Asklemmy

Whenever I'm anxious about something in my life, I take a deep breath and remind myself "none of this matters."

The idea of the universe's indifference can be crushing, and it can be liberating.

My friend invites me to her party.

I have two options. I can tell her no, because as fun as the party will be, I can't handle the fact that it's going to end a few hours after I get there. Or, I can go and have fun, despite knowing that it's going to end.

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.

I can't help you, but I can tell you that if you hold out for a couple of decades, you'll eventually stop worrying about it.

One day, you'll realize that you wake up in pain and suffer through most of the day; that you are constantly annoyed that young people think they're the first and only people to discover or experience things that you've seen people discover and experience countless times - but you are also hopelessly jaded and desperately envious of their naivety and ability to be passionate about something other than injustice. That despite fighting for decades to improve the world, and believing in some cosmic karma, you see evil people succeed over, and over, and have a deep recognition that the world is fucked and getting more fucked with every dollar. When this time comes, the Void will become appealing: a rest and relief from pain and suffering. One day, you will realize that you no longer lay awake at night anxiously fretting about not being alive, but are rather looking forward to it.

Hang in there, man.

Having this conversation with a friend once, he told me what helped him.

Do you remember anything from before you were born? The hundreds of thousands of years before your existence? Did you spend it experiencing nothing all before you finally were born and began to experience something? Of course not.

You've already done a millennia of non-existence. It wasn't painful, it wasn't boring, and it wasn't scary. You're not something that started and will eventually cease to exist. You are something that didn't exist, and then eventually, you did. Sure, you'll go back there one day, but that's just it: you're not going to a new place. You've been there before, and it was fine, just as it will be when you're there again.

Thousands of years from now, someone is going to invent the chronovisor, a device with the ability to tap into the properties of light to look into the Earth's past in the same way people today can look out into the universe and see what it was like in the past. And they're going to see you. They're looking at you right now. Everything you do probably matters to them. Give them an eyecatching show.

Radical acceptance. Do I want to cease to exist? Not particularly. Is it going to occur whether I want it or not? Yup. Is there some kind of afterlife? That's a boring question and I really don't care - there's no way that I can possibly know until I'm gone.

Made a movie about it with a toy company's money.

Remember that the way you are right now doesn't have to be your ending, and you can grow beyond your roots and find your humanity again.

Postmodernist cynicism had it's time in the sun, but now it's time for a New Sincerity: So what if you live in a world where nothing matters, when you've always had the capability to choose what matters to you?

Man, I can't wait until the day I don't exist anymore. My existential crisis is that I'm currently forced into existing.

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 greatest gift is that this life eventually ends.

It wont be the first time I didnt exist

I agree with many here in that I expect not to be any more inconvenienced by death than I was before I was born.

A thought that I appreciate that others haven't mentioned is: The atoms that currently happen to think they're me have previously thought they were a fish or a raccoon or a different person, or whatever, and they will, eventually, again.

Since my life is probably just ripples on a pond, I am motivated to, ideally, make an interesting, pleasant splash. I hope I'm remembered fondly for the brief time (cosmically) that I'm remembered at all.

I also hope (perhaps against reason) that humanity (and whatever replaces us) are growing more compassionate, so that whatever interesting form my current atoms might join next may also have a decent time, and have a chance to leave more pleasant memories in others.

(And hey, maybe there's an afterlife. If so, maybe whoever runs it isn't one of the assholes that the con artists tell us to expect. Or if they are one of those assholes we've been promised, maybe they can be distracted and assassinated. I plan to be ready to roll with it, just in case.)

I was in your shoes a few years ago. I barely ate and struggled sleeping for longer than was healthy. My therapist recommended me the book: "Sophie's World", which is a both a story and also a crash course in philosophy and its history at the same time. Reading that slowly and reflecting on each chapter has personally helped me a lot in being more okay with existing.

With the knowledge that all of the matter that makes up me existed before I was me. And that after I'm gone, that matter will continue to exist as something else.

I just avoid thinking about it. There's other stuff to do. Find a hobby.

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 used to think a lot about this and came to the terms that I just need to enjoy my life now. Not sometimes in the future. I don't want to die with a bunch of regrets. My life could end at any moment so does it really matter.

You read it and might understand what I mean, but you don't really have the same Realisation as me.

This post probably won't have an impact on anyone. But it might. Maybe someday someone will stumble upon one of my comments or posts and it will change their life for the better. That's also why I didn't delete my Reddit account with thousands of comments.

This is already way to long and I need to end this.

TL;DR Enjoy life while you can and don't try to worry about the end too much. Life is to short to live in fear of death

I spent a lot of time as a child thinking about this.

I came to the conclusion that there's not much I can do about it, so I'll enjoy life while I can, although I am going to enlist in cryonics just in case.

You've already not existed before. And then you were born.

Come to the conclusion that you already havent existed for the previous at least 13.7 million years. Now you exist and after that you won't exist again.

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 of how small I am in the universe. We're all just memories at the end of the day, so try to leave nice ones.

I remember that I didn't exist before and that was fine.

A touch of humility helps too... why should I get benefits that beetles and dogs don't?

Life only exists because of death. I wouldn't want to take life away from the world by avoiding something I'm not meant to avoid.

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.

I see this experience as a once in a universe chance to explore. I try not to worry about the inevitable while I have control of the now. Buddhism has a great philosophy on the impermanence of things and existing in this moment.

Just enjoy the ride my friend. You are the product of such a mind bogglingly large sum of coincidence. You GET to exist. There are an infinity of combinations of atoms that never got to have self awareness. You. Won. Now do with it as you will. Life is shit, but it's far better than to never have gotten the chance to interact with the most incredible MMORPG that an infinite universe can scribe on a sea of chaos for you.

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.

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.

I don't know if I ever came to terms with it, the thought of one day not existing has always brought me a level of deep comfort. Maybe try looking at it as a good thing instead of a bad thing.

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.

Try to remember, you have not existed before, this isn't something new.

And the fact that nothing matters means that we get to choose what matters ourselves, it could be money, fame, competence, love. You get to choose what to invest your time in and your choices will change the world bit by bit.

What kind of world do you want to help create?

I just eventually decided there's nothing that can be done about it basically. Doesn't do any good worrying about an immutable fact of life.

Plus that's not what quantum mechanics says.

In order to measure a property of a particle something has to interact with it. When this happen it gets collapsed into a certain state. That's what they mean by observed.

That it is ultimately inconsequential is the reason for me to relax and enjoy what we have right now. Easier said than done, of course, but the way I think of it is this: if nothing I do matters, then it doesn't really matter what I do. And when I find myself taking things too seriously, it helps to be reminded of it. Life is absurd, but it doesn't matter, so why not have some silly fun in the meanwhile?

What the ultimate reality of things are doesn't really matter to us living in this reality. To whatever end this reality was created for, if, for example, we're just a simulation, we can't really know and at the end of the day, shouldn't really care about. It's literally (in both senses of the term) way beyond us.

I actually had comfortable morning. I thank you for yet another fun experience of existential crisis.

So much happened before you opened your eyes for the first time, so much will happen after you close them for the last time.