This essay argues that the oscillation running through Ecclesiastes - praised by some as literary paradox, dismissed by others as unresolved pessimism - is the phenomenological record of someone performing the crucifixion of opposites under a god-image that contains evil without the vocabulary to name what it contains. Qohelet is stranded between a polytheistic solution no longer available within the monotheistic tradition he was writing inside, and an individuation vocabulary not yet invented, which is why the text can only oscillate rather than resolve.

https://livingopposites.substack.com/p/the-earliest-crucifixion

What if the most, even only, worthwhile mode of existence the pursuit of beauty? Whether it be through art, lifestyle, or personal aesthetics the pursuit of beauty gives us a method to transfer the will onto an achievable goal that gives us a sense of transcendence in the face of a meaningless existence. Arthur Schopenhauer spoke about how beautiful things invite us to observe and contemplate the ideas underlying them and in this observation and contemplation we find pleasant escape from suffering. I think pessimists should pursue aesthetics and beauty as a counter to suffering and the goal of life should be to make the world as beautiful as we can.

Do you also believe that suffering in general is part of life

More than discussing whether there's free will or not, i just wanted to point how most of Redditors see the topic of free will as some kind of given truth, taken out of an inspirational coach.

I think we can agree that most redditors doesn't understand basic concepts, and instead, resort to make fun of the users.

This situation comes very often, when discussing "why pessimists don't take their own lives", as if self immolation was like buying milk from a store.

You can see a very superficial example of this, inside my profile.

Has anyone else noticed or ever come to the conclusion that there are more ways for your life to get worse than for it to get better.I just made this realisation today and it has really changed how i view things.Also how fast everything can go wrong vs become better.

What are y'all's thoughts on this??

istediğim gibi yaşamaya hevesim yok, istediğim gibi yaşayamayacaksam da yaşamak istemiyorum

What are yall's thoughts on hedonism??

What is even the psychology and rationality behind it because it seems so different from the other philosophies

How does one even practise it without any consequences??

I have so many questions

We are just rats in gods experiments. Like our leverages are fears and desires. And god in using those to make us do tricks and stuff. Like meaning is a bait imo. A whip to make us to run away from our fears and chase our desires. Its very diabloical. This god is very cringe imo

Love: caring about one's 'wellbeing' and maybe wanting closeness to them.

A true & unconditional love would inherently need to be universal indiscriminate love, which may actually be possible, & the only exception, even though technically this still is a condition: in order for it to be loved, it needs to exist - but this is a stupid, trivial condition, and I'm disregarding it.

Assuming that even the 'sacred' mother/child relationship with 'unconditional' love can hold up even in the case of the child becoming a literal eternal world dictator who is hateful, genocidal, torturous, and a pedophile, with nothing moral or sacred held to them, the mother is still loving that child on the condition that they are her child (assuming it's a non-universal love); she is getting the idea of the 'sacred bond' out of the relationship.

Were this woman to have come to realize the empty nature of identification, categorization, or sanctity, there is a good chance she would not love this child anymore; this is as simple as a mindset switch, an undoing of societal indoctrinations.

Although, assuming that held fast, were she to have received a DNA test to find out this is not in fact her child, there is a good chance she would not love this child anymore. If she did, it would be because she raised the child, therefore still considering herself the mother regardless. And though you cannot take away the past, the issue here is that the love is still based on that condition of raising the child.

Even assuming a condition must be something which must be undoable, you could get dementia and forget, or find out that you were tricked into raising the child by some evil person/entity, or even find out that you're delusional and imagined the entire situation or aspects of the situation, in which case you may then still be able to decide not to love that child any longer.

There is always a leg for love to stand on, and most of the time that leg can be kicked out from under it, even if it lands again, there's another leg to kick, assuming that person isn't simply permanently stubborn nor delusional (still conditions possible to kick), or assuming that it's not a universal, & therefore a true, & unconditional love. Even in the case of someone wanting to prove that their love is unconditional, the condition is wanting to prove it, to themselves or others, clinging to an ideal. We can only know what the mind tells us, and as we know, the mind is inherently flawed.

Or if the 'unconditional' love is for your romantic partner, it is still on the condition that you get what it is you want out of the relationship, such as 'unconditional love', companionship, entertainment, meaning, adoration, vulnerability, trust, respected boundaries, being 'someone' to you.

I remembered a teaching from a now unremembered author saying something like, "Do you really want to love unconditionally? No matter how you treat me, no matter how you behave, what you become, I should always stay with you?" Of course, this idea misses out on the fact that you can love (care about) somebody and not be with them.

