Should I exist? What's the point?

1, read The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.

2, I wanted to message you this but what the hey.
I've worked as a counsellor for pretty much my whole life, not as a job, but more as a hobby. I love helping them. Im sure it could enlighten you to help others, you say you already have, try buying a warm jacket and giving it to a homeless man. And never forget, there is far more to the world than a majority of assholes. There is as much as you are willing to explore.

I grew up fast. I grew up hard. I did all the right things, studied hard, loved others, did my chores, and still got #ed over. I've been cheated on, lost EVERY best friend I've ever had, my relationship with my parents has always been terrible at best, I've been in three car accidents that werent my fault and been blamed 100%, I find work to be slavery, school sucked, everythings hollow. There is no such thing as "karma", in the traditional sense. But thats life, sometimes the good get punished and the bad reap the rewards. The wisest quote ever given was only three words: "Life's a bitch."
I have had a number of relationships, but only three what I would call 'girlfriends'. All of them cheated on me. So I understand your lack of trust. I understand your hatred of the world. But you have to pick yourself up by the throat and finish the race.

Your way of thinking is simplistic; life is about winning.
It is not.
Life is about experience. Just last summer I had to deal with my present best friend moving away, life was unorganised, I was devastated. But I thought, I can be depressed and lose him as a friend once he goes, or I can suck it up and make the most of the time left. But the reality never left me. At the same time my group of friends fell completely apart. At the same time I received death threats. Among other things. Then I met a girl who made everything better.
Long story short, she moved away and ditched me, saying the relationship wouldnt work when she lived 4 hours away. I was crushed but somewhat understanding. And then she started going out with another guy. Wow.
I went across the world to visit my old friend who had moved away. The trip helped my head and was great seeing him, but so many things went wrong it was idiotic. Then his girlfriend cheated on him, during my trip, and just he and I returned to my house, his (ex)girlfriend cancelling.
On returning I found my room destroyed and some possessions missing.

Believe me, I learned the hard way, some people just cant win. But I go on. Life is suffering, but suffering is not life.

Now for you. I cant believe you are 34 and complaining about the hollowness of life. You should have learned that 20 years ago. Good that you keep up the struggle, yes we are all in this together, some people dont realise this but you cant forget that. When you give up on the world, you are just another casualty in the war for the soul.

Suck it up man, we've all been where you are. Be thankful you're in a place you can live to be 34, that there are countless others who have walked the path before you, that there are not always answers to a problem but you can come damn close to solving them.

And the sooner you realise what a joke the world is, the better. The world thrives on absurdities and farce.

Finally, disregard what Clearskies said.
Do not put faith in God. Do not put trust in God.
When He fails, you will shatter.
Instead, put LOVE in God. Put HOPE in God. And moreover, put them in humanity.
When you RELY on someone/thing else for salvation, you become weak. It can only come from YOU! I hear so often, "Im merely human, Im only one man." Take out 'merely' and 'only'. Humanity is far stronger than we get credit for.
/end rant

ah i see your problem, as i suspected it's like mine - you understand too much of whats going on around you without being able to effect it in a meaningful way.

You can see the pain caused to others, the injustice in the world and the suffering - you know that free credit isn't free, for each winner there are ten losers and some are born more equal than others -it's all part of life.

let me depress you some more, 'the system' is run by the people that want to run it, these are people who often feel the only way of feeling good about themselves is to be in power - a biological trait i will talk more about in a moment, the group of power hungry people are then cast into battle with each other, who can get the most power and support -alas due to the state of the world those who are willing to go the extra mile are more likely to win. Lies, cheating and manipulation give a large advantage, as Lady Mcbeth said 'look like the flower, but be the serpent under it'

Those loud mouth idiots like Rush Limbar and Sean Hanity or Al Gore and Al Franklin got where they are by playing the game, i would have backed out long ago 'well the issue is complex and i don't want to force my point if others don't agree....' or 'it would be rude to say...' or 'the evidence isn't conclusive' are not things you can think if you want to be a talking head in this day and age. Well ok, people like Mitchio Kaku do exist, but is he really any less of an egotist than rush? while it's true when he says 'most of my friends are nobel prize winners' it still shows ego, even the most robotic of us can fall into the same logic traps, i think i know the only right answer thus i will push it will all my powers.

