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Divided_Sky
Ten ThousandThings
Registered: 11/02/03
Posts: 3,171
Loc: The Shining Void
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
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I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant
#3158938 - 09/21/04 01:22 AM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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This seems to be a recurrent thing and I've made some similar posts in the past but today I am really feeling down. I think I have seen that everything in life is just a hollow dream and awakening is complete emptiness. It's so hard to go on with my life when everything seems false. Our human perspective is so tiny and insignificant and our lives are so elusive and fleeting. It's like being small and helpless in the face of a giant and infinite machine. Our consciousness is strapped into this ride which we cannot possibly understand and have no control over and all you can do is let is run its course. It's like being paralyzed in a way, you are unable to control yourself your environment, all you can do is watch.
Unless there is reincarnation or an afterlife, it really is all meaningless because death erases all that we have done. If the past no longer exists, then how can the present, or the future? And if it all disapears in the end, did anything ever happen?
I feel like I'm going crazy. I can see how tragic and shallow most people's lives are. The only thing that seems real to me is the unimaginable suffering of every being on this planet.
I would ask for some affirming words, but I think there really is nothing that can be affirmed. Life is just a math dream. It's just static and we only think it makes sense.
I've been this way for months now, and although I have changed my actions and life for the better, and although I am a little more comfortably numb, this things still make me depressed and anxious about life. Has anyone else been here? Is there a way out or any hope at all?
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cosmicray
Emaho!
Registered: 07/19/04
Posts: 76
Last seen: 9 years, 10 months
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3159153 - 09/21/04 08:20 AM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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> it really is all meaningless because death erases all that we have done
I'd argue that all we really ever have is the moment at hand. Trying to realize that, way down deep in my bones, has been the best antidote for my depression. Death exists as an expectation in our minds at some future time (and I find that motivating and instructive now! Not depressing). What matters is right here and now everything else is a memory or expectation.
I don't think the good or bad of life, people's lives, affirming words can exist outside your mind. Ultimately you'll be thinking about these things and that makes these things subject to the health of your brain. And depressed brains sure do put the stink on everything.
Have you tried meds or therapy?
-------------------- "If not you, who? And if not now, when?"
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trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3159526 - 09/21/04 11:49 AM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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The more that I feel I come to grips with the enormous size of the Universe...the more I feel that nothing I could ever do will ever really mean anything on such large scales.
I am but one, of six billion humans. One among trillions of individual lifeforms on this planet, which is itself surely only one among billions of inhabited planets. How can such a small part of Creation ever ammount to anything at all?
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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BigNerd
Sociable loner
Registered: 10/31/03
Posts: 4,228
Loc: local elementary school
Last seen: 11 years, 7 months
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3159588 - 09/21/04 12:04 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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You don't have to change the world for your life to have meaning.
You don't have to change the world for your life to have meaning.
You don't have to change the world for your life to have meaning.
Seriously. Do what you can, let the rest of the world take care of what you can't.
Only by accepting your limitations can you find peace. Only by denying your limitations can you achieve greatness.
BN
-------------------- Sometimes karma needs a little help.
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Fucknuckle
Dog Lover
Registered: 04/24/04
Posts: 6,762
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3159712 - 09/21/04 12:34 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Divided_Sky said: Our human perspective is so tiny and insignificant and our lives are so elusive and fleeting. It's like being small and helpless in the face of a giant and infinite machine. Our consciousness is strapped into this ride which we cannot possibly understand and have no control over and all you can do is let is run its course. It's like being paralyzed in a way, you are unable to control yourself your environment, all you can do is watch.
You are falling into a Lie and a suffering. You have been duped
You are not some leaf floating down the stream of life. You are a world all in it's own. You are a planet in a universe of planets. You have complete control of everything around you.
Example- A stranger walks up to you and just smashes your face.
What do you do??
You have some choices don't you??
1... Get up and beat them down 2... Lie there and bleed 3... Lie there and call him names 4... Cry and feel sorry for yourself 5... Call the cops 6... Wonder what in the hell is wrong with that person 7... Get up and ask why they hit you 8... Offer tham a ride home 9...?????????
You see you have many options. What you need to learn is that you are programed to react. You are programed to feel in certain ways.
Just like your questions??
You would be a fool to think you have no control over your world. No you can't stop a earthquake in Califorina. But you can change the way you react to it.
I've said this many times. You are making the choice to believe this garbage.
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altitude
stranger thanmost
Registered: 09/15/04
Posts: 39
Last seen: 19 years, 3 months
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Fucknuckle]
#3160756 - 09/21/04 03:52 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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He was satanist and egotist, but Alistair Crowley wrote these words 'every man and woman is a star'
Think about it. We all have a purpose and a path in life. Like the stars in the universe, there are billions, but each one influences those ones around it. They are all a part of a complex machine. We are simply a microcosm of this process. You are a part of this machine just as much as the next person. Your actions will influence those around you. Your posting here has had me typing for the last five minutes. Thats a powerful influence you have already!
I have felt like you do in the past, but I had to realise that I am powerless in the whole process. Just go with the flow. Enjoy the ride while you are here. I mean what if there is an afterlife? You may come back as a goat. Cool, you get to chew grass and fuck all day. Or you come back as a slug. Bummer!
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tomk
King of OTD
Registered: 09/22/04
Posts: 1,559
Loc: PNW
Last seen: 3 years, 11 months
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3166022 - 09/22/04 05:33 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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"I've been this way for months now, and although I have changed my actions and life for the better, and although I am a little more comfortably numb, this things still make me depressed and anxious about life. Has anyone else been here? Is there a way out or any hope at all?"
