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I am in an existential crisis all the time. But not because I want to leave a legacy. If I died and everybody had enough to eat, then I'd die happily and peacefully. But that's not how I'll die.

Someone is going to follow me because they literally starved today. Someone else is going to beat their SO to death. Someone else is going to die because they're homeless and don't have access to resources they need to survive at the very least. Someone is going to be worked to the literal bone and discarded in a corporation's supply chain. And many are going to die because fossil fuel companies are trying to maintain their profits.

Yeah, I'll be gone one day, but like...even I don't care about that. I just want other people to be able to live the kind of life I'm currently living but on their own terms. And it pisses me off and induces an existential crisis that policy ensures they don't.

Some of us embrace the meaninglessness.

Sure, one of these days I’m gonna kick it and within a generation, at best, no one will remember me.

And what’s wrong with that? I won’t know anyway.

So, if life is meaningless and nothing matters and we all die in the end, then why not make the most of it? If all I get are (let’s be honest) a good 60 years, then why not spend those around people I like, doing things I like, going places I like?

I’m obviously constrained by not being rich. But I found myself a job that pays well and doesn’t fuck me up too bad. I actually quite like it. I met some of my friends there, and I’m surrounded by smart, driven people, some of whom I actually look up to.

The other 16 hours of the day I spend doing things I find meaning in. Reading good books. Watching good shows. Spending time with my SO. Writing. Having drinks with friends. Lifting heavy things.

By default we have nothing at the start, and nothing again at the end. Why not enjoy the middle? Nothing needs to have any other meaning than “I like it”. Why not spend 3 hours washing the car? I like it. I like those 30 seconds when I’m done and it’s shiny as fuck. Why not spend 16 straight hours playing a new game with a couple of friends? I like it. Why not spend 10h a week in the gym getting way stronger than I’ll ever need to be? I like it.

I call this optimistic nihilism and I find it quite liberating.

Exist for yourself and the people around you. If your idea of happiness if being universally known, you will never be happy, because every celibrity has at least as many haters has fans, and haters tend to talk louder.

The world is you, and this life is yours. Make it memorable and agreable for yourself and those around you. I'm not saying go be an Indiana Jones and have Impossible adventures, I'm saying make the most of what you have and the ones you are surrounded with. In the end you won't care if the universe remembers you, only what you remember.

"It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future." - from "Dune" by Frank Herbert

Howdy. 56 yo, here. I have ADHD, as well as dystymia. About two years ago, I had a pretty big spiritual awakening, and it's really helped bring some of the things you mentioned into perspective for me.

"How do y’all not just get consumed by how you will be gone one day, how one day no one in the world will even remember you." My grandparents have been gone a while. I haven't forgotten them, the love they gave me, nor the wisdom and values they imparted to me. My high school chum Paul committed suicide while we were freshmen. I haven't forgotten him, nor the time he stuck up for me on a high school road trip to Houston, TX (one of our fellow students wouldn't stop smoking in the hotel room. I was having an asthma attack, so Paul clocked him with one of those souvenir foot long baseball bats you get at the games to get him to stop.)

It's the little ways we impact people's lives that matters. Our existence is impressed upon others in the time we share with them, not by Wikipedia pages, news articles, YouTube followers, etc. For me, my purpose is not stuff (though those Steam Decks do look pretty sweet), nor fame, nor even fortune. It's about finally getting to a place in my life where I like myself, and extending that to those I come in contact with every day. And when the day comes when we finally shed this body, we'll never really be gone, because we'll have made a difference - no matter how big or small - to somebody somewhere in this world.

I wish you enlightenment, joy, and fulfillment. Now and always. 🙏 🕉️

One of my philosophical axioms is I do not want to be remembered by name. I only want the impact I've had on the world to be my memory as it ripples through time. Doesn't have to be big... Raising good kids, planting a single tree, or it could be big. But everyone can't do big things, so take what you can, try to do something impactful in some way as often as you can, something that's in your nature to do.

to preface this, i just want to say i don’t have any mental illnesses or disorders or anything, and so, if you do, this might not help at all. this is just my own perspective on life.

i’ve never personally been very caught up in the whole our lives are meaningless, we are only a minor blip in time, nothing matters in the end, we are tiny and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, etc. i think i used to care somewhat, but i sort of just realized at some point that, even if we don’t matter “overall”, that doesn’t mean our lives don’t matter at all.

it doesn’t particularly matter to me that one day i’ll be dead and forgotten, because, well, i’m not dead and forgotten right now. right now i’m alive and experiencing things and have people who care about me. why should it matter that, in 100 years or so, i’ll be dead? why should that take away from the very real life/experiences/memories i have right now?

same idea with size/scale related thoughts. we are tiny on a cosmic scale, our lives don’t matter because of how inconsequential they are, etc. but like… the only thing i have is my life and experiences. why should it matter to me what’s important on a “cosmic scale”? if it’s not concerned with me, i quite frankly don’t see why it should concern me either.