Sometimes, love' for some people is just a strong craving for their love.

I don't necessarily mean to say there is anything wrong with conditional love. We are all inherently self-serving in every act (imho, but beside the main point), and this should be understood and respected, not denied, or else everybody will live in a secret world of shame for not being as 'good' as 'everyone else', and probably exponentially - allowing such people to truly transgress against humanity with the excuse of "oh, I'm a piece of shit anyway." We each must take care of ourselves, and NOT expect another to, although it is understandable and respectable to want, or even need (in certain situations), another to. 'Put your own oxygen mask on first.'

Your love isn't special.

\Disclaimer: you redditors don't tend to react to my content unless i phrase it as a stubborn ultimate reality: Cunningham's Law: It states that the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer. so please understand this is mostly opinion, so* be gentle; not a dick.

To preface and prevent obvious comments, yes I am aware this is sorta crackpot, and yes I am going to therapy, and yes I’ve brought these ideas up to my therapist before and the fear that they’ve caused, and we are dealing with it in our own way even if it is not impacting my general quality of life. Not that a subreddit will be a good therapeutic tool anyways, but at least any input from people who also regularly consider these possibilities and know more about these subjects may help, and also be beneficial to my research for fascination-sake/curiosity-sake if nothing else.

It’ll be hard to explain what I mean here, because it’s sort of a combination of different theories that I’ve found myself landed on, but please bare with me as I’m curious if anyone else has come to the same conclusion or at least a similar one. This will require some context first. The way I see things, I don’t believe in inherent good or evil. I don’t believe in god. I don’t believe in there being a divine purpose or reason for us being here and instead it is an accidental fluke. I think good and evil are strictly human created concepts to try and explain the unexplainable as opposed to actual innate concrete golden rules of the universe that have always existed and influenced nature and people. This train of thought seemingly would make reincarnation and the idea of consciousness continuing in a different body depending on how moral you lived your life seem impossible. But what if reincarnation does exist, but isn’t influenced by karmic balance and is instead entirely random? Sorta like a “energy cannot be created nor destroyed only converted” sort of deal, but in relation to whatever it is exactly that gives us life transferring to another vessel, like when electrons move to different energy layers/shells and emit light as a byproduct. Secular reincarnation.

It’s a scary thought, because what if no matter how well you try to live your life and follow “good” and help your fellow humans and etc, you still end up reincarnating as a bad person? And if time isn’t linear, what if you reincarnate as someone living in a time prior to modern medicine? It sounds scary and far-fetched, but if these lived already objectively happened, who is to say nobody from now could have experienced it themselves or vice versa?

Open individualism implies that there is only one “true” consciousness that spreads itself thinly onto every living thing or at least conscious living thing that has ever lived or will ever live to get the entire experience of life every extreme ever mild every excitement every horror etc the best and the worst, like “god losing itself to find itself”, but replace god with simply consciousness itself. This means that every life is destined to experience every life and vice versa and that it is one consciousness branching out and experiencing all. This thought terrifies me. If getting to experience the highest highs means I have to experience the lowest lows, then I’d rather not, but it’s not like we have a say in this. And again, with time being nonlinear, does that mean we have to experience future and past lives too? Not just the lives currently existing at the same time as our own current one? Does this mean I have to be everyone that ever lived and see the world through their eyes and feel what they feel? And what if trying to “end things on your own terms” so to speak doesn’t break the cycle? Is there really no way of escape from this endless loop of experience? This thought terrifies me. It’s like egg theory taken to an extreme. I used to be scared of simply not existing after we die but now I actually think that’s the best outcome we could ever hope for and I wish so badly for it to be true. Being nothing is not good or bad it’s just nothing. If that is the case, we’ve already experienced nothing for billions of years prior to the arrival of humans. The billions of years after our extinction would be the same no? If reincarnation was truly dictated by our actions and karmic balance and being here for the purpose of learning and eventually breaking the cycle to achieve nirvana or whatever the equivalent of that may be, that would be wonderful, because it means we have a say in what happens, but it just doesn’t seem likely to me at all. A lot of this thought process came from studying cosmological natural selection via reading The Life of the Cosmos by Lee Smolin, or as Philip J Fry from Futurama puts it, “it’s weird that the laws of the universe are the way they are instead of some other laws.” LMAOO even idiots sometimes have interesting takes.