I used to think the same thing. Then I realized there was a contradiction of sorts imbedded in this type of thought. If life was really as empty and as hollow as you claim, then it's nothing to be depressed about, because there is no potential there for anything better. It's because life has the potential to be so beautiful and great and intense that the hallow machinations of the masses are so depressing. But this is good. This means life does have meaning.
I think there isn't some statement explaining what the meaning of life is (answers like 47, to protect the children, to serve God, etc would all be such statements). Rather, the meaning of life is a certain sort of experience. I can give examples of these experiences: The sort of communal thing that happens at raves, the religionist contemplating with his or her God, the Buddhist achieving Nirvana, the sort of ego death/rebirth that can occur with high doses of psychedelics, the sorts of religious experiences people with certain types of seizures have, etc. I think this sort of spiritual experience is the meaning of life, but it's not something you can describe to people, rather, it's something they have to experience for themselves. The tradegy isn't that life is meaningless, but that people chase this sort of thing in the wrong ways, meaning they will never achieve any meaning in life.
I dunno. Just some of my thoughts.
-------------------- "I am eternally free"
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Land_Crab
NeuroticPsychonaut
Registered: 08/29/04
Posts: 2,194
Loc: U.S.
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3166545 - 09/22/04 07:38 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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First of all, both you and I know that no one is going to talk your way out of your own feelings. Those are yours. I cannot break down your logic, because, distorted as it may be, you'd be correct by your own assessment that life seems insignificant in relationship to whatever void there is without it.
You may think that there is no meaning or purpose to your life, and I can relate to that sentiment. But I don't believe that it holds up to scrutiny, because you cannot predict what is going to happen in the future of your own life. Nor can you understand the significance of how your own life impacts other people.
I can assure you, however, that your actions are not insignificant. I'm not saying this to try to make you feel better, I'm saying it because it's true - your essay (of sorts) was extraordinary. You have a way with words, and that meant something to me. Maybe this is the reason why I hold such tremendous respect for what people leave behind, even after they are dead. You are someone's happy memory. Any time someone sees, or reads, or hears, or feels something that you created, your life is ascribed meaning and significance, whether you like it or not, or even believe it.
There's no way I can conclude this message other than to say that you are not alone in the types of feelings you have. I slip into a deep depression on a regular basis. It's like the deepest, darkest, slimiest pit of suffering that you could ever hope to claw your way out of. That's why I really go for psychology, because it is the science of the human experience.
This link should provide you with a list of cognitive distortions that affect the way people perceive things. Or, just search for "cognitive distortions" on the internet if it doesn't work. You may be surprised at how true they are.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/cognitive%20distortion
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agr8fulchick
Feed Your Head!
Registered: 08/19/04
Posts: 707
Loc: Stranded in Iowa
Last seen: 12 years, 3 months
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3169665 - 09/23/04 11:23 AM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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You are significant, or you wouldn't be here. 1000's of lives would change if you ceased to exist! Besides, you have an awesome username, so you must be a cool person who enjoys great music, and that means alot to me. You have strangers on the internet pulling for you through this forum. You have never met some of us, and we could be millions of miles away, and yet we care... doesn't that make you feel important? It should
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cosmicray
Emaho!
Registered: 07/19/04
Posts: 76
Last seen: 9 years, 10 months
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3170225 - 09/23/04 01:53 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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"Enlightenment, peace and joy will not be granted by someone else. The well is within you, and if we dig deeply in the present moment, the water will spring forth." ?Thich Nhat Hanh
-------------------- "If not you, who? And if not now, when?"
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KidShelleen
watch thesensations
Registered: 09/20/04
Posts: 88
Last seen: 17 years, 1 month
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3170371 - 09/23/04 02:31 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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It's called alienation, my friend, and most of the world is suffering from it, although you are feeling it more strongly than most at the moment. It is based on the false notion that we are separate particles of consciousness floating around in vast, empty space. That's an illusion.
Of course you feel insignificant when you separate yourself from the rest of the universe and then compare yourself to it. But that is just the point of view your mind has been trained to take. Understand that the universe is not a vast collection of parts, but a unified whole. And there is a transcendent, universal consciousness animating it and it is looking out through your eyes, hearing with your ears, feeling with your skin. Look behind the mask you have been taught to wear and see your divinity, your connectedness. See the divinity in the people around you. See the sacredness blazing out of every particle of existence - including the existence that is you. You BELONG here.
KS
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entiformatie
EvolutionaryMovements
Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 1,043
Loc: miami, florida
Last seen: 15 years, 4 months
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Re: I feel like everything is unreal and insignificant [Re: Divided_Sky]
#3170455 - 09/23/04 02:56 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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the meaning of your life is to give meaning to your life. no meaning exists prior to you. you are your own meaning. you can choose to be meaningless, to float along and be nothing. or you can stir the seas, you can discover your own inertia, perpetuate your own momentum into a fullfilling life.
it's difficult to change the flow of your thoughts. find yourself a nice spot, where you can be undistracted, outside, preferably in nature, and silence yourself. at least once a day. when you do things, do them completely. is there anything you find enjoyable?
all i can say, is that i was once where you are at, not so long ago I found myself hoping that there was some meaning, searching for somebody else to direct me to that meaning. I don't know what happened. Progressively I've discovered myself (as cliche as that sounds), and last weekend was a climatic culmination of these revelations, and since, I've been completely aware of my mental and spiritual growth.
I promise you it's a place you can find. And maybe right now you can't see the value of everything going on, but it comes together (without drugs) to make sense.
-------------------- /opinion .sean
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