Existentialism

What keeps you alive Lain? What do you turn to when things go dark? Do you have a specific goal/purpose or do you try not to question your existence? Or have things never gone so dark that you had to justify staying alive? I'm personally trying to concentrate my thoughts and actions towards a single goal but have difficulty staying focused. Before long, something inside pushes me to more bodily/socially encouraged practices. What about you?

>What do you turn to when things go dark? reading or talking here. >Do you have a specific goal/purpose not overall. I have something I would like to do, but that's not something "holistic" or something. >or do you try not to question your existence? I question it every single minute. >What keeps you alive Lain? Who knows? I don't believe in some animist hypothesis. I'm pretty much nihilist in many senses (although not epistemologically). Objectively what keeps me alive is my instinct to survive and the dopamine seeking. datamining/thread [this entire board seems like a psyops, really. Very pretentious, if not]

>What keeps you alive Lain? fear of death. Even though I know and understand that it is pretty much the only thing that is 1000% certain to happen to me and it is illogical to fear it, I still do. >What do you turn to when things go dark? I binge on as many substances as I can and either spend all my time out partying and soykaf to distract myself or don't leave my house for weeks. It's probably not healthy but it works. >Do you have a specific goal/purpose or do you try not to question your existence? To have as many constructive experiences as possible so that when I die I don't look back and think "I wish I had done x". I don't think having a purpose is necessarily something I take into account, I just try to do things I enjoy fueled by my fear of death. >Or have things never gone so dark that you had to justify staying alive? Things have, but again I fear death too much to actually an hero. It's not so much that I fear being dead more that I fear missing out on something that might magically make my life more interesting. >>6 It's not productive to try to do one thing forever humans are great at diversity of tasks, and as such the brain is better at doing a variety of things. You will never be able to do one thing and only one thing for a long period of time and not feel bored or burn out, even if it seems like some people do that normally they have more variety than you first think (eg, a musician might seem to do only music but really they might be a teacher, a session musician, a producer, studying in uni and working on multiple genres / instruments etc..) Also first poster is right about data-mining/psyops

>What keeps you alive Lain? The thought of my brother trying to explain my death to my little nephew. There will be no one to feed the cat or take him in so he'll surely die in an animal shelter. >What do you turn to when things go dark? Alcohol but I can only afford to drink 50% of the time, which means spending a few days sick when I withdraw and waiting some more days for the cashflow to return. >Do you have a specific goal/purpose or do you try not to question your existence? No purpose anymore. I've done plenty of questioning and come up with exactly nothing. >Or have things never gone so dark that you had to justify staying alive? ...every single day unless I'm drunk.

Nice way of promoting nihilism OP You still can have a meaning in meaningless universe, did you know that OP?

>>15 >You still can have a meaning in meaningless universe I'm of the same opinion, my question regards ways of having a functioning meaning that will keep someone from an heroing. >>9 >You will never be able to do one thing and only one thing for a long period of time Yeah I figured, but I wonder if you can make a conscious choice for a goal/purpose and arrange a value system around it that will give instrumentality to other, regular pursuits, like eating, sleeping, getting a job... Actually I know this is doable for pretty much anyone, the problem is that the adrenaline quickly runs out, the value system crumbles and you're left fapping and drinking yourself to sleep again. >>7 >>9 >data-mining/psyops Yeah I can understand that, do you have an idea of a better place/way of doing this?

>>15 That sounds like a contradiction to me, can you elaborate?

>>15 I don't see how this is promoting nihilism unless one assumes that the questions could only possibly evoke one type of response.