Before we developed society and morals we did whatever we pleased, in this world natural selection played a big role. the reason sealion males are so much larger than sealion females is because only the males fight, the largest strongest male will father most of the children in the colony while the women would look after the child -thus a new born child was most likely to have had a large father and most likely to survive to reproduce with a nurturing mother so over time the females grew into being able to nurture well and the fathers grew massive. It's not hard to see this translated into human genetics, the big strong men fought each other for control of the nurturing females - hence the most violent and domineering males fathered the most children, the 'brute' phenotype had a survival advantage. hehe so too we can deduce why women so often prefer brutish alpha males to the kind and considerate folk they know in their head they should be with.

I'll be polite to religion and suggest that in the year 0 this form of natural selection ended, however the world was still hard to survive and now an entirely different set of things decided who was more likely to survive - nice guys finish last, sad but true, the devout and holy ones who didn't want to see anyone get hurt joined the celibate priesthood or simply got swindled out of everything and used by the less moral so that their kids were brought up without the same reproductive advantage of say the Medici Family -hehe ok i can't be too polite to religion, we can also assume that the naughty people inside the clergy #did# have kids, sometimes lots of them, they were people who lied to get into the clergy and lied and manipulated to gain power and seduce women. -So cheaters, liers and manipulators now had the survival boost.

2000 years probably isn't enough time to do much genetic damage but lets not forget we are only part nature and the rest is nurture, the society developed with the same form of evolution, evil people rose to be kings and thus the thoughts and words of these people held more weight, thus more people were going to hear them and more people were going to repeat them.

So we see the decline of the human race...

hehe only joking it's not a terminal condition, it's mearly growing pains -a species wide angst if you will. As we grow smart enough to understand the world we learn to harmonize with our existence, many of us now understand the greater power of compassion and understanding, honesty and fairness. We look at that part of us which is animal with disgust, anger and denial but soon we'll learn to understand ourselves and direct our energys into positive things - the problem at the moment is working out what's right and wrong, whats wise and whats dumb -it's not as clear cut as we might have thought once.

Like i said before, jesus had it really tough being the only person who could see the beneifit of compassion, Shakespear less so but still being the only one who could really understand anyone must have been hard, for us today it is much easier -there are millions of us, hehe mostly sitting quietly on computers out of the way. I don't believe in jesus as a holy being but i think when it was said 'the meek will inherit the earth' they saw that although lieing and cheating or cracking some skulls has short term benefits it will be those who help and understand each other who have the strongest team in the game.

So i would say you, like so many of us, are just annoyed because you can see how much better the world could and will be soon but you want to get their now -alas we still have a long journey ahead, you might as well pitch in and try to make it enjoyable.

reply to post by Ridhya


No, do NOT disregard what I said!
God NEVER fails!
Like I said, don't put ALL your trust in man, unless you want to be disappointed!
But(I didn't say this you have to be trusting enough to LOVE your fellow man and even maybe get 'taken' by him, if he/she is a liar and a cheat!
Pick yourself up and go on, helping others!
With God helping you, you can be a REAL help to others! To their souls AND material needs!

reply to post by DezertSkies


As dark as the OP was, you honestly strike me as the best kind of person and someone who is very strong mentally and emotionally. Deep down you must be a very caring person or you could not have the convictions that you express.

The only issue about you that I see, is your perspective. The world sucks and you know it, and I know it, so what do we do with it? All I know is when I constantly see things this way, it brings me down very quickly, and you are accustomed to the results of that.

You know the world is also a beautiful, loving place. "Bull," you say. Well, it's all in the eye of the beholder. When you are dead it won't matter what the social conditions were in your lifetime. You can either deal with it now, and find peace and joy in it nonetheless (and it IS out there, mingled with all the excrement), or you can think and feel however else you want. It does not matter at all in one sense, but in another sense it makes all the difference as to how you see and interact with your world, and how your world correspondingly interacts with you, person by person, action by action, vibe by vibe.

Honestly if I felt constantly frustrated at the world, I would feel like "they" were getting one up on me, that I would be getting gypped from a way of feeling and experiencing that is my birth right. I can accomplish more when I have a more optimistic outlook, even if I might have to look hard to find something that makes me truly optimistic, or remember an eternal truth that gives me strength to go forward despite the weaker parts of me trying to hold me down. People respond to me more positively when I approach them warmly and with a positive attitude, and I get what I want more often without having to ruffle any feathers in the process. A positive vibe about me allows me to "sneak one past them" when a more negative or suspicious vibe would not, but feeling happy and content the whole while, who is guilty? My outlook is win-win.