I kinda don't.

It does help not intentionally burying yourself even deeper in shit that bothers you, though. I try to only consume news and political material when I specifically go for it, because having it blared in my face 24/7 was starting to make it hard to "put down", mentally - and it's not like following politics will give you much of a cheery outlook on life, let alone US politics. That has led to my blocking explicitly political communities on stuff like kbin (which is great fun if you enjoy whack-a-mole).

Do you do sports and eat well? I found that physical and mental stimulation help against depression.

You're pretty young, it's not too late to change the world. I for one teach young people how IT works, which is very fulfilling.

Dan Harmon on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

Some great responses that I can't beat here. But a little more perspective: For me, when I'm overwhelmed, and feeling existential, it always comes back to one thing. I'm trying too much. Many people solve this by giving up. But the real answer is to try harder with fewer things.

For example, "someday no one in the world will remember you". Is being remembered forever actually something you should try and achieve? How about just making an impact in your loved ones lives? How about contributing something to society (like your career) that will outlive you, even if no one remembers who did it.

Rather than trying to make your life what it "should be" , make goals to forge a life that's better for you. These should be realistic steps towards becoming content with what you have. Everything else is gravy. Maybe you will end up talked about forever.

Remember, goals can point you in the right direction, but don't sweat meeting them exactly. Life throws curve balls and you will adapt. Remember to appreciate the moment you're in. Then when you desire purpose, your goals will remind you which way to go.

Preface: I'm not going to pretend to know your situation or circumstances. If you're struggling to find meaning or purpose in life, I've my answers but there's isn't AN answer even if you look for it. Don't hesitate to seek out help if you feel there's anything that you can't get through alone. I'm generally healthy, but I've had a few times I've spiralled through an unhealthy amount of anxiety. With that all said, my answer is below and you can see if it might help you.

For me, doing kind things for other people brings me joy and purpose. I know I can't fix the world and all it's complicated problems, but I'm capable enough to do something that would mean the world for a person, even if for just a moment.

Why do people have to know my name? After my life, does how much money I have to my name, how many newspaper articles are made mentioning me doesn't matter at all? I think about the kind things people have done for me, and I think about how I can pay forward even a small fraction of it. And even if the people I help don't know who I am, does that matter?

The mark I leave on the world that I have control over, are the things I do and the choices I make while I am a living being. That means that if I make a concious choice to improve myself and improve others' lives to the best degree I can, that mark will have been positive. Even if it's the smallest bit of noise in the universe, it will forever have an impact even if no one knows about it.

The world is a sad unforgiving place that you have very little to no control over its unforgivingness. Once you realize this and try to make even the most microscopic pockets of positivity around you, perhaps you will be able to build something that resembles direction.

Donate, volunteer, socialize, talk to successful and unsuccessful people alike. Meditate/be mindful. Explore how other people are feeling without needing to make their problems your problems. Connect with nature. Connect with the man-made. Connect with people. Feel your presence in this world with all your available senses. See everything that IS for what it IS, rather than what it could be. Only from there, begin to look at what you can do about it.

Mindfulness meditation helps me learn to let go sometimes and stop ruminating about unsolvable problems. I really think everyone in the world can benefit from meditating regularly and learning the nature of their own mind. I chose a career that has a large impact on other people. I try to make the world a better place, be a good friend, and treat others well. I don't see a purpose in dwelling on how eventually my existence will be forgotten, because worrying about it doesn't change anything. I had an existential crisis like what it sounds like you're going through around when I turned 30 and it made me commit super hard to being the best person I can be. I am often regarded as a super driven, hard-working person by the people around me now and I grind out every day in order to not waste any of my time on this planet. It doesn't stop time but it does make it more likely I'll die content with my life choices.

I've made it into a newspaper article (nth page, but hey), I've got some websites in the Wayback Machine, even a Geocities page, my GitHub archived in the Arctic vault, even got an article published... so after doing all that, I live my days normally: everyday I wake up in pain and thinking about ending it all, take my benzos and other meds, go through the motions, until it's sleepy time when I look at the benzos and painkillers, take my time to think about whether I have any reason to wake up the next day... and take the easiest path, which is taking my nightly dose and sleeping until the next morning.

