xavierw

Hello Rain Man, You searched the reason to live, and when couldn't find one, assumed there's no point to live. That's a common mistake. Albert Camus talks about this in his book "The Myth of Sisyphus : And Other Essays", in the chapter called "Absurtidy and suicide". He suggests that concluding life has no meaning does not necessarily suggest we should end them. I recommend that article. It doesn't try to give a reason to life, but instead talks about living without one. I was once in your place. It was about 7 years ago, and I found no reason to live. I didn't know how to continue living, but I did. And looking back after 7 years, it was not so hard. Also, in this long period, I've had my share of good days. Not too many, but enough for me to know I've made the right decision. When I realized I had no meaning, I couldn't find any reason to stay alive. Sure, I was affraid of hurting my family by commiting suicide, but it didn't seem to be enough. But life is more complex than that. We develop the instinct of survival long before we learn to think and search for reasons. thereforeeee, the instinct of survival is rather strong. So eventually I said "screw it, so there's no reason. who cares". That was not as easy as it sounds. It took me years to be able to call what I do every day "living". But looking back - it was not that hard. It always looks harder during than after. They tell us from childhood we must plan our future, accomplish this and that, aim for the stars, etc. - but if life has no meaning, none of this can be justified. Turns out we don't HAVE TO do anything. But it doesn't mean we can't. So how do I live without a reason, you might ask. Well, first, I am curious. I am curious to see what will happen next, I am curious to learn more things, I am curious to meet new people with new ideas, etc. - curiosity doesn't sound like much, but it is a very powerful motive. Second, there's the force of habbit. After living with no reason for enough time, you just get used to it. It seems almost natural. You don't wake up every morning trying to find a reason, you just wake up. Don't get me wrong here - they say "time makes it better" - I don't say that. Time doesn't make things better, but it does help you getting used to things as they are. I can give you a magic solution, but I can give you some tips I follow: 1) make small steps. without a purpose, it is sometimes hard to justify big changes. so go for the small ones. those which requires little effort, and are easy to accomplish. walking in little steps is a perfectly good way of moving forward. 2) don't depend on others too much. like you said, people sometimes run away. that's why depending on them could get you disappointed. always be careful not to depend on anyone too much. 3) don't go telling everyone we have no reason to live. people don't like to know that, or don't like to me reminded of that. people don't like thinking of big issues that can shake their lives. you can talk to them about so many other issues, just to pass time, but leave the problematic topics out. there are people like you out there. some are here on this forum. you can always talk to us about the real issues. this advice has a big advantage - you can get what you want more easily, as people respond better when you don't scare them. don't think of it as being artificial - it is just that most people don't like addressing issues that cause them pain. 4) Enjoy the little things in life - like listening to music, reading, watching movies, playing games, sports, etc. - sure, none of them have any meaning, but they can still bring you a little bit of joy. Each of them on its own doesn't help much, but combined together can do the trick. You'll be amazed of how fast time flies when you're doing things. You said you don't like people, but you're missing something here - not every one is like you described. As I already mentioned, most people don't like discussing the "big issues", sometimes because it scares them or make them uncomfortable. I understand that, and accept that. I also know that there are enough people that like you and me do think of "big issues". It is just harder to find them. But you can still find them, and talk to them. The internet is really helping that today, as you can find such people more easily. As for the relation between pain and the lack of meaning of life - people often associate the two together. It is a false association. Sure, many people start looking for a reason because they are or were in pain, but that is only the trigger. I can understand what you mean when you say you are not unhappy. Someone I knew once told me I would have been better off if I were a "stupid little man". I didn't understand that at first. Then I did - if I didn't think so much, I would have tried to find a reason, and surely wouldn't fail finding one. thereforeeee, maybe I would be better off. But today - I disagree. I know you can't understand that now, but in a few years you'll realize it is better to know there is no reason than not knowing. It will take time - believe me, but one day you'll look back and realize - "hey, I've been alive for so long without any reason... wow... Guess I never needed one after all". Now suppose some little boy will tell you "I understand there is no purpose in life. thereforeeee I am going to die". You will talk to him for hours, days, months. Eventually, he finds a job, gets married, have some kids. One day, years after that, he come to you and say "when I came to you back then, I had no reason to live. If it weren't for you, I might not be here today. Now I have a nice job, a great wife, and you know how much I love my children... thanks". Guess what - life has no meaning except for that we create for ourselves. You said about other people that "They cannot help it, it's engraved in their small minds". Lets define the age at which a person realizes life has no meaning. Some realizes that sooner, some later, some die before they do. It seems you give less credit to the people who didn't realize that yet. I have some interesting insight