I realize we live in and are surrounded by darkness. Some ages are like this, some ages are better. As I live and die, I make no distinction as I try to find peace and happiness with myself, and I won't be held back, and I love the challenges we are faced with. The harder the times, the more opportunities we have to be victorious in ways more epic than in easier times. You appear to me as a very strong and caring person already. All you have to do is get on your own feet and take responsibility for what you feel inside your own head and your own heart. It's only hard at first, after that everything is cake.

There is an obvious point here, that has already been brought up in this thread. You're not suffering, you don't know what suffering is. I've been told already today not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I'll tell you the same thing.

How would you feel if you had any real problems? I hate to say it, but you're post is equivalent to my 12 year old daughter telling me "life sucks". Based on what?

Here's what you need to do my friend, go out and get some good ol' life experience. Life purposes aren't handed out as you arrive here, you must manufacture your own. Get out of your own head for a while.

Hey all, thanks for the replies.

I see us all doing things in the most difficult and hateful way possible. There are a million other directions we could go as a people, and most of them involve peace and unity. We simply refuse. We blow stuff up to solve problems, we kill the most impoverished people so the people who own the bomb factory makes money.

And as for "should i exist?", the thing is, i don't participate at all in society. I find happiness within, but there is definitely none outside of what i find when i look within. Happiness is easy for me actually, through meditation, proper diet, and exercise. I know inside that i''ve built a strong being, well capable of what society considers success, but the problem is that "success" is more like $ucce$$, and it only serves as a measure of personal greed. I know if i were to exercise my skill and use my strength, i could easily attain what would be considered a high degree of success. I made over a million dollars before i turned 18, starting the day the thug cops dragged my beaten body out of school in handcuffs and shackles. So much for passive resistance.

My "success" made me feel wrong, it shouldn't be, nobody should have that kind of power over others, and that's exactly what money is, get a million dollars and that just buys you slaves. That dollar amount is just a license to exploit others. I'd truly rather have nothing, at least my conscience is clear. The thing is though, my ideal of personal success is getting to a point where i can drink water from the earth without it being poison. Being able to catch a fish and eat it without mercury, being able to breathe and not inhale toxic air. Being able to have a place where i can plant my feet that nobody "owns" including myself.

And as for not belonging in this society, i just don't get any pleasure or happiness from anything that man has built and has to offer. I don't have a TV, a phone, i don't shop, i buy nothing except for organic vegan food, and have no reason at all to engage in any kind of social interaction. Most people i see that idly engage in these kind of distractions for a lifetime SHOULD be the ones for whom the question of "what's the point?" weigh heavily, but the idle distractions make sure nobody asks any important questions.

And even if i stripped off my clothes and ran nekkid into the wilderness to live like animal today, i'd be hiding like a fugitive from an army of law enforcement trying to enforce things like "you can't camp here" "This is federal land" or some other complete idiocy. Oh yeah, we've set up places for those from whom we've virtually eliminated as "sanctuaries" when we stole the land called america. Ever been to the Rez? It makes the third world look like Shambala in comparison. Reservation land is good for farming dust and that's about it. Funny though how the names of most of the good earth, our cities and places that we stole from the original inhabitants have names from the language of the people whom the white man eradicated. And besides, i'm not a native american so i don't even get my acre of dust to farm.

Originally posted by Unit541


How would you feel if you had any real problems? I hate to say it, but you're post is equivalent to my 12 year old daughter telling me "life sucks". Based on what?

Based on 34 years of seeing greed, hatred, and injustice being the most powerful motivators. And as for experience, i've actually had more than i care to have in terms of that. I'd like to experience a day that doesn't involve mass injustice. I'd like to know what it's like to not be a caged animal. I'd like to not be haunted by the horrors of the kinds of things i've seen and had to do to continue to breathe in a warzone of a ghetto that i grew up with. How much senseless death and pure evil has your 12 year old daughter been exposed to so far in her 12 years on this earth? Ever get robbed by a gang of crooked cops? I did, but i was broke at the time so all i got for my troubles was pistol whipped and threatened at gunpoint.

[edit on 3/3/2009 by DezertSkies]

DezertSkies - you had me worried at first. But lol, 'tis but angst. What can I say? ...You're not wrong. Many of us have been there, although you seem stuck in the pain. Not a good place to be.