What's the point? I may win enough on the lotto to stop worrying, several people per million do it every day.

What keeps me going? Believe it or not, laziness.

Lots of things, important for me is a general support for life extension tech and pushing for a society that will make it accessible for everyone ^.^

However in terms of my actual day to day stuff, I do projects that contribute to the things I have decided I want the world to be like, I make friends by talking about this stuff with others or just more casual things I enjoy, I try (often unsuccessfully, but still) to make progress on specific, concrete things that I believe will improve the world or just my life in some small way ^.^

Some people do just embrace a lack of purpose as a form of liberation from expectation and pressure, some (like me) do not believe in any kind of external purpose but simply decide one or several for ourselves, and some (also like me, sometimes) live at least partially in resistance against an uncaring universe.

Taking time to try and examine your own fears and thoughts and where they come from might also help. This is a learned skill, though, and takes practise ;p

I try to find ways to make me feel like my life has meaning. For me, those things are: Creating things, protesting and acting against injustice (even in "small" ways), telling others about things they did not know before.

Is there a reason why you've stopped taking antidepressants? Asking respectfully, not in an attempt to have you justify your decision, because why would you have to.

Personally I'm an atheist, and thus (by extension) probably a bit of a nihilist - once I'm dead, I'll cease to exist and nothing really matters to me anymore. This means that once I've been gone for so long that nobody remembers me, I've long stopped caring.

I still try to live the best possible life. Because while the world in its entirety may not notice my existence, I certainly do, as does the tiny part of the world I interact with, and I intend to make the most of my time here.

People also tend to underestimate the impact they have one other people's lives. Ask anybody about people who have influenced them, and you will get a huge list. Ask the same person about a list of people they think they have influenced, and the list will be much, much shorter. Until somebody explicitly tells you that you've had an influence on them, it's hard to know about it.

Ever since I've got step kids I can't stop worrying about what they'll learn from me and whether I'll be a good influence or the one they'll point their finger at in therapy session or on true-crime TV one day. So far they appear to turn out great, and every time they say or do something that they might have copied from me, I'm still in awe.

The same is true for other kids in the extended family, students that are unfortunate enough to be mentored by me, friends in need, ...

I'm also prone to worrying about pretty much anything (IT professional with a focus on security - not sure whether it's an occupational hazard or my tendency to worry has steered me to my current job).

Personally I've found that categorising my fears/worries helps tremendously.

If it's a rational fear, it should be something tangible and I can look into steps to alleviate it. Our stock of food, water, fuel and medical supplies f'r instance should comfortably get us through any natural disaster, pandemic or power outage than can realistically be expected.

Irrational fears are difficult, as they tend not to be impressed by the fact that they're irrational and there's nothing to worry about. But I can still try and find other ways to alleviate them. For example when I was a child there was a time when we were piss-poor, and I still worry a lot about money even though we're relatively well-off now and my job is very secure. In these situations I've found that it helps to look at our well-stocked pantry, so that something in my animal brain sees the abundance of food and stops worrying.

If it's something that doesn't affect me directly but still bothers me (e.g. the Ukraine war), is there any way I can help? For example make a donation, influence my country's politics (tough one in 'neutral' Switzerland at the moment), or anything else that makes me feel like I've made a difference?

Also, do keep in mind that most media paint an incomplete picture of what's really going on in the world. Headlines such as "Boyscout helps old lady cross the road" or "today has been a rather nice and uneventful day" just don't make for good visitor numbers.

Enjoying the small things can help. Mindfulness, as in "the ability to appreciate the small and seemingly insignificant things", is a wonderful tool to combat existential dread.

I've accepted my mortality. Something doesn't have to be permanent to be meaningful, my own life included. It doesn't make me sad knowing I'll die, because that's outside my control. I save my emotional energy for things I can actually be involved in changing.

Learning about consciousness and the likely deterministic state of reality really fucked with me for a bit. But with some antidepressants and some time, I’ve come around to thinking of all of that in a more abstract artsy way. Like, isn’t it neat that I was always going to type these words in this way at this time. The thoughts in my head feel real, the feeling of that feeling feels real… and it’s all probably just an emergent phenomenon of a self-management mechanism in our brain. Huh, that’s neat. Let’s see what happens next.

Then I kinda just go about my day, forgetting about how nothing matters. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t matter, because it never has and never will. Shit just IS. Que sera, sera.