for you on that matter - on that scale, you are better - you realized your truth faster than most. You are not alone. Many have realized they have no purpose, many others will realize it eventually. You have an edge on most - you already did. Now your life will never be the same. Sure, it seems like a problem now, but you can make it an advantage. All you have to do is to accept that. Many years from now, maybe even centuries, people may become fully aware of our meaningless. As years pass by, scientists continue to investigate, philosophy continues to find more insight, and it is very likely that in the future, people would accept their meaningless nature. Now suppose a little child that is educated by his parents and teachers that life has no meaning. Do you really think one day the lack of meaning would seem weird to him/her ? It will be as obvious as everything else. You wouldn't imagine any some child to consider suicide because of that, would you? Same goes for you. Not having a purpose doesn't mean you shouldn't live. It seems that we are educated today to believe in a reason, and so it is harder to live without one. But trust me - living without one is just as easy and just as hard as it anything else. Life's not easy. Lacking a purpose doesn't make them any easier, but it doesn't make them harder either. Our brain adapts to anything. It is quite amazing. You know how when you open a bottle of perfume you smell it at first, and later on the smell fades? Our brain adapts to the smell, and we stop feeling it. Even if we try hard, it becomes harder and harder to notice it is there. Well, surprisingly, it works on anything. Even if you can't think of anything else right now, and can't imagine how you can go on living with this void and lack of purpose, you'll see that year after year, you'll be bothered by that less and less. I'm now ~7 years from the moment it hit me, and I can promise you this - looking back, I can't pinpoint the point in time it stopped bothering me, but it did. Sure - I still don't like having no purpose, but I learned to live without one. Someone I knew had a very interesting view on life. He too has realized he had no reason to live, but he used to say "I know life has no purpose, and that there is no reason for my existence. But while I'm here, who says I can't have some fun?". Life can be hard, I know, but not because they serve no purpose. I'd like to remind you again Albert Camus, who suggested that just because life is meaningless doesn't mean we should end it. There are life without a purpose. I live such a life. Many others too. No reason you shouldn't too. Life is hard - there are so many excuses to commit suicide, yet there is not a single reason to live. Interesting challenge, isn't it? That is the beauty of life, my friend... Best of luck, Xavier w.

Hello Jackie, What you've wrote triggered me to join this forum, and to start working on a web site were I'll list my past experiences, tips, etc. - to share with others. The site is not ready yet, but I wanted to say few things even before that... First, you should know that you're not alone. Many say that, and it doesn't seem to help, but I'll explain. Many people hit the "bottom". When they do, they think there's something wrong with them, and sometimes they break and commit suicide. I want to protest against that here and now. It is a defense system that society uses to protect its members. There is a not-so-small group of people that became aware of the fact that their life is meaningless, and society catagorized them as "weird" or even as freaks. It's the way society protects itself from addressing the issue of the meaning of life. Knowing I'm not alone helped me before, when I realized that there's NOTHING wrong with me - on the contrary - I've reached higher levels of understanding about myself and my life. So life has no meaning. That means we can just die, right? - wrong! there is a third option, and you'll be surprised of how many people live like that. Albert Camus, in its book "The Myth of Sisyphus : And Other Essays" addresses this issue in the first chapter - "Absurdity and suicide". That's a well respected author talking now. As for what you've wrote: First, breaking up is always hard. A broken heart doesn't really heal. People say "time will make it better" - it doesn't. If you're gonna count on time to heal it, you're about to get disappointed. What time does help, is to learn to live with the pain. It took my about ~3 years to fall in love after my heart first broke. When it first broke I saw no reason to keep living. And if you think after 3 years I was better off - I was not. I just kept living. Only to fall in love again and, of course, get my heart broken the second time. That was even more painful than the first time. Did I think about suicide? sure, everybody does at one point or the other - they're just affraid to admit they did, because nobody wants to be a "freak". But the point I'm trying to make here is that people can learn to live with pain. It doesn't really get easier, but you just get used to it. I never felt I'm getting used to it. Only now, writing these lines after about 7 years from my first big break - and I realized I did manage to learn to live with the pain. It didn't go away - give me 5 minutes to think of her today, and I might start crying again... but I've been a live and active for ~7 years now, and had the chance to break again in the meanwhile... As for the very long and terrible chain of events you've mentioned, I can only say I'm sorry you had to go through all that, but I can see a bright side to that - you've experienced so much pain before, you could be easier for you to survive more pain. If you think of it for a minute - someone that gets hit for the first time can't handle the pain at all, intense pain for the first time can be way too much. I know it sounds weird to say experiencing pain can help you, but maybe years from now you'll look back and see how it helped. As for the difficulty to do things, study, etc. - I can tell you that I've left my studies in the middle a