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Asklemmy @lemmy.ml
joucker29 @lemmy.ml

How do you deal with a existential crisis?

How to you come to terms with the fact that you will eventually not exist?

Rant: This has been keeping me up at night for way too long and every time I think about it I feel like am literally choking on my own thoughts. I have other shit to do but everything seems so inconsequential next to this. I just can't comprehend why or how the universe even exists or how a bunch of atoms can think or that quantum mechanics literally revealed that the world is not loaded when you are not looking like how tf do you know that I am observing something.

Btw I am not looking for a purpose in life although this may be interpreted as me asking for that.

If anyone has the same problem as me good luck my friend just know that you are not alone.

141 comments

  • Personally I find it’s easy to not fret about it because I can’t control it. Also, I didn’t mind not existing before I was born so I won’t mind not existing when my time is up.

  • Eventually you learn - not just rationally, but also behaviourally - that insignificance gives you a sort of freedom. Even if not solving the most important questions in the universe, you still got to live your life. Your pleasure might be meaningless, but so is your suffering - so you're free to choose one, another, both, or neither.

    Kind of off-topic, but regarding QM: what you're saying is the Copenhagen interpretation. I tend to side more with Einstein in this, the moon doesn't "magically" stop existing once you stop looking at it; it's just that the difference between "it exists" and "it doesn't exist" becomes insignificant from your subjective PoV.

  • I just follow the Mr. PeanutButter philosophy on life at this point

    "The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead"

    Basically stop thinking so deeply about the enigmas you will never understand and try to enjoy the small things in life. A walk in a park. Helping someone less fortunate. Cooking a good meal, etc.

  • The thing that helped me was "let go or be dragged".

    Death will happen whether I stress out about it or not. Stressing about it just contaminates the time you have. So I gradually learned to focus more on the "isn't existence weird?!" than "death is coming". And when you really get into the swing of it, your limited time becomes timeless.

  • I think you will need to make the transition from negative nihilism to positive nihilism.

    Aside from that I don't think I'm really convinced that interpreting the quantum wave function collapse when observed as the world not being loaded when you aren't looking at it is accurate. Even our best explanations could likely be a misinterpretation of what is really happening.

    This channel is great by the way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP6iyVJ70OU

  • I've never been afraid of death and non-existence, I've only been afraid of dying without having done or experienced as much as I could. Now that I've travelled, made friends, made art, been in relationships and worked and played beside passionate people, I feel like I've done things with my time. I don't want it to end but I'm not afraid of it ending, either.

  • Rant:

    I had a pretty intense acid trip once and came to the conclusion that nothing matters, there is no meaning to life, there is only an illusion of free will, and most likely our existence and personal experiences in life will be completely forgotten within 3 generations (almost like we never existed to begin with). I was super duper depressed after that for several months.

    It eventually gave me a different outlook on life though. If it's only temporary and there is no meaning, I can create my own meaning and enjoyment in life. Live in the moment, do what you want, and create as much meaning and enjoyment for yourself as you can while you have the opportunity. Don't worry about what others might think because eventually their existence is going to be forgotten as well.

    The act of dying might suck, but being dead and not existing seems very serene. Sometimes things just sort of end.

    • For me death is what gives life a meaning. No game is fun if you have to play it forever, no quest can be finished no boss is ever defeted. Things need to end. That is how Evolution works things have to change or everything is just frozen in time. The difficulty of decissions comes from their finality. You cant go back to school. You can't go back and ask this person out. So your life might be meaningless in the grand scheme of it all but it metters in the short period of our existence. Does it really matter if you stand up each morning? It actually does.

    • "Glorified Pokemon snap with rougelike elements. Fix your dogshit game, Nintendo"

  • The point of existence is to be happy, not the existence itself. I've found what and who I love and I'm happy. Fretting over something so inevitable feels like a massive waste of time.

  • This feeling has been haunting my thoughts since my 20s and honestly it's just intensifying. The thought of it just sucks and puts me in a very nihilist mind state which sucks too. I don't know, I just can't accept that death is normal and everyone is ok with that, and we can't do anything about it, and one day, I'll be gone too. And I can't stop simulating those very last moments in my mind, and it too, sucks.

  • All this time I thought that an existential crisis was having a crisis about the fact that you exist, not about the fact that you will not exist in the future.

  • How to you come to terms with the fact that you will eventually not exist?

    I struggle with what happens before that. That's the only relief I have, knowing that this shit parade will one day end and not matter at all.

  • Existential Crises Have an End.

    How would you deal with an indeterminate life?

    What if you just continued to exist without end, watching everything you love disappear? Family, friends, trends, places, things. Everything is ephemeral, including you. But if you weren't, what purpose would your life serve? If you had no end? What meaning is there in existing indefinitely? Would you seize the day? Make every day count? Would you just exist without putting any effort in? Would you turn in circles asking yourself why you, what for, to what end if you have none? What would you look like, if you had an infinite amount of time to puzzle over the question you're asking yourself now?

    For me, the situation didn't change. So what if I've got an infinite lifespan? The "Big Questions" are practically the same. When I look at how mind-boggling the universe is compared to me, how huge; how intricate; how minuscule the pieces are; and how (in)significant I am, it's easy to get lost in between. Then I'll take a deep breath, see the beauty of everyday mundanity, and remind myself: I don't need to go looking for the big picture. For me, I should be the big picture.