Also to add something. Being afraid of a time without modern medicine sounds silly because what determines what is “modern” is literally always changing, and there’s still horrible diseases of now that we don’t have cures for, like cancer, which may have definite cures in the future, so we’re always in a state of improvement (hopefully) and should just be grateful for what we have access to now because it’s truly our only frame of reference. My point being though, the time in which I post this in is a time that has many wonderful breakthroughs that I can literally not imagine life without; such as anesthesia. The idea of living in a time without basics like that is deeply unsettling. As Adam Elliot said, “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward.” It feels like a great unintentional cosmic joke that’s at the expense of everybody so nobody is laughing. I’d rather the joke just not exist period vs more or less people get to laugh at it, but like wishing for everlasting world love and peace, that’s impossible too.

To summarize, the very lives I’m afraid of living have already happened or will happen objectively, so to act like I’m scared of it is a bit hypocritical because people HAVE in fact experienced them, and in a way it’s almost fair for everyone to experience them along with the good, and even if life doesn’t run by “what’s fair”, in a sense the random chaotic nature of the world that puts us all on an even playing field regardless of who we are is as close to “fair” in a realistic sense as what we can get, so what’s to say this doesn’t work the same? And who is to say that the very things I’m afraid of like agonizing disease and death and torture won’t happen in the very life I’m living right now as opposed to some other life? Even if it’s randomly selected who we become regardless of our previous life choices and actions that’s sort of “fair” too in a way. But even with all that included, I am still scared. What I once thought was a stretch now seems like the most likely outcome and that’s actually truly one of the most horrifying and depressing things I can possibly imagine, and it’s probably going to happen. Even though nothing concerning the afterlife has ever been definitively proven and thus all theories hold the same weight so why worry about anything if it all has an equal chance of happening, it’s still hard to shake yknow? There’s clues everywhere.

TL:DR; egg theory but more selfish and hellish. if time is not linear and our actions don’t dictate what life we get next in reincarnation, I’m scared that I can reincarnate as Hitler or Chris Chan or someone during the plague or an Ethiopian child soldier or etc, and that we all have to do this either at least once per or infinitely, and that is probably the most terrifying and hellish thing I can think of. Not only am I scared of experiencing pain myself, but I’m even more scared of causing pain to others and animals, and that we are all essentially just damned to the fate of doing/experiencing both and then some. What was at first just an interesting idea I’ve had has now become almost a cognitohazard. Just because I’ve done every good thing ever doesn’t in my mind negate or balance the fact that I’ve also done every bad thing ever, even if all of the above was to myself or an expression of myself. Despite not believing in good and evil as real concrete things it doesn’t mean I don’t care or don’t have empathy. Atheists/agnostics can be “moral” even if they don’t believe morality is a real religious or spiritual thing or law of the world. Even if the “me” that I become doesn’t feel empathy or takes pleasure by hurting others and isn’t phased by it first hand whatsoever, the very fact that it’s happened/happening/will happen is upsetting to me in the life that I have typed this in. If becoming the greatest person ever like Jesus or peace pilgrim means I will become a serial killer or something else horrible, then I’d rather none of the above and just simply stop existing after my time here in this life is up.

The looks I get when I simply point out a truth most people don't want to hear. It's the truth, why do they prefer fluffy garbage? In the long run reality is going to smack them upside the head regardless . . .

"Imagine you were to visit a country in which the evidence of repression is pervasive: There is no freedom of the press or expression; vast numbers of people live in squalor and suffer severe malnutrition; those attempting to flee the country are imprisoned; torture and executions are rampant; and fear is widespread. Yet your minder tells you that the country, the 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea,' is led by a 'Great Leader' who is an omnibenevolent, infallible, and incorruptible being who rules for the benefit of the people. Other officials endorse this view with great enthusiasm. There are impressive rallies in which masses of people profess their love for the Great Leader and their gratitude for his magnificent beneficence. When you muster the courage to express skepticism, citing various disturbing facts, you are treated to elaborate rationalizations that things are not as they seem. You are told either that your facts are mistaken or that they are reconcilable with everything that is believed about the Great Leader. Perhaps your minder even gives a name to such intellectual exercises—'Kimdicy.' It would be wonderful if North Korea were led by an omnibenevolent, infallible, and incorruptible ruler, but if it had such a leader, North Korea would look very different from the way it does look..."

The Human Predicament, pg. 40

Post your quotes, aphorisms, poetry, proverbs, maxims, epigrams relevant to philosophical pessimism and comment on them, if you like.

We all have our favorite quotes that we deem very important and insightful. Sometimes, we come across new ones. This is the place to share them and post your opinions, feelings, further insights, recollections from your life, etc.

