I’m pushing half a century in an industry that is not kind to old guys. I try to fend it off but every now and then it hits me. I’m pretty sure this is not unique to my life experience, or it wouldn’t have a term :-)
I think it’s a natural part of growing/waking up to the fact that, despite what we are all told from birth, there actually is no “point” to any of it. At all.
The challenge is to flip our perception to appreciate how wonderfully liberating this is.
Many people get it, it is quite normal, I think. The trick to avoid is to practice mental hygiene - don’t let the shit come in. Ponder over things that you can influence, be a kind person and help others. That way you see the world in a better light and it’s good for your sleep. You won’t solve the problems of humankind anyway. And get out of industries that aren’t kind to the elder.
See this is amusing to me since im not even American. I dont really care that much about dunking on libs to be honest. I will fully admit that some of my comrades (its a nice gender neutral word) on hexbear like dunking on libs a lot…maybe even a bit to much. If you want to have a nice polite conversation about anything my dms are open or we can have it here.
I think about how the fuck are we here when there should be nothing… and even nothing needs to exist somewhere… like beyond cosmic insignificance. Then I vape some weed and play games online.
I suspect I’ve undiagnosed manic-depressive disorder, but either way I get heavy existential dread for 1-4 weeks straight, then reoccurring again in 1-3 months. I also get similar pressure from my industry. So I do feel you :(
Almost Daily. It’s a manifestation of my persistent melancholic depression. At some point, at least once almost every day, I’ll spend some time more or less paralyzed thinking about strangelets or meteor strikes or other shit that can wipe out the world and there’s nothing we can do about it. I’ll then go looking for more reasons to just not bother living if I can get off the couch.
Very rarely. Cosmic insignificance, radical freedom, the impossibility to establish or confirm ultimate Truth, and the socially constructed nature of most of our subjective realities did feel overwhelming to me when I was younger. As I’ve sat with these inescapable realities over the years they’re as much facts of life to me as my inevitable death. These are things which are completely outside of my control, so I just accept them as aspects of my reality and worry about what my limited self can affect for myself and those around me. By chance, my being is a somewhat self-aware mind in a human body so I’d like to experience being that for as long as I can. I try to help others out when I can as well. I would like to see us move toward a fair and just global society for mankind, but that’s not something any individual knows how to execute or probably is capable of executing. I’m not responsible for the success of that project and really no one can be, but I want that to happen so I try to contribute because that’s literally the most I’m capable of. For my physical self, either I can survive using the resources and skills I’ve accumulated over my lifetime in whatever context my world goes or I can’t. If I can’t survive, then I’m not going to be worried about anything after I’m dead so the prospect of my death doesn’t really bother me and never has.
In my early twenties it was nearly constant. It’s subsided greatly since then. At a certain point I think I just accepted that “there is no meaning, so it’s ok”.
So once you get there, and you start understanding capitalism, then that takes over as the most all consuming topic.
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