3d simulation seems so similar. How do we even know if we are living in a simulation since everything we see, hear, taste, smell and touch is nothing but data in form of electric pulses in brain?

reply to post by morpheusxxz


You don't know that. That is just your depressing speculation.
I prescribe you save some money and go across the border for a week (make sure it's not a murder city, it's not all dangerous). If you are truly depressed then explore some vices.

reply to post by morpheusxxz


Life is like art. Looking at a piece of art is done just for the sake of it although a lot of humans will try to make sense out of the work of art, lol. To see something beautiful is enough, the seeing is the sensing. However, the human mind wants to 'make' sense. 'Making sense' is a mind activity, it is an abstraction of what is seen.
Life is sensation appearing as form.

Life is not a puzzle.
Life is as pointless as art

reply to post by morpheusxxz


My friend, life has not the ability to be pointless, or meaningless, because meaning is just as much of an illusion as love, hate, money, sex, inebriation, video games, or anything else for that matter. There's a saying I made up that I use a lot now, believe what you perceive. It seems to me that you are perceiving hopeless melancholy, which is not a bad thing, it's actually a very strange, unique mental state that not everyone gets to experience, something that can be, dare I say, beautiful.

I have come to the conclusion that if there IS any real "point" to life, that it is to spend existence creating. Why? You may ask. Simple. Because creating, even through the most simple forms, a 5 word poem, a birdhouse, a painting, a thought, children, anything, gives you an ultimate power, the power to reorganize the atoms that you so deeply feel are just useless, just as you will be reorganized in death, therefore, albeit reversed, doing exactly what life does to you that makes you feel this hopelessness. Positive and negative, and when these forces meet, the answer is, in that moment, existing, and will continue to exist and rearrange and exist once again within you mind just as you will. Everyone and everything is doing exactly the same thing at the exact same time for the exact same length and reasons, and no one nor anything is any closer to even beginning to know why, because it's subconscious, it's not something we, as objects of the Earth, can grasp just yet, maybe at the end of the year though if were lucky.

I haver been in the state of mind that you are in many times, and hope that I help you come at least a little closer to your answer, and remember, meanings are as meaningless as life. That's the beaty, the dark, macabre futile beauty of it all.

P.S as far as hobbies to help you through it, I HIGHLY suggest taking up an instrument or other art form and releasing these feelings, letting them exist vicariously, allowing them to bother you, yet also be examined and learned from. May peace be with you.

Originally posted by morpheusxxz
For past few months, I have lost interest in everything. Every damn thing seems so pointless. Everyone just run around trying to keep themselves involved with illusions to escape reality. There are many threads on this topic all over the web and I read many, but still I am yet to be satisfied with an answer. My existence does not make any difference in this world. So my death too won't make any. We, the product evolution just simply exist. And if we look at the most basic level, we are nothing but a mass of many atoms stacked one upon another held together by a force. Therefore upon my death all my atoms will rearrange and go back within earth.

You may say that I am going through depression but perhaps it maybe that I am loosing my ability to keep myself occupied with illusions. Yes, I still have been trying to just survive and spend my days occupied with video games the whole day. For couple of weeks, it worked but again today I was haunted by the same question. I have cut connection with all my friends and I rarely meet anyone as every single one of them just talk about money/career/other illusions. Three months ago I closed down my business as money no longer interests me. Heck, I don't even like to eat and sleep anymore.

Many say that life is very precious and one should live a healthy life but still what is the point of this survival? Many say that it is actually the lack of love because of which I think like this but love is a very strong illusion and I cannot willingly give myself into it. Many say that life is what we make of it but even if I get myself busy with something, I will start pondering on the very same thing after a few days. I doubt that anyone will have the answer but still I want to hear your views on this.

Morpheus, you sound seriously depressed. I hope you're NOT on anti-depressants -- those pharmaceuticals just make things worse. Do NOT do anything rash.

Yes, of course the phenomenal world is illusory. And human love (more like emotional attachment) is conditional and unreliable.

But there is another kind of love, True Divine Love, which is the very essence of your being and can ONLY be found by going within.

Have you ever tried meditation? If so, which technique? I would strongly recommend working with a Sanskrit mantra -- the only ones I've tried that really have the power to change things.

Your condition -- disgust with the external world -- is a perfectly normal phase in one's spiritual journey. It's at this point that you must look within.

Suicide is NOT the answer. You can't really die. Certainly, you can murder your own physical body, but that does not solve anything. It just makes things worse. Suicides are often very confused when they die and there is the real danger of becoming trapped between worlds -- unable to die fully and go on to the next plane.

What is your nutrition like? Have you talked to anyone at a health food store? They might be able to steer you towards natural supplements to improve your mind & mood.