>What do you do when things turn dark I try to go into survival mode kind of just so i can not kms and wait out the darkness till I can think clearly. I make sure ive eaten, I try to sleep, stay off of any drugs. I focus on worrying about myself. Once im not too bad but still bad I usually draw or do school work/study if im up to it. The I can work myself to a better mood. >Specific goal purpose? I want to be a great artist but by my own standards. I realize maybe stuff I draw might not be liked by everyone but id be happy if society as a whole really did like what I was doing. Id also like to be a good person people can feel safe around. I dont really care if people dont like me/want to hurt me/think badly of me so lomg as they dont feel like id ever take advantage of them and they can trust me. I also dont want people to feel lonely. I always feel very alone, so the least I feel I can do is provide myself as someone that will stick around as long as my patience allows me to. And I also want my art to make people feel like they arent lonely. >question existence I chose to believe in god cause im weak minded I guess. I spent most of my life thinking there was no purpose and I never felt it got me anywhere. I realized im fully capable of having faith and clinging onto people I like for my dear life, and if I could put that towards a god maybe it wouldnt hurt so bad when people leave me. >what keeps you alive I believe and have faith in god, but my logical brain says im simply incapable of killing myself. My brains survival instincts are just strong enough so that I will always find a way to keep going or rationalize living even when im at my worst.

It's the idea that there is no objective value or meaning in the universe, but your perception of things that defines them for you. In my current apathetic state, that comes out to be nothing, but as a child it was certainly true, and I believe that someday I can end up in circumstances and feel that way once again.

>What keeps you alive Lain? The hope that one day everything will be alright. Luckily I found a person I can hold dear to me. I know if I offed myself then that would greatly affect them. But otherwise, there's not much left to cling on to. Don't feel like I belong anywhere. Been a pushover my whole entire life. I live to be someone people can walk all over. Genuinely believe I can't amount to anything or be productive. >What do you turn to when things go dark? Technology and 2D. Sometimes studying helps if I'm in the right environment. >Do you have a specific goal/purpose or do you try not to question your existence? No. I try not to but it's inevitable. >Or have things never gone so dark that you had to justify staying alive? Every day I question why I am here. Why whoever is in charge (if anyone) of deciding who will live or die decided I was an ideal choice to include in this world of people who are far more capable than me. It makes me wanna kill myself even more as the anxiety behind never having an answer intensifies.

>What keeps you alive Lain? The next chapter of Berserk. The potential next Fullkawa Honpo (or I guess now it's Fullkawa Ryo) album. Maybe I might see my little brother become something great, who knows? I may hate my own life and its incompatibility with the world, but boy is the world fuarrrking interesting right now. >What do you turn to when things go dark? See above. >Do you have a specific goal/purpose or do you try not to question your existence? I have no goals. Honestly, I think the safety and comfort of this room is suffocating me. I'd let the wind take me but there's no wind to speak of, so I stagnate and end up hating myself for it. Growing up, all the teachers remarked that I was the most brilliant kid they've known -- so much for wasted potential, eh? >Or have things never gone so dark that you had to justify staying alive? Trying to rationalize my life is the default state for me. I don't recall the last day I didn't question my existence, nor the last time I felt happy aside from the latest Berserk chapter today. My reason for not offing myself by now is as stated above, but also the grief that'd befall my family, who somehow genuinely love me despite manifest reasons not to. Here's a quite rare song. https://myspace.com/sonoroustsukion/music/song/-5596642-5397826

>What keeps you alive Lain? I am keep going because I don't want to make my family sad. I am quite useless but I know that my death will make them suffer. Also I am too weak to kill myself so I am still here because I was able to avoid death so far. Sometimes I like to plan and have goals but usually everything I try is a failure >What do you turn to when things go dark? Some of my hobbies and music. When it's really bad I usually just lie in the bed and wait until my mind will calm down a little so I can move and think again >Do you have a specific goal/purpose I have some dreams and goals but I don't really believe that I can reach them anymore. When I am feeling better I work towards them but when is't getting worse I fall into apathy >or do you try not to question your existence? I question it all the time.I try to understand what to do and what to think but I don't even really know what I wnat from life. After many years I believe that life simply have no purpose or reason other then the one which we gave it ourselves but some part of me don't want to accept it and keeps looking for something bigger. It's not healthy because I know that I will never find it. Also I come from a family where all my cousins are quite succesful, have a good job and family and I know that my parents would like the same for me cause taht's the way they see life should be. They won;t tell me that and they fully respect my choices however I feel bad that I am a kind of dissapointment.