...Again, you're not wrong. The world sucks and people act like fools. ...But there's more to the story, and more to people. I believe that one day you will find a few sparkles of hope, here and there, and those tiny sparkles will light your eyes, if not your world. Without pain.

Hugs,
sofi

I don't have the best life in the world either. I know some things about life, society, and existence which would destroy all sense of safety or salvation or sanity you may have left. It's all a damn shame when you think about too much.

Sometimes, you just gotta dance while the world explodes.

Laugh at chaos and boogie to the beat of death.

Because it isn't as serious as our senses make us believe.

I struggled with the death of a girlfriend over the telephone, constant emotional abuse, and terrible drug addiction. There were so many times when I felt utterly useless and that there was just no point to being here. But I could not have been more wrong in my entire life.

You are loved so very very much. We all have great purpose and important lessons to learn so that we may evolve.

Smile every chance you get, help people as often as you can. It will come back to you, I know this very well. The more negativity you project the more you will attract, the more it will overtake you. Its a vicious cycle that at some point you have to consciously stop. Take back control of you life. Be empowered by your strengths and driven by your weaknesses. Use them as tools to improve and learn everything you have the ability to learn.

There is a vast ocean of positivity awaiting all who choose to swim. Compassion, Gratitude, Honor, Respect, Love, Wisdom, all different rivers that run into this vast ocean. We are the droplets of water that form the rivers. Spread yourself as far as you can to learn and grow, to experience all the wonders there are to experience.

Stay with us brother, we love you.

Be in Peace. Live in Love.

[edit on 8-3-2009 by Asmus]

Though its sad you feel that way, I agree with Blanca Rose. You dont seem to be looking for any light to begin with. You've given up very easily. Try doing some activities that make you happy. Paint some pictures! =]

reply to post by DezertSkies

i do understand i don't really wish to be very sentimental the only difference between your thought and mine are that you don't like harming humans i don't say that i like torturing or hurting them but if what I'm getting out of this what i think I'm getting is that you don't like humans but you don't wish to harm them for me on the other hand i hate all of them because of their way of thinking i personally would love to see them burn but for some reason like yourself i am thinking that you can not for some reason light the fire and if that is so then we think quite alike for we have thought

existence is useless i have nothing in this world that gives me joy, happens, or excitement at an early age i have done close to what you have done but after i realized that i don't have the same thoughts as most humans i decided to study them to see what makes them block out these thoughts and what I've found is that the humans have resisted these thoughts at an early age where as for us we have not so we explored them and thought them through and since the other humans have blocked them out there barriers of thoughts do not allow them to understand the thoughts that are second nature to us so then they will never understand the reason why we can not be happy in the living hell of existence or life.

reply to post by Blanca Rose


i can see what you are talking about but you see those people how do have way worse also have hope and to them that can be enough to keep them going through bad times but sometimes there is no hope sometimes you have nothing to look forward to that life has no meaning and no purpose it is just a constant day happening over and over again in the constant exile, humiliation, or boredom that comes with it and there is no hope until you die i think that is what is the difference between the people who have it worse and Dezertskies

Originally posted by DezertSkies
And i've got love, it's just not for anything of this earth. I follow the will of Allah, which has nothing to do with "god" (in the invisible man in the sky sense) if you really understand it.

If you really are "in touch", then put your trust there and keep on seekin'.

Disappointment with not being fulfilled is sort of the wrong attitude. You are right; you get to a point where none of the distractions fulfill you, and yet you are still alive and have to answer to that. But feelings of fulfillment are still available. Pray to be allowed to be a servant of the spiritual forces within you, asking him to use you however he needs you. Listen for what is being asked of you, not for what is or should be given to you. It's sort of a 180 from the usual way of "doing life", but as it is written in many places, there are rewards.

Simply be indifferent to existing or not existing.

Like me. I don't care if I live, I don't care if I die.

In terms of the quality of existence, you will find that it is not your situation, but rather, your perception of the situations that you encounter.

No one can give you the answers you seek. Sure they may tell you to do something and you do it, but that is what works for others and not necessarity is the best course for you. When someone tells another to do something they may experience it, but it is nowhere near the impact of finding out somthing for yourself. For example, i might say that riding a bike along a trail through the early morning mist is just fantastic, but how could you feel the same if you havnt expereinced it for yourself, truly embraced the expereince? Its just words, nothing more. What I would do is look inside myself, feel the truth that resides inside. Take heart, you will find your answer eventually.