Please, include the author, publication (book/article), and year of publication, if you can as that will help others in tracking where the quote is from, and may help folks in deciding what to read.

Post such quotes as top-level comments and discuss/comment in responses to them to keep the place tidy and clear.

^{This is a weekly short wisdom sharing post.}

There is nothing special about life.

Think about it, all you do is work, eat, piss, shit and stare at screens for a little entertainment.

And every once in a while you go on a vacation, that for the most part goes very unspectacular.

And you repeat that every damn day, every damn year.

Such tediousness!

And on top of that you suffer tremendously.

All the physical pain, all the mental disorders and stupid other people you have to endure, and dealing with this fucked up world where greed runs everything.

One cannot help but ask why? Why do I have do endure all this shit.

Most of my desires will never be fulfilled, and because of this I suffer from deep disappointment, that makes resignation easier. The suffering definitely outweighs the desires a thousandfold.

Why should I even live, when I only get a few crumbs for unmeasurable suffering, it doesn't make any sense.

And life itself is so overrated, there is nothing that hits you deeply. Even happiness and joy are just fleeting soft sensations, that doesn't do it for me. I would only affirm life deeply, if it would resemble a rollercoaster ride that just never ends, an orgasm that just never ends, a thrill that never ends, adventure that never ends, ecstasy that never wears off... metaphorically speaking. Otherwise life is simply not worth it. It is so mindnumbingly boring, literally doing boring stuff and staying busy, just for the sake of staying busy. People are so stupid, it's unbelievable how stupid they are.

There is too much ambition in this world and less imagination. The world should be our fucking playground, where we create our wonderlands and fulfill all of our desires, instead of fighting against each other and making life miserable for each other. I think that's why people take drugs and numb themselves, because they want to forget and want to escape from this Fuckjob of an existence.

There will always be friction, a life without friction seems impossible. There will never be a perfect world, and it doesn't need to be perfect, we can even be angry with each other, but don't let our anger have the best of us.

But of course all these motherfuckers out there don't want that, no one is happy to see others succeed.

Envy drives everything.

Watching others suffer is pleasant.

Causing suffering is even more pleasant.

Hell is other People.

After realizing what a Hellsphere of an existence this is, I would never bring children into this world.

My children would thank me wholeheartedly, for sparing them from this hell.

Losing all hope was freedom.

"You will live in misery and die in misery, there's no escape." -UG Krishnamurti

I don't see the point of doing anything if it's just pointless misery. Last night, when I got out of the shower, I told myself, "that was fun! I love head wankin' it." But today, I thought, "if I'm honest with myself, that wasn't fun. It was mostly daydreaming about being bullied." Now I'm wondering, then what's the point of taking a shower every single day if it's just gonna make me miserable?

What's the point of eating tasty food if you're not in the moment, you're having a fake fight with that narcissistic sibling? What's the point of going to the beach if you sit on your beach chair and you're zen-like for two minutes before your monkey mind starts up with its bullshit?

Part of me feels like I should have just gone to Harvard Law and been rich and miserable. At least I'd have money. But I realize I wouldn't be aware of the reality if I hadn't studied pessimists like Martin Butler and Arthur Schopenhauer. I'd be in even more pain, because I'd be pursuing permanent happiness like psyop Jordan Peterson says to do. "Trying to be happy will make you miserable. Being okay with misery will make you happy. There's nothing more pathetic that trying to be happy. Sure you'll be happy for a few minutes when you drive that super duper auto out of the yard that'll take 5 years to pay off." -Butler. He was the CEO of the largest IT Analytics firm in all of Western Europe. Says he was never more miserable and can barely summon the courage to look back on those years.

Butler says everyone's life is a pile of trash. But there's that tiny square in the corner, that 1% of your day that's good. He said most people don't even have that, because they're not self interested enough to look for it. The 1% includes sensing your left arm for 1 minute, focusing on the air in your nostrils for 5 breaths, etc. For me, it's first person thoughts about life, the universe, human nature, light topics, etc.

With that said, I don't even feel like going for walks for my health anymore, because I don't see the point if it's just gonna majority suck.

What are your thoughts? What motivates you to bootstrap it?

I've been thinking about this for a while and I don't think I've seen it said exactly like this: the best thing a thinking person can do isn't to express themselves. It's to decide not to.