    There is an ominous, unknown, and imagined cloud, which exists only in your mind. You may go about fearing it, and make the time before the actual storm more miserable. Alternatively, and possibly preferably, you can laugh, cry, and spend your time doing what's best for you and those around you. Not a purpose, just a mindset. And that's my big picture. My tapestry. The story I tell is guaranteed to end, be forgotten. But my decisions, I am bound to live with... for a lifetime. Until the end of my tapestry. Focus less on what is outside your tapestry, unless you like it. You can decide some of the things that enter your tapestry, if you are conscious and purposeful about obtaining it.

    Perhaps a more practical answer is: When you are doing something, do it. Reserve your focus for what you want to focus on.

    You have a finite amount of time in front of you, right now. Question for question, what are you going to do with that time?

  • You are wired to think that you currently exist and that you should keep doing that at all costs, but those beliefs cannot be explained or comprehended in terms of logic, so for all purposes they are false, and acknowledging that has been useful to me.

    Anyway, if your existential crises are very short and intense, accompanied by intense fear and feelings of impending doom, feelings that you can't breathe, then they probably have a physical component to them. It is very important that you understand the difference between regular intrusive thoughts of death and panic attacks that express themselves as feelings and thoughts of death that you might already have interiorized. The former can be managed, the latter cannot, and are usually self-reinforcing and need a combined therapy.

    If you think you might be having the latter (I did for a couple of months), avoid alcohol for a while, and talk to a doctor; you may be advised to take a low dose short-acting anxiolytic drug whenever you feel like you're going to have one (I started with 0.5 mg lorazepam sublingual, then switched to 0.25 mg).

    1. gratitude is very important

    Not just existentially for a chance at being, but just muster as much of it as you can for the people around you, for every kindness shared with you, and for the beauty you get to experience. Even for bad shit that teaches you a lesson you can say thank you. It's literally free.

    1. helping others

    If your own shit is fucked, you might get a little humility, space, and grace by thinking about others. Check in on your friends, find an opportunity to volunteer, donate if it's in the cards for you.

    1. hydrate and get enough sleep

    When in doubt, these two might help

    1. spend some time in nature

    It should feel good to do this, so I wouldn't prescribe an amount of time, but at least 30 minutes of touching grass

    After you have those four settled, I think it's worthwhile to start thinking about how you put your life together. In my mind, if you reach for things that resonate with you and you pursue it by doing things that you enjoy, you'll maximize your enjoyment, miss out on things that aren't for you, and meet the right people along the way. The consequences of your actions aren't permanent for you, sure, but if you live authentically and kindly, you'll affect others positively so that they'll have a better trip hurdling through space. Being as joyful as possible will have costed you nothing to help and, on the contrary, gotten you as close as possible to having your struggles be worthwhile.

    I suppose I just spend less time thinking and more time feeling - smoking life like a loose cigarette from God on a balcony overlooking meaningless and the void. Alan Watts has a very romantic view of being the universe observing itself that never quite landed for me, but you should check out his lectures. They're very entertaining while being existential. Eckhart Tolle is a

    and is a little more self-helpy, but is still a fantastic source of knowledge about ceasing to create your own unhappiness.

  • I sit inside a dark closet and listen to whale song. I also sometimes say that the awareness of our inevitable death is the only reason for why we enjoy life. While I'm still here, I want to leave my mark in this world, and that's why I make art. I can't avoid death, so I taught myself how to embrace it.

  • What works for me may not work for you. I've found comfort and freedom from my existential dread on Epicurus' Four Remedies (tetrapharmakos), especially the second one. These are:

    Don't fear gods;
    Don't worry about death;
    What is good is easy to get;
    What is terrible is easy to endure.

    In his Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus writes:

    Get used to believing that death is nothing to us. For all good and bad consists in sense-experience, and death is the privation of sense-experience. Hence, a correct knowledge of the fact that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life a matter for contentment, not by adding a limitless time [to life] but by removing the longing for immortality. For there is nothing fearful in life for one who has grasped that there is nothing fearful in the absence of life. Thus, he is a fool who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful when it is still to come. For that which while present causes no distress causes unnecessary pain when merely anticipated. So death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist. Therefore, it is relevant neither to the living nor to the dead, since it does not affect the former, and the latter do not exist.

    The gist of this passage is that worrying about death is misguided. Death is not a state of being. As such, our sense of self only exists while we're alive. In this Principle Doctrines, Epicurus says:

    Death is nothing to us. For what has been dissolved has no sense-experience, and what has no sense-experience is nothing to us.

    To be you have to experience. And death marks when we no longer have any sense-experience. This understanding of death is like a dreamless night from which we never awake, says Socrates in Plato's Apology. Seen in this light, Epicurus is right that it is a bit foolish to suffer in life from fearing a state of being where there won't be anybody to suffer whatsoever. The existential dread is precisely this misguided fear.

    Once you recognize the truth of this statement, just like magic, poof, that existential dread disappears. Of course, if you have a religious view that postulates life after death, with all the subsequent very human drama entailed by that belief, you're now dealing with a different kind of fear. And that fear is precisely what Epicurus addresses in his first remedy, Don't fear gods. His reasoning is also clear cut here.

    By definition a God is perfect. It's immortal and has no needs. Because of this, any god has no worries. As such, gods, by definition, don't care about us. Caring about us implies they have some sort of need, thus rendering them less godlike.

    This ties with the second remedy. The cherry on top is to simply remember this: just as we never worry with the time before we were born, it's also silly to worry about the time after we are gone.

141 comments