Questions I have no answers for. (yet?) My saddest realization.

What is your favorite thing on this planet? If you could be anything and live any life, what would you choose? What is your favorite color? What is your happiest memory? Who is the person that inspires you the most? What is the best philosophy on this planet? What ideology is the most realistic or worthwhile to you? Where do you belong? What did the author of the cosmos intend when he designed your character? What role do you play in this story? How does all of this play out? Where do you go from here?

Is this what they call an existential crisis? Anyone else have any similar conundrums they'd like to share?

I was just about to ask you the same question but you beat me to it.

You first then.

a reply to: Nechash

I think I went through this phase in my late teens. Lasted till I was about 21 then I went away on a month long trip in the Caribbean, had a blast, met lots of people, did some amazing things, I really came out of my shell, I felt like a different person. Then I just started living life and stopped asking why, instead I went out looking for answers through experience, just doing, if a question popped into my head I'd research it, not ponder on it; talk to people, listen, read, write etc, just realize that life is about a constant learning experience.

once you start to jumble all these questions in your head, it's really hard to clear it all up and just realize life isn't about questions, it's about seeking the answers.

a reply to: nonspecific

Oh, by all means, after you! ;p Doesn't it seem amazing how certain children are? I can remember being that confident about things back then. I had a favorite color, a favorite meal, I clung to people, I got excited about the prospect of making a firm decision and excluding all other alternatives. Hell, I carried the same dang blanket around with me for 3 years of my life. Other than my glasses and my wallet, I can't think of anything else I keep for very long and those I switch out every year or two. Ok, I've lived in this current residence for three years. That's about it. Is certainty a virtue? Uncertainty has certainly enabled me to dis-spell a lot of crap that was induced in me by other people, but after a certain point, don't you have to stop identifying things as "not you" and start realizing what you actually are?

a reply to: Nechash

Have to be my memories and making new ones!
As for the rest my opinions change with the tides so it's hard to say.

Every now and then though, I experience a perfect moment in time. It's almost like being in a dream where everything slows down and becomes softened. At times I feel I can see the answers to everything and be everything at the same time. The problem is finding these moments, they just pop up when presented with certain stimuli and it's seldom the same thing twice.

originally posted by: Nechash
a reply to: nonspecific

Oh, by all means, after you! ;p Doesn't it seem amazing how certain children are? I can remember being that confident about things back then. I had a favorite color, a favorite meal, I clung to people, I got excited about the prospect of making a firm decision and excluding all other alternatives. Hell, I carried the same dang blanket around with me for 3 years of my life. Other than my glasses and my wallet, I can't think of anything else I keep for very long and those I switch out every year or two. Ok, I've lived in this current residence for three years. That's about it. Is certainty a virtue? Uncertainty has certainly enabled me to dis-spell a lot of crap that was induced in me by other people, but after a certain point, don't you have to stop identifying things as "not you" and start realizing what you actually are?

It almost sounds as if you are wanting to talk about transience. In the sense that all things will pass and everything now is exactly that although I'm only guessing.

I used to have favorite things now my kids get angry because I don't have a favorite coulor, song, time of year ect infinitum.

a reply to: strongfp

I like your approach for sure. It seems so much of these things just come naturally for people. Nothing is written in stone for me. Everyday I wake up and I have to remind myself about the things I need to do that day. There is no routine, there are no habits. It is just really me avoiding the currents that might take me out into the world of adventure again. Too often I've left my home to find myself on a course of action that takes years to resolve and I'm just getting too old for that crap. I'll be 31 in a little over two weeks and somehow 31 is a lot more horrifying than 30 was.

I never expected to live this long. My biological mother died at 24. I was shocked when I beat her record. I did everything I planned on doing in this life by 19 and now I just don't know what to do with myself. I'm just happy there are amazing people out there creating new things for me to experience otherwise, I'd be totally wrecked by now.