few years ago, and that didn't have any big influence on my life. Trying to do big things is not wise when we're weak. I used to minimize my efforts to little things - a little step at a time. Realizing life would never be the same is important. But I'm happy that I have loved and experienced pain - it is better than never loving at all. Since I hit the bottom, I kept my daily activities to the minimum. Years later started working a little. As I earned money, I used it to buy little things that can pass my time - music CDs, books, etc. Money is absolutely not the answer, but it helps in two ways - one, it provides something to do during most of the day. That's less time to think about our pain. Second, we get money, which we can use for other things to pass the time - movies, trips, etc. None of the above really made me a "happy person", but it passed the time, and with time, the force of habbit became strong enough to keep me going. Nobody is strong enough when hitting the bottom. We all have times in our lifes when we feel too weak to do anything. But doing the little daily things pass the time, and after a year or two you look back and say "wow, I have no reason to live, I'm too weak to do anything, but I have been like this for more than a year now!" - and that's something. As for being alone and never being loved again, I too felt like that before. And you know what - it might be our reality. It is possible that I will never find someone that will really love me, and I am always alone - even when I'm at work, surrounded by people. But I've accepted that. There was a point in my life I said "I must find someone to love me quickly, or else I might break" - and eventually I decided not to, and that was a good decision. I've decided I must close up, and live with my pain for as long as it takes. That's sad - I know. But I am still alive. And you know what - most days are not too bad. Some people say - look around you, there are people with worse problem. Technically that might be true, but it DOES NOT HELP. Neither is professional help, in MOST cases. When you're is in such a pain, nothing/no one can help but you. Trust me, you don't have to be strong at all, just decide that you're staying alive, and the rest will follow. Facing the dilemma of suicide before, I thought of many reasons not to - like that my family would be in pain, but eventually, I just came to this conslusion - "screw it, I have no reason to live, but I am going to. Just because". And that's all I had to realize. There is no reason. There is no magic solution. It is just a decision to make. And because suicide is final (no second chance), I just chose to stay. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be happy and then I'll be glad I didn't do it? You never know... Curiosity was a good enough reason for me. As for the future, we are always tought that we must plan our future, and work hard to accomplish our goals. That's foolish. Who says it is true for you or me? What if I don't care about the future? I'll just go day by day, and whatever happens, just happens. Same for the "worthless" - who will define for me what it is worthless? I decide for me, and if I want to have no "worth" to society for now, that's my own call to make, and no one elses. You don't need to give excuses, or to justify your existence. Not to others, and not to yourself. People make this mistake because this is what people always tell us. But who are they to decide for me or for you? Some little tips, from someone that saw they can help: - don't make big steps. they are more likely to fail. small steps are easier. - don't depend too much on others - they can disappoint you when you need them. try to depend on yourself mostly. you're the only one that's going to stay with you always... - try hiding you pain a little when among other people. people don't like other people's pain, and they usually run away. the better you learn to do that, the easier you'll be out there. you always have people like you to talk to (like in here) if you want to express your pain. - be nice to people. being nice sometimes causes others to be nice back at you. that is a good feeling. - be patient - there is no magic solution, nothing is going to change in a minute. In the end, there is no "special" meaning to life. Someone I know once told me - "yeah, I know life has no meaning, but that doesn't mean I can't have some fun while I'm here, right?". He had a point. We are all JUST here. No particular reason for that. Some realizes that sooner, some later, and some never realizes that. Stop searching for a reason. Trust me, accepting my "meaningless existence" was the best thing I've ever done. Sure, you might be asking yourself now "so what is the point of living on?". I can only say why I am staying: - feelings. mostly feelings for my family. I know how they will feel when I'm gone, and I don't want that. - instinct. we develop the instinct to survive way before we learn to think (and experience pain). that's why it is easier to stay alive. easier is a key factor here. - curiosity. I want to see what will happen in my future. plain curiosity is not a lot, but it is something... - force of habbit. - enjoying the little things in life, like reading, watching movies, playing games, sports, etc. - none is enough, but each contributes a little. - don't fear pain so much. our brain adapts to anything. for example, when you turn on some loud noise, it is very loud at first, but later it seems to bother you less and less. that's because our brain adapts to it. trust me, it works for pain too. you get used to it. I really hope that you will decide to hang on. As I've been there before, I know talking can help, so keep on talking... Whatever you decide, always remember that life is full of surprises, and are very interesting (although very painful). And also - the lower we are, the better are the chances of things to get better... and that's plain mathematics now! (P.S. I just wrote this down and posted it, so there might be some mistakes, and a little mess too, sorry...) Best of luck, Xavier w.