>What keeps you alive Lain? My functional organs I guess. But seriously, do we *need* a reason to live? I am so useless that I've had to stop deludimg myself with some meaning or goal. But I don't have any reason to kill myself either, I'm just trying to enjoy the ride >What do you turn to when things go dark? despair Do you have a specific goal/purpose or do you try not to question your existence? Both, but my goal/purpose is something that I will probably never achieve, I suck at everything and my progress meter is incredibly slow. >Or have things never gone so dark that you had to justify staying alive? Nope, I was born and that's done. Nature hasn't killed me yet, and there are worse things happening in the world than me staying alive.

>What keeps you alive Lain? Not being killed, i lack initiative, i phantasize every day about snuffing it, but i never cared enough to kill myself. >What do you turn to when things go dark? Music, sometimes videos, smoking or venting and seeking sympathy among similarly fuarrrked up people, here the most i suppose. I cant cry, i rarely did. >Do you have a specific goal/purpose or do you try not to question your existence? I want to understand and express the whole miserable existence, long long road and im already almost collapsing. It seems futile, but i think its just what needs to be done and i am one of the few people who are in such a situation that they can do this. Slowly i try to gain skills in diverse artistic field and try to find a starting point, something that around which allows me to break it down and realize things. >Or have things never gone so dark that you had to justify staying alive? Every day in my life things went dark, or maybe my memory is fuarrrked up. But beyond the surface there is always pain lurking to catch me in a weak moment and even the smallest thing can trigger and drag me in a deep pit of anxiety and depression.that could send even the strongest to his knees crying, but im used to it.

>What keeps you alive Lain? I just want to see how far down the rabbit hole goes >What do you turn to when things go dark? Considering that's about all there is for me, its not really anything out of the ordinary. I just keep to myself. Outside of work I'm basically Hikikomori. Its difficult to say what I want to do when things go dark, because everything that I have even the slightest desire to do is severely hindered by what I do. (I could do something different, but in the long run I just need to follow this pattern for 10 more years and I can do whatever I want.) >Do you have a specific goal/purpose or do you try not to question your existence? I guess you could say my goal is to learn as much as possible, beyond that I try to not question my existence. have things never gone so dark that you had to justify staying alive? Not exactly justify staying alive, but rather just keep doing what I'm doing on the legal side... because I have skills that could make me moderately rich if I put them to use for the right buyer (no, I'm not a super l33t h4ckar), but I kinda also like not having to look over my shoulder all the time because I got on someones bad side/ operate in the gray area, I guess you could say my life is a recurrent pattern of trying not to leave my existential stasis for profit.

>What keeps you alive Lain? I guess knowing that my family and friends would be sad if I were gone and too scared to end it >What do you turn to when things go dark? Try to pray/meditate or just listen to music >Do you have a specific goal/purpose I guess to find a wife and raise a happy family and try to make the world a little better somehow but I feel like at this rate i'll never find someone and i'll be alone forever

>What do you turn to when things go dark? I write, mostly, I talk to people, but usually I speak in such a way that they don't really get the real meaning of what I'm saying. Lots of double entendres, it's pretty pretentious, but ultimately I don't really need others to see what I mean. >Do you have a specific goal/purpose I guess writing. Other than that; sex, drugs, and studying. >or do you try not to question your existence? Coito ergo sum Other than Descartes, I don't question my existence or the meaning behind it. It doesn't matter much, basically there's more important things to think about. Usually my more normal person friends will ask questions about existence, religion, an after-life, or a soul, I'll answer their questions, but it's all really speculative. It's in our brains' natures to simplify life with explanations like religion, so usually my answers don't appeal to these people. Other than that, nihilism is fuarrrking stupid, but that's beside the point. >What keeps you alive Lain? Myself, I'll kill myself eventually, but ultimately I don't have a very great perception of the "self" I've lost the idea of individuality and ultimately hundreds of years after I die, the only part of me that will be "alive" are my ideals, beliefs, and the people who my ideas stand upon.

>>55 Forgot my picture for the post, polite sage.