One really cool thing, it seems the younger generations are finally developing people that have my mentality. I was hanging out with one of my girlfriend's sisters who is maybe 20 and I'm on the back deck of her 2nd story apartment and she has a huge back yard that stretches to a storage garage maybe 300 feet away. And I say, "We should really install a zip line here." And she says, "Right!" Never before have people met my ideas with enthusiastic agreement. People of my own generation would look at me strangely knowing not to encourage me unless I might actually carry out those impulses.

a reply to: nonspecific

Yeah, me too. I like a bunch of colors. Some I find ugly, but I don't really have one that I would hold up as the apex of the spectrum. There is one exception to this rule: for some reason I really enjoy certain foods at certain restaurants, and if I try to shake it up too much just for the sake of diversity, I'm always comparing the things I'm eating to the thing I could be eating and it diminishes the experience for me. I'm better off in that way to pick my favorite meal at that restaurant and just cycle that location out in order to allow for diversity.

I can't stand repetition in almost any other area of my life. I can't even really stand to watch the same movie or TV show twice. Even after years of not having seen it, it just annoys me seeing it again. That is one reason I really hate modern video games after a few playthroughs. They each fall into repetition. You think about MMOs, you have a dynamic audience and with the age of modding, you can have player generated content. Why not allow players to utilize certain dungeons and quest zones to create their own scenarios? You could make these places instanced to simplify the process, this way when players run out the core content, they aren't forced to grind the same dungeons ad nauseum.

I'd really like to see the creation of a p2p MMO where we can tailor exactly who has access to our experience so if someone is being bothersome, we don't just have the power to silence them, but to block them from our client entirely. Also, this way we can structure the network around decentralized super-users who can act as impromptu servers. This way there is no centralized server costs and we never have to worry about servers going down. The network can self-assort so if one superuser gets knocked offline, the clients maintain lateral connections until they can reconnect to another one.

Ok, that was a bit of a tangent. ;p

a reply to: AnteBellum

I have had moments of coalescence where everything just seemed to fall into place as if the whole process were being orchestrated by some type of conductor. And those were amazing. Rare, but really a sight to behold. This one led me up to an opportunity to get onto a private jet and fly to Australia and that is when I took my exit. I don't need to be an illegal alien in a foreign country thousands of miles away from home. Interesting is ok, but total craziness is where I must employ my safe word.

a reply to: Nechash

It is a shame we need passports to view OUR world isn't it.

I didn't mention that on even rarer occasions those feelings can take a negative role also.

I tried for years to figure these things out. Tried deciding them, but found that doesn't create any integrity. I decide blue is my favorite color, but observe that I repeatedly am drawn to red.
Then I tried simply observing myself, and determining who I am and my preferences based upon what I simply tend towards repeatedly- my favorite music is the one I have been playing most often, for example.
But as soon as I came to the conclusion, then it would change.

So I accept that the only thing I can determine about my inner personality and character is that it is constantly in flux and changing!

Yet some part of me still yearns for stability...Now, I tend to think of it as my body, though that might not be totally accurate, to separate mind and body this way. But it is a description of how I experience this subjectively.

My body has a need for ritual, for movements, actions and contexts that are familiar. To feel part of my environment- that I have a role within it, that my body knows and can carry out.

I found that can be done with some sort of hobby or sport, in which you have to develop basic skills, condition certain muscle memory and reflexes, that become automatic.

I am into horsemanship, and I tell you, I never know as much peace as when I am with my horse.
Whether we are galloping through the forest, or simply walking back to the barn warm and relaxed after a long ride in silence, this is where my body feels at home. It doesn't need the brain to control anything, it carries out the exchanges with the other on it's own, it is in sync with the outside.

Those moments, my mind is silent, there are no thoughts, no internal dialogue, and yet, a knowing of who I am which is rather intense and profound.


I have talked to people who found this same sort of experience in other activities, but always ones in which it took a period of time to develop skills in it first, before reaching that state. When you can play music with an instrument, without putting effort into finding the correct keys, for example.

It is a sense of : I am that from which this song emerges.

The rest of the time, I can go about flying by the seat of my pants with no preconceived notions or habits, and my mind feels free to learn and have new experiences, and that makes another part of me happy. But every once in a while, I need to go back to that ritual, get out the brushes and hoofpicks, and enter my silent ritual with my horse again.

I just started reading an interesting book, "The Dice Man" by Luke Rhinehart, which deals with the opposite perspective- a man who yearns to escape from the mold he has created of who he is and his relation to the world. It is rather interesting and a great read.