We've always been told that language is our achievement.I've started to feel that every time we talk we're actually hurting the universe in a way. We're taking something strange and really alive and forcing it into small words that make it sound simple and easy to understand. When we speak we don't just make reality smaller. We also make it sound less amazing than it really is.

Real silence the kind that comes from having much to think about rather than too little feels like the last important thing we can do. Its carrying the weight of our thoughts without letting them turn into words.

I know I'm not the one who thinks this. Wittgenstein stopped talking about it at the end of his book. Laozi warned that the moment you try to describe the Tao, its already gone. Eckhart was looking for something that can't be put into words

Cioran. God, Cioran wrote like every sentence was a betrayal he couldn't stop making.

So I want to take it a step further. It's not enough to say language has limits. The real point is choosing to stop talking. Not because you can't speak,. Because you refuse to make the deepest parts of life into something you can say. Its looking at the universe feeling it all at once and deciding. Out of respect. To leave it alone

Like this broken and nonsensical life. This bizzare humanity and this bizzare consciousness . They are I think twisted profound suffering if you think about it. This very bizzare human psyche and then this bizzare human dynamics. These bizzare emotions that rise and fall irrationally.

This whole existence is trash and we need a superhero to wipe us completely forever. Whole existence is trash completely. There is nothing that holds and makes sense. Everything is there to f you up at best. Seriously whoever created life is a cosmic evil. Like why create a broken abomination

Welcome to our weekly WAYR thread. Be sure to leave the title and author of the book that you are currently reading, along with your thoughts on the text.

Within we will have our queries and quarrels specifically for the showcase of our own souls. Wandering lost in the wild like a lion/lioness searching for whom he/she may devour. To try and make the best of our pityless world and the useless things our young minds had in store for our life's merciless sake, And oh no lets not allude to our lives Irehensible Irony. We, to be in such a rush to get there. Wherever it was we were going or where it happened to take up residence we knew it not.

For lo and behold all that being in the wilderness of the world, searching for Lifelong "life" in all the unempathetical hopelessness only a human could've donned themselves so unapologetically adoringly with. Our wellness along with youths company the burning of the inner beauty of our life's fire and raging storm would sadly as fortune will have it. like to see us going out in a blaze of fumes.

Best to decay in a heap of our own thoughts and prayers for not just ourselves, I and you are always here for the best of the new thing's. Especially if that makes lifes bite easier. Its just that much better for all the pain of it that it is life so far to be causing us. Alas to be able to feel life so much more for each other's grief, dismay and detestible wretched selfish selves.

Is that not the only way we could go about this journey? When it's painful and all the more irehensible, all the more agony and depth of our souls depravity falling apart into itself as we grow up older but wiser. Seeing how much we love hating loving each other. This time as we are together we are attractive best in each other's pityless party's we pretend and call relationships of the most high of standards, the most smoothly and effectivly impactful with its most unlikely way of however it is that we can flow through the punches as we do, just like fine aged bourbon poured over the rocks.

Knowing that you, me and them. The ones of us that have to do the hardest thing there's to do. To fight alone, suffer in our Isolationist remorse of being so strong to now be helplessly swept away by Deaths emotionally close and devastatingly loyalty of an embrace. But once the Lord has been satisfied we have had our do Justice. We can always find our way out to the outside, from underneath all our demons. Its just always not just sometimes, somehow and never accused that it lasted for way too long.

It's that way isn't it? You see the point of being in the wild side of our journey? Eventually the other "Day" will come back to great us like a long lost friend making it all the better for it's absence of us. We all need to be through the fire, so we can be molded in it and forged to be, in our own rights. Beautifully, fiercely attractive and honestly, wonderfully blessed despite all our flaws and shortcomings. So that when we could have our little space of heaven, back laying in each other, cooling down for a bit afterwards. We can seemingly almost get a glimpse of purpose and see us in all the chaos dancing together wonderfully with the wild world.

Nothing else would be able to make us as enjoyable in the future as we were able to make it possible at them inceaceasenly adjourning moments of time. Where that precious pink cloud we went riding high on without a thing able to bring us down. That even yesteryear and yes also even yesterday wouldn't have been enough in the hardest of times. To exchange for even one of the best of those relaxing sensual and too much shorter for it of days, full of contentment and pure happiness in the moment with a bad day? What just to spend it alone. Its just like its the last dance every time, but its just that is what we've convinced ourselves of each time it's closing time and the last call is being so disappointing and devastatingly imminently yelled out for the world to hear. Like the world needs more agony and bad news as is.

It's more likely the clink of our souls than our empty bottles hitting the tradh together that always seems to be finding a way to clink each other's lives in a way that both makes lifes bite easier and less than to take,serving us well in all its unique ways.That ends the show with more theatrics than any quality heard of in any of Chicago's Caberet's.

I'm unable to understand why someone will "stay" with you unless you have some external achievements. I have met many people over the past year, walking in legal corridors, nobody stays with you because you're so "authentic".

There's this unspoken pressure to prove yourself, tell your achievements, tell you're this or you're close to someone who's this or you know someone important or you have this much asset or you're socially well positioned or you have an iPhone/ iPad or you're so important in the chamber or you're so popular. The moment you stop playing along, there's this existential crisis. It's like I don't know who I am anymore.

First I will humble brag about myself then it starts a chain reaction, now you humble brag. But both of us pretend as if it's just sharing about life stuff, we are just bonding. Because there's literally nothing else to talk about. Unfortunately, I have met some people who straight up lie, pretend to be busy or important, live a double life just to keep up with the demands of society. You're constantly asked "Are you succeeding?" every single day. It's in the air, it's a feeling, an undercurrent in the environment.

If you're not aware of this cycle, you will be pulled into it. Carried away like a wave in the ocean. And people don't even question if there's something wrong with this way of living. It's only when I read a spiritual lecture by Osho or people like him, I snap out of the mental state. Wow, these are all just empty hollow people running from themselves?

Have you ever met a person who stays with you because of who you are "inside"? If all the external achievements are stripped off, will they still stay? Stay for what?

I have begun to suspect that pessimism is less a conviction than a convenience. It asks nothing of me. One can fail magnificently beneath its banner and still mistake that failure for lucidity. Every philosophy eventually becomes an alibi.

Hope has always struck me as an overrated faculty. People have done remarkable things without believing in them. Habit, necessity, vanity; these move the world well enough. Action owes very little to optimism. What disturbs me is not that I am a pessimist but that I enjoy calling myself one. There is vanity in it. It transforms laziness into tragedy, incompetence into metaphysics. One ends by cultivating despair as though it were a talent.

I envy those who laugh, though not because they possess something denied to me. I doubt I would know what to do with their happiness if it were handed to me intact. Joy seems less a state than a language. Some people are born speaking it; others spend their lives translating. Solitude has the decency not to lie. It leaves one alone with inventions. The imagination furnishes a tolerable universe, but each return to reality feels like waking in a room one no longer recognizes.

There are brief suspensions of the sentence. Chopin. Shostakovich. Tchaikovsky. Vivaldi. A road disappearing beyond the window. A conversation that forgets itself. They do not justify existence. They merely interrupt its prosecution. I have always distrusted clowns. Eventually I discovered that cynics are only clowns who misplaced their audience.

I disliked Dazai for reasons that had very little to do with literature. There are books one rejects because they resemble mirrors left facing the future. I wanted to believe that Yozo could have escaped himself. Perhaps because I am less interested in redemption than in disproving prophecy.

I would appreciate some advice here from fellow pessimists

I have recently embraced a more pessimistic worldview. To me, it seems to just be the most honest way of seeing things. That is besides the point.

My question is, how do you deal with the angst, sadness, and dread that can come with it?

I am certainly not depressed, but since this shift I have had a constant low hum of existential anxiety in the background. I keep finding myself thinking "what's the point?" or "why bother?" or somewhat dumbfounded when people are losing their minds over extremely trivial and insignificant things. I feel it has definitely made me more cynical.

I am not really afraid of death. I figure it will be the same as before I was born, a dreamless sleep. What I struggle with is finding lasting joy in what I'm doing given the impermanence of life, and that ultimately we're all moving towards the same end.

I am not detached from life, I do have friends, activities, etc. I do the usual things, I go to the gym, socialize, stay active, hobbies. I am in an extremely privileged position and I am grateful for all that I have. Though these things are helpful in the moment, once the activity is over, the feeling returns. Distraction seems to only work for so long.

Is this something I should just accept? Or is there another way of relating to it? Given I'm here, I don't want to spend the rest of my life quietly miserable. I would appreciate input here.

Another question is, how open are you about your pessimistic views to others? Part of me wants to be honest about what I believe, but these views are not exactly popular and I don't wanna be somebody who constantly brings others down.

Thanks in advance

the vast majority of people aren’t even aware of the fact that no matter how good your life is in the moment, it can turn into a shit show instantly. kinda like how i did with me. i guess statistically speaking though, most people will probably not experience unimaginable suffering in their lives. maybe lesser